October 31, 2025 • 18 mins
Is Trey Benson a buy or a sell? What about Justin Jefferson? Which rookie wide receivers could break out during the second half of the season? JJ answers those questions -- and more -- on this week's mailbag epiosde.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha.
J J zacher reefan. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson
in this episode ten six of the Late Round Fantasy
Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thank you for tuning in.
(00:22):
There's no better way to get closer to the action.
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 in 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
in New York call eight seven seven eight hope en
(00:43):
why and Connecticut called eighty eight seventy eight nine seven
seven seventy seven eighteen plus and most states eligibiliya. Stritians
apply ends December thirty first see terms at DraftKings dot
com slash promotions. It's a mail bag day. Let's get
to these questions. The first question this week is from
NFL Bernie on Blue Sky. It says is Burshard Smith
(01:04):
still a drop in Redraft or are we holding now
because of the Isaiah Pacheco injury. Looks like Kareem Hunt
is gonna be the guy given the last game? Do
we think Kareem just takes over? So I had this
discussion with late Round Fantasy Football subscribers on my Tuesday
night live stream with them. I think this is just
a really important general outlook on fantasy football. When young,
(01:26):
up and coming and promising players have a clear path
to more opportunity, you want to lean into that. You
don't want to go away from it. We currently have
Kareem Hunt projected for the most work in that backfield
here in Week nine, and the most likely outcome this
week is that Hunt sees a huge workload that he's
way more productive. And then next week we're all sitting
(01:48):
here with the Chiefs on by, and we're saying, can
I just cut Burshard Smith to make room with my roster?
Just because that's the median outcome doesn't mean that's the
only outcome, and it doesn't mean that we should act
now before that game's even played, because what happens if
the Chiefs don't give Kareem Hunt the workload we expect?
(02:09):
What happens is Brishard Smith's. He's a little bump in
work and he's just really really good on his limited touches.
What if it tells us that it could lead to
more volume down the stretch. These types of moves in
fantasy football, they're not going to work out all the time.
In fact, they're going to fail more than they're gonna succeed.
When you're talking about someone that you're getting off the
waiver wire, who's young, who's often a rookie, and you're
(02:31):
seeing if that player can take advantage of more opportunity,
it usually won't work out, but when it does, it
can really pay dividends. I mean, look at Ronde Gatston
right now. I talked about Gadston pretty early on in
the season because he had good peripherals when he was
first active. Now, never did I think that we were
going to see this. But you take a chance on
(02:52):
talent that you like and you see where it can go.
You see where opportunity can lead itself. He had opportunity
with will Disley out and it ended up working out.
Sometimes oftentimes it won't work out. I'd say it hasn't
really worked out for someone like elk eyamanor That's just
a random example. That dude's probably been tossed around your
(03:13):
fantasy league this year. It may not work for Jalen Knowle,
maybe his workload doesn't get any better, especially with the
other wide receivers getting healthier. We see this all the time,
But if you believe in the player, you believe in
the fit, you believe in the environment, you should take
a chance on that player and at least have that
dude rostered through that potential opportunity. This is a game
(03:36):
of probability. I say it all the time, and this
is such a great example about thinking in range of outcomes.
Don't get rid of Burchard Smith now. Just because Kareem
Hunt has a better outlook in week nine doesn't automatically
mean that Smith can't improve his fantasy value from week
nine into week ten and beyond. And even if he doesn't,
(03:57):
I still think it's the right process to buy into explosive,
potentially very talented rookies. You won't regret doing that in
the long run. The sess questions from Patreon's from con
st it says, how do you view Justin Jefferson rest
of season? Would you be looking to trade him now?
It was concerning that we've only seen one good quarter
(04:18):
from JJ McCarthy and they preferred to play Wenz when
he was clearly banged up over McCarthy, who looked healthy
on the sidelines. I see guys like Rashid Rice, A
Mecha Abuka or a Roma Dounza having a better rest
of season just for the fact that they have more
capable quarterbacks throwing them the ball. I mean, Patrick Mahomes,
Baker Mayfield, sure, but to throw Roma Dunza in there
(04:40):
because of his quarterback, that's kind of crazy. Adunzay's had
a sixty three percent catchable targets rate this year on
a twenty six percent target chair. That's a cordon of
Fantasy Life data. Justin Jefferson has a seventy percent catchable
targets rate on a thirty one percent share And for
the record, at courtn of Fantasy Life data and weeks
one and two with JJ McCarthy, the seventy seven percent
(05:01):
of Jefferson's targets were deemed catchable. I love a Doonsay.
