894: Early-Season Schedule Analysis

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason in this episode 894 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. This episode's a little controversial every year, because it's a topic that not everyone believes in. That topic being schedule analysis. At the start of the season, there's a lot of stuff that we don't know. I mean, this is being recorded in July. Some things are going to change over the next month, let alone the next football season. Injuries happen, players outperform expectation, things will change. But I don't think that we should stop predicting things just because they're a little bit unpredictable. Like, the late rounds of your fantasy football drafts are pretty unpredictable too. Does that mean that you don't have your favorite players there? Or that you shouldn't have your favorite players? Part of the reason that schedule analysis can be iffy is because people tend to look at previous season numbers and make the assumption that those numbers will exist the following season. That would be like taking the fantasy finishes from the previous season and not adjusting at all for what happened in the draft, what happened in free agency, and what happened with coaching changes. Projections are going to be more accurate than previous season finishes. And that's what this is all about. I've found this exercise to be helpful in the past. I'm going to keep doing it until it's no longer helpful. But I like to look at early season schedule for teams, the early season being where the least amount of things have changed with injuries and such. I like to look and see if any passing attacks or rushing attacks might have an easier or tougher time at the start of the season. Because how a player kicks off a season, that's important. A lot of fantasy managers will have an anchoring bias to what went on early on in a season. They prop up that player's value, not just from the beginning of the season, but even if he falls off a little bit through the entire season. And then if we spend an early round pick on a guy who's not coming through after the first few weeks of the season, we're going to start questioning that player, even if it might be due to the tough matchups that he faced. So, today, it's all about early season schedule analysis. It's a quick episode, but I think it's a helpful one. We want our fantasy assets to get off to good starts. This can play a role in that. Before digging in, I want to send another reminder to check out Underdog Fantasy. There are tons of best ball drafts going on over there, and those drafts come in all shapes and sizes, especially this time of year. You can play best ball mania, but there are tournaments in best ball formats with lower entry fees than that too. And you can use all the content that I've been doing with becoming a best ball bro to help you crush those drafts. If you've never played in Underdog, I've got an offer for you. New users can go to underdogfantasy.com and sign up with promo code LATEROUND. When you use that promo code and you make a deposit, you'll get both a deposit offer and a free late round draft guide. That draft guide will be emailed to you once you sign up and you make a deposit. That's a $25 value for absolutely free. So go check it out, underdogfantasy.com, promo code LATEROUND. A team that I've been very bullish on versus cost throughout this off season has been the Tennessee Titans. I think there's a real chance that we see a big change within this offense year over year because Brian Callahan is stepping in. He's been a pass heavy coordinator in the past, even before Joe Burrow got to Cincinnati. And everything Tennessee's done this off season has pointed to them being a more pass friendly team. That's led me to drafting a lot of DeAndre Hopkins, a lot of that ambiguous backfield, and then I think Will Levis is a late-round dart throw. With that being said, their first month of games, not very good. Tennessee opens things up against the Bears, Jets, Packers and Dolphins. When looking at the secondary rankings over at Sharp Football Analysis and Pro Football Focus, and taking the average of those rankings, the Titans have the worst four-game stretch to start the year of any team in football. That's when looking at their opposing secondaries. Two of those secondaries average out to be top four ones. The other two are top 12 ones. Then Tennessee has a bye. Now, I'm still fine taking Titans, because not only is there some variance with this stuff, but the rest of their season looks really good on paper. I also think they're just generally undervalued this year. DeAndre Hopkins at Pass Catcher especially, and I like Tajay Spears a lot too. What this does mean is that I think in a managed season long single quarterback league, maybe you'll want to pass on Will Levis and pick them up during the team's bye week. It's just a thought. Now on the flip side, Green Bay's passing attack could get off to a really, really hot start in 2024 From week one to week nine, so every week up until their bye, they won't face a single team who ranks higher than 14th in my little aggregate method of ranking secondaries. And to start the year, they'll get two bottom 12 secondaries in back-to-back weeks when they face the Eagles and the Colts. Again, this is by looking at multiple secondary rankings to get multiple inputs on who's good and who isn't. So that obviously makes the passing attack attractive in fantasy football. We've all had problems figuring out what this is going to look like at wide receiver for Green Bay this year. But if we get some locked in pass catching pieces there, who aren't leaving the field, they should be able to outplay ADP during the front half of the season. But the real winner, Jordan Love. This makes him pretty attractive. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he's a solid QB one through the first couple of months of the season. And that whole offense will benefit as a result.