September 3, 2025 • 14 mins
JJ talks about the Packers offense, Jacory Croskey-Merritt, quarterback predictability, and more on the first 10 Trends episode of the season.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the lad podcast with your host JJ Zacherasa
Jay Jake Zacher Reason. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar
Esen in this episode oney twelve of the Late Round
Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Football season starts this week, and there's no better way
to lock in your fantasy dominance than with Best Ball
in DraftKings, where you draft once in Roger Roster all
season long, and right now, DraftKings giving all customers it
can't miss offer Draft one, Get one enter a lineup
in the fifteen million dollars Best Ball contest for just
twenty dollars. You'll score another Best Ball ticket to play
free for a share of that fifteen million, giving you
(00:42):
a second shot to win big.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's easy.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Just draft your dream team once, no weekly management required,
and let your top scorers automatically start each week across
the whole season. Every breakout start, every clutch play, every
touchdown will count toward your quest for a share of
fifteen million dollars. So download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app
now to draft your twenty dollars best Ball lineup to
play for a share of fifteen million dollars and get
a second ticket to play free for a share of
(01:05):
that fifteen million. That's two chances to win big without
ever setting your lineup again. Draft one get one only
on DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one
hundred Gambler New York call eight seven seven eight hope
en Yer Tex Hope NY to four six seven three
six nine and Connecticut. Help is available from Problem Gambling
Call eighty eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven
or visits CCPG dot org eighteen plus most eligible states,
(01:27):
but age varies by jurisdiction.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Eligibilia stritionans apply void we.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Are a prohibited one per customer and to the Best
Ball fifteen million dollars Headliner contests by nine four to
twenty five to get one bonus entry twenty dollars in free.
Required reward expires in thirty days. CEE terms at DraftKings
dot com. Slash NFL dash Best Dashball sponsored by DK.
This ten Trends episode is the shortest one that you'll
listen to Each week. I come prepared with ten statistical
(01:51):
nuggets that are either actionable or just informative, and hopefully
you walk away with a little better understanding of the
fantasy football landscape since the season had asn't started. I'll
be giving ten trends this week that stem from previous seasons,
so let's do it. The first trends about the Green
Bay Packers offense last season. They finished the year ranked
(02:12):
thirtieth and pass rate fewer than forty eight percent of
their pass in rush attempts ended up being a pass,
meaning they ran it more than they threw it. Under
Matt Laflor's lead. For five seasons prior to last year,
the Packers never had a pass rate below fifty four percent,
and in particular, their neutral script rate, which I define
as plays run in the first three quarters of games
(02:32):
when the scores within a six point margin. They've been third, thirteenth, fifth, eighteenth, fourteenth,
and then thirty second in neutral script ratio. I'm anticipating
more passing for the Packers this year, which should help
the whole offense in fantasy football. Even Josh Jacobs should
be okay because they'll see an uptick in overall targets.
(02:54):
It's an offense worth investing in. They've been top ten
and touchdowns per game in all but one season. Under
the floor and in that one season they ranked fourteenth.
Brian Thomas was a monster last year. If you read
the Late Round Prospect Guide this offseason, then you saw
just how good his year two score looked. In that
year two model, his yards per ute run was elite,
(03:15):
especially for a rookie. He saw target on twenty five
percent of his routes run and he did that all while.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Mostly playing a perimeter role.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Here's some more context of just how good Brian Thomas's
rookie season was. He's one of just three rookie wide
receivers who finished that first year with at least a
twenty percent target year per game rate and averaged up
the target over eleven yards. Thomas's was aut eleven point
nine and a yards after the catch per reception above
six and this is since twenty eleven. So they were
(03:43):
getting down the field but still doing a good bit
of work after the catch, and they were seeing a
lot of volume.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The other two wide.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Receivers who hit these marks Jamar Chase and Julio Jones.
