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November 5, 2025 12 mins

JJ talks about the Panthers backfield, a change in Denver's passing game, Joe Flacco's fantasy production, 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 Lab podcast with your host JJ Zachertha,
JJ Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zacharyesin in this
episode ten eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast.
Thanks for tuning in. Before I get to the trends
this week, I just want to remind you guys to

(00:22):
subscribe to the Late Round newsletter.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's absolutely free. It costs zero dollars.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
All you gotta do sad to Lateround dot com, click
newsletter and submit your email address.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
You won't get these trends in that newsletter. But each
week during the season, you'll get the list of fifteen
transactions from the fifteen Transactions episode, you'll get the weekly
data dump that I publish on Twitter and on Blue Sky,
and you'll get a nice recap of everything from David Kitchen.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
At the end of the week. Out of season, I
send out studies.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
I do other research articles all the time. That's Lateround
dot com. Then click newsletter. Okay, now let's get to
these trends. Most quarterbacks are gonna play better indoors than
outdoors most games. They're gonna see a little bit of
a bump in scoring when they're in a dome. It's
just a better environment when we obviously don't have to

(01:11):
deal with outside factors like weather. I bring this up
because the Lions are on the verge of playing a
lot of games indoors. In fact, they only have two
more outdoor games in the fantasy football season, with those
games coming over the next couple of weeks. After they
face the Eagles in Week eleven, they'll be at home
against the Giants, at home against the Packers, at home

(01:32):
against the Cowboys in LA to face the Rams in
Detroit again against the Steelers, and then in Minnesota. All
those games that I just mentioned are being played in
a dome. So the trend here it's domes. It's a
trend I've never talked about on the show before, But
there are lots of indoor games for the Lions to
finish up this fantasy football season, and that should hypothetically

(01:54):
be a boost to that offense. So far this season,
Lamarge Jackson has averaged twenty three point eight standard Fantasy
points per game. That's the QB one overall by points
per game. Joe Flacco has played four games of the Bengals.
In those four games, he's averaged twenty five point zero
points per game. In other words, Joe Flacco as a

(02:16):
Cincinnati Bengal has been the best fantasy football quarterback so
far in twenty twenty five. And here's the kicker. Cincinnati
quarterbacks have a top five rest of season and playoff
schedule according to my adjusted fantasy points allowed numbers. Now,
surely he won't keep this up, but after doing my
rest of season rankings, I'm a good seven quarterback spots

(02:37):
higher than the market with Joe Flacco.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I don't see why you wouldn't be a quarterback.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
You should always be aggressive with that position in fantasy football.
Something else that caught my eye when doing rest of
season rankings this week kind of has to do with
a transaction from yesterday's show, But Aaron Jones is still
being ranked below Jordan Mason consistently. I know he had
that shoulder in but we're talking like six to ten
running back spots here. But in games where Aaron Jones

(03:05):
has been active this year, Jordan Mason has honestly been unusable.
He's averaging just five point two PPR points per game.
With Aaron Jones active, He's yet to score more than
eight and a half PPR points. In one of those contests,
and his target shairs have been added below five percent
in three of those four games. That's just something to
note iss you potentially go out and trade for Jones

(03:25):
this week. The Panthers backfield did indeed shift this past
week big time. Ricodowdell out snapped Huba Hubbard forty two
to thirteen on Sunday against the Packers. He ran twelve routes.
Hubbard ran four. That's according to PFF. Based on his usage.
PFF's expected fantasy points formula had Dowble at twenty one

(03:46):
and a half PPR points. He outperformed that, but a
twenty one point baseline is still pretty wild. Dowdell has
now seen more than sixty percent of the team's running
back rushes and three games this year. In those games,
he scored thirty to thirty four and twenty eight PPR points.
To put that another way, Rico Dudele is to me

