937: Mailbag 11/1/24

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

Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the mailbag questions this week, I want to remind you that even though you drafted your fantasy teams back in August, you can still do snake drafts right now over on Underdog. Just head to underdogfantasy.com or download the app. In the drafts section, click NFL, and you'll see tons of drafts that you can participate in right now. And if you're new to Underdog, make sure you sign up with promo code LATEROUND. That'll get you a nice deposit bonus, as well as my rest of season rankings. Those rankings are updated for you each Tuesday once you get the link to them. But to get that link, you have to sign up, use promo code LATEROUND, make it a deposit and start playing.

The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from Matt. It says, Hi JJ, just wanted to know why you're so high on Debo Samuel rest of season. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is a common question out there. Not that all of you have my rest of season rankings, but I would imagine that people aren't high enough on Debo right now. My opinion, of course. Debo's ranked high because Brandon Iyuk is no longer in the picture. It's as simple as that. There was some data tweeted by friend of the show Adam Levitin last week showing the plays run by San Francisco over the last two years when Iyuk was off the field. In those scenarios, Debo Samuel had a 30% target share and a 48% targets per outrun rate. That's with Brock Purdy at quarterback. We don't have a massive sample of Debo without Iyuk in full games, but Iyuk missed week three last year. I don't think it's a coincidence that Debo saw a 35% target share in that game and he scored 25 PPR points. You currently have a player who's in one of the better offenses in football, who could see well over a 25% target share, a good player. And people will look at his week eight game and they're going to be worried because it was his first one without Iyuk and it wasn't an awesome game. But Debo was coming off pneumonia. He ran a route on 74% of San Francisco's drop backs. He's going to be in the 90% range moving forward, more than likely. And even still, he still saw a 28% target share in that game. So if people are down on Debo Samuel for whatever reason, I'd definitely be buying. And it might be easier to do that right now because they have their buy. This is a question from Twitter from at T-Hurls92. It says, is Jaylen Waddle still going to be a viable mid to high wide receiver too, with Devon H.Han soaking up as many targets as he has been with Tua Undercenter? Or should I look to sell on name value? Now look, I like Jaylen Waddle quite a bit entering the season, and I do lean more buy than sell right now. Because the feeling around Waddle, it's pretty negative. That's why I don't think that you can actually sell on name value. He hasn't been producing. He always seems to be hurt. This is the kind of player that fantasy managers absolutely despise. But when we look at individual performances, it's really important to look at the team performance too. Like if a player is performing poorly, and his team is dominating, and we're seeing that happen week in and week out, that's a red flag. Especially if the peripherals aren't there for that player. But last week, Tua had 234 passing yards in one touchdown. Tyreek Hill had 72 receiving yards in a 24% target share. Jaylen Waddle, he had a 16% target share in 45 yards. It's not like Tyreek Hill was at the levels that we've come to expect either. The fact of the matter is, we have two and a half games right now, a two and a half game sample of the Dolphins with Tua. And week one with Tua, Waddle had over a hundred receiving yards. The target shares haven't been exactly where we'd want them to be, and that's somewhat of a concern. But I really, really don't want two and a half games to dictate my feelings about a talented wide receiver, just objectively. And to your question, is this an A-chan thing? I mean, maybe a little bit, but again, we have to remember that we're working in small samples. And Tua's completed games this year, we're seeing the team's running max gobble up about 30% of Miami's targets. Last year, their target share was 23%. So let's just say that there's seven percentage points higher than their average last year. Jaylen Waddle in those two games only has a 15% target share, which is eight percentage points lower than where he was at in 2023 When we're looking at target share per game. So you might be thinking, oh wow, all of Waddle's targets are just going to the running backs. That's not really how it works though. The target share wouldn't just be surrendered by Jaylen Waddle and Jaylen Waddle only. I mean, it technically could in such a small sample, but long term, that doesn't make that much sense. I just think we need to be patient. Now there's a real chance that Waddle maybe has a 20% target share from here on out instead of a 23% one, because of how they're using their running backs, assuming that that running back target share remains the same. But I think the bigger deal here is actually with the tight ends. Like tight end is where Waddle can gain some ground, because John U. Smith is not as talented at his position as Devon Achan or Jaylen Waddle are at theirs. Miami tight ends have seen about a 20% target share in two of his completed games this year. That's more than double where they were last year. It's significantly higher than where this offense has been historically. So I'm still anticipating better days ahead for Jaylen Waddle. Unfortunately, the matchup this week is not necessarily ideal. So maybe you want to wait to buy them. But I'm still cautiously optimistic.