956: Mailbag 12/6/24

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.

What's up everyone, it's JJ Zachariason, and this episode 956 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog.

Thanks for tuning in. Before answering some mailbag questions this week, I want to remind you to check out Underdog. There are tons of snake drafts that you can join right now over there. For not just this week's Slay to Games either, but for the playoffs as well. That's right, playoff best ball is here. And there's one contest, the gauntlet, that's a $25 entry, there's $2 million in prizes. Now if that's too high of an entry point for you, you can also join the $3 per entry little mitten, where there's $50,000 in prizes. There's always something at Underdog that will fit what you're looking for. If you've never played over there, make sure you sign up right now with promo code LATEROUND. You get a nice deposit offer and my rest of season rankings with that promo code. That's underdogfantasy.com, promo code LATEROUND.

The first question this week is from Zach on Blue Sky. It says, Do you think that you should approach week 14 or whatever your last non-playoff week is in a given league differently when you're already locked into a specific playoff seed? Yes, most definitely. As long as you're following the rules of your league, and that's key. If your league says you have to fill your entire starting roster, then you've got to fill your entire starting roster. But if nothing's going to change for you, then you need to plan ahead. You, of course, want integrity. You want to field a solid lineup so that the rest of your league isn't getting screwed over by you and how you're managing your week 14 team. But for example, you're going to worry a whole lot less about week 14 players, specifically defenses. That's the easiest example. Like waivers are over right now, but if I knew that my seed was locked up, I would never use free agent budget or waiver wire priority on a defense for week 14 There's no reason to. Just wait until waivers run. Or maybe you've just been streaming quarterbacks. Focus only on week 15 if that's the case, or week 16 if you have a buy. Don't worry about fielding the best quarterback in week 14, because week 14 doesn't matter for you. You can use a quarterback, but use that week 15 or week 16 quarterback in your spot in week 14 So yeah, your management can definitely change, but make sure you're not being annoying and ignoring your league's rules. And if you do something like lose a game on purpose so that a certain team doesn't make the playoffs in your league that you don't want to face in the playoffs, just know that karma is going to get you. In all seriousness though, just know that we often overrate our ability to predict who's going to be good and who's not going to be good in a given week. That's all. But yes, overall, you should change your approach if you're locked into a specific seed. This next question is also from BlueSkies from Tony Lung. It says, Who to trust from the Browns' three wide receivers? Will Cedric Tillman retake the top spot or has Jerry Judy taken over? If Tillman is cleared to play, can we trust Elijah more? I think Winston can support two of them, plus David and Joku. Love the show. Thanks. Thanks, Tony. So, I don't want to take anything away from Cedric Tillman when I say this, because he was playing really well when Amari Cooper was first traded. But his numbers, his usage, didn't necessarily tell us that he was the number one wide receiver in Cleveland, like the clear-cut number one guy. From week 7 through week 11, so that's four games before he had his concussion against Pittsburgh, Tillman was averaging a target share per game rate of 22%. He had 40 targets. Jerry Judy during that same time frame had a 20% target share and 35 targets. Elijah Moore was at 36 targets. In other words, targets were being spread around that offense, not just to one guy, not just to Cedric Tillman. Now Tillman was seeing slightly more valuable targets during this time frame. According to PFF's Expected Fantasy Points Formula, Tillman had a fantasy points per game expectation of 18.4 during that time. Jerry Judy was at 16.3, Elijah Moore 15.2. But this wasn't some scenario where like Tillman was light years ahead of the other wide receivers in Cleveland. And things were cooling off for him a bit after some really good games without Amari Cooper. Like if we were to throw in that Pittsburgh game as well, because he was concussed late in that game, then we wouldn't really see that much of a difference between a guy like Tillman and Jerry Judy at all. I think this is a scenario where the Browns are going to deploy their three wide receivers the same way they've been deploying them with a healthy Tillman. And matchups are going to dictate where some of those looks are going to go. To me, though, it's tough to not be impressed with what Jerry Judy is doing right now. His first game without Amari Cooper was kind of rough. But since week eight, he's seen yardage totals of 79, 73, 142, 85, and 235 We've always just needed consistency with Jerry Judy. And I think having a quarterback who's not afraid to take some chances down the field is really helping him out. So to answer your question, I think all of them are in play in their own ways. I'd rank them Judy, then Tillman, then Elijah Moore rest of season. And I put Moore last because the other two wide receivers are probably going to see down the field targets a little bit more. They'll probably be used a little bit more in the red zone too. But there are going to probably be weeks where Tillman outscores Judy and vice versa. The important thing is that there can still be a decent floor for the guy who gets outscored because there's enough passing volume in this Brown's offense. So if Jerry Judy outscores Cedric Tillman, Tillman's not automatically a zero and vice versa. And look, if you look at their schedule, it's not great on paper. They get Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Miami to close out the fantasy season. Typically, I'd be really afraid about using these wide receivers. But what all those teams have in common is that they could force Cleveland into a negative game script. And that's not necessarily a terrible thing for this Brown's offense, because they'll push the ball down the field and they'll throw it a lot in that environment. Now, I'd rather the schedule be a cakewalk, of course. But at least they have a quarterback and an offensive environment now, where things aren't total dust when they're facing a tough matchup. So I think Winston can support all of them in their own different way. It's just that they're not going to all go off each week. And I don't think there's going to be the same odd man out week in and week out. It's not going to be that clean.