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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachersa

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Speaker 1: JJ Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ zacharieson in this

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Speaker 1: episode eleven oh four of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Hey,

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Speaker 1: thanks for tuning in. As a reminder, there's a new

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Speaker 1: Lateround dot com. We're slowly but surely moving off of

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Speaker 1: Patreon for our members and replacing that is our brand

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Speaker 1: new members hub. That's where you can get my rankings.

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Speaker 1: We have live stream Q and a's. Once we get

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Speaker 1: closer to the season than in season, there's gonna be

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Speaker 1: data dumps. There's access to our awesome community on Discord

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Speaker 1: and more. You can become an all Access member right

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Speaker 1: now where you get members access along with free Late

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Speaker 1: Round prospect and draft guides. Or if you just want

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Speaker 1: the draft guide, that's available for pre order right now

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Speaker 1: over on that site. So check it all out Lateround

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Speaker 1: dot com. Now let's get to these mailbag questions. The

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Speaker 1: first one is from Bryant VRR members Hub, which is

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Speaker 1: where people can now submit mailbag questions. It says, Hi, JJ,

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Speaker 1: big fan of everything you do and I'm dying for

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Speaker 1: you to unpack something for me. Why is the community

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Speaker 1: so scared? And seemingly totally out on RJ. Harvey. His

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Speaker 1: price seems reasonable. He scores touchdowns and catches passes in

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Speaker 1: a good offense and using a metric a super smart

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Speaker 1: analyst said to focus on with middle round running backs,

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Speaker 1: Harvey had an awesome yards per out run last year.

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Speaker 1: Some football people have said his film didn't look good

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Speaker 1: and he's in a committee, but it seems like he's

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Speaker 1: really good at the things that score fantasy points for us.

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Speaker 1: Please help, thanks man. Okay, So, first off, I do

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Speaker 1: want to remind people that the yards per route run

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Speaker 1: thing is more of a red flag thing than a

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Speaker 1: green flag thing. It can be a green flag thing,

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Speaker 1: but very rarely do players of the right kind of

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Speaker 1: yards parou run rates in the previous season who are

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Speaker 1: then drafted in the middle rounds like RJ. Harvey's yards

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Speaker 1: parout run last year was one point three to six

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Speaker 1: according to PFF, which is strong, but usually we get

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Speaker 1: signal when it's a little bit higher than that. But

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Speaker 1: I generally agree with the overall sentiment here, which is

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Speaker 1: crazy because I was not buying RJ. Harvey at the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the offseason. I wouldn't say I'm totally in,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not out like I thought I was going

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Speaker 1: to be. With these middle round running backs, we're generally

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Speaker 1: looking for players in ambiguous backfields who have pass catching roles,

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Speaker 1: and younger players are generally better bets in fantasy football.

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Speaker 1: In fact, with looking at top twelve running backs, historically,

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Speaker 1: forty three percent of them over the last ten plus

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Speaker 1: years have been in year one to year three of

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Speaker 1: their NFL career. Now, I don't think Harvey has that

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Speaker 1: kind of upside at this point, but everything you said

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Speaker 1: in your question is how I'd basically answer this question.

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Speaker 1: The problem is that I think you could make a

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Speaker 1: very similar argument for Jalen Warren in that exact same range,

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Speaker 1: and in best ball it's a good quarterback zone. Not

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Speaker 1: only that, but Jonah Coleman, in my eyes, is a

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Speaker 1: legit threat to both JK. Dobbins and RJ. Harvey. He

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Speaker 1: can do everything just right enough. He's not elite at anything,

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Speaker 1: but he can do everything. But that might be attractive

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Speaker 1: to a team like Denver who just needs some stability

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Speaker 1: behind Dobbins, and maybe they went a little bit more

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Speaker 1: from Harvey too. But the upside for Harvey to me

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Speaker 1: is that he has a role in that offense. He

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Speaker 1: does something very specific and he's the most explosive player

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Speaker 1: in that backfield. So I have no problem drafting him

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Speaker 1: right now because he's a few rounds later than he

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Speaker 1: was just a couple of months ago. This next question

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Speaker 1: is also from the members' hub. It's from Jake. It says, Hey, JJ,

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Speaker 1: love the new site. You and the team continue to

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Speaker 1: do great work, even kitchen. Thank you. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: ask about the Pittsburgh backfield, particularly because Aaron Rodgers creates

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Speaker 1: a unique environment for fantasy production at this stage in

