1126: 10 Trends for Week 2

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 1126 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Did you guys know that we send content via The Late-Round Newsletter? It's true, and it's free. You can get the 15 transactions column directly to your inbox every Tuesday morning. We'll have some match-up stuff for you from Brandon Gadula, there's a wrap-up email that Kitchen puts together every week, all of that is free with The Late-Round Newsletter. You can learn more and subscribe to that newsletter by heading to lateround.com. Now let's get to this week's 10 trends.

We finally got to see what this Miami Dolphins offense is going to look like with Malik Willis under center. And I would say that overall, it wasn't great, which was kind of predictable. Devon Aitchin is the only significant player in that offense from a fantasy perspective. Everyone else was a late round dart throw in drafts. And I'd say week one was not the best for Aitchin. He had pretty good peripherals, to be fair. His 88% snap share was better than the 75% snap share that he had last year. He ran a route on 73% of Miami's drop backs. That was 72% last year. His rush share was 61% on Sunday. It was 56% last season. But he wasn't targeted at the same rate. 24% of his route's run resulted in a target last year. That was 18.5% in week one. That's still good, but it's not as elite as last season. He also didn't create explosive runs at nearly the same rate, though that could just be a small sample size thing. Regardless, in the end, Aitchin finished with just 12.1 expected PPR points against the Raiders, in what was considered a pretty good matchup. Last year, his expected PPR points per game average was 15.5.

So we're talking like 3.5 more points than expected points per game. He's not like a cell for me right now, but the Dolphins ranking bottom five in EPA per play after a game against the Raiders, it's not making me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. They've got time, though, to turn things around. It's a new offense, it's a new system, and patience is key when that's the case.

We've got to talk about Kenneth Walker's usage on Monday night, and for purposes of this discussion, I'm gonna take out the final drive of that game that was just pure garbage time. That happened with about four and a half minutes left. Up until that point, Walker had a 72% snapshot, a 74% rush share, and a 46% route share. He had six targets. He had a target on 40% of his routes run.

So again, he had a 72% snapshot, and his four seasons in Seattle, those numbers were 49%, 65%, 57%, and 61%.

He had a 74% rush share. In those four seasons with the Seahawks, those numbers were 48%, 43%, 60%, and 55%.

And then like I said, he had a 46% route share. In four seasons in Seattle, those numbers were 38%, 46%, 35%, and 41%.

So if we just assume that week one's usage just continues rest of season, he's going to see far better usage than he has ever seen in the NFL. His expected fantasy total on Monday night was 20.9 PPR points. Last year, his expected points per game was 10.5.

I mean, if this keeps up, we're talking about a top five running back in fantasy football. That's where I have him ranked right now, especially with the way that he ran. He produced 107 yards on the ground after contact. That was the most in the league in week one. The usage overall was amazing.

Jalen Coker was rostered in too many leagues for me to shout him out on the 15 Transaction Show yesterday, but I had a couple of people ask about him, so let's talk about Coker. Coker was a late round dart throw in the draft guide this year. So while his week one performance was definitely surprising, I don't think anyone thought that he would be the top wide receiver in fantasy football after a week of games. But I'm not totally surprised that he had a good week. He was featured on last week's Sleeper's episode. This actually extends beyond just this game, including the playoffs of the Panthers last seven games, Coker's averaging 17.4 PPR points per game. His route share is at 86% and he's seen a target on over 23% of his routes run. He's out-targeted Tedaro McMillan 45 to 41 over this time frame. He has a 2.48 yards per route run rate to T-Max 1.75. This isn't to say that I like Coker more than T-Max from here on out. I think McMillan can be fine. But Coker's not some one week wonder. He's been working and he's been getting better since he entered the league. So if he's somehow out there on your waiver wire, yes, you need to add him.