I'm heavily invested in Roma Dunsay this year. I want
him to ball out, trust me, but I don't think
he belongs in the same tier as Justin Jefferson. I'm
not really buying this soft benching narrative for JJ McCarthy either,
nor do I really want to speculate. All I want
to say is that even though McCarthy made some mistakes,
(05:23):
he had some bad throws to start the season, he
did play well during the second half of that opening
game against Chicago, and everyone's criticizing his play against Atlanta,
which I agree it was not great, but we now
know that Atlanta's only allowed one two hundred yard passer
so far this year, and it came last week, with
Tuatungue of Ailoa throwing for two hundred and five yards.
(05:45):
Justin Jefferson is beyond an elite talent. He's one of
the best wide receivers that we have literally ever seen.
Despite playing with a broken Carson Wentz, he's averaging well
over fifteen p yure points per game this season with
one touchdown. He hasn't scored since Week one. I can't
sit here and say that I'm overly bullish about JJ McCarthy.
We don't really know right now, but I'm definitely bullish
(06:08):
on the talent of Justin Jefferson and it doesn't hurt
the Minnesota and the fantasy playoffs, they get the Cowboys, Giants,
and Lions. It's hard to find a better three game
stretch than that. So I'm more in the by camp
than the Cell camp with this passing offense, in this
offense in general, Kevin O'Connell, he's one coach to feel
pretty good about. The sess questions from Patreon is from
(06:30):
Florian Sindler. It says, Hi, you think Trey Benson will
be a solid RB two after his return. So I
got a lot of questions this week about my favorite
trade targets for good fantasy teams, and honestly, I think
this one could be for any team that's like five
hundred or better right now. Trey Benson was ranked way
too low in my opinion in rest of season rankings
(06:51):
this week, I was way higher than the market with
Trey Benson because I expect when he's back, he's gonna
see a good workload in that backfield. Not only that,
but if the Cardinals give him some time to recover,
at the very least, he's set up decently for the
fantasy playoffs. They'll get Atlanta, who's been worse against running
backs of late and then Cincinnati, who's the best matchup
for running backs in Week sixteen and seventeen. But yeah,
(07:13):
like Benson didn't give us crazy production. In Week four,
which is the last time we saw him, he had
a seventy three percent running back rush share, though in
at twelve and a half percent target share. I do
think when he's back, they're gonna sprinkle in some of
the other backs, potentially a De Marcado type for third
down stuff. But Benson has a shot to be a
solid RB two when he's back and healthy, and that
(07:34):
could happen very very soon. It's obviously a risky type
of player to buy into because injuries are never certain.
We never know when someone's gonna be fully healthy. We
can't just assume he's gonna be back in normal But
when I say I was higher than consensus this week,
consensus was just very, very very low on Trey Benson
because a lot of times the market forgets about these
(07:56):
kinds of players. But overall, I think he's a bye.
You're weighing the cost benefit. Of course, there's downside, but
there's also upside there, and the schedule is a net
positive for Arizona. Cardinals running backs rest of season, though
their matchup against Dallas this weekend is definitely helping that.
This as questions from Twitter. It's from at Drop Taco.
It says, how do we feel about t Higgins targets
(08:19):
the last couple of weeks? Feels like we got bailed
out last week with a touchdown? Yeah, I mean this
Bengals offense is absolutely wild right now. You can say
that you are high on Jamar Chase when the Bengals
traded for Joe Flacco, but absolutely no one on planet
Earth was projecting Jamar Chase to see a forty six
percent target share. That's literally historic. Literally no player in
(08:42):
the modern era has come close to that across the season.
