1008: Risers and Fallers

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode 1008 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 and 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. 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 for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. 18 plus most eligible states, but age varies by jurisdiction. Eligibility restrictions apply, void where prohibited, one per customer. Enter the Best Ball $15 million headliner contest by 9-425 to get one bonus entry. $20 entry required, reward expires in 30 days. See terms at draftkings.com/nfl-best-ball, sponsored by DK. Throughout the offseason, I'll have takes that shift and move. Maybe a player was injured, so I changed my mind about him. Maybe some of the coachspeaks surrounding someone is just undeniable. Maybe I just discovered some new data or watched more of a player and decided, you know what, I'm too high on him. Whatever the case may be, I react to new information. How I thought about a player back in May, that's not necessarily how I feel about that same player here in August. And that's what this episode is all about. It's about talking through some of the players who have risen and fallen most in my rankings over the last few months. It's a way to all get on the same page before the season really begins. So with that being noted, let's get to the first player. So an obvious place to start today is with Amarion Hampton. I liked Hampton a lot as a prospect. You guys might remember some of my Hampton content during draft season, where I and the Zat model saw him in his own little tier behind Ashton Gentry. And when he got round one draft capital, it was even easier to lean into that. Now Hampton's been a big riser for me, really because of this nausea Harris I situation. The fear going into the season was that it might take a little bit of time for Hampton to establish himself as the obvious starter in LA. Because we've seen teams take things slow with rookies in the past. And Harris, while nothing special at running back, he can at least shoulder a workload. And he fits that Greg Roman offense. Now Harris may be back this season, maybe even early this season. But Hampton's now been able to just run as the top running back on that team throughout camp. Which is a huge advantage. Now look, I've voiced my concern about how the fantasy community seems to view Greg Roman's offenses. Specifically for running backs. My go-to stat is that throughout Roman's time as offensive coordinator, he's never had a running back room as a team ranking the top 10 in PPR scoring. And that's been driven by a lack of pass catching. His teams have average ranking 26th to 27th and running back target share through the years. Now, of course, personnel is going to dictate some of this, if not a lot of this. His running backs haven't always been stellar. And others might look at the quarterbacks and say, well, he's had mobile quarterbacks. Of course, they're not dumping it off to the running backs. But pretty much all of the running backs who played with Roman effectively had bigger receiving seasons after Roman left. Now their circumstances weren't one to one. But for example, Frank Gore saw a 9.7% target share per game rate after playing with Greg Roman. With Greg Roman, it was 6.5%. San Francisco also saw their target share rise after Roman left. And a lot of that time was still spent with Colin Kaepernick under center. Lashaw McCoy saw a rise of three percentage points in target share in 2017 when Greg Roman didn't touch the offense. Because if you recall, Roman started 2016 as the Bills offensive coordinator. He was just fired. The Bills went from 22nd in running back target share in 2015 to 5th in 2017, the year that Greg Roman was gone. And that was on a team that had Tyrod Taylor start 14 games. It's not like these mobile quarterbacks just left when Greg Roman did. And yet, you can look at competition, you could look at a ton of different factors. Nothing in football analysis is going to be one-to-one. This is just about a general trend, a trend that we probably should pay some attention to. And then in Baltimore, the Ravens were 29th, 26th, 31st, and 30th in running back target share under Greg Roman. After his departure, which includes Derrick Henry last season who's not much of a pass catcher, Baltimore is ranked 20th and 13th in running back target share. And then last season in LA, yeah, the running backs weren't strong, but they also ranked 31st in running back target share. We can sit here all day and talk about the semantics of all of this because yes, we could dig much further into contextualizing this data. My point and bring it up is that this can't be painted as a good thing. Maybe you think it's irrelevant, but to me, it's either irrelevant or bad. It's not good. The crazy thing is, with all that being said, I still don't think the general fantasy football market has adjusted enough with Amarion Hampton, so I'm actually still above market on Hampton because I think the fit is good and I think the player is very good. But I still can be above market while recognizing the downside case. But yes, overall, Amarion Hampton, he's been a riser.