I talked about Chris Rodriguez on yesterday's fifteen Transactions episode,
and I briefly mentioned how I do have Jacory krossky
Merritt as the top running back in that backfield. Now
that's largely due to ambiguity. We've gotten a sample of
(04:10):
Rodriguez in the NFL and Austin Eckler, while a value
in drafts, he's thirty years old. I'd want to throw
that dart at the young unknown asset. With that being
said Bill krossky Merrit, he's definitely a unique prospect. The
ZAP model database includes all running backs who are either
drafted or at the NFL combine since twenty eleven. Sometimes,
(04:32):
like Jacory krossky Merrit, you get players who are drafted
but not at the combine. In that database, only twenty
one running backs were entering the NFL past their twenty
fourth birthday.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Now we've gotten more of.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Them in recent years due to the pandemic and due
to transfer rules. But the only player in that group
who's given us a PPR point per game season above
twelve is Andre Ellington, and he did it once. Now again,
like I said, we've gotten more and more of these
types of players. These older prospects, Tyrone, Tracy RJ Harvey,
Ray Davis Woody marks players that I genuinely like a
(05:05):
lot and the model even likes him a lot too,
despite their age. The interesting part with Krosskey Merritt, though,
is that he also had a worse breakout score than
those other guys did. Breakout scores determined by age and
schedule adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt, and Krosskey
Merritts is just twenty seven point six. That's out of
one hundred Tyrone Tracy was at ninety eight because he
(05:27):
played wide receiver in college.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
RJ.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Harvey was over fifty woody marks about seventy nine. Andre
Ellington is the only player in this subset who also
didn't have a great breakout score. Now, the good news
for Krosskey Merriot is that a lot of his more
secondary numbers that the model doesn't include they look pretty good.
His explosive run rate is good, his yards after contact
per attempt is elite. If those numbers weren't good, I'd
(05:52):
be out. But with Day three picks, like I've said
all summer, and like I said in the newsletter, we
often just need an ambiguous backfield, and that's what we
have with Washington and with Krossky Merrit, which is why
he can still be targeted just don't be shocked if
this goes south, because he'll need to be somewhat of
an outlier to be a fantasy football stud. This is
(06:13):
all why I've kind of just been at market with
him rather than well above it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Now. I know Jacoby Myers is wanting a new contract.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
There's a lot of stuff going on off the field,
but I found this next trend really interesting. I have
an average draft position database that goes back to twenty fourteen.
I use that historical data to see the number of
points we'd expect a player to score at a certain ADP.
So if he's a fiftieth overall pick and he plays
wide receiver, he'd be expected, based on history, to score
x number of points per game. Jacoby Myers has now
(06:44):
been drafted for four seasons twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two,
twenty twenty three, and twenty twenty four. I guess five
if you.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Count this year.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
He outplayed his average draft position expectation by point five
PPR points per game in twenty twenty one. In twenty
twenty two, though, he outplayed expectation by four point six
points per game. In twenty twenty three, he did it
again by four and a half points per game, and
then last year it was by five point seven points
per game. Now, he's never given us a monster ceiling,
(07:14):
but Jakobe Meyers has been really undervalued by the market,
not basically every single year that he's been relevant in
fantasy football. We'll see what happens here in twenty twenty five.
We saw a running back renaissance last year, and while
I do think a lot of that in fantasy football
had to do with the health of running backs, and
I talked about that at the start of the offseason
on episode nine to sixty six, we also have to
(07:35):
recognize an NFL wide macro trend. Pass rates are decreasing.
From twenty eleven to twenty twenty, the average pass rate
was around fifty six point seven percent. That's on pass
and rush attempts. Over the last four years, that's progressively
gotten lower. It's gotten from fifty six point three percent
in twenty twenty one, to fifty five percent in twenty
(07:56):
twenty two, to fifty five point six percent in twenty
twenty three, but the last year it was fifty four
point eight percent. That was by far the lowest pass
rate of any season since at least twenty eleven. It's
gonna be interesting to see if offenses still operate the
same way here in twenty twenty five. It's definitely something
to keep in mind and to watch.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
That wasn't really in or out on Mike Evans this year,
but one thing is clear when you watch his twenty
twenty four season and you look at the underlying metrics,
He's still really good at football. Evans finished last year
with a yards proute run rate of two point four
to one that was actually the best rate of his
entire career. He saw a target on twenty six percent
of his routes run. Only two wide receivers had a
(08:41):
better yards per rout run rate and year ten or
later of their NFL career since twenty eleven, and Kwan
Bolden in twenty thirteen that was year eleven for him,
and then Andre Johnson in twenty twelve, which was year ten.
In twenty fourteen the following year, and Kwan Bolden finishes
the wide receiver twenty three and PPR points per game.
He dropped from wide receiver sixteen, so he was still
(09:03):
plenty usable, though he did see a dip in production.