Not to say that Chase is going to do that
across the season, but that's also the point, right regression
is probably gonna hit like we very very rarely see
a wide receiver with multiple fifty percent target share games
in a given season. Jsn's done that thing year, and
Jamar Chase has over the last two weeks. Basically, what
(09:04):
I'm saying is Chase is clearly running really hot right now.
It's not in me to assume he's gonna maintain an
almost fifty percent target chair. That's absurd. He's just so
talented that even when he does see that dip in
target share, he's still Jamar Chase. But I bring that
up because t Higgins over the last couple of games,
he's felt that impact. When targets are being funneled at
(09:25):
that rate to Jamar Chase, they're not gonna go elsewhere,
and that's why Higgins had just a six percent target
share this past week. Now, he fortunately found the end
zone on a forty four yard touchdown, but he only
had two targets. So my stance is that I don't
really think anyone's buying Higgins given what Chase is doing
right now. But I don't think it's very rational to
(09:46):
believe that, no matter how good Jamar Chase is, I
don't think it's rational to believe that he's gonna have
a fifty percent target chare week in and week out.
Chase is already on a list of just five wide
receivers with multiple fifty percent target share games since twenty eleven.
Doing that like eight times would be otherworldly. I don't
want to put anything past him because it's Jamar Chase,
(10:07):
but I do want to be level headed here. The
Bengal schedule is great moving forward, and Higgins won't have
that six percent target share week in and week out.
I'd expect better volume. In his other two games with Flacco,
his target chhairs have been twenty two percent and twenty percent.
That was with Chase also seeing a lot of looks.
I'd anticipate his target shair being in like the twenty
(10:28):
to twenty five percent range rest of season, which can
result in like seven to ten targets per contest given
their offensive environment. And there's nothing wrong with that for
a talented player in t Higgins. This that's questions from
at JSM Underscore twenty twenty. It says how important is
depth at non wide receiver and running back positions? For example,
(10:51):
say someone has both Kittle and Gatston completely hypothetically, of course,
would you recommend flipping one for a marginal starting lineup
upgrade or holding both for the injury insurance slash variance protection.
So every week I've been getting questions about depth versus
optimizing your starting lineup, like loads and loads of those questions,
And look, I definitely don't expect everyone who plays fantasy
(11:13):
football to listen to every single episode of this podcast
that I do. That'd be frightening, that'd be really weird.
But I do want to note that I talked about
this very topic on episode ten thirty four. It was
the first mail bag question of that week. With that
being said, I'll just quickly say that you should continuously
be trying to beef up your starting lineup. Depth is
obviously helpful, but your starting lineup that's what's gonna win
(11:36):
your fantasy championship. And it's not like if you trade depth,
you can't get that back via the waiver wire. And
that's the thing I think one place from a game
theory perspective that fantasy managers just don't think about enough
is what the waiver wire looks like. Like you should
be doing analysis of what's actually available and what's out
there in your individual league. Let me give you an example.
(11:58):
This week's question is about Kittle and Gadston. Another person
asked me about Drake May and I think it was
Patrick Mahomes or some other elite quarterback. So they have
two very good onesie position players. Generally speaking, you should
be trying to optimize your starting lineup. Yes, but this
is actually easier to check and analyze when it comes
to the onesie positions or positions where you're only starting
(12:19):
one in your league, like quarterback and tight end. Check
your waiver wire. If Jordan Love and Kyler Murray types,
if they're available on your waiver wire, then you don't
need a backup quarterback. You can trade one away. If
Mason Taylor types and Theo Johnson types, if they're littered
throughout your waiver wire, the depth at tight end then
matters less because in that worst case scenario where one
(12:43):
of those players gets hurt, you know there's a decent
enough alternative. That's not the case if the league is
deeper and those types of players aren't available. And just
remember that you can always try to refill your depth
when you make a trade to optimize your starting lineup.
You're not like losing a bench spot, but when you
make that trade, you should absolutely have what's available top
(13:06):
of mind. The last question this week is from at
MT dynasty. Ff. It says, hey, JJ, which rookie wide
receivers do you see breaking out in the second half
of the season, so aside from the obvious guys like
Ted Roe, McMillan, I guess Travis Hunter two, who was
a fifteen transactions by this week. Let's talk about a
handful of rookie wideouts who I think could be possible
(13:28):
second half breakouts. Injury, possible trade deadline movement that's going
to help these players out too, and that's more unpredictable.
