1012: 10 Trends for Week 1

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, 1012 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by DraftKings, thanks for tuning in. Football season starts this week, and there's no better way to lock in your fantasy dominance than with Best Ball and DraftKings, where you draft once and ride your roster all season long. 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. You'll score another Best Ball ticket to play free for a share of that $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 toward your quest for a share of $15 million. 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 100GAMBLER or New York Call 8778HOPENY or text HOPENY 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 9-4-25 to get one bonus entry. $20 entry required. Reward expires in 30 days. See terms at draftkings.com/nfl-best-ball.

Sponsored by DK. This 10 Trends episode is the shortest one that you'll listen to each week. I come prepared with 10 statistical nuggets that are either actionable or just informative. And hopefully, you walk away with a little better understanding of the fantasy football landscape. Since the season hasn't started, I'll be giving 10 trends this week that stem from previous seasons. So let's do it. The first trend is about the Green Bay Packers offense. Last season, they finished the year ranked 30th in pass rate. Fewer than 48% of their pass and rush attempts ended up being a pass, meaning they ran it more than they threw it. Under Matt LaFleur's lead for five seasons prior to last year, the Packers never had a pass rate below 54%. And in particular, their neutral script rate, which I define as plays run in the first three quarters of games when the score is within a six-point margin, they've been 3rd, 13th, 5th, 18th, 14th, and then 32nd in neutral script ratio. I'm anticipating more passing for the Packers this year, which should help the whole offense in fantasy football. Even Josh Jacobs should be okay, because you'll see an uptick in overall targets. It's an offense worth investing in. They've been top 10 in touchdowns per game in all but one season under LaFleur, and in that one season, they ranked 14th. Brian Thomas was a monster last year. If you read the Late-Round Prospect Guide this offseason, then you saw just how good his year two score looked in that year two model. His yards per out run was elite, especially for a rookie. He saw a target on 25% of his routes run. And he did that all while mostly playing a perimeter roll. Here's some more context of just how good Brian Thomas' rookie season was. He's one of just three rookie wide receivers who finished that first year with at least a 20% target share per game rate and averaged at the target over 11 yards. Thomas' was at 11.9 and a yards after the catch per reception above 6 And this is since 2011 So they were getting down the field, but still doing a good bit of work after the catch. And they were seeing a lot of volume. The other two wide receivers who hit these marks, Jamar Chase and Julio Jones. I talked about Chris Rodriguez on yesterday's 15 transactions episode, and I briefly mentioned how I do have Jacory Croskey-Merritt as the top running back in that backfield. Now, that's largely due to ambiguity. We've gotten a sample of Rodriguez in the NFL and Austin Eckler, while a value in drafts, he's 30 years old. I'd want to throw that dart at the young, unknown asset. With that being said, Bill Croskey-Merritt is definitely a unique prospect. The ZAP model database includes all running backs who were either drafted or at the NFL Combine since 2011 Sometimes, like Jacory Croskey-Merritt, you get players who are drafted, but not at the Combine. In that database, only 21 running backs were entering the NFL past their 24th birthday. We have gotten more of them in recent years due to the pandemic and transfer rules. But the only player in that group who has given us a PPR point-per-game season above 12 is Andre Ellington, and he did it once. Again, like I said, we have gotten more and more of these types of players, these older prospects, Tyrone Tracy, RJ Harvey, Ray Davis, Woody Marks, players that I genuinely like a lot. The model even likes them a lot too, despite their age. The interesting part with Croskey-Merritt, though, is that he also had a worse breakout score than those other guys did. Breakout score is determined by age and schedule-adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt, and Croskey-Merritt's is just 27.6, that's out of 100 Tyrone Tracy was at 98 because he played wide receiver in college. RJ Harvey was over 50, Woody Marks about 79 Andre Ellington is the only player in this subset who also didn't have a great breakout score. The good news for Croskey-Merritt is that a lot of his more secondary numbers that the model doesn't include look pretty good. His explosive run rate is good, his yards after contact per attempt is elite. If those numbers weren't good, I'd be out. But with day 3 picks, like I've said all summer and like I said in the newsletter, we often just need an ambiguous backfield, and that's what we have with Washington and with Croskey-Merritt, which is why he can still be targeted. Just don't be shocked if this goes south, because we'll need to be someone of an outlier to be a fantasy football stud. This is all why I've kind of just been at market with him rather than well above it. Now, I know Jacoby Myers is wanting a new contract. There's a lot of stuff going on off the field, but I found this next trend really interesting. I have an average draft position database that goes back to 2014 I use that historical data to see the number of points we'd expect a player to score at a certain ADP. So if he's a 50th overall pick and he plays wide receiver, he'd be expected based on history to score X number of points per game. Jacoby Myers has now been drafted for four seasons, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 I guess five if you count this year. He outplayed his average draft position expectation by 0.5 PPR points per game in 2021 In 2022 though, he outplayed expectation by 4.6 points per game. In 2023, he did it again by 4.5 points per game. And then last year, it was by 5.7 points per game. Now, he's never given us a monster ceiling, but Jacoby Myers has been really undervalued by the market now basically every single year that he's been relevant in fantasy football. We'll see what happens here in 2025 We saw a running back renaissance last year, and while I do think a lot of that in fantasy football had to do with the health of running backs, and I talked about that at the start of the offseason on episode 966, we also have to recognize an NFL-wide macro trend. Pass rates are decreasing. From 2011 to 2020, the average pass rate was around 56.7%. That's on pass and rush attempts. Over the last four years, that's progressively gotten lower. It's gotten from 56.3% in 2021, to 55% in 2022, to 55.6% in 2023, but then last year, it was 54.8%. That was by far the lowest pass rate of any season since at least 2011 It's going to be interesting to see if offenses still operate the same way here in 2025 It's definitely something to keep in mind and to watch. Now, I wasn't really in or out on Mike Evans this year, but one thing is clear when you watch his 2024 season and you look at the underlying metrics. He's still really good at football. Evans finished last year with a yards per route run rate of 2.41. That was actually the best rate of his entire career. He saw a target on 26% of his routes run. Only two wide receivers had a better yards per route run rate in year 10 or later of their NFL career since 2011 Anquan Bolden in 2013, that was year 11 for him, and then Andre Johnson in 2012, which was year 10 In 2014, the following year, Anquan Bolden finishes the wide receiver 23 in PPR points per game. He dropped from wide receiver 16, so he was still plenty usable, though he did see a dip in production. Andre Johnson from 2012 to 2013 went from the wide receiver 5 to the wide receiver 10 So Evans has already proven to be an outlier. I wouldn't count him out just yet.