Andre Johnson from twenty twelve to twenty thirteen went from
the wide receiver five to the wide receiver ten. So
Evans has already proven to be an outlier. I wouldn't
count him out just yet. The Browns backfield is just
one giant question mark right now. You've got Jerome Ford,
(09:25):
who's been there, and then there's Dylan Samson. They recently
added one of my pre draft favorites and Rocket Sanders.
But there's optimism right now surrounding quin Shawn Judkins finally
signing his contract. The one thing that's been stuck in
my mind is the fact that Cleveland's not going to
be very good this year. They'll likely face a lot
of negative game scripts. And the player who led them
in long down and distance snaps and two minute snaps
(09:48):
last year according to Fantasy Life data, was Jerome Ford.
The player in second on that team was Pierre Strong.
Strong is no longer a Cleveland brown Both Judkins and
Samson don't have like unbelievable pass catching profiles according to
zap model, and they're also rookies. In turn, I ended
(10:08):
up drafting a decent amount of Ford late in Bestball
drafts this summer as a cheap PPR option, but I'm
gonna be very interested to see how they deploy him
if and when those negative game scripts hit.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He might end up being a.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Very easy to acquire option in PPR formats, though I
do still prefer Dylan Samson as the upside option. When
you look at the wide receivers who ranked in the
top ten last year in air yard share, you get
only top thirty wide receivers by adp aj Brown, Elague Neighbors,
Courtland Sutton, Calvin Ridley, George Pickens, Marvin Harrison, DK Metcalf,
(10:43):
Mike Evans, and Terry McLaurin except for one player, Rashid Shahed.
Shaheed was added as a late round dart throw to
the Late Round Draft Guide because he's seemingly healthy and
he's just a really underrated player. He had a twenty
two and a half percent target shapper game rate through
six games last year, his yards per out run was
over two yards, and the averaged almost thirteen PPR points
(11:05):
per game. Now, people may be down on him because
of the situation in New Orleans, but at least we've
got Kellen Moore coaching that team now and during his
five seasons as an offensive coordinator, his team's never finished
with fewer than sixty.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Five plays per game. They play at a fast pace.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
The average plays per game last year in the NFL
was sixty two point two more as well. Above that
as his baseline, I think Shaheed could finish as a
wide receiver three this year. He's been a value in drafts.
Our squared essentially tells us how well one thing explains
another thing. As I say in the Late Round Draft Guide,
(11:41):
it's almost like how much credit should we give this
variable score? And our square of one or one hundred
percent means there's flawless correlation, and our square of zero
means that there's none. Dating back to twenty fourteen, and
this is a chart in the Late Round Draft Guide too,
but dating back to twenty fourteen, I've looked at how
well a verge draft position explains points per game at
(12:02):
each position in fantasy football, and with quarterbacks, we've seen
quite a shift over the last five years, largely thanks
to the predictability of rushing. But from twenty fourteen to
twenty nineteen, when looking at top twenty four quarterbacks by ADP,
we had our squared values of twenty four percent, zero percent,
twenty nine percent, five percent, eleven percent, and two percent.
(12:24):
That's looking at top twenty four quarterbacks by ADP versus
actual points per game scored over the last five years,
though those numbers have jumped to forty seven percent, fifty
five percent, thirty five percent, twenty seven percent, and twenty
four percent.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
That's because the same quarterbacks are.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Giving us high end output that wasn't always the case
in fantasy football. So I'm bringing this up because number one,
it's a trend quarterback has gotten more predictable.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
But number two, the.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Position is really deep this year and I'm really curious
to see what the R squared value is going to
look like at the end of the season. The last
trend this week is another one straight from the Draft Guide.
Since twenty fourteen, among top eighteen running backs by ADP
previous season receiving points per game has been pretty predictive.
(13:13):
In fact, when you remove Derek Henry from the data
set because he's such a freaking anomaly of a human being,
We've had thirteen running backs draft in the top eighteen
at the position with a previous season receiving points per
game so PPR points on receptions. Only thirteen running backs
with receiving points per game of zero to three.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
None of those players.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Outpaced their average draft position expectation by even two points
per game. Every other subset three to five receiving points
in the previous season, five to seven points, and seven
or more points.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Each one of those.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Subsets outplayed expectation by two or more points per game
by at least a twenty nine percent rate. Now, I
don't want to ever bet against Jonathan Taylor, so I
didn't even do that this year, even if I was
slightly underweight. Last year, Taylor was at two point seven
receiving points per game. That's just something to think about.
(14:07):
That's it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of
you for listening. If you had subscribed to the Late
Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by stretching
for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found in
different to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky
at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll talk
to you tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show.
