1024: 10 Trends for Week 4

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up everyone, it's JJ Zachariason, and this episode 1024 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, New York call 8778-HOPE-NY, and Connecticut call 888-789-7777, 18 plus in most states. Eligibility restrictions apply, ends December 31st. See terms at draftkings.com/promotions.

We've got 10 trends to talk about today, let's do it. I compare my rest of season rankings to other rankers in the industry each week. And one player I'm a lot higher on versus that market is Quincheon Judkins. And I don't think it's about being super bullish on him. I just think the market doesn't seem to like him at all. In week 3, Judkins led that Browns backfield with a 55% snap share. Dylan Sampson played just 5 snaps. Now we're working off of small samples. But Judkins, he's seen a 43% success rate so far according to next gen stats. Sampson and Jerome Ford are under the 30% mark. Judkins has the best rushing yards over expected per attempt too. He just passes the eye test. He's really good between the tackles. He's shown his ability already to create some bigger plays. He's the only Browns running back with a 10 plus yard carry and he has 3 of them. Again, small samples. But this matches the kind of profile that he had in the ZAP model. He was a really solid prospect. However, he was a really solid prospect with a questionable receiving profile. And that's why I'm not like amazingly bullish here. This is why I'm surprised that I was so far ahead of the market. Cleveland had a close game last week, and Judkins still saw just a 55% snap share. And according to Fantasy Life data, he played zero long down and distance snaps. And he played just 17% of their two-minute snaps. I think he can be a really solid contributor, but I'm not sure we're going to see a crazy ceiling across this season. His receiving role is probably going to be limited. Fortunately though, Cleveland's defense did play well last week, and they have pieces to be a good unit, which means maybe we get closer game scripts for the Browns than we initially expected. That would go a long way for Quinchon Judkins.

The Dallas Cowboys' secondary has been horrendous to start the year. I like to adjust passing yards, and I do it at running back with rushing yards too, but I like to adjust passing yards based on the opponents a certain defense plays. It's obviously only been three weeks. We don't have a ton to adjust with, but so far this year, Dallas has allowed 300 passing yards per game. They face Caleb Williams, Jalen Hurts, and Russell Wilson. Those teams, the Bears, Eagles, and Giants, have averaged 222 passing yards per game when you average them out. That means Dallas is allowing about 78 more yards to be thrown on them versus expected, which is by far the worst in the league. Second worst is Cincinnati at 51.7. It feels like that Packers passing attack this week can have a nice bounce back.

The commander's backfield is kind of interesting to me. In week three, the first without Austin Echler, Bill Kroski-Merritt led that backfield with a 39.7% snap share, which is quite literally the definition of a three headed monster. Chris Rodriguez led the group with 11 rushes, and that was the highest single game rush attempt total for any Washington running back this season. McNichols had that big touchdown, but he still served as primarily the pass catching back. It's a mess right now, but I have to be honest, I almost made Kroski Merritt a buy candidate in the 15 Transaction Show this week. Not because I think next week the backfield is suddenly going to be his, but the sentiment across fantasy football is that this is a backfield that you generally want to avoid because they're splitting work. AKA the backfield pieces are pretty cheap. This is the same concept of ambiguous backfields during draft time. It's just we're in the middle of the season, so there's data to back it up. But backfields can shift as the season goes on, especially when we're talking about a 7th round rookie running back. Why should we assume Kroski Marriott is only going to see a 39% snapshot rest of season? We need to still project how this backfield might unfold. And if you're betting on one player, it's got to be Bill, right? Not only is he the youthful one with potential upside, we generally know what we're getting with McNichols and Rodriguez. But the data this year for JCM has actually looked good. He's got a 50% success rate on his 22 carries, and among 20 plus attempt running backs, he's top 10 in the league in yards after contact per attempt. That's according to PFF. Now look, there's obviously a chance that this backfield just stays like this. But that's all baked into Kroski Marriott's value right now. It wouldn't surprise me if he's someone I talk about on the 15 Transactions Show in the future. But if you want to stash him right now, feel free. Another potential buy candidate right now is Bucky Irving. But I don't know if anyone's really selling. Tampa Bay has seen 86% of their offensive touchdowns so far this year come via the pass. That's a number that's highly unlikely to keep up, just based on what we've seen from teams in the past. Meanwhile, Irving is seeing really consistent target shares. He's been at 13%, 17%, and 14% over his three games this year. And PFF's Expected Fantasy Points Model says that he should be scoring one and a half more points than he's currently scoring. He's just a super-legit player and his usage has been really strong to start the year. I doubt anyone's really panicking, but if you are even a little bit, don't. Now speaking of that Expected Fantasy Points Model, the biggest regression candidate in all of football right now looks like Chris Alave. Based on his usage, it says that he should be scoring eight more PPR points than he's currently scoring per game. And that's pretty wild. That would put him over 20 PPR points per game. When you dig in, it kind of makes sense. He's seen target shares of 32%, 29% and 34% in his three games this year. And since the Saints run at a fast pace, and they're in these negative game scripts, that's resulted in 13, 10, and 14 targets. He's also seen four red zone targets, one of the higher marks in football. Now that being said, he's going to underperform in a metric like this, because that offense that he's in is not very strong, and he's going to lack touchdowns. He still only has one target within the opponent's 10 yard line. And we know the Saints aren't going to throw for a lot of scores. Regardless, he's a solid PPR asset who should probably be performing even better than he currently is. For as good as Justin Herbert and that Chargers passing attack has been, you want to hear something kind of crazy? According to my Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed numbers, they've actually faced the toughest schedule this year for quarterbacks, and that's by median opponent. So far, the Chargers have gone up against the Chiefs, the Raiders, and the Broncos. According to those numbers, which again, it's early, these numbers are not set in stone at all. It's just interesting. But the Chiefs are the third toughest matchup for quarterbacks right now by Adjusted Points Allowed. The Raiders are the 11th toughest, and the Broncos are the fourth toughest. To give you an idea of how this is calculated, the Chiefs have played the Eagles and the Giants outside of the Chargers. Jalen Hurts only scored 11.5 points against them. Russell Wilson 5.1, but Justin Herbert scored 27.9. The Raiders are the easiest opponent that Herbert's faced, and they've been okay at giving up fantasy points to the position. But since I'm talking about median opponent here, that would be Denver. And we've seen them hold Cam Ward at 2.5 points, Daniel Jones to 22.8, and then Justin Herbert himself to 14.6. I just thought it was kind of interesting that despite playing so well, Herbert hasn't even done it against the easiest opponents in the world. Even after we get a large sample, I highly doubt that we're going to look at Denver and Kansas City as an easy opponent for quarterbacks. So props to Justin Herbert and that passing attack. Kyle Pitts is getting a lot more run this year. He's got a route participation rate of 91% on the season. That's according to PFF. He's had back-to-back games with a 96% route rate. For some perspective, Pitts was at a 75% route participation rate last year. The year before that, it was 77%. This has made him legitimately useable. You just have to hope that the Falcons can turn things around. As it stands, Michael Pennex is a second worst passer rating in a clean pocket this season, ahead of only JJ McCarthy.