901: Mailbag 8/30/24

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 901 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. The Late-Round Podcast schedule, it's about to change. Week one starts next week, which means we're officially moving into the in-season schedule. Every Tuesday, you can expect the 15 transactions episode, where I break down players to add, drop, buy, and sell. On Wednesday, it's the 10 trends episode. That's where I talk about some data trends happening across fantasy football. Thursdays, that's the sleeper show. I give you players rostered in very few Yahoo! leagues who you can plug into your lineups that week. And then on Friday, you get two episodes. You get the mailbag episode, and then it's an episode of Late-Round Perspectives. That's going to be the schedule through fantasy football season. And then all the while over on Patreon, you'll get things like the weekly data dump spreadsheet, rest of season rankings, weekly rankings, and livestream Q&As with yours truly. It's time. I'm excited for this season. I hope you are too. Now, before we get into the mailbag questions this week, there's not much time left to take advantage of my special Underdog Fantasy offer. You get a free Late-Round Draft Guide, a guide that gives you everything you need to crush your drafts this year. You can get it for absolutely free. All you have to do is sign up at underdogfantasy.com with promo code LATEROUND and then make a deposit. Underdog will then email you the guide. So you get to play best ball and you get a free copy of the Late-Round Draft Guide. You also get a deposit bonus when you deposit. So check it all out underdogfantasy.com promo code LATEROUND. We got a lot of great questions this week. Let's get to it.

The first question is from Patreon. It's from Anthony A. It says, Hey JJ, love the pod and your efficient delivery of fantasy knowledge. Thanks. Last year, you made an offhand comment before the season started that you expected some guy named Puka to be the top waiver ad after week one. So I added him in every league to great profit. Can you gaze into your crystal ball and name a guy you like for top waiver ad coming out of week one this season? Honestly, this is something I'd love to hear a take on each week of the season. Okay, so to be honest, if I feel a certain way about a player, I'm not going to withhold that information. I'll bring it up on the 15 Transaction Show. So you will hear a take like this each week of the season on the show. We're also not going to have a Puka Nakuwa type ad after week one. I can almost guarantee that. So anyone hoping for a slam dunk pick, don't think those types of things happen every single year. Now obviously injury is one of the things that we're always focused on with the waiver wire. And I can't and I won't predict injuries. More than likely, the top waiver ad in week one is going to be driven by an injury of some sort, unfortunately. Typically though, if there's a top waiver ad not from an injury, it's because some player came out of nowhere and had a bigger role than we expected. Like Puka Nakuwa last year. And I would imagine that player is probably a rookie or a younger player, because the market would have been less bullish on that kind of player. And to be clear, it's not like I only talked about Puka Nakuwa in the preseason last year. So I'm going to give you a few guys here, a handful of players, some more obvious than others. Dontavian Wicks is one of them. What if we see this Packers wide receiver rotation not go as we think in week one? What if he gets more run than what we're projecting? Now, I've talked about him as a good late-round dart throw, given his rookie season peripherals, but maybe there's some magic in week one against the Eagles. He's still out there in 70% of Yahoo leagues. Andre Josefos is another. He's likely to start for the Bengals. He could end up filling that Tyler Boyd role. So if he has a good day, he'll obviously be someone that we want to pick up off the waiver wire. Now, I still like Jermaine Burton more long term, or at least think Burton presents more upside, but Josefos could have some value early on in the season. Another one who I think needs to be rostered everywhere is Jalen McMillan. I really liked McMillan as a prospect. My model did too. He had production marks in that model that looked better than Jalen Polk in that exact same offense. And one of the comps in my model for McMillan was Amon Rasain Brown. He's not built exactly like ARSB, but there were some analytical similarities, which is why the model said what it did. He should be able to find the field in three wide sets in the Bucks Get the Commanders in Week 1, who rank as a bottom five secondary this year. Now, there are two more rookies to call out. There was a report that Luke McCaffrey is more like the wide receiver four or wide receiver five in the commanders right now. But they have a pretty clear need at slot receiver, which is what McCaffrey is at this point. He only has two years of wide receiver experience, but his prospect score wasn't all that bad in the ZAP model with that context, despite the lack of experience. And he's in an offense that should run pretty up tempo and it lacks alternatives outside of Terry McLaurin. So maybe he surprises and he gets usage that we're not totally projecting in week one. And then an even deeper rookie wide receiver look, Malik Washington. O'Dell Beckham is on IR. Jalen Waddell is dealing with an injury. Malik Washington had a monster final collegiate season at Virginia this past year. And he fits this Miami offense well in my opinion. He has a really great ability to generate yards after the catch. Now we have no idea how they're going to deploy their wide receivers, especially if Waddell's out. But Washington's at least a name to watch.