This is the lad podcast with your host JJ Zacherasa
Jay Jake Zacher Reason. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar
Esen in this episode oney twelve of the Late Round
Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Football season starts this week, and there's no better way
to lock in your fantasy dominance than with Best Ball
in DraftKings, where you draft once in Roger Roster all
season long, and right now, DraftKings giving all customers it
can't miss offer Draft one, Get one enter a lineup
in the fifteen million dollars Best Ball contest for just
twenty dollars. You'll score another Best Ball ticket to play
free for a share of that fifteen million, giving you
(00:42):
a second shot to win big.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's easy.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Just draft your dream team once, no weekly management required,
and let your top scorers automatically start each week across
the whole season. Every breakout start, every clutch play, every
touchdown will count toward your quest for a share of
fifteen million dollars. So download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app
now to draft your twenty dollars best Ball lineup to
play for a share of fifteen million dollars and get
a second ticket to play free for a share of
(01:05):
that fifteen million. That's two chances to win big without
ever setting your lineup again. Draft one get one only
on DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one
hundred Gambler New York call eight seven seven eight hope
en Yer Tex Hope NY to four six seven three
six nine and Connecticut. Help is available from Problem Gambling
Call eighty eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven
or visits CCPG dot org eighteen plus most eligible states,
(01:27):
but age varies by jurisdiction.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Eligibilia stritionans apply void we.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Are a prohibited one per customer and to the Best
Ball fifteen million dollars Headliner contests by nine four to
twenty five to get one bonus entry twenty dollars in free.
Required reward expires in thirty days. CEE terms at DraftKings
dot com. Slash NFL dash Best Dashball sponsored by DK.
This ten Trends episode is the shortest one that you'll
listen to Each week. I come prepared with ten statistical
(01:51):
nuggets that are either actionable or just informative, and hopefully
you walk away with a little better understanding of the
fantasy football landscape since the season had asn't started. I'll
be giving ten trends this week that stem from previous seasons,
so let's do it. The first trends about the Green
Bay Packers offense last season. They finished the year ranked
(02:12):
thirtieth and pass rate fewer than forty eight percent of
their pass in rush attempts ended up being a pass,
meaning they ran it more than they threw it. Under
Matt Laflor's lead. For five seasons prior to last year,
the Packers never had a pass rate below fifty four percent,
and in particular, their neutral script rate, which I define
as plays run in the first three quarters of games
(02:32):
when the scores within a six point margin. They've been third, thirteenth, fifth, eighteenth, fourteenth,
and then thirty second in neutral script ratio. I'm anticipating
more passing for the Packers this year, which should help
the whole offense in fantasy football. Even Josh Jacobs should
be okay because they'll see an uptick in overall targets.
(02:54):
It's an offense worth investing in. They've been top ten
and touchdowns per game in all but one season. Under
the floor and in that one season they ranked fourteenth.
Brian Thomas was a monster last year. If you read
the Late Round Prospect Guide this offseason, then you saw
just how good his year two score looked. In that
year two model, his yards per ute run was elite,
(03:15):
especially for a rookie. He saw target on twenty five
percent of his routes run and he did that all while.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Mostly playing a perimeter role.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Here's some more context of just how good Brian Thomas's
rookie season was. He's one of just three rookie wide
receivers who finished that first year with at least a
twenty percent target year per game rate and averaged up
the target over eleven yards. Thomas's was aut eleven point
nine and a yards after the catch per reception above
six and this is since twenty eleven. So they were
(03:43):
getting down the field but still doing a good bit
of work after the catch, and they were seeing a
lot of volume.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
The other two wide.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Receivers who hit these marks Jamar Chase and Julio Jones.
