October 1, 2025 • 11 mins
JJ talks about Kendre Miller's recent usage, the Pittsburgh passing attack, Ja'Marr Chase, and more on this week's 10 Trends episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha,
j J Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen
in this episode ten to twenty eight of the Late
Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in.
There's no better way to get closer to the action.
(00:23):
With DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans.
New customers can play free for their share of millions
and prizes with their first a positive five dollars or more.
Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code
Late Round to play free for your share of millions.
The Crown is yours gambling problem called one hundred Gambler,
New York call eight seven seven eight hope, n Why
(00:44):
and Connecticut call eighty eight seven eight nine seven seven
seven seven eighteen plus and most states. Eligibility church is
supply ends December thirty first See terms at DraftKings dot com.
Slash promotions. It's a ten trends day, Let's do it.
Hendre Miller was almost a transaction on yesterday's show, but
I went against it because it wasn't as pressing as
(01:06):
some of the other things that I wanted to talk about,
But Miller's an interesting player right now in fantasy football.
Things are trending in the right direction for him. His
snapsharees have gone from thirteen percent to sixteen percent, to
twenty seven percent, and then to thirty three percent over
the course of the season, and he's been slowly seeing
higher running back rush shares in that Saints offense too.
(01:26):
So far this year, he has pretty comparable success rate
in yards over expected per rush numbers as Alvin Kamara. Now,
I don't know if we're gonna get a lot of
usability for Miller without a Kamara injury, but maybe you
get some flex appeal in deeper formats. But that's really
why I didn't talk about him. I don't know what
this usability really might look like, but he at least
(01:46):
is seeing a little bit more work and that's noteworthy
for this trend's episode. Another player I could have called
out on yesterday show is Isaiah Bond. Cedric Tillman's banged up,
so Bond should get more run in this Brown's offense
because of that Tilman injury. Bond ran around in seventy
one percent of Cleveland's dropbacks in Week four. He saw
a career high nineteen percent target share. He's now seen
(02:09):
his route share, his targets per out, run rate, and
his target share rise every week this season. Bond was
someone the Zap model really liked, but he went undrafted
because of off the field issues. He should be on
your radar though. Because of this Cedric Tillman Hammy Drake,
London finally had a big performance. He scored twenty five
(02:30):
pper points against the Commanders. He had a thirty eight
and a half percent target share. He did everything in
that game. Some of you might be wondering if there
was an actual change that took place for London, something
that sparked this, and I would say yes, there was.
Number One, he saw his highest average at the target
of the season at twelve point two yards, so that
was good. But number two, he ran half of his
(02:52):
routes in Week four from the slot. In Week three
his slot rate was eighteen point six percent. That's according
to PFF, the Falcons used London the slot on thirty
nine percent of his routes last season. That was a
career high. He'd been in the twenty to twenty five
percent range during his first two years and last year
London saw a two point five to seven yards per
(03:13):
route run rate out of the slot. When he lined
up on the outside, that number fell to two point
one five, which is still really good. But Drake London,
he can work that slot area to our benefit. This
is something to watch. It's really good to see them
move him around after that really bad Falcons offensive performance
in Week three. Jamar Chase is a Jake Browning problem.
