1020: 10 Trends for Week 3

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, 1020 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in. There's no better way to get closer to the action than with DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans. New customers can play free for their share of millions and prizes with their first deposit of $5 or more. Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code LATEROUND to play free for your share of millions. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 8778-HOPE-NY. In Connecticut, call 888-789-7777. 18 plus in most states. Eligibility restrictions apply. Ends December 31st. See terms at draftkings.com/promotions.

Now, let's get to these 10 trends. I didn't have Isaac Tesla as a player to add on the 15 Trends action show this week, but I do think that he should be on your radar. In week 1, Tesla only ran a few routes and had a 7% route participation rate. In week 2, that route share jumped up to 29%. Tesla has 2 targets on a limited sample, and he's caught both of them for 39 yards in a touchdown, which is the most Isaac Tesla thing of all time. But keep an eye on that route rate. If it keeps increasing, maybe he'll have some random flex appeal during bye weeks. But keep in mind, he also has contingent upside for both Amin Rasayn Brown and Jameson Williams. And maybe even Sam Laporta to a degree. Let's give a little Seahawks backfield update. Kenneth Walker was the more productive player between himself and Zach Charbonnet in week 2 Walker went 13 for 105 and a score on the ground while adding 13 yards through the air. Charbonnet had 15 carries for 10 yards and targets. Meanwhile, in that game against Pittsburgh, Charbonnet played 13 more snaps than Walker. He ran twice as many routes. I mean, on the peripherals front, Charbonnet is who we'd want. But on the production front, clearly that's not the case, at least in week 2 But look, I'm not here to crown one player better than the other based on two games. Certain holes are going to open up for one player and not the other on one drive and then not the next. Right? Sometimes it's just luck as to which running back ends up getting the right matchup on a particular play. To me, we need to just fall back on what we know about these guys as players. And what we know is that Kenneth Walker is the more explosive player, but he's not as consistent per rush. He's got a better chance to do damage in fantasy football versus Zach Charbonneur when there's a split like this, because he has a better chance of having a ridiculously efficient game. We also know that multiple coaching staffs now have preferred Walker to Charbonneur, and we know that Walker wasn't totally healthy over the summer. So I'm still favoring Kenneth Walker to Zach Charbonneur. It's no different than how I felt last week. It's just easier to do so because we saw that production. And I think because of that production, we're going to see less of a discrepancy between Zach Charbonneur and Kenneth Walker in snaps and routes run moving forward. And when that happens, it's going to make Walker a more reliable RB too. But we'll see. Obviously, I'm not on the coaching staff. I'm just making an educated guess.

The team with the lowest running back target share through two weeks of season is the Tennessee Titans. They've only targeted their backs twice in two games. They have a 3.6% running back target share. Unsurprisingly, both targets have gone to Tony Pollard. This is definitely something to monitor. The Titans are giving Pollard a lot of work on the ground, but this could be a quarterback tendency thing. And what's going to be really interesting is to see what this looks like when Tajay Spears is back. We know that he's someone who's been deployed as a pass catching back, but those opportunities, they may not be there when he's back. But it's only been two games. We just need to monitor things.

I was lower than the market with Chuba Hubbard this season because I questioned his ceiling. And I really thought that he wouldn't be used a ton as a pass catcher. But I also recognized that they had a pretty nice schedule to open up the season. Regardless of all that though, I just gotta say, the way Carolina's deployed Chuba Hubbard in their first two games has been kind of bizarre. First off, he's hit nice outputs in fantasy thanks to late game garbage time touch-ups as a pass catcher. Go figure. That's not nothing, though, because they're using him in those situations. That alone, in my eyes, was not a lock as we entered the season. But in week one, Hubbard had an 80% running back rush share. His route share was below 50%. That honestly was more in line with what I thought we'd see this year from him. So I wasn't super surprised by his peripherals. This past week, though, the Panthers split the backfield up more on the ground. Hubbard had a 62.5% running back rush share, but he ran a route on 75% of their drop backs. He only hit that mark three times last year. So in one week, he had a pretty mediocre route share and a great rush share. The next, it flipped. His usage overall, though, has been good, and that's what matters. But I can't quite pinpoint how the Panthers want to deploy this backfield. It's just confusing me, and I don't like to be confused, and I'm just letting you guys know.