833: Mailbag 11/10/23

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

This is the Late Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zacharissa.

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 833 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by FanDuel.

Happy Friday, and thanks for tuning in. Before getting to the questions this week, I want to send another reminder about The Late-Round Fantasy Football Patreon. For $10 a month, you get rest of season rankings and tiers, weekly rankings and tiers, livestream Q&As, and more. It's all month to month, so the commitment doesn't have to be a big thing. Like I said earlier this week, I'm not trying to take all of your money. I'm just trying to be able to do this for a living.

But check it out if you're interested. You can learn more at lateraound.com.

The first question this week is from at Rennie Bear on Twitter. It says, We've been trying and failing to find a reliable pass catcher on the Chiefs outside of Kelsey since before Tyreek Hill left. How is it possible that the best passer in the game can't support two consistent options? And is Rashid Rice a flash in the pan? Or can he be something real?

So let me first say that I think the idea of going after a Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver, given who's throwing them the ball there, the idea is totally reasonable and logical. That you want a Kansas City pass catcher. In this offseason, none of the Chiefs wide receivers had very high ADPs, even if you drafted Sky Moore. He didn't really burn you aside from maybe Week 1, because his cost wasn't very high.

With that being said, the main reason we haven't seen a player emerge outside of Kelsey this season, and really, this is just post-Tyrick Hill. But I'll just talk about 2023 here. But the Chiefs rotate their wide receivers like crazy.

Like, we have just one instance where a Chiefs wide out this year has run a route on 80% or more of their drop-backs in a single game. Just last week alone across the NFL, even with teams on by, we saw 45 wide receivers have that kind of route participation. Just last week. That's happened once for the Chiefs all year.

Players have to run routes consistently in order to be fantasy relevant. That's just not happening in Kansas City. And honestly, it's wild to me that they're not giving Rashid Rice a better look. I had my doubts about him as a prospect, but he's been their best wide receiver this year. His 2.4 yards per hour run rate is significantly better than anyone else's on the team. Justin Watson is the next wide receiver on that list at 1.7.

I think with Rice, you've got to hold on to him and hope that the Chiefs change things up out of the by. To me, he's the only hope of getting consistent production at wide receiver in that area.

This next question is from Patreon, it's from Gaston. It says, what can we expect from players like Dalton Kincaid and Trey McBride when veterans return from IR?

So in cases like this, we have to just hope for rational coaching. Both of those players are just better than the veterans on their team. They're just flat out better. Dalton Kincaid is better than Dawson Knox. Trey McBride is better than Zach Ertz.

Kincaid's yards per route run is... He's 0.9 yards higher than Dawson Knox is this season. Knox has the lowest yards per hour run rate among 33 tight ends with 20 or more targets this season. Like before his injury, Dawson Knox was having a really bad season. I just mentioned that his yards per hour run rate is worse to tight end. And according to Next Gen stats, his catch rate over expected also worse than the league at tight end. Meanwhile, Dalton Kincaid ranks best among 20 plus target tight ends in that category. Kincaid is just the superior pass catcher. And then with Trey McBride, only Travis Kelcey, George Kittle and Mark Andrews right now have a higher yards per hour run rate than Trey McBride.

Zach Ertz meanwhile, among those 33 tight ends that I was talking about, he ranks 25th.

When it comes to this kind of evaluation, I'm just going to lead with talent. If and when the veteran tight ends return, I'm going to have to hope that their coaches are smart enough to use their more talented players. And to me, Dalton Kincaid, Trey McBride, objectively better right now.

This next question is from Twitter. It's from at istephans22. It says, what's your stance on trading better players, but on a buy for worse players when you need a win? Example, Tyreek Hill for CDLand.