1046: Mailbag - Rookie Wide Receiver Breakouts, Trey Benson, 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. In this episode 1046 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by DraftKings, thank you for tuning in. There's no better way to get closer to the action with DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans. New customers can play free for their share of millions of 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 NFLBernie on Blue Sky. It says, is Breschard Smith still a drop in redraft? Or are we holding now because of the Isaiah Pacheco injury? Looks like Kareem Hunt is gonna be the guy given the last game. Do we think Kareem just takes over? So I had this discussion with Late-Round Fantasy Football subscribers on my Tuesday night live stream with them. I think this is just a really important general outlook on fantasy football. When young up-and-coming and promising players have a clear path to more opportunity, you want to lean into that. You don't want to go away from it. We currently have Kareem Hunt projected for the most work in that backfield here in week nine. And the most likely outcome this week is that Hunt sees a huge workload, that he's way more productive. And then next week, we're all sitting here with the chiefs on by and we're saying, can I just cut Rashard Smith to make room on my roster? Just because that's the median outcome doesn't mean that's the only outcome. And it doesn't mean that we should act now before that game's even played. Because what happens if the chiefs don't give Kareem Hunt the workload we expect? What happens if Rashard Smith sees a little bump in work and he's just really, really good on his limited touches? What if it tells us that it could lead to more volume down the stretch? These types of moves in fantasy football, they're not going to work out all the time. In fact, they're going to fail more than they're going to succeed. When you're talking about someone that you're getting off the waiver wire, who's young, who's often a rookie, and you're seeing if that player can take advantage of more opportunity, it usually won't work out. But when it does, it can really pay dividends. I mean, look at Arande Gadsden right now. I talked about Gadsden pretty early on in the season because he had good peripherals when he was first active. Now, never did I think that we were going to see this. But you take a chance on talent that you like, and you see where it can go. You see where opportunity can lead itself. He had opportunity with Will Disley out, and it ended up working out. Sometimes, oftentimes, it won't work out. I'd say it hasn't really worked out for someone like Elec Iamanner. That's just a random example. That dude's probably been tossed around your fantasy league this year. It may not work for Jalen Noll. Maybe his workload doesn't get any better, especially with the other wide receivers getting healthier. We see this all the time. But if you believe in the player, you believe in the fit, you believe in the environment, you should take a chance on that player and at least have that dude rostered through that potential opportunity. This is a game of probability. I say it all the time. And this is such a great example about thinking in range of outcomes. Don't get rid of Rashard Smith now. Just because Kareem Hunt has a better outlook in week nine doesn't automatically mean that Smith can't improve his fantasy value from week nine into week ten and beyond. And even if he doesn't, I still think it's the right process to buy into explosive, potentially very talented rookies. You won't regret doing that in the long run. This is a question from Patreon. It's from Cone ST It says, how do you view Justin Jefferson rest of season? Would you be looking to trade him now? It was concerning that we've only seen one good quarter from JJ McCarthy and they preferred to play Wentz when he was clearly banged up over McCarthy who looked healthy on the sidelines. I see guys like Rashid Rice, Ameca Ibuka, or Roma Dunze having a better rest of season just for the fact that they have more capable quarterbacks throwing them the ball. I mean, Patrick Mahalem's Baker Mayfield, sure, but to throw Roma Dunze in there because of his quarterback, that's kind of crazy. A Dunze has had a 63% catchable targets rate this year on a 26% target share. That's according to Fantasy Life data. Justin Jefferson has a 70% catchable targets rate on a 31% share. And for the record, according to Fantasy Life data, in weeks one and two with JJ McCarthy, 77% of Jefferson's targets were deemed catchable. I love A Dunze. I'm heavily invested in Roma Dunze this year. I want him to ball out, trust me. But I don't think he belongs in the same tier as Justin Jefferson. I'm not really buying this soft benching narrative for JJ McCarthy either. Nor do I really want to speculate. All I want to say is that even though McCarthy made some mistakes, he had some bad throws to start the season, he did play well during the second half of that opening game against Chicago. And everyone's criticizing his play against Atlanta, which I agree, it was not great. But we now know that Atlanta's only allowed one 200-yard passer so far this year. And it came last week with Tuatunga Waialoa throwing for 205 yards. Justin Jefferson is beyond an elite talent. He's one of the best wide receivers that we have literally ever seen. Despite playing with a broken Carson Wentz, he's averaging well over 15 PP or points per game this season. With one touchdown, he hasn't scored since week one. I can't sit here and say that I'm overly bullish about JJ McCarthy. We don't really know right now, but I'm definitely bullish on the talent of Justin Jefferson. And it doesn't hurt that Minnesota in the fantasy playoffs, they get the Cowboys, Giants and Lions. It's hard to find a better three-game stretch than that. So I'm more in the by camp than the cell camp with this passing offense and this offense in general. Kevin O'Connell, he's one coach to feel pretty good about.