1088: Mailbag - De'Von Achane's Outlook, ZAP Model Methodology, and More

**JJ Zachariason** (0:02)
This is The LateRound Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.
What's up everyone, it's JJ Zachariason, and in this episode 1088 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the mail back questions, I just want to send a reminder to check out The Late-Round Prospect Guide. You get info on all the ZAP models, there's player write-ups, rankings, bad dad jokes and more. All for $19.99. It's over 170 pages of content. Learn more over on lateraound.com.
The first mail back question this week is from Twitter. It's from at Hannibal Lecter. It says, possible Jaylen Waddle implications. Willis running more? Draft a top wide receiver? Achane to the moon? Okay, so I talked about this a little bit in The Late-Round Show on Wednesday, and I'm sure some of you listened to that in the podcast feed yesterday. Or maybe you just watched it on YouTube. Regardless, let's talk about this trade. I think Jaylen Waddle is a very good wide receiver. He's been at or above a 2.19 yards per outrun rate in three of five seasons. That's no easy feat. Anything above two is usually really strong at wide receiver. He's typically been in that 22 to 24% target share range. His targets per outrun, that's been good too. He can line up all over the field. When he's healthy, Jaylen Waddle is really good. And when you look at Denver's wide receiver room, you get a lot of OK to good players. None are as good as Waddle, even Courtland Sutton. I mean, you can just look at yards per outrun to help tell that story. Sutton has been on teams with weaker competition than Jaylen Waddle. At least you can argue that. And he's been above a yards per outrun rate of two just once in his career. And that came all the way back in 2019 I genuinely believe that Jaylen Waddle is in a different tier, especially at this point in their careers. Sutton is going to be 31 in October. Last season, Troy Franklin started to lose a little bit of work to Pat Bryant. And while I did think Bryant was a trade throw-in type at the start of the off season as a buy candidate, it's not like he's proven to be special. My thinking at this point is that Bryant can rotate in a little bit and play the slot. Sutton on the outside, Waddle can line up everywhere. And then Troy Franklin, he might be screwed the most out of all these wide receivers. Regardless, Waddle steps in. He's the best wide out on this team. He can see a 22-24% target share because good players create opportunity. And Denver has been above zero in pass rate over expected over the last two years. They were fourth in the NFL last year in pass attempts. It's a good place for Jaylen Waddle to land. Now when you look at Miami, I have seen a lot of these takes, like this question is asking, of Achane to the moon. I'm not really there. Achane's coming off a season where he had a 19% target share. That was in a Mike McDaniel offense that definitely favors his type of play style. It's just straight up not easy for a running back to hit that high of a target share. We at least wouldn't lock him into that. We've seen 27 running back seasons since 2011 with a 19% target share or better. Christian McCaffrey owns five of those seasons. Alvin Kamara has five more of them. It's just not a common thing to have happen. In today's NFL, it's happening less. Target share, it's shifting more to tight end than it is to running backs. So to me, the departure of Mike McDaniel was bad for De'Von Achane. Maybe this Waddle move helps things a little bit, but I don't think we should lose sight of that greater picture. Not only that, but how good is this offense actually going to be? We want our running backs and our players in general to play in good offenses. The Dolphins have wide receiver threes and wide receiver fours as starters right now, which hopefully will change, but it's going to be a questionable offense. And maybe you feel that way about last year's Dolphins, but they were 22nd in touchdowns per game. That could be worse. Malik Willis gets a downgrade here too. He can still be plenty fantasy relevant because of his rushing, but losing Jaylen Waddle is definitely tough, because they won't be adding anyone more than likely who's as good as Waddle here in 2026, unless someone really hits from the NFL draft. So those are my overall thoughts. I don't have season-long rankings done quite yet, and we're working on projections, but I think this is a good thing for Waddle's sustainability. It's a more passive offense. The weapons are beatable, and he's just really good, and I don't want to over count it on the volumen for De'Von Achane.