907: 10 Trends for Week 2

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 907 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog Fantasy, thanks for tuning in. I've got some pretty cool news to share to open today's show. As you know, during the summer, I was giving away a free Late-Round draft guide to any new Underdog user, any new user who used promo code LATEROUND when signing up. When you signed up, you get a free draft guide emailed to your inbox. Well, in other words, in season, that draft guide isn't as relevant, but my rest of season rankings are. So for any new Underdog Fantasy user, when you sign up, you not only get a deposit bonus, but you'll be emailed a link that contains my rest of season rankings. Those are updated every Tuesday for patrons, so you can get them on there, too. You can get them on the Late-Round Fantasy Football Patreon as well. But they're free if you sign up on Underdog Fantasy and make a deposit. And when you do that, you have to use promo code LATEROUND. That's underdogfantasy.com, again, promo code LATEROUND. The first trend this week is one that we kind of knew could happen based on preseason usage, but Cole Comet is officially splitting time with Gerald Everett in Chicago. He's actually not even splitting time. Everett's just the tight end one. Everett ran 21 routes to Comet's 12 on Sunday, and Everett played more snaps as well. Maybe that's going to change as this offense evolves, but offensive coordinator Shane Waldron has now coached Everett on three separate teams over the last handful of years. It's his guy. So in most formats, you can drop Comet. I talked about Isaiah Pacheco last week and how Samajay Pirain had a chance to play a Jarek McKinnon role in That Chiefs Offense. It wasn't a lock that he would play that role, just that there was a possibility. Well, in week one, Pacheco had the second best route participation of the last two years. He ran a round on 71% of Kansas City's drop backs. He saw 88% of the team's running back rushes and he had an 11.5% target share. Maybe that doesn't maintain because Samajay Pirain had just joined the team, but it was a huge, huge weak one for Isaiah Pacheco. Devontae Smith ended up running 71% of his routes out of the slot against the Packers this past week. That's according to PFF. Last year, the number was 31%. With the potential for good pace and a decent pass rate, combined with the good matchups that Devontae Smith is now going to see, we could see a great year from Devontae Smith.

I wasn't very high on DeAndre Swift entering the season, because I was worried about what could happen at the goal line with him, and I thought we'd see some sort of committee. Roshan Johnson, though, he was a healthy scratch for the Bears in week one. And Swift, despite being pretty bad in fantasy, he actually had strong usage. He was 11th among running backs and route participation, and he handled 71% of the team's running back rushes. His target share was lower, but that route participation, that was at least there. So I actually lean more by than sell with Deandre Swift right now. Alec Pearce scored the fantasy points for Indianapolis in week one, but Adonai Mitchell had a great game from a peripherals perspective. Not only could he have had a touchdown himself pretty easily in that contest, but he finished the day with a 26% target share. That's about 10 percentage points better than Pearce's. And he ran a route on 75% of the team's drop backs. Pearce was at 83%. People are going to be rushing to the waiver wire to get Alec Pearce, because he made some big plays in that game. But I still prefer the rookie. I still prefer Adonai Mitchell. Honestly, by a whole lot. According to PFF's expected fantasy points formula, no running back underperformed more in week one than Najee Harris. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It does mean that based on his usage and where he was seeing touches, he should have been closer to 15, 16 PPR points rather than the nine that he actually scored. But it also tells us that his usage was pretty great. And it was. He had a 77% running back rush share and a 9% target share. Those were numbers that were better than last year. With that being said, don't be surprised if we see more Jalen Warren as soon as week two. As we know, he was entering the season a little bit banged up.

It was a tough week for Jaxon Smith-Njigba drafters, myself included. I've bought in from a redraft perspective that things could turn around in this Ryan Grubb offense. But JSN ended up being used very similarly in week one as he was last year. His average up a target, just 3.3. He lined up in the slot on 90% of his routes run. We wanted more than that. Now, with that being said, JSN did run more routes than Tyler Lockett on Sunday, and the Seahawks leaned very heavily on the run, especially in the second half of that game. So I don't think it's time to bury him, but it wasn't the week one that JSN truthers wanted. People were freaking out about a lot of the elite tight ends in week one, but the underlying usage for a lot of those tight ends was totally fine. I actually have a hypothesis that with less scoring across the league with such crappy offenses that we saw in week one, that impacted tight ends a little bit more. Because these guys aren't typically first read players. But that's not a super fleshed out idea, so let's just move on. Dalton Kincaid only had two PPR points and an 8.7% target share. That's the bad news. The good news is that he ranked eighth in route participation this past week in tight end. He got to 83%. That's a higher number than what we saw from Kincaid down the stretch last season when Dawson Knox returned. So better days are likely ahead for Dalton Kincaid. And Kyle Pitts, by the way, ran a route on 100% of Atlanta's drop backs. He's the only tight end who got there in week one. Someone on Twitter told me that they were surprised that I didn't have Jameson Williams as an ad this week on the 15 Transaction Show. But he was rostered in way too many leagues for me to call him out. But yeah, he should be on a roster. And after last week, I'm actually way ahead of the market on Jameson Williams. I like him a lot more. His usage was fantastic. He ran around 94% of Detroit's drop backs. His average at the target was 14.6. That's really solid. And his target share ended up being 32%. Look, I had my question marks about Williams entering the season because even if we used his 2023 numbers as his rookie season, his year two score in my year two model would have just been good and not great. He had an elite prospect score, but we haven't seen many players get it together like this in year three. But I do think that things may have just clicked for Jameson Williams. And this is one of those situations where, given the offensive environment, I don't think it's necessary to not lean into Jameson Williams because the market still has him priced fairly low. Fantasy pros rankers in their rest of season rankings have met wide receiver 41 fantasycalc.com has met wide receiver 48 I've got Williams at wide receiver 31, so I'm way, way higher than the market it looks like. It just seems like one of those bets to make. It's not like he'd be coming from nowhere. He was an elite prospect coming out. This isn't like Alec Pierce having some big game in his first week of his third year. This is a much better prospect in a better environment who had way better peripherals. So I guess I'll say it. Buy high on Jameson Williams. I think the risk is worth the reward.