1069: Mailbag - Devonta Smith's Outlook, Under-the-Radar Wide Receivers, 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 1069 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thank you for tuning in. Before I get to the mailbag questions, the season's coming to an end soon, but I want everyone to know that I'm going nowhere. I love the offseason. I get to do more detailed studies, I dig into strategy, I switch to more dynasty content, and I do a ton of prospecting work for the NFL draft and your rookie drafts. So this is just to say to make sure you're following everything that we're doing with Late-Round Fantasy Football. There's the Patreon that you can subscribe to, there's the YouTube channel, youtube.com, and there's the free newsletter. Make sure you're keeping up with everything by heading to lateround.com and checking everything out. At the very least, subscribe to that newsletter and you can stay up to date. It's absolutely free. That's lateround.com. Now, let's get to these mailbag questions.
The first question this week, it was one that I got a couple of times, but I'll just read this email from Jason because it's pretty straightforward. It says, Hey JJ, love the show. It seems like everyone is always talking about league winners when it comes to the fantasy playoffs, but what about players who might underperform? Is there anyone who helped get us here who might not have a very good next three weeks? So yeah, I've talked about cell candidates leading up to the playoffs in the 50 transactions episode each week, and some of those players, they still apply here. Like Caleb Williams. I'm not very excited to start Williams when he gets Cleveland and Green Bay over these next two games. He was already a fringe starter, but in those matchups, he's more of a QB too. And that might not cut it in the fantasy playoffs. RJ Harvey is another one. I'm a big fan of his usage, but like I said on one of those shows, and it wasn't actionable necessarily, it's just more of a heads up. But Denver has a brutal playoff schedule for running backs. They get the Packers this week, then it's the Jags, and then it's the Chiefs. They're all bottom tiered matchups for running backs by adjusted fantasy points allowed. Now, most of the studs who got you here, they're probably going to help because they're just getting volume. But there are some fringe players. Like, I don't know how you have any confidence right now in Arande Gadsden. He scored six or fewer PPR points in each of his last four. And then I think the most obvious place to call out here is Indianapolis. No one truly knows exactly how things are going to go down without Daniel Jones. But I said this in the LateRound Fantasy Football Discord earlier this week. If a 44-year-old Philip Rivers who hasn't played since 2020, if that's what ends up beating me, if I'm wrong because I didn't buy into that, I can live with that. Meaning, I'm naturally not going to be bullish on this Colts offense. From Alec Pearce to Michael Pittman, down to Tyler Warren and Jonathan Taylor. Especially this week against the Seattle defense, no matter who's under center. And for Jonathan Taylor, he gets San Francisco and Jacksonville in Week 16 and 17 Jacksonville's actually been a bottom 10 opponent for running backs this year, by adjusted points allowed. San Francisco, mostly average. It's just not a fantastic schedule for him. Maybe he'll just get an insane amount of volume, and my guess is that they're going to feed him. But I think if you go to one spot to find players who helped you get here, who may not be as usable in the fantasy playoffs, it's got to start with this Colts team. All because of that Daniel Jones injury. Now, some other players that make me very, very nervous would be Ashton Gentey, who faces Philly and Houston in the next couple of weeks. And maybe I'll even put Brock Bowers in there. And then I think he does turn it around this week, but Stephon Diggs has had some really bad usage recently. And then Jacoby Brissette. He's been a QB one in each outing. But I think that ends this week against Houston. In weeks 16 and 17, though, he should be okay. So there's just some random names who popped in my head with this question. Hopefully it gives you an idea of where I'm at.
This asks questions from Twitter from atmorton.salt.boy.