But when I can bind how they've performed, the situations
they're in, and their talent profile coming out, here are
some wide receivers who popped in mind. Luther Burden is
one of them. He's flashed this year, and unfortunately he
(13:49):
suffered a concussion this past week, so we can't see
how his usage changed a week over week. But he's
a very talented player who scored really well in the
ZAP model. I still think he's a good state and
he's got good contingent upside. With an injury to Roman Dunes,
a DJ Moore or even a Lamide's Akias, I wont
to roster talented players, and I'm of the belief that
(14:10):
Luther Burden is talented. He's averaging the same number of
first downs per route run as DJ Moore right now.
Fantasy points numbers have him with the best Fantasy points
per route run rate on that team, and he's got
by far the best yards per target over expected according
to Fantasy Points two. Now those are all small sample driven,
and he made a splash play earlier this season. I
(14:30):
get all that, but let's see what he can do
with a bigger role. And there's a chance that that
bigger role comes to fruition down the stretch. Another one's
Jalen Nole. I already talked about him on fifteen Transactions.
The median outcome with Nol is that he's buried on
that depth chart behind a healthy Nico Collins and a
healthy Christian Kirk and that's really really frustrating. But he's
(14:52):
now given us pretty great performances in back to back games.
I don't want to just ignore that. And the Zap
model really liked him too. He was a superverse player
who comped to Randall Cobb. Jayden Higgins is probably the
safer bet. He might run more routes from like a
median projection standpoint, but I think Noel brings a dynamic
to this offense that they desperately need. Tes Johnson's another one.
(15:15):
This is pretty self explanatory. He's seeing more work given
all the injuries in Tampa Bay, though, I do think
if Jalen McMillan is back down the stretch or if
Chris Godwin returns, Tes Johnson's not going to be quite
as usable, but he's still someone to watch. And I
know I'm naming a lot of players, but I do
like Chim ray DK too. He gives that offense a
yards after catch element that they're not getting from the
(15:36):
other wide receivers. I'm always intrigued when a wide receiver
does something that the other players just don't generally do.
And he really wasn't a bad prospect. I talked about
that earlier this week with his breakout score in the
ZAT model. Now some deeper ones, Pat Bryant, he was
a pretty strong prospect. I was definitely surprised by his
draft capital, though, But Denver's a team that has multiple
(15:58):
injury outs for Pat Ryan to get more work, and
he's been over the fifty percent route share mark over
his last four games. He was well below that during
his first four. He's had four targets and back to
back contests, So Pat Bryant should be on your radar.
I'll also call out Jack Besh here if Jakobe Myers
gets traded. He was an okay prospect, he had the
(16:19):
draft capital. He's a tough player, he can handle a
lot of volume hypothetically. And in the last one, I'm
gonna go with Tory Horton. He flashed at times this
year though It's really tough to get a lot of
work alongside JSN and even Cooper Cup. But Kup is
thirty two years old. He's just been mostly fine this year.
I like him this week, like I talked about on
the Sleeper Show. But there's always a possibility that we
(16:42):
start to see a shift in usage there. And there
are gonna be some other rookie wide receivers who just
have injury upside, like Isaac Tesla. But those are some
rookie wideouts to watch out for. I think the final couple,
they're a little bit more long shots. But even like
a Pat Bryant in deep leagues that I'm in, I've
stashed him. Going back to what I said earlier, you've
got to look at the waiver wire and look at
(17:02):
what you have rostered to see if it's worth it.
And you can use the information that I just gave
you to see if it is worth it, but remember
not many rookie wide receivers are gonna break out, especially
if they were Day three picks, so at least temper
your expectations. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to
all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to
the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are
(17:24):
by starting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found,
and follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at
Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I got an
episode of Late Round Perspectives dropping later today, and then
there's also the Late Round Fantasy Football Show. We'll be
live at one pm Eastern on the YouTube channel that's
YouTube dot com slash at LATEROUNDFF. But if you miss it,
(17:44):
that episode's audio will drop in this feed tomorrow morning.