I talked about Chris Rodriguez on yesterday's fifteen Transactions episode,
and I briefly mentioned how I do have Jacory krossky
Merritt as the top running back in that backfield. Now
that's largely due to ambiguity. We've gotten a sample of
(04:10):
Rodriguez in the NFL and Austin Eckler, while a value
in drafts, he's thirty years old. I'd want to throw
that dart at the young unknown asset. With that being
said Bill krossky Merrit, he's definitely a unique prospect. The
ZAP model database includes all running backs who are either
drafted or at the NFL combine since twenty eleven. Sometimes,
(04:32):
like Jacory krossky Merrit, you get players who are drafted
but not at the combine. In that database, only twenty
one running backs were entering the NFL past their twenty
fourth birthday.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Now we've gotten more of.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Them in recent years due to the pandemic and due
to transfer rules. But the only player in that group
who's given us a PPR point per game season above
twelve is Andre Ellington, and he did it once. Now again,
like I said, we've gotten more and more of these
types of players. These older prospects, Tyrone, Tracy RJ Harvey,
Ray Davis Woody marks players that I genuinely like a
(05:05):
lot and the model even likes him a lot too,
despite their age. The interesting part with Krosskey Merritt, though,
is that he also had a worse breakout score than
those other guys did. Breakout scores determined by age and
schedule adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt, and Krosskey
Merritts is just twenty seven point six. That's out of
one hundred Tyrone Tracy was at ninety eight because he
(05:27):
played wide receiver in college.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
RJ.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Harvey was over fifty woody marks about seventy nine. Andre
Ellington is the only player in this subset who also
didn't have a great breakout score. Now, the good news
for Krosskey Merriot is that a lot of his more
secondary numbers that the model doesn't include they look pretty good.
His explosive run rate is good, his yards after contact
per attempt is elite. If those numbers weren't good, I'd
(05:52):
be out. But with Day three picks, like I've said
all summer, and like I said in the newsletter, we
often just need an ambiguous backfield, and that's what we
have with Washington and with Krossky Merrit, which is why
he can still be targeted just don't be shocked if
this goes south, because he'll need to be somewhat of
an outlier to be a fantasy football stud. This is
(06:13):
all why I've kind of just been at market with
him rather than well above it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Now. I know Jacoby Myers is wanting a new contract.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
There's a lot of stuff going on off the field,
but I found this next trend really interesting. I have
an average draft position database that goes back to twenty fourteen.
I use that historical data to see the number of
points we'd expect a player to score at a certain ADP.
So if he's a fiftieth overall pick and he plays
wide receiver, he'd be expected, based on history, to score
x number of points per game. Jacoby Myers has now
(06:44):
been drafted for four seasons twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two,
twenty twenty three, and twenty twenty four. I guess five
if you.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Count this year.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
He outplayed his average draft position expectation by point five
PPR points per game in twenty twenty one. In twenty
twenty two, though, he outplayed expectation by four point six
points per game. In twenty twenty three, he did it
again by four and a half points per game, and
then last year it was by five point seven points
per game. Now, he's never given us a monster ceiling,
(07:14):
but Jakobe Meyers has been really undervalued by the market,
not basically every single year that he's been relevant in
fantasy football. We'll see what happens here in twenty twenty five.
We saw a running back renaissance last year, and while
I do think a lot of that in fantasy football
had to do with the health of running backs, and
I talked about that at the start of the offseason
on episode nine to sixty six, we also have to
(07:35):
recognize an NFL wide macro trend. Pass rates are decreasing.
From twenty eleven to twenty twenty, the average pass rate
was around fifty six point seven percent. That's on pass
and rush attempts. Over the last four years, that's progressively
gotten lower. It's gotten from fifty six point three percent
in twenty twenty one, to fifty five percent in twenty
(07:56):
twenty two, to fifty five point six percent in twenty
twenty three, but the last year it was fifty four
point eight percent. That was by far the lowest pass
rate of any season since at least twenty eleven. It's
gonna be interesting to see if offenses still operate the
same way here in twenty twenty five. It's definitely something
to keep in mind and to watch.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
That wasn't really in or out on Mike Evans this year,
but one thing is clear when you watch his twenty
twenty four season and you look at the underlying metrics,
He's still really good at football. Evans finished last year
with a yards proute run rate of two point four
to one that was actually the best rate of his
entire career. He saw a target on twenty six percent
of his routes run. Only two wide receivers had a
(08:41):
better yards per rout run rate and year ten or
later of their NFL career since twenty eleven, and Kwan
Bolden in twenty thirteen that was year eleven for him,
and then Andre Johnson in twenty twelve, which was year ten.
In twenty fourteen the following year, and Kwan Bolden finishes
the wide receiver twenty three and PPR points per game.
He dropped from wide receiver sixteen, so he was still
(09:03):
plenty usable, though he did see a dip in production.
Andre Johnson from twenty twelve to twenty thirteen went from
the wide receiver five to the wide receiver ten. So
Evans has already proven to be an outlier. I wouldn't
count him out just yet. The Browns backfield is just
one giant question mark right now. You've got Jerome Ford,
(09:25):
who's been there, and then there's Dylan Samson. They recently
added one of my pre draft favorites and Rocket Sanders.