It says, This has been a hot button issue in my league. How do you feel about not rostering a kicker during the week to roster another position? Like right now, I have Loveland and Waller at tight end, but I dropped my kicker to pick up Gasicki to evaluate which is the best option. I will start a kicker. I just want some time to think about who is the best start. I think it's a fair thing, but some of the original league members call it using a quote, cheating loophole. Thanks. So, I don't know why it's a cheating loophole when literally anyone can do this. If there aren't any rules around it, it's totally reasonable. I do it all the time in my leagues with kickers. You're able to maybe wait out an injury during the week and essentially have an extra roster spot. So no, I see nothing wrong with this. And if your league mates are mad at you for doing this, tell them that they're more than welcome to do the exact same thing. This next one's an email from someone who wanted to stay anonymous. It says, In my first round playoff matchup, I'm about a 10 point favorite in a half PPR league. My opponent will be starting Kenneth Gainwell. I'm deciding between Jalen Warren and Ja'Wan Jennings. My thought process is this. Both Warren and Gainwell can have good weeks, but it feels unlikely that both do. It's more likely that one of them hits and the odds seem slightly better that it would be Warren. Not starting Warren feels like the conservative move, because if he does have a strong week, that probably comes with Gainwell not having a breakout game. And if Warren doesn't play well, whether or not Gainwell does, at least the damage is limited by having him on my bench. I'm interested in your theory on this dynamic. How you'd think about it from the position of being the favorite, and how would you approach this situation from a game theory perspective? So I've talked about this sort of thing in the past, but more and more people have asked about it this week, given what's on the line. It's the fantasy playoffs. I had someone in my weekly livestream with subscribers ask about starting Isaiah likely because their opponent had Lamar Jackson. And I have some thoughts here, which is why I chose this as a mailbag question. First, when you say you're a 10-point favorite, that's just not enough for me to dramatically shift my approach. In most cases. Projections are just projections. They're forecasts. They're going to get us directionally in the right place. But they're going to be wildly wrong all the time because there's plenty of variance in this game. It's why I always tell people to not be overly confident in any of the win probability numbers that you see on any platform. You could be a 60% favorite going into the week. You could feel really good about your chances. But one small thing can completely flip that. One player really underperforming or overperforming. Now there may be instances if you're sitting with a coin flip decision where you go in one direction based on what's happening with your opponent. Like your example between Jalen Warren and Jawan Jennings. I think you're definitely looking at this properly. That if Kenny Gainwell goes off if he has a big game, Jalen Warren probably won't be having a big game. This is actually something that I talked about with that Isaiah Likely question. The thought is that if you start Likely and if you're a favorite and your opponent has Lamar Jackson, you're sort of limiting the upside of a big Lamar Jackson game. In that instance, I actually don't see it that way at all. That logic only really works when you're on the side of the quarterback. Because what happens if Lamar has four touchdowns this week and one is on the ground and three are through the air, and Isaiah Likely doesn't score any of them? Isaiah Likely can easily have a bad game while Lamar Jackson goes off. We're not talking about like Jackson Smith and Jigba here. It's Isaiah Likely. I like him this week, but he's not Jackson Smith and Jigba. But in your case here with the Steelers running backs, yeah, there are only so many plays on offense for Pittsburgh. They're only going to score so many touchdowns. The odds that both Warren and Gainwell go nuts, it's pretty slim. Now, of course, you're also running into the situation where if you start Warren and he's the guy this week, then that would limit Gainwell. But to your point, if Warren goes off in your bench, you at least know that Gainwell likely isn't scoring a ton of points. Now, what's interesting about this scenario is that you're probably going to have some pretty good information by the time that you actually have to make this decision. This is something that you always have to keep in mind. I think it's a very underrated part to fantasy football game theory. The 49ers play in the late afternoon on Sunday. So, a ton of games are going to be played by the time the 49ers play. Let's say this Jawan Jennings vs. Jalen Warren start set is a true coin flip for you, which I don't think it's that far off according to my flex rankings. But let's say it's a true coin flip. By the time those late afternoon games hit, there's a chance that you have a much clearer picture of how your matchup is going to go. And you could make your decision that way because the Steelers play on Monday night. But here's the bottom line. I wouldn't let a 10-point advantage in projection dramatically change my decision. Dramatically change my approach. If you genuinely see this as a 50-50 decision, fine. That can be the tiebreaker. But if you're playing a clear inferior player because of that fact, because you're a big favorite or a decent favorite, I think that's bad process. Maybe a 30-point advantage. That would be a different story.