(03:38):
I mean, the entire Cincinnati Bengals offense does. When doing
my rest of season rankings this week, I was shocked
to see how high other rankers had Jamar Chase. It's
pretty clear he's not going to be close to the
player that we drafted him to be, and really it's
not his fault. Jake Browning has now started nine games
for the Bengals dating back to twenty twenty three. Jamar
(04:00):
Chase has played an eight of them. In those games, Actually,
you know what, let me tell you about Chase outside
of those games. First, when he hasn't played with Jake
Browning since twenty twenty three, Jamar Chase has averaged twenty
two PPR points per game. He's an absolute monster. His
target share per game rate is about twenty eight percent
in those contests. Now with Jake Browning eight games. With
(04:24):
Jake Browning, his PPR points per game average goes from
twenty two points to eleven point two. His target share
falls about twenty three point four percent. I mean, guys,
this is a huge problem. We knew it would be
an issue, but it's become a legit issue. I don't
think we can simply look at Jamar Chase as something
(04:45):
that we're starting no matter what, even if he's one
of the best wide receivers in the game. At this point,
you have to take it week by week. One player
I'm excited to watch moving forward is Elijah Royo. Against
the Cardinals on Thursday Night last week, the rookie saw
season and career high sixty one percent route share and
(05:06):
his target share was seventeen percent. I wrote up Arroyo
as a dart in the Draft Guide this year, mostly
as a player to watch out for. As the season
gets going, we were gonna learn a little something about
their tight end deployment and how the Seahawks wanted to
run that offense pretty early in the season, and we're
starting to learn that. I think the Seahawks offense has
been better than expected for the most part. Sam Darnold's
(05:27):
playing pretty well, and Elijah Arroyo is a better prospect
of more athletic prospect with more pass catching upside than
AJ Barner, so don't sleep on Arroyo. He honestly could
be added in deeper formats this week in that same
game as Elijah Arroyo. Last week was Trey Benson. Let's
(05:48):
talk about him for a minute because last week was
the first time that he operated as Arizona's bellcal since
James Connor's injury. Benson only played eleven more snaps than
Amari de Mercado in Week four. Heally ran f I
have more routes, and that's largely due to the fact,
according to Fantasy Life data, de Mercado played ninety three
percent of Arizonas long down in distance snaps that allowed
(06:10):
him to find the end zone at the end of
the game, tilting Benson fantasy managers to outer space. But
Benson still had okay usage. I know he only had
eight rush attempts, but that game didn't really allow the
Cardinals to establish it. Those eight rushes accounted for over
seventy two percent of Arizona's running back rushes and Benson.
Despite losing something that receiving work to De Marcado, he
(06:33):
still had five targets in a twelve and a half
percent target share. Benson looked like an RB two in
Fantasy football. Better game scripts should allow Trey Benson to
shine in fantasy. I think he's more of a hold
right now and possibly even a bye if his manager
is scared about how Week four went down. And keep
in mind, we could see that positive game script for
(06:53):
Benson as soon as this week because they faced the Titans.
I mentioned yesterday how Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers aren't
putting a lot of air under the ball when talking
about DK Metcalf, and honestly, they've been even more conservative
throwing it down the field than you probably realize. Aaron
Rodgers deep ball rate is one of the lowest in
the league, but his average depth of target is what's wildest.
(07:16):
It's currently five point one. That's the lowest among relevant
passers by almost a yard. And since twenty eleven, no
quarterback with three hundred or more pass attempts has finished
the season with an AID DOT of five point nine
yards or lower. Alex Smith did that in twenty fourteen.
This low a DOT is being driven by a twenty
eight percent running back target share that's the second highest
(07:39):
in football behind only San Francisco, and the Steelers don't
have Christian McCaffrey. The Steelers have also targeted their wide
receivers at the lowest rate in the league. Now, I'd
expect some of this to regress, but it's not a
very fun offense for fantasy football outside of their pass
catching running backs. The quarterback I've been higher on versus
(08:01):
the market over the last couple of weeks is Patrick Mahomes.
I just feel like he's not getting nearly enough love
for what he's doing in fantasy football. To start the season,
Mahomes now has three games with twenty or more standard
fantasy points, so that's three out of a possible four games.
Last season, he only had four to twenty plus point
games across sixteen regular season contests, and one reason for
(08:25):
that is that he's pushing the ball down the field more.
Mahomes hasn't been above a seven point seven average at
the target in each of his last four seasons. Over
the last two he's been below a seven yard a DOT.
This year. That average at the target is back up
to eight point one yards. His rate of throwing at
twenty or more air yards. It's above average compared to
other NFL quarterbacks. With Rashi Rice set to return soon,
(08:48):
Mahomes should be a really solid fantasy asset from here
on out. James Cook keeps scoring touchdowns after everyone screamed regression,
but he's also seeing a bigger workload this year than
he has in the past. He said running back rush
yares of eighty six percent and ninety two percent over
his last two games. Those are two top five running
(09:09):
back rush air numbers of his entire career. Now, it
should be noted that offensive coordinator Joe Brady came out
earlier this week and he said, quote, we want him
to be playing in December and January. I've got to
be smart. We have too good of a running back
room for him to be the only one toting the rock.