Appreciate all of you. Have a great weekend.
This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ zacher Retha.
J J zacher reefan. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson
in this episode ten six of the Late Round Fantasy
Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings. Thank you for tuning in.
(00:22):
There's no better way to get closer to the action.
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 in 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
in New York call eight seven seven eight hope en
(00:43):
why and Connecticut called eighty eight seventy eight nine seven
seven seventy seven eighteen plus and most states eligibiliya. Stritians
apply ends December thirty first see terms at DraftKings dot
com slash promotions. It's a mail bag day. Let's get
to these questions. The first question this week is from
NFL Bernie on Blue Sky. It says is Burshard Smith
(01:04):
still a drop in Redraft or are we holding now
because of the Isaiah Pacheco injury. Looks like Kareem Hunt
is gonna be the guy given the last game? Do
we think Kareem just takes over? So I had this
discussion with late Round Fantasy Football subscribers on my Tuesday
night live stream with them. I think this is just
a really important general outlook on fantasy football. When young,
(01:26):
up and coming and promising players have a clear path
to more opportunity, you want to lean into that. You
don't want to go away from it. We currently have
Kareem Hunt projected for the most work in that backfield
here in Week nine, and the most likely outcome this
week is that Hunt sees a huge workload that he's
way more productive. And then next week we're all sitting
(01:48):
here with the Chiefs on by, and we're saying, can
I just cut Burshard Smith to make room with my roster?
Just because that's the median outcome doesn't mean that's the
only outcome, and it doesn't mean that we should act
now before that game's even played, because what happens if
the Chiefs don't give Kareem Hunt the workload we expect?
(02:09):
What happens is Brishard Smith's. He's a little bump in
work and he's just really really good on his limited touches.
What if it tells us that it could lead to
more volume down the stretch. These types of moves in
fantasy football, they're not going to work out all the time.
In fact, they're going to fail more than they're gonna succeed.
When you're talking about someone that you're getting off the
waiver wire, who's young, who's often a rookie, and you're
(02:31):
seeing if that player can take advantage of more opportunity,
it usually won't work out, but when it does, it
can really pay dividends. I mean, look at Ronde Gatston
right now. I talked about Gadston pretty early on in
the season because he had good peripherals when he was
first active. Now, never did I think that we were
going to see this. But you take a chance on
(02:52):
talent that you like and you see where it can go.
You see where opportunity can lead itself. He had opportunity
with will Disley out and it ended up working out.
Sometimes oftentimes it won't work out. I'd say it hasn't
really worked out for someone like elk eyamanor That's just
a random example. That dude's probably been tossed around your
(03:13):
fantasy league this year. It may not work for Jalen Knowle,
maybe his workload doesn't get any better, especially with the
other wide receivers getting healthier. We see this all the time,
But if you believe in the player, you believe in
the fit, you believe in the environment, you should take
a chance on that player and at least have that
dude rostered through that potential opportunity. This is a game
(03:36):
of probability. I say it all the time, and this
is such a great example about thinking in range of outcomes.
Don't get rid of Burchard Smith now. Just because Kareem
Hunt has a better outlook in week nine doesn't automatically
mean that Smith can't improve his fantasy value from week
nine into week ten and beyond. And even if he doesn't,
(03:57):
I still think it's the right process to buy into explosive,
potentially very talented rookies. You won't regret doing that in
the long run. The sess questions from Patreon's from con
st it says, how do you view Justin Jefferson rest
of season? Would you be looking to trade him now?
It was concerning that we've only seen one good quarter
(04:18):
from JJ McCarthy and they preferred to play Wenz when
he was clearly banged up over McCarthy, who looked healthy
on the sidelines. I see guys like Rashid Rice, A
Mecha Abuka or a Roma Dounza having a better rest
of season just for the fact that they have more
capable quarterbacks throwing them the ball. I mean, Patrick Mahomes,
Baker Mayfield, sure, but to throw Roma Dunza in there
(04:40):
because of his quarterback, that's kind of crazy. Adunzay's had
a sixty three percent catchable targets rate this year on
a twenty six percent target chair. That's a cordon of
Fantasy Life data. Justin Jefferson has a seventy percent catchable
targets rate on a thirty one percent share And for
the record, at courtn of Fantasy Life data and weeks
one and two with JJ McCarthy, the seventy seven percent
(05:01):
of Jefferson's targets were deemed catchable. I love a Doonsay.