But there's optimism right now surrounding quin Shawn Judkins finally
signing his contract. The one thing that's been stuck in
my mind is the fact that Cleveland's not going to
be very good this year. They'll likely face a lot
of negative game scripts. And the player who led them
in long down and distance snaps and two minute snaps
(09:48):
last year according to Fantasy Life data, was Jerome Ford.
The player in second on that team was Pierre Strong.
Strong is no longer a Cleveland brown Both Judkins and
Samson don't have like unbelievable pass catching profiles according to
zap model, and they're also rookies. In turn, I ended
(10:08):
up drafting a decent amount of Ford late in Bestball
drafts this summer as a cheap PPR option, but I'm
gonna be very interested to see how they deploy him
if and when those negative game scripts hit.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He might end up being a.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Very easy to acquire option in PPR formats, though I
do still prefer Dylan Samson as the upside option. When
you look at the wide receivers who ranked in the
top ten last year in air yard share, you get
only top thirty wide receivers by adp aj Brown, Elague Neighbors,
Courtland Sutton, Calvin Ridley, George Pickens, Marvin Harrison, DK Metcalf,
(10:43):
Mike Evans, and Terry McLaurin except for one player, Rashid Shahed.
Shaheed was added as a late round dart throw to
the Late Round Draft Guide because he's seemingly healthy and
he's just a really underrated player. He had a twenty
two and a half percent target shapper game rate through
six games last year, his yards per out run was
over two yards, and the averaged almost thirteen PPR points
(11:05):
per game. Now, people may be down on him because
of the situation in New Orleans, but at least we've
got Kellen Moore coaching that team now and during his
five seasons as an offensive coordinator, his team's never finished
with fewer than sixty.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Five plays per game. They play at a fast pace.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
The average plays per game last year in the NFL
was sixty two point two more as well. Above that
as his baseline, I think Shaheed could finish as a
wide receiver three this year. He's been a value in drafts.
Our squared essentially tells us how well one thing explains
another thing. As I say in the Late Round Draft Guide,
(11:41):
it's almost like how much credit should we give this
variable score? And our square of one or one hundred
percent means there's flawless correlation, and our square of zero
means that there's none. Dating back to twenty fourteen, and
this is a chart in the Late Round Draft Guide too,
but dating back to twenty fourteen, I've looked at how
well a verge draft position explains points per game at
(12:02):
each position in fantasy football, and with quarterbacks, we've seen
quite a shift over the last five years, largely thanks
to the predictability of rushing. But from twenty fourteen to
twenty nineteen, when looking at top twenty four quarterbacks by ADP,
we had our squared values of twenty four percent, zero percent,
twenty nine percent, five percent, eleven percent, and two percent.
(12:24):
That's looking at top twenty four quarterbacks by ADP versus
actual points per game scored over the last five years,
though those numbers have jumped to forty seven percent, fifty
five percent, thirty five percent, twenty seven percent, and twenty
four percent.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
That's because the same quarterbacks are.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Giving us high end output that wasn't always the case
in fantasy football. So I'm bringing this up because number one,
it's a trend quarterback has gotten more predictable.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
But number two, the.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Position is really deep this year and I'm really curious
to see what the R squared value is going to
look like at the end of the season. The last
trend this week is another one straight from the Draft Guide.
Since twenty fourteen, among top eighteen running backs by ADP
previous season receiving points per game has been pretty predictive.
(13:13):
In fact, when you remove Derek Henry from the data
set because he's such a freaking anomaly of a human being,
We've had thirteen running backs draft in the top eighteen
at the position with a previous season receiving points per
game so PPR points on receptions. Only thirteen running backs
with receiving points per game of zero to three.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
None of those players.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Outpaced their average draft position expectation by even two points
per game. Every other subset three to five receiving points
in the previous season, five to seven points, and seven
or more points.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Each one of those.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Subsets outplayed expectation by two or more points per game
by at least a twenty nine percent rate. Now, I
don't want to ever bet against Jonathan Taylor, so I
didn't even do that this year, even if I was
slightly underweight. Last year, Taylor was at two point seven
receiving points per game. That's just something to think about.
(14:07):
That's it for today's show, though, Thanks to all of
you for listening. If you had subscribed to the Late
Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by stretching
for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found in
different to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky
at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll talk
to you tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show.
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