1005: Players to Target

Rich Hribar (0:02)

This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 1005 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by DraftKings, thanks for tuning in. Football season is right around the corner, and there's no better way to lock in your fantasy dominance early than with Best Ball on DraftKings, where you draft once and ride your roster all season long. And right now, DraftKings is giving all customers a can't-miss offer. Draft one, get one. Enter a lineup in the $15 million Best Ball Contest for just $20, and you'll score another Best Ball ticket to play free for a share of $15 million, giving you a second shot to win big. It's easy. Just draft your dream team once, no weekly management required, and let your top scorers automatically start each week. Across the whole season, every breakout star, every clutch play, every touchdown will count towards your quest for a share of $15 million. As you know, I'm drafting over there, and I'm documenting things with Becoming a Best Ball Bro, so you can use the information from that show to help you out as well. So download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app now to draft your $20 Best Ball lineup to play for a share of $15 million and get a second ticket to play free for a share of that $15 million. That's two chances to win big without ever setting your lineup again. Draft one, get one, only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER in New York. Call 8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY to 467369 In Connecticut, help is available from Prop & Gambling. Call 888-789-77777 or visit ccpg.org. 18 plus in most eligible states, but age varies by jurisdiction. Eligibility restrictions apply, void where prohibited, one per customer. Enter the Best Ball $50 million Headliner Contest by 9-425 to get one bonus entry. $20 entry required, reward expires in 30 days. See terms at draftkings.com/nfldashbestdashball. Sponsored by DK. Over the last few years, these players to target and players to avoid episodes, the episodes you're about to hear over the next two weeks, they've been with guests. It hasn't just been me, and they've been with the same guests each year, and we're running it back this year. Today's episode is on players to target in your fantasy drafts this year, and I'm joined by my good friend and analyst over at Sharp Football Analysis, Rich Hribar. You guys know Rich for his amazing data-driven takes, and he's been my sounding board for years now. He's the person I go to when I have a take or an idea, and I want to see if it makes sense. Rich and I came prepared for this show with five players that we're generally targeting in fantasy drafts this year. They're not the only players that we're targeting, and he and I have plenty of overlap, but you'll walk away with 10 players that you can feel pretty confident in this year. So without further ado, here's our discussion on players to target.

All right, Rich, we do this every year. Last year, we did players to avoid. This year, you are on the episode of players to target. Very simple. We each have five guys. We're going to go back and forth talking about the player that we're targeting. I think in general, we have total overlap in terms of like us agreeing with these players, but it'll be interesting if you don't agree with some of mine because I think that's obviously makes for better content. But we'll kick it to you first. You start with your first player to target, a guy that folks should be looking at in their drafts this year.

Rich Hribar (3:25)

All right. I think I'm going to go kind of in an ADP order. And I'm the first guy I'm going to start with. I don't want to pick anyone like in round one, although I think this should be a round one player. And I think you have another guy that like is on the cusp of like should be around one player, sometimes always isn't around one player. So I'm going to start off with Drake London. And you look at Drake London last year, obviously he has kind of his career best season to this point started to become a feature.

Wide receiver won, he was wide receiver six in yards per team pass attempt. What happened was Zach Robinson was able to kind of unlock him a little bit. We seen him go from 15% slot rate as a rookie, 18% slot rate in the second year up to 39.4% last year. And when he was in the slot, he was sixth in target rate in the slot, 34% of his routes, he was eighth in yards per route run. And that opportunity just gave him access to targets that created like a higher floor, a higher success rate, right? Only 8.9% of his targets ended up being in inaccurate throws last year after 18.8% and 13.6% to open his career. Quarterback play had something to do with that too, but he got a lot more free squares, as we like to talk about. He was targeted on 40% of his routes against man coverage, that was second in the NFL. He was sixth in target rate per route against zone coverage. We love those two things when they kind of mesh together. He also had just an immense opportunity to score more touchdowns. He led all wide receivers. He had 60% of the team's end zone targets last year. That was with both quarterbacks, almost similar rates. Michael Pennex threw nine passes into the end zone in a small sample. Six of them went to Drake London. Kirk Cousins threw 21 Twelve of them went to Drake London, so like right, literally 66% and 60%.