(04:07):
in RB one discussions rest of season. Now, speaking of
that Panthers backfield, someone in the late round discord yesterday
was asking about my anti tubas stance over the summer,
and so I went back and I looked at some
of the stuff that I worked on when researching for
drafts this year, one of those things being what I
think is the most.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Important research piece of my year.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back,
because trust me, guys, I know I'm far from flawless,
Remember Trayvon Henderson. This is purely a research and process thing.
It's also something that can be very helpful moving forward.
But middle round running backs, which I defined as RB
nineteen to RB forty two by ADP, middle round running
backs who have had poor previous season yards per route

(04:50):
run rates have historically underwhelmed the following season. So back
in June, I wrote an email on that subject. Speaking
of the newsletter, I also did a podcast episode episode
nine ninety six. It was called a New Way to
Spot Middle Round running Back Breakouts. That newsletter, though, it
was on risky middle round running back profiles based on

(05:10):
yards per rout run and here's the list of the
risky running backs that I talked about, Tyrone, Tracy, Brian Robinson,
Tony Pollard, Ramandre Stevenson, Jordan Mason, and Chewba Hubbard. Hubbard's
point five to one yards per route run rate was
worst among all middle round running backs. Now, we have
no idea what the middle rounds of drafts are going

(05:32):
to look like next year, and we still have just
a limited sample this year. But players who have been
very inefficient per route run this season Accorna PFF data
include Tony Pollard once again, Tyrone Tracy once again, Jacory
Krossky Merrick Camani, Vaidel, Alvin Kamara, JK Dobbins, Javonte Williams,
Jordan Mason again, Zach Sharboney, and Isaiah Pacheco. Those are

(05:54):
sort of the higher end players or the usable players
who just haven't looked great this year and yards per
out run. So if that continues and if we find
ourselves drafting them in the middle rounds next year, we
may want to think twice. And of course I'm going
to talk about this during the off season. It was
just top of mind, so I wanted to share. So

(06:15):
I originally had a Rashid Shaheed and Chris Alave trend
in the spot this week and how the Saints with
Tyler Schuck gave Shahed a really high target share and
a really high first read target share in Week nine
and then he was traded. But I still kind of
want to talk about Rashid Shaheed. Now, this trend is
not super taky, don't get too excited, but the Seahawks,
in my opinion, made this move for Shahed for versatility purposes.

(06:39):
On the season, only the Steelers have run less eleven
personnel than the Seahawks have. This isn't new for Clint Kubiak.
Last year with the Saints, New Orleans also ranked thirty
first in eleven personnel usage. That's three wide receiver sets,
and you.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Can't ignore that.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Kubiak now in Seattle probably wanted Shaheed again because he
knows how actual he can be. The Seahawks now have
Jackson Smith and Jigba Shaheed, Tory Horton, and Cooper Cup.
Maybe that Cup injury, maybe it's a little bit worse
than what's being reported, but also he's just been kind
of fine this year. Now.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Tory Horton, who I've been.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Excited about, he definitely takes a hit with this trade,
but with Shahed, he's paired up with a quarterback who
can hit him better down the field. Among relevant quarterbacks
this year, Sam Darnold is first in the NFL and
average depth of target Shahed had an a dot this year.
Of just eleven point three. Last year with Kubiak it
was eighteen point one. So to me, this move for

(07:35):
Shahed it signals flexibility for the Seahawks. They get more
depth at wide receiver, they get a guy who can
really stretch the field to pair him with a quarterback
who can get him the.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Ball down the field.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
And from a trends to lookout for standpoint, maybe we
see this offense run a little bit more eleven personnel,
but I'd want Shahed behind JSN in that offense. From
a fantasy standpoint, Tory Horton has a chance to develop
into something that's better than Shaheed currently is. But there's
no doubt in my mind this is a great real
life fit. Now. I don't even know if that was

(08:06):
a trend or not, but we're just rolling with it.
Mark Andrews has just become such an insane fantasy asset.
He hit just a fifteen point one percent target share
per game rate last season, but he ended up scoring
eleven touchdowns. Since twenty eleven, among the tight ends with
ten or more touchdowns in a season, the average target
share for those tight ends was over twenty percent. We

