945: Mailbag 11/15/24

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up everyone, it's JJ Zachariason, and this episode 945 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog.

Thanks for tuning in. Before we get to the mail back questions this week, I want to remind you that even though you're 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 Underdog app. In the draft section, click NFL, you'll see tons of drafts that you can participate in right now. 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 them, you have to sign up, use promo code LATEROUND, make a deposit, and start playing. Now let's get to these questions.

The first question is from patrons from MrDamas. It says, As someone who doesn't own any Tampa Bay backs, can you quickly explain the difference between Irving and White and what separates them? Do you see one or both of them ascending from here on out due to the favorable schedule? Yeah, so first off, you're right. The Tampa Bay running back schedule, it's great rest of season. My numbers have it at number one in the league, and it's number three in the fantasy playoffs. They get the Cowboys and the Panthers in weeks 16 and 17 And I think those games are going to favor Bucky Irving more than Rashad White. We can kind of put Sean Tucker out of the picture, because he hasn't been getting a whole lot of work since that breakout against the Saints. But White has seen a 36% running back rush air per game over his last four. He's also seen a 15% target share per game rate. Bucky Irving, he's at a 50% running back rush air. His target share is 10.5%. They've deployed Rashad White more as a receiver. According to Fantasy Life, during this time frame, he's played 86% of their long down and distance snaps. Bucky Irving's only at 12%.

White's beating Irving 50% to 32% and Rao participation during this time. Essentially, we're going to get more work on the ground from Irving and more work through the air from Rashad White. But here's the thing, during this stretch, this four game period that I'm looking at, the Buccaneers have faced the Ravens, the Falcons, the Chiefs and the 49ers. They've been incredibly competitive in those games, but those games have also favored Rashad White, just given everything that I'm talking about here. If they're in a neutral or negative game script, which they've been at times over the last month, that's going to favor White. That's why I like Irving more than White the rest of season. Not only could they just want to feature him more because he's a rookie, but he's been better than White in pretty much every rushing metric. Not only that, but target shares will be shifted a little bit once Mike Evans returns. But the big thing is just look at the schedule. It's winnable game after winnable game. It's the potential for a lot of positive game scripts. They get the Giants, Panthers, Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys and Panthers to end the fantasy season. They could easily be favorites in all but one of those games, which to me favors Bucky Irving more than Rashad White. This next question is also from Patreon. It's from Andre. It says, Hey JJ, have you started looking at defenses for the playoffs? What are your recommendations? Thanks. So I'm sure I'll bring this up again in the future, but looking at my numbers, here's what I've got. Now, I don't think you absolutely need to have a set and forget defense through all of the weeks in the fantasy playoffs, but there are a few who have good playoff matchups in total. One of them is Cincinnati. The Bengals get the Titans, Browns and Broncos in weeks 15, 16 and 17 That could be worse. Another is Green Bay. They get the Seahawks, Saints and Vikings. I think the defense with the best fantasy playoff schedule though, has to be Indianapolis. They get the Broncos, then the Titans, and then the Giants. But you're unlikely going to need to just play one defense throughout the fantasy playoffs. Those are the only three teams with three plus matchups in the three playoff weeks by adjusted points allowed. And some of those matchups aren't obvious great matchups on paper. What I would do is maybe focus on the first two weeks of the playoffs first. Weeks 15 and 16 You have to win those to play in week 17 in the first place. And in week 15 and 16, you could go with Cincinnati. But Atlanta is another team who's kind of intriguing. They get the Raiders and the Giants. And then you can kind of play by matchup in week 17 Which you have to remember, you'll have less competition on the waiver wire for those defenses that week. Because more teams have been eliminated. In most leagues, teams are going to be looking at the waiver wire if they're out of it. So yeah, those are some rough ideas here in week 11 Be sure to listen to 15 Transactions, because I'm going to talk about this more on those episodes moving forward too. And there are other defenses that you could look at too. I just wanted to give you guys some defenses who could be good across multiple weeks instead of Frankensteining one together right now. Because I'm not sure how helpful that is when we're over a month away. This next question is from BlueSky, which again, I am over on BlueSky, same handle as Twitter, at Late-Round QB. This is from King Mamba. It says, Hey, JJ, love the show. Thanks. What are your thoughts on JK Dobbins rest of season with Gus Edwards coming back? I worry his value takes a hit because Gus will take most of the goal line carries and already took half of the carries in general during his first game back. Thanks. So I don't know if Edwards is just going to take on all of the goal line carries. In fact, look at the goal line last week. They had three running back rushes. JK Dobbins had two of them. Hassan Haskins had the other one. It's not like JK Dobbins is just never going to see a goal line rush ever again. I think we often look at that kind of thing in too binary of a way. But yeah, I think Edwards being there does hurt Dobbins upside rest of season. You could argue that it's going to keep Dobbins healthier, such your optimistic way of viewing this, that if Dobbins were to maintain his backfield share without Edwards, he would inevitably have gotten hurt. But Dobbins saw 56% running back rush share in week 10 That was his lowest since week 2, which was with Gus Edwards. Now, the good news is that Dobbins still saw a really good route participation. And maybe that gets a little bit better with Edwards active, because Kamani Vidal could be considered more of a threat as a receiver, and Edwards is more of a threat on the ground, which means if the Chargers are going to decrease Dobbins' ground game workload, they may increase his receiving workload, or at least give him a little bit more sustainability there. Because there have been times this season where his route share has dipped below that 50% mark, like well below it. So I would say that Edwards being back, it's a downgrade for Dobbins in some. But I think there is still some positives to take away here. He may not break down as easily now, and there may be more work for him as a receiver. It just really depends on how you want to frame this.