1030: Mailbag - The Chargers, Rome Odunze's Production, and More

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 1030 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 in 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. It's a mailbag day. Let's get to these questions.

The first question this week is from Twitter. It's from at AMG underscore O5. It says, Where do you think the biggest miscalculation was when it comes to Lad McConkey's draft ranking? It feels like this entire passing game was wrong by ADP, down to Herbert being an afterthought in drafts, and the assumption that a Marion Hampton wouldn't earn enough targets to matter much. Now, as usual, I can only speak about myself and what I was thinking during draft time, but let's start with Lad. First off, I don't think Lad McConkey is all of a sudden like a bad player. I think the circumstances around him changed, and people weren't prepared for those circumstances to be as different as they are. McConkey's not a traditional Alpha-wide receiver who's likely going to see a 28% target share every single year. We're not talking about Jamar Chase. But he definitely can earn that kind of target share when there's a lack of competition in his offense. He's a good enough player to elevate and fill the gaps in an offense when those gaps need filled. Let's go through what we were all thinking over the offseason. The Chargers have Lad McConkey, and they go, they hit the NFL draft, and they take Trey Harris. That's a player who a lot of people were into. He's more of a traditional boundary receiver. We know that rookie wideouts, especially one like Harris, who by no means was a lock to be great. But we know that rookie wide receivers like Harris, won't command massive target shares. Like if you look at the median outcome. So Ladd was fine there. Then they signed Keenan Allen. I personally thought that Allen was a good signing. I talked about that on this show. I wrote him up as a player to target in the draft guide. I was in on Keenan Allen. And I think there's a little bit more downside with McConkie, because Allen's 2024 wasn't nearly as bad as people thought. Now, I could go on and on about that. I could get really into it. But I talked about that at length during the summer. Even still, McConkie with a rookie wide receiver and with Keenan Allen, he could still be a 25% target share player, realistically just given how he performed in year one. Guys, the X factor here is Quentin Johnston. The reason Lad McConkie is not doing more in fantasy football right now is because they have this legitimate threat who's emerged in Quentin Johnston. My good friend Matt Harmon does wide receiver charting work with reception perception. Everyone should check it out. It's great. It's awesome. Matt's awesome. Reception perception.com. Matt did some charting of QJ from his week three game against the Broncos. Not only did he just note that he looked better, but he's also running routes that get him going across the middle of the field more frequently. The Chargers are finally allowing QJ to be more of a yards after the catch player, which is really what he was as a prospect. This emergence of Quentin Johnston means he's a legitimate threat to steal targets in this offense. Because if he's doing legit things, he's going to have a more legit target share. And Keenan Allen's good too, so he's going to have a legit target share. And you can start to see how all of a sudden, Lad McConkey is stuck with his cap ceiling. He's had sub 20% target shares in each of his last three games. Now to be clear, I don't think the discrepancy that we're seeing right now in target share among these three wide receivers is the same discrepancy that we're going to see all year. I would imagine these three players meet more in the middle. It's really hard for us to see that sometimes, but when we look back on the season, I wouldn't be surprised at all if from week five onward, maybe we see Lad lead that team in target share. I'm not saying that's a lock. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised. But that to me is why Lad ended up being overdrafted. I think we can confidently say that Lad was overdrafted at this point. The market understandably didn't factor in this Quinton-Johnston resurgence. I don't even think the Chargers thought this would happen to this degree. They spent a second round pick on Trey Harris. We can recognize that this isn't really the norm. We don't usually see this kind of jump from a year two to year three player. But we should also just give QJ props for just getting better. It's a really great story. Now, when you mention Amari and Hampton, again, like Keenan Allen, Hampton was a player to target in my draft guide, despite knowing Greg Roman's history and how he doesn't target running backs in his offenses, even when you adjust for personnel. The reason I was okay with Hampton is because I thought he would have an easy time capturing his backfield. Little did I know he needed a nausea Harris season ending injury for that to happen. Sometimes you have to get a little lucky in fantasy football, though who knows what would have happened. But like the Chargers aren't targeting their running backs at a really high rate right now. Through four weeks, they have a 13.8% running back target share. The average across the league is close to 19%.