(08:28):
rarely get fifteen percent target shaars and eleven touchdowns. But
we know Andrews is a red zone threat and Lamar
Jackson loves to look for him there. Last year, he
was seventh in the NFL an end zone target share,
which is the percentage of team targets that land in
the end zone. Because the Ravens were good and they
had a lot of those opportunities. He was second in

(08:49):
end zone targets per game. This year, Andrews' is fifth
among tight ends an end zone target share. Meanwhile, according
to Fantasy Life data, Isaiah Likely hasn't seen a single
end zone target. So I can sit here and tell
you that Andrews doesn't have the most amazing target share,
that he's basically running the same number of routes as
Isaiah Likely, but he's a touchdown threat every week and

(09:12):
that can carry him in fantasy football. Otherwise he'd be
pretty irrelevant and mostly just a streamer.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Alec Pierce could have easily.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Been a fifteen transactions player, but I went against it
because of that team's upcoming schedule. But he's been low
key getting it done. He's seen target shares of thirty
one percent, eighteen percent, and twenty seven percent over his
last three He's had twenty eight targets over that timeframe,
and he scored about fifteen nine and eighteen PPR points
in those three games. Pierce is currently top of the

(09:42):
league in air yards per game. That's if you exclude
Malik Neighbors because he's out for the season. Like I said,
I hate the upcoming schedule, but he's having a pretty
underrated season and that's surprising.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Indianapolis offense.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
The Arizona Cardinals Week nine backfield usage, it was a
mes more of a mess than what most thought it
would be. It definitely was not Bam Knight's backfield. Knight
did play the most snaps at fifty eight percent, but
he trailed to Mario Demarcado in rush share. He oddly
then ran more routes than a Mario Demarcado did. That's
a surprise to me given how the Cardinals have deployed

(10:17):
De Marcado in the past. Knight had a solid fifty
one percent route share, though. I think because of that,
if you were to pick one back to roster until
Trey Benson's back, it'd probably be Knight. Probably, but the
answer is more than likely none of the above. It's
just too unpredictable, and yes, I'm still way higher than
the market on Trey Benson. I don't think he's a smash,

(10:39):
but he'saione I'd be willing to take a chance on
given the price that you might have to pay, which could,
realistically right now, just be some bench assets. This last
trend is about the Broncos wide receivers, specifically two of them.
Over Denver's first five games, Courtland Sutton averaged sixteen point
one PPR points game. He had a twenty two point

(11:01):
nine percent target share per game rate. Over his last
four games, Sutton's averaged an eighteen percent target share per
game rate and just ten PPR points per game. Meanwhile,
over Troy Franklin's first five games, he averaged a nineteen
percent target chair per game rate. He had ten point
six PPR points per game. Over his last four he's

(11:22):
been at twelve point eight PPR points per game, so
more than Sutton. While averaging almost twenty four percent of
Denvers targets. Over the last four weeks, Troy Franklin has
out targeted Courtland Sutton thirty two to twenty five. Now
I dug into this with Fantasy Points data, and in
that first stretch of five games, Courtland Sutton had a

(11:42):
first red target share of about twenty eight percent. Troy
Franklin was at nineteen percent over their last four It's
Troy Franklin who's been closer to that twenty eight percent mark.
Sutton is down to nineteen percent. Basically, they've just completely flipped.
What we've been learning over the last month is a
Shortland Sutton is seemingly as volatile as he's always been,

(12:03):
and Troy Franklin is probably undervalued, and in my opinion,
based on rankings, he is undervalued. We'll have to monitor
to see if all of this continues, but it's definitely
a major, major trend. That's it for today's show, though,
thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet
subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure
you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts

(12:23):
can be found and difference to follow me on Twitter
and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Thanks for listening everyone.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
I'll be back tomorrow with the weekly Sleeper Show.
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