929: Mailbag 10/18/24

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, 929 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog.

Thank you for tuning in. Before getting to the mailbag questions this week, I want to let you know about a cool new game over on Underdog that you can play through October. Head to the Promotions tab in the Underdog app and play Red Zone Rush. It's sort of like a dating app, but instead of swiping left or right on a potential significant other, you're swiping left or right on who you think will get in the end zone that week. And best of all, every Red Zone Rush entry will receive a boost. You can check out Red Zone Rush by heading to underdogfantasy.com or downloading the app. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code LATEROUND. You'll get a nice deposit bonus. You'll also get access to my rest of season rankings when you sign up with that promo code. Just sign up, use promo code LATEROUND, make a deposit and start playing. The first question this week is from Twitter. It's from atnotstarlord. It says, could the additions of Amari Cooper and Devonte Adams actually help Khalil Shaqir and Garrett Wilson to see more success? So let's talk about the big trades that went down this week. Devonte Adams, he joined the Jets. Amari Cooper, he joins the Bills. I think anyone who builds projections, they see this as they're building projections. Generally speaking, volume is more important than efficiency. Efficiency is not only less predictive and more volatile, but it's just less important to the game of fantasy football. If I get a player who averages 50 yards per target, but he only sees one target per game, that player, he's not nearly as meaningful as the player averaging five yards per target who sees 15 targets per game. Now, I know that's an extreme example, but it helps wrap your head around this idea. Like, yes, having Devonte Adams, having Amari Cooper, that's going to make those offenses better, hypothetically speaking. But when you add a 25% target share player to an offense, that target share pie gets disrupted. And I think what gets kind of ruined most is the ceiling for a lot of these guys. Like, think about why so many people were drafting Garrett Wilson in Round 1 this year. It's because he's a great player, yes, but he was also in a situation where there was no one else. And we've seen that come to fruition so far this year. His target share is currently above 30%. He had 29 PPR points in Week 5 That was basically solely off of volume. He had a 43% target share. He had 22 targets. Those types of games are just unbelievably unlikely with a player like Devonte Adams in the mix. It doesn't mean that Wilson's toast. I actually still think that he's a top 18 wide receiver rest of season. But it does mean that those upside games may not exist anymore. The difference is going to be when he inevitably would have seen a lower target share. Like Week 4 against Denver, he dipped below a 20% target share. That was the first time that happened all year. He scored 7 PPR points. Why did he underperform? Well, it was a bad weather game against one of the toughest matchups in football. When you get a player like Devontae Adams in the mix, you can move Wilson around and get him those more advantageous matchups. That's going to ensure that he doesn't have a terrible game from a production standpoint. And because Wilson's a really good player, he's going to earn a high target share. He just may not have a 30% target share anymore. So oddly, the move with Adams, it could make Wilson a little bit more consistent while lowering his ceiling. I don't necessarily prefer that outcome, though, because ceilings win fantasy football matchups. But he should still be fine. Now, when it comes to Buffalo, it's sort of the same thing. Insert a 25% target share wide receiver like Amari Cooper, it becomes more difficult for players to hit high target shares in their offense. Especially considering it's not like any of the Bill's wide receivers are nearly as good as someone like Garrett Wilson. There's no reason to believe that they're going to command super high target shares, at least the way that Wilson would. So I definitely have concerns about guys like Kinkade and Shakir. Kinkade has seen 25% target shares over the last three weeks, and he's still not been that productive. Now, we can sit here and we can say that he's going to be more efficient now, which is probably true, but his target share projection is going to drop. And if he's not a lot more efficient, then what's the difference between Kinkade and like a Jake Ferguson? I think a lot of people probably already had Ferguson ahead of Kinkade. Or someone like Evan Ingram. We should probably just prefer Evan Ingram over Kinkade pretty easily rest of season now. We can't lose sight of the fact that this Buffalo team doesn't operate the same way that it did with Stefan Diggs. That was the pre-Joe Brady era. On the season, Buffalo ranked second lowest in pass attempts per game. And that's not just a game script thing. In neutral environments, the bills are 21st in pass rate. Now, that might increase a little bit with Amari Cooper, but by how much? Enough to offset his incoming target share? Probably not. Look, talent drives opportunity. You guys know that I'm a Khalil Shakir stan, and I think Kinkade is a good tight end. But the difference between them maintaining high target shares and Garrett Wilson maintaining a high target share? The difference is talent, straight up. It's why Wilson can still be pretty usable, while the Bills players, and this is dictated by how the offense runs things too, but the Bills players, they're going to now be less reliable week to week.