We were at our best last year when everybody was rolling.
(09:31):
Ray Davis needs more playing time. Now we'll see if
that comes to fruition. But Cook through four games has
an eighty percent running back rush are per game rate
and an eleven percent target share. His highest running back
rush are finished in the season during his three years
in the league is sixty two percent. His best target
share is nine point nine percent, So James Cook's backfield
(09:54):
numbers are way better than we've ever seen. A whole
lot of things are coming together for Cook right now
to make this domin in Fantasy football force. And he's
also playing lights out, which helps. This is just something
a monitor keep using him as your RB one. He's
someone who somehow keeps being ranked way below where I
have him rest of season. I'm a firm believer of
(10:15):
the talent. At this point. I don't know how you
couldn't be the last trend. This week's runs a player
I actually liked entering the season, and that's Stefan Diggs.
It seems like it hasn't been talked about a lot,
but dis had a really really big Week four outing
on a lot of levels. He scored sixteen point one
PPR points. That's a season high. He also saw a
(10:36):
ridiculous forty one percent target share. Now that's not totally
gonna maintain. He's not gonna have a forty one percent
target share each and every week. But what I like
to see is that the Patriots finally started using him
like a normal wide receiver. His route shares in weeks
two and three were fifty eight percent and fifty five percent.
In week four it was back up to eighty two percent.
(10:58):
Now I'm hoping that New England is playing it slow
because of his ACL recovery, which would make plenty of sense.
Hopefully we get to see more of what we saw
in week four moving forward. That's it for today's show, though,
thanks to all of you for listening. If you get
subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure
you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast
can be found, and follow me on Twitter and on
(11:20):
Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone,
I'll catch you tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show
This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha,
j J Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zachar Esen
in this episode ten to twenty eight of the Late
Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thanks for tuning in.
There's no better way to get closer to the action.
(00:23):
With DraftKings Daily Fantasy, the ultimate destination for football fans.
New customers can play free for their share of millions
and prizes with their first a positive five dollars or more.
Download the DraftKings Daily Fantasy app and enter promo code
Late Round to play free for your share of millions.
The Crown is yours gambling problem called one hundred Gambler,
New York call eight seven seven eight hope, n Why
(00:44):
and Connecticut call eighty eight seven eight nine seven seven
seven seven eighteen plus and most states. Eligibility church is
supply ends December thirty first See terms at DraftKings dot com.
Slash promotions. It's a ten trends day, Let's do it.
Hendre Miller was almost a transaction on yesterday's show, but
I went against it because it wasn't as pressing as
(01:06):
some of the other things that I wanted to talk about,
But Miller's an interesting player right now in fantasy football.
Things are trending in the right direction for him. His
snapsharees have gone from thirteen percent to sixteen percent, to
twenty seven percent, and then to thirty three percent over
the course of the season, and he's been slowly seeing
higher running back rush shares in that Saints offense too.
(01:26):
So far this year, he has pretty comparable success rate
in yards over expected per rush numbers as Alvin Kamara. Now,
I don't know if we're gonna get a lot of
usability for Miller without a Kamara injury, but maybe you
get some flex appeal in deeper formats. But that's really
why I didn't talk about him. I don't know what
this usability really might look like, but he at least
(01:46):
is seeing a little bit more work and that's noteworthy
for this trend's episode. Another player I could have called
out on yesterday show is Isaiah Bond. Cedric Tillman's banged up,
so Bond should get more run in this Brown's offense
because of that Tilman injury. Bond ran around in seventy
one percent of Cleveland's dropbacks in Week four. He saw
a career high nineteen percent target share. He's now seen
(02:09):
his route share, his targets per out, run rate, and
his target share rise every week this season. Bond was
someone the Zap model really liked, but he went undrafted
because of off the field issues. He should be on
your radar though. Because of this Cedric Tillman Hammy Drake,
London finally had a big performance. He scored twenty five
(02:30):
pper points against the Commanders. He had a thirty eight
and a half percent target share. He did everything in
that game. Some of you might be wondering if there
was an actual change that took place for London, something
that sparked this, and I would say yes, there was.