I'm heavily invested in Roma Dunsay this year. I want
him to ball out, trust me, but I don't think
he belongs in the same tier as Justin Jefferson. I'm
not really buying this soft benching narrative for JJ McCarthy either,
nor do I really want to speculate. All I want
to say is that even though McCarthy made some mistakes,
(05:23):
he had some bad throws to start the season, he
did play well during the second half of that opening
game against Chicago, and everyone's criticizing his play against Atlanta,
which I agree it was not great, but we now
know that Atlanta's only allowed one two hundred yard passer
so far this year, and it came last week, with
Tuatungue of Ailoa throwing for two hundred and five yards.
(05:45):
Justin Jefferson is beyond an elite talent. He's one of
the best wide receivers that we have literally ever seen.
Despite playing with a broken Carson Wentz, he's averaging well
over fifteen p yure points per game this season with
one touchdown. He hasn't scored since Week one. I can't
sit here and say that I'm overly bullish about JJ McCarthy.
We don't really know right now, but I'm definitely bullish
(06:08):
on the talent of Justin Jefferson and it doesn't hurt
the Minnesota and the fantasy playoffs, they get the Cowboys, Giants,
and Lions. It's hard to find a better three game
stretch than that. So I'm more in the by camp
than the Cell camp with this passing offense, in this
offense in general, Kevin O'Connell, he's one coach to feel
pretty good about. The sess questions from Patreon is from
(06:30):
Florian Sindler. It says, Hi, you think Trey Benson will
be a solid RB two after his return. So I
got a lot of questions this week about my favorite
trade targets for good fantasy teams, and honestly, I think
this one could be for any team that's like five
hundred or better right now. Trey Benson was ranked way
too low in my opinion in rest of season rankings
(06:51):
this week, I was way higher than the market with
Trey Benson because I expect when he's back, he's gonna
see a good workload in that backfield. Not only that,
but if the Cardinals give him some time to recover,
at the very least, he's set up decently for the
fantasy playoffs. They'll get Atlanta, who's been worse against running
backs of late and then Cincinnati, who's the best matchup
for running backs in Week sixteen and seventeen. But yeah,
(07:13):
like Benson didn't give us crazy production. In Week four,
which is the last time we saw him, he had
a seventy three percent running back rush share, though in
at twelve and a half percent target share. I do
think when he's back, they're gonna sprinkle in some of
the other backs, potentially a De Marcado type for third
down stuff. But Benson has a shot to be a
solid RB two when he's back and healthy, and that
(07:34):
could happen very very soon. It's obviously a risky type
of player to buy into because injuries are never certain.
We never know when someone's gonna be fully healthy. We
can't just assume he's gonna be back in normal But
when I say I was higher than consensus this week,
consensus was just very, very very low on Trey Benson
because a lot of times the market forgets about these
(07:56):
kinds of players. But overall, I think he's a bye.
You're weighing the cost benefit. Of course, there's downside, but
there's also upside there, and the schedule is a net
positive for Arizona. Cardinals running backs rest of season, though
their matchup against Dallas this weekend is definitely helping that.
This as questions from Twitter. It's from at Drop Taco.
It says, how do we feel about t Higgins targets
(08:19):
the last couple of weeks? Feels like we got bailed
out last week with a touchdown? Yeah, I mean this
Bengals offense is absolutely wild right now. You can say
that you are high on Jamar Chase when the Bengals
traded for Joe Flacco, but absolutely no one on planet
Earth was projecting Jamar Chase to see a forty six
percent target share. That's literally historic. Literally no player in
(08:42):
the modern era has come close to that across the season.
Not to say that Chase is going to do that
across the season, but that's also the point, right regression
is probably gonna hit like we very very rarely see
a wide receiver with multiple fifty percent target share games
in a given season. Jsn's done that thing year, and
Jamar Chase has over the last two weeks. Basically, what
(09:04):
I'm saying is Chase is clearly running really hot right now.
