1036: 10 Trends for Week 7

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone, it's JJ Zachariason, and this episode 1036 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.

This first trend was inspired by The Late-Round Fantasy Football Discord. They wanted me to look into why Jameer Gibbs hasn't seen as many targets recently, which is true. Gibbs started the season with 10 3 and 6 targets during his first three games. Then over his last three, he's been at 2 2 and 2 In that first split, he had a target share per game rate of 20%. Over his last three, it's been 8%. Now, I think this is likely just some simple variance and matchups. Now, his route participation rate has technically dropped a little bit, but it hasn't been by enough to see a 12% difference in target share. It's likely that he shouldn't have been at that 20% number to start the year, that 20% target share. It should have been a little bit lower than that. And then now, he should be higher than that 8% target share. And then I say matchups too, because he faced Cincinnati and Cleveland in that recent split. And those two teams, they're actually bottom five in the league in adjusted running back target share allowed. Meaning when teams face them, they tend to not target their running backs. Gibbs should see more work through the air moving forward. Now, speaking of that Lions backfield, David Montgomery saw 19% running back rush share in week 6 19%. He had four of 21 running back rushes for the Lions. That was the lowest running back rush share of his career in a game that he completed, that he didn't leave early. Now, I don't know if the Lions just saw a matchup against the Chiefs that they liked for Jameer Gibbs, or if it was just a game script that led them to using him more. But Montgomery played a season-low 30% snap share. He's been above a 40% snap share just once this year, when last year he did that eight times. The Lions are using Jameer Gibbs a little bit more than they did last year, and it's hurting Montgomery just a little bit. It's tough to buy into the Vegas passing attack right now for obvious reasons, but there's a trend within that passing attack that I think is worth calling out, and it's about rookie Jack Besh. During his first four games this season, Besh saw route participation rates of 5%, 8%, 21%, and 4%. He was barely being used. But over his last two games, those numbers have been 46% and 80%. He didn't see a target in week six, but he was out there getting some cardio in. It's something to monitor. He wasn't a bad prospect, and we should always be on top of any rookie movement, which is exactly what this is.

JK Dobbins has not been seeing good usage through the air recently. He really hasn't seen good usage as a receiver throughout this season, but the last 3 weeks, he's seen target shares of 2%, 3% and 4%. Meanwhile, his first 3 games of the year saw target shares of 5%, 7% and 9%. And there is some reason for this. Across his first 3 games, Dobbins had route shares of 30%, 32% and 55%. Over his last 3, they've been at 27%, 21% and 39%. This past week was actually kind of encouraging, but it didn't target him when he was out there. And that was in a game without pass catching back Tyler Bade. We kind of know what Dobbins is though. He's highly unlikely going to be an RB1 in Fantasy Football, because he doesn't have that receiving profile. So he's an RB2 to RB3 type, who can give you some ground game volume as a floor, and then we just have to hope that he finds the end zone. But there's nothing wrong with that, given where you drafted him.

Keen and Allen has not been performing well over the last few weeks, but I also have to say, this is not just a Keen and Allen problem. I think the Chargers as an offense in general, might be a little bit overrated. I'm not saying that they're going to be bad moving forward. I just mean how they've performed so far this year. People probably think a little bit too highly of them. Like, I bet a lot of people don't realize that they haven't had a three touchdown performance since week one. But let's talk about Keen and Allen. In weeks one to three, he was averaging 18.8 PPR points per game, and he was at or above a 23% target share in every single contest. Over his last three, he's been below a 20% target share twice. He's averaging just 8.7 PPR points per game. Now, I'm bringing this up because it's really easy to have an anchoring bias in fantasy football. That's why I wanted to throw that stat out there about the Chargers offense. Because when teams start hot, when they seem like that they're the team to beat, we get this anchoring bias thinking that they're going to be good for the rest of the season. We just assume it's going to keep going like that. But for half the season, Keen and Allen has not been super usable. And for a large majority of the season, the Chargers offense has not been generating a ton of touchdowns.