Number One, he saw his highest average at the target
of the season at twelve point two yards, so that
was good. But number two, he ran half of his
(02:52):
routes in Week four from the slot. In Week three
his slot rate was eighteen point six percent. That's according
to PFF, the Falcons used London the slot on thirty
nine percent of his routes last season. That was a
career high. He'd been in the twenty to twenty five
percent range during his first two years and last year
London saw a two point five to seven yards per
(03:13):
route run rate out of the slot. When he lined
up on the outside, that number fell to two point
one five, which is still really good. But Drake London,
he can work that slot area to our benefit. This
is something to watch. It's really good to see them
move him around after that really bad Falcons offensive performance
in Week three. Jamar Chase is a Jake Browning problem.
(03:38):
I mean, the entire Cincinnati Bengals offense does. When doing
my rest of season rankings this week, I was shocked
to see how high other rankers had Jamar Chase. It's
pretty clear he's not going to be close to the
player that we drafted him to be, and really it's
not his fault. Jake Browning has now started nine games
for the Bengals dating back to twenty twenty three. Jamar
(04:00):
Chase has played an eight of them. In those games, Actually,
you know what, let me tell you about Chase outside
of those games. First, when he hasn't played with Jake
Browning since twenty twenty three, Jamar Chase has averaged twenty
two PPR points per game. He's an absolute monster. His
target share per game rate is about twenty eight percent
in those contests. Now with Jake Browning eight games. With
(04:24):
Jake Browning, his PPR points per game average goes from
twenty two points to eleven point two. His target share
falls about twenty three point four percent. I mean, guys,
this is a huge problem. We knew it would be
an issue, but it's become a legit issue. I don't
think we can simply look at Jamar Chase as something
(04:45):
that we're starting no matter what, even if he's one
of the best wide receivers in the game. At this point,
you have to take it week by week. One player
I'm excited to watch moving forward is Elijah Royo. Against
the Cardinals on Thursday Night last week, the rookie saw
season and career high sixty one percent route share and
(05:06):
his target share was seventeen percent. I wrote up Arroyo
as a dart in the Draft Guide this year, mostly
as a player to watch out for. As the season
gets going, we were gonna learn a little something about
their tight end deployment and how the Seahawks wanted to
run that offense pretty early in the season, and we're
starting to learn that. I think the Seahawks offense has
been better than expected for the most part. Sam Darnold's
(05:27):
playing pretty well, and Elijah Arroyo is a better prospect
of more athletic prospect with more pass catching upside than
AJ Barner, so don't sleep on Arroyo. He honestly could
be added in deeper formats this week in that same
game as Elijah Arroyo. Last week was Trey Benson. Let's
(05:48):
talk about him for a minute because last week was
the first time that he operated as Arizona's bellcal since
James Connor's injury. Benson only played eleven more snaps than
Amari de Mercado in Week four. Heally ran f I
have more routes, and that's largely due to the fact,
according to Fantasy Life data, de Mercado played ninety three
percent of Arizonas long down in distance snaps that allowed
(06:10):
him to find the end zone at the end of
the game, tilting Benson fantasy managers to outer space. But
Benson still had okay usage. I know he only had
eight rush attempts, but that game didn't really allow the
Cardinals to establish it. Those eight rushes accounted for over
seventy two percent of Arizona's running back rushes and Benson.
Despite losing something that receiving work to De Marcado, he
(06:33):
still had five targets in a twelve and a half
percent target share. Benson looked like an RB two in
Fantasy football. Better game scripts should allow Trey Benson to
shine in fantasy. I think he's more of a hold
right now and possibly even a bye if his manager
is scared about how Week four went down. And keep
in mind, we could see that positive game script for
(06:53):
Benson as soon as this week because they faced the Titans.