It's not in me to assume he's gonna maintain an
almost fifty percent target chair. That's absurd. He's just so
talented that even when he does see that dip in
target share, he's still Jamar Chase. But I bring that
up because t Higgins over the last couple of games,
he's felt that impact. When targets are being funneled at
(09:25):
that rate to Jamar Chase, they're not gonna go elsewhere,
and that's why Higgins had just a six percent target
share this past week. Now, he fortunately found the end
zone on a forty four yard touchdown, but he only
had two targets. So my stance is that I don't
really think anyone's buying Higgins given what Chase is doing
right now. But I don't think it's very rational to
(09:46):
believe that, no matter how good Jamar Chase is, I
don't think it's rational to believe that he's gonna have
a fifty percent target chare week in and week out.
Chase is already on a list of just five wide
receivers with multiple fifty percent target share games since twenty eleven.
Doing that like eight times would be otherworldly. I don't
want to put anything past him because it's Jamar Chase,
(10:07):
but I do want to be level headed here. The
Bengal schedule is great moving forward, and Higgins won't have
that six percent target share week in and week out.
I'd expect better volume. In his other two games with Flacco,
his target chhairs have been twenty two percent and twenty percent.
That was with Chase also seeing a lot of looks.
I'd anticipate his target shair being in like the twenty
(10:28):
to twenty five percent range rest of season, which can
result in like seven to ten targets per contest given
their offensive environment. And there's nothing wrong with that for
a talented player in t Higgins. This that's questions from
at JSM Underscore twenty twenty. It says how important is
depth at non wide receiver and running back positions? For example,
(10:51):
say someone has both Kittle and Gatston completely hypothetically, of course,
would you recommend flipping one for a marginal starting lineup
upgrade or holding both for the injury insurance slash variance protection.
So every week I've been getting questions about depth versus
optimizing your starting lineup, like loads and loads of those questions,
And look, I definitely don't expect everyone who plays fantasy
(11:13):
football to listen to every single episode of this podcast
that I do. That'd be frightening, that'd be really weird.
But I do want to note that I talked about
this very topic on episode ten thirty four. It was
the first mail bag question of that week. With that
being said, I'll just quickly say that you should continuously
be trying to beef up your starting lineup. Depth is
obviously helpful, but your starting lineup that's what's gonna win
(11:36):
your fantasy championship. And it's not like if you trade depth,
you can't get that back via the waiver wire. And
that's the thing I think one place from a game
theory perspective that fantasy managers just don't think about enough
is what the waiver wire looks like. Like you should
be doing analysis of what's actually available and what's out
there in your individual league. Let me give you an example.
(11:58):
This week's question is about Kittle and Gadston. Another person
asked me about Drake May and I think it was
Patrick Mahomes or some other elite quarterback. So they have
two very good onesie position players. Generally speaking, you should
be trying to optimize your starting lineup. Yes, but this
is actually easier to check and analyze when it comes
to the onesie positions or positions where you're only starting
(12:19):
one in your league, like quarterback and tight end. Check
your waiver wire. If Jordan Love and Kyler Murray types,
if they're available on your waiver wire, then you don't
need a backup quarterback. You can trade one away. If
Mason Taylor types and Theo Johnson types, if they're littered
throughout your waiver wire, the depth at tight end then
matters less because in that worst case scenario where one
(12:43):
of those players gets hurt, you know there's a decent
enough alternative. That's not the case if the league is
deeper and those types of players aren't available. And just
remember that you can always try to refill your depth
when you make a trade to optimize your starting lineup.
You're not like losing a bench spot, but when you
make that trade, you should absolutely have what's available top
(13:06):
of mind. The last question this week is from at
MT dynasty. Ff. It says, hey, JJ, which rookie wide
receivers do you see breaking out in the second half
of the season, so aside from the obvious guys like
Ted Roe, McMillan, I guess Travis Hunter two, who was
a fifteen transactions by this week. Let's talk about a
handful of rookie wideouts who I think could be possible
(13:28):
second half breakouts. Injury, possible trade deadline movement that's going
to help these players out too, and that's more unpredictable.
