991: Mailbag - RJ Harvey's Outlook, George Pickens' New Home, and More

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 991 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by DraftKings.

Thanks for tuning in. You heard that right. DraftKings is now sponsoring The Late-Round Podcast, and there's a lot of news that comes with that. One is that Becoming a Best Ball Bro is officially back. Rich Ryan and I are going to sit down and do another season of the show, where I talk to some of the greatest best ball players on earth about how to tackle the game. And this year, of course, it'll focus on DraftKings best ball, which I'm really excited to get into because it's a full PPR platform. That first episode is going to drop on Monday. It's usually going to be on Wednesdays, but for this one, it's on Monday, so get ready for that. Second, as you guys know, I hired on David Kitchen to be Late-Round Fantasy Football COO back at the beginning of the year. And Kitchen and I have been working behind the scenes on a whole lot of cool stuff. One of those things is the Late-Round Fantasy Football Show. Coming soon to the Late-Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel will be a live weekly show with Kitchen and me. We're going to dig into all things fantasy football. So it's another outlet for you and I to interact, and it's another place for me to throw my takes out there. And then lastly, the Late-Round Draft Guide, it's officially available for pre-order. You can still get the Late-Round Prospect Guide, and all that comes with it over on lateround.com, but the Draft Guide, that's available for pre-order too. For those who don't know, the Late-Round Draft Guide is where I lay out as much game theory as I can possibly lay out for the upcoming season. And then in that guide, you also get my rankings and tiers, my players to target and avoid, and my Late-Round dart throws. And those rankings and tiers and those players to target and avoid, those are all updated weekly once the guide launches. Both guides can be found on lateround.com. The pre-order price for the Draft Guide is $24.99. That's going to increase by $5 on July 1st when it launches. Then like I said, each week through August, you'll get weekly updates to that guide. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on with Late-Round Fantasy Football. Becoming a Best Ball Bro Season 2, the Late-Round Fantasy Football Flagship Show on YouTube, and then the Late-Round Draft Guide. All of those things are coming very, very soon. But yeah, that's all the news for now. It's a mailbag day. Let's get to these questions.

The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from Noah. It says, I'm eager to hear your breakdown on the Pickens trade and the ripple effect of the trade. How much do you expect this to affect the skill players of the team? DAC, DK Metcalf, but even deeper guys like Roman Wilson? So I think this was a trade that really helped fantasy football just in general, all around. Let's start with Dallas. CD Lam is going to be locked into a high target share regardless of his competition. So adding Pickens really won't impact him dramatically. Now there's the classic argument of, does having a player like Pickens open things up more for Lam, or does it hurt Lam because he's now having to share more looks with a capable wide receiver? And I think in this case, there was so much target share up for grabs in Dallas because of their lack of depth, you could argue this won't really impact Lam at all, or that it's a good thing for him even. I see it as mostly neutral. Pickens though goes from a run heavy offense, which I'll get to in a second, to one that's more than likely going to be pass friendly. Brian Schottenheimer was Dallas' offensive coordinator in 2023 and 2024, and now obviously he's the head coach. But as OC and Dallas, the Cowboys had neutral script pass rates that ranked fifth and sixth in the league. And remember, last year they saw Cooper Rush start eight games for them. This is likely going to be a pass heavy team, especially when you look at the running backs they have. So Pickens I think goes from kind of an undesirable situation to a pretty good one. I think it was a win for his fantasy value, especially with the quarterback upgrade. Now speaking of that quarterback, when it comes to someone like Dak, I'm not going to be aggressive with almost any sort of pocket passer type unless they're super cheap. We know that passing touchdowns are going to drive a quarterback scoring, a pocket passer quarterback scoring. And touchdowns bring variance. This is what the pocket passer trap episode was all about. But there obviously are going to be some quarterbacks that we feel more confident can provide that touchdown upside versus others, especially when they have a pass friendly coordinator and decent weapons. So I think Dak is kind of like a high-end QB2, where he has a shot to give you true mid to low-end QB1 upside if things really hit. Now Pittsburgh, they don't have the most desirable passing situation. They were 22nd in neutral script pass rate last year. They were 29th in overall pass rate. And Arthur Smith Offenses, when he was in Atlanta as head coach, they were 26th, 30th, and 9th in neutral script pass rate. Then in Tennessee, they were 30th and 25th. And at each stop, his team's overall pass rates were even lower. It's just not a fantasy friendly offense for receivers because of the lack of passing volume. But what can help in these situations is a high target share. When George Pickens and DK Metcalf were both in Pittsburgh together, now they didn't play together obviously, but from a projection standpoint, the projection was more split. But now Metcalf has an opportunity, at least a shot, to reach like that 27% target share mark. We don't project that kind of thing to happen, but that could lead to 130, 140 targets if things really break his way. Again, I don't think we should project that, but at least gives Metcalf more room to breathe. That wasn't really the case when Pickens was in the mix. And it's the same deal with someone like Pat Fryermuth. Now, I don't think Fryermuth is ever going to be like a high ceiling fantasy tight end, but Smith's offenses are usually tight end heavy. And without Pickens, that could lead to more looks for Fryermuth. The other wide receivers to me, they're more waiver wire guys. Roman Wilson was a solid slot prospect, but they also have Calvin Austin. He ran 62% of his routes from the slot last year. They've got Robert Woods now, and he's probably going to play opposite of DK Metcalf at the time of this recording. But, overall, I'm not going to be super excited about the number two wide out in an Arthur Smith offense. And it's an Arthur Smith offense that right now doesn't even have a quarterback, or at least a legit quarterback. And it's not like the number two wide receiver in that offense is some obvious stud. So that's how I see it. Overall, I think it was a win for fantasy football.