I mentioned yesterday how Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers aren't
putting a lot of air under the ball when talking
about DK Metcalf, and honestly, they've been even more conservative
throwing it down the field than you probably realize. Aaron
Rodgers deep ball rate is one of the lowest in
the league, but his average depth of target is what's wildest.
(07:16):
It's currently five point one. That's the lowest among relevant
passers by almost a yard. And since twenty eleven, no
quarterback with three hundred or more pass attempts has finished
the season with an AID DOT of five point nine
yards or lower. Alex Smith did that in twenty fourteen.
This low a DOT is being driven by a twenty
eight percent running back target share that's the second highest
(07:39):
in football behind only San Francisco, and the Steelers don't
have Christian McCaffrey. The Steelers have also targeted their wide
receivers at the lowest rate in the league. Now, I'd
expect some of this to regress, but it's not a
very fun offense for fantasy football outside of their pass
catching running backs. The quarterback I've been higher on versus
(08:01):
the market over the last couple of weeks is Patrick Mahomes.
I just feel like he's not getting nearly enough love
for what he's doing in fantasy football. To start the season,
Mahomes now has three games with twenty or more standard
fantasy points, so that's three out of a possible four games.
Last season, he only had four to twenty plus point
games across sixteen regular season contests, and one reason for
(08:25):
that is that he's pushing the ball down the field more.
Mahomes hasn't been above a seven point seven average at
the target in each of his last four seasons. Over
the last two he's been below a seven yard a DOT.
This year. That average at the target is back up
to eight point one yards. His rate of throwing at
twenty or more air yards. It's above average compared to
other NFL quarterbacks. With Rashi Rice set to return soon,
(08:48):
Mahomes should be a really solid fantasy asset from here
on out. James Cook keeps scoring touchdowns after everyone screamed regression,
but he's also seeing a bigger workload this year than
he has in the past. He said running back rush
yares of eighty six percent and ninety two percent over
his last two games. Those are two top five running
(09:09):
back rush air numbers of his entire career. Now, it
should be noted that offensive coordinator Joe Brady came out
earlier this week and he said, quote, we want him
to be playing in December and January. I've got to
be smart. We have too good of a running back
room for him to be the only one toting the rock.
We were at our best last year when everybody was rolling.
(09:31):
Ray Davis needs more playing time. Now we'll see if
that comes to fruition. But Cook through four games has
an eighty percent running back rush are per game rate
and an eleven percent target share. His highest running back
rush are finished in the season during his three years
in the league is sixty two percent. His best target
share is nine point nine percent, So James Cook's backfield
(09:54):
numbers are way better than we've ever seen. A whole
lot of things are coming together for Cook right now
to make this domin in Fantasy football force. And he's
also playing lights out, which helps. This is just something
a monitor keep using him as your RB one. He's
someone who somehow keeps being ranked way below where I
have him rest of season. I'm a firm believer of
(10:15):
the talent. At this point. I don't know how you
couldn't be the last trend. This week's runs a player
I actually liked entering the season, and that's Stefan Diggs.
It seems like it hasn't been talked about a lot,
but dis had a really really big Week four outing
on a lot of levels. He scored sixteen point one
PPR points. That's a season high. He also saw a
(10:36):
ridiculous forty one percent target share. Now that's not totally
gonna maintain. He's not gonna have a forty one percent
target share each and every week. But what I like
to see is that the Patriots finally started using him
like a normal wide receiver. His route shares in weeks
two and three were fifty eight percent and fifty five percent.
In week four it was back up to eighty two percent.
(10:58):
Now I'm hoping that New England is playing it slow
because of his ACL recovery, which would make plenty of sense.
Hopefully we get to see more of what we saw
in week four moving forward. That's it for today's show, though,
thanks to all of you for listening. If you get
subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure
you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast
can be found, and follow me on Twitter and on
(11:20):
Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone,
I'll catch you tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show
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