But when I can bind how they've performed, the situations
they're in, and their talent profile coming out, here are
some wide receivers who popped in mind. Luther Burden is
one of them. He's flashed this year, and unfortunately he
(13:49):
suffered a concussion this past week, so we can't see
how his usage changed a week over week. But he's
a very talented player who scored really well in the
ZAP model. I still think he's a good state and
he's got good contingent upside. With an injury to Roman Dunes,
a DJ Moore or even a Lamide's Akias, I wont
to roster talented players, and I'm of the belief that
(14:10):
Luther Burden is talented. He's averaging the same number of
first downs per route run as DJ Moore right now.
Fantasy points numbers have him with the best Fantasy points
per route run rate on that team, and he's got
by far the best yards per target over expected according
to Fantasy Points two. Now those are all small sample driven,
and he made a splash play earlier this season. I
(14:30):
get all that, but let's see what he can do
with a bigger role. And there's a chance that that
bigger role comes to fruition down the stretch. Another one's
Jalen Nole. I already talked about him on fifteen Transactions.
The median outcome with Nol is that he's buried on
that depth chart behind a healthy Nico Collins and a
healthy Christian Kirk and that's really really frustrating. But he's
(14:52):
now given us pretty great performances in back to back games.
I don't want to just ignore that. And the Zap
model really liked him too. He was a superverse player
who comped to Randall Cobb. Jayden Higgins is probably the
safer bet. He might run more routes from like a
median projection standpoint, but I think Noel brings a dynamic
to this offense that they desperately need. Tes Johnson's another one.
(15:15):
This is pretty self explanatory. He's seeing more work given
all the injuries in Tampa Bay, though, I do think
if Jalen McMillan is back down the stretch or if
Chris Godwin returns, Tes Johnson's not going to be quite
as usable, but he's still someone to watch. And I
know I'm naming a lot of players, but I do
like Chim ray DK too. He gives that offense a
yards after catch element that they're not getting from the
(15:36):
other wide receivers. I'm always intrigued when a wide receiver
does something that the other players just don't generally do.
And he really wasn't a bad prospect. I talked about
that earlier this week with his breakout score in the
ZAT model. Now some deeper ones, Pat Bryant, he was
a pretty strong prospect. I was definitely surprised by his
draft capital, though, But Denver's a team that has multiple
(15:58):
injury outs for Pat Ryan to get more work, and
he's been over the fifty percent route share mark over
his last four games. He was well below that during
his first four. He's had four targets and back to
back contests, So Pat Bryant should be on your radar.
I'll also call out Jack Besh here if Jakobe Myers
gets traded. He was an okay prospect, he had the
(16:19):
draft capital. He's a tough player, he can handle a
lot of volume hypothetically. And in the last one, I'm
gonna go with Tory Horton. He flashed at times this
year though It's really tough to get a lot of
work alongside JSN and even Cooper Cup. But Kup is
thirty two years old. He's just been mostly fine this year.
I like him this week, like I talked about on
the Sleeper Show. But there's always a possibility that we
(16:42):
start to see a shift in usage there. And there
are gonna be some other rookie wide receivers who just
have injury upside, like Isaac Tesla. But those are some
rookie wideouts to watch out for. I think the final couple,
they're a little bit more long shots. But even like
a Pat Bryant in deep leagues that I'm in, I've
stashed him. Going back to what I said earlier, you've
got to look at the waiver wire and look at
(17:02):
what you have rostered to see if it's worth it.
And you can use the information that I just gave
you to see if it is worth it, but remember
not many rookie wide receivers are gonna break out, especially
if they were Day three picks, so at least temper
your expectations. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to
all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to
the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are
(17:24):
by starting for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found,
and follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at
Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I got an
episode of Late Round Perspectives dropping later today, and then
there's also the Late Round Fantasy Football Show. We'll be
live at one pm Eastern on the YouTube channel that's
YouTube dot com slash at LATEROUNDFF. But if you miss it,
(17:44):
that episode's audio will drop in this feed tomorrow morning.
Appreciate all of you. Have a great weekend.
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