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Speaker 1: his career. It's not in bad faith to call him

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Speaker 1: contact avoidant with a proclivity for checking down. While I

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Speaker 1: won't make you bang your head against your desk by

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Speaker 1: suggesting there's a Kenneth Gainwell role, it's hard to not

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Speaker 1: think there's a significant amount of running back targets up

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Speaker 1: for grabs this year. See this is a clear split

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Speaker 1: between the incumbent Warren, who Rogers is favored, and newcomer Dowdell,

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Speaker 1: who McCarthy has a history of success with. Is there

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Speaker 1: an opportunity for one of these backs to dominate the

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Speaker 1: pass work while the other primarily gets low calorie base

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Speaker 1: rushing work. Is it Caleb Johnson season? Lol? Thanks JJ. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I kind of just alluded to this, but I

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Speaker 1: do think that Jalen Warren is a pretty good pick

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Speaker 1: this year for reasons you just mentioned, and man, he's

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Speaker 1: just been so underrated as an actual NFL player. Warren's

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Speaker 1: played four NFL seasons. His yards per rout run in

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Speaker 1: those seasons has been one point five eight, one point

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Speaker 1: four to five, one point four to four, and one

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Speaker 1: point two four. You just heard me talk about Harvey's

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Speaker 1: yards per rout run being really solid at one point

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Speaker 1: three to six, that's actually below a typical Jalen Warren season.

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Speaker 1: All the while, he's seen a twelve percent target share

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Speaker 1: in half of his seasons. Now, I think there's a

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Speaker 1: real chance at Rico Dowdell sees more work on the

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Speaker 1: ground than Jalen Warren, but I think Warren going to

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Speaker 1: be used more as that pass catcher. I also think, though,

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Speaker 1: that there's more ground game upside with Jalen Warren than

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Speaker 1: people realize. Like as soon as Najie Harris left town,

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Speaker 1: Warren saw his running back rush share jump up to

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Speaker 1: sixty four percent last year. That was by far a

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Speaker 1: career high. His previous high was thirty seven percent. Rico

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Speaker 1: Dowdell's been above that march just once in his career,

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Speaker 1: though Dowbdell does have two seasons with two hundred and

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Speaker 1: more rush attempts. So he's a really really underrated pass catcher.

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Speaker 1: He's in an offense, and I think that we should

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Speaker 1: feel a little bit more bullish on versus the market

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Speaker 1: given the coaching changes. He's an ambiguous backfield and there's

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Speaker 1: still some rushing upside. Warren is definitely something I want

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Speaker 1: to be more in on than out on this year.

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Speaker 1: That's one's from at spoiler Spielman on Twitter. It says,

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Speaker 1: what do you think the current meta is? Last year,

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Speaker 1: getting two running backs in the first three picks double

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Speaker 1: hero RB seemed like the winning formula, but now almost

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Speaker 1: everyone's going running back heavy and one hero running back

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Speaker 1: builds feel risky because wide receiver scoring is down. Feels

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Speaker 1: like we can't zag versus the field. I also got

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Speaker 1: a related question from at Vince Cato that says, how

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Speaker 1: does this seemingly never ending tier of wide receivers in

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Speaker 1: the middle rounds and lack of true elite wide receivers

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Speaker 1: affect your draft plans around the position hero wide receiver

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Speaker 1: seems like the smart strategy to me. So look, I

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Speaker 1: gotta be honest, and I'm kind of shocked that I

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Speaker 1: feel this way, but I think we're overdoing the strategy

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Speaker 1: piece in fantasy football and the way that we talk

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Speaker 1: about it. Strategy is good and fine, it's great. I

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Speaker 1: literally made my career out of a fantasy football strategy.

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Speaker 1: Everything started for me with the late round quarterback approach.

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Speaker 1: But I think we're losing sight of what's important when

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Speaker 1: we sit here and we generalize the way that we

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Speaker 1: do sometimes. Understanding strategy and fantasy football, it's really important

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Speaker 1: because it allows for flexibility when your draft is happening.

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Speaker 1: Should go into a draft assuming you're gonna go hero

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Speaker 1: RB or going running back heavy or going zero RB.

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Speaker 1: You're reading the draft room as things unfold. What strategy

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Speaker 1: really is. As myself and Pat Karine talked about on

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Speaker 1: becoming a best ball bro this week, it's really understanding

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Speaker 1: what to do now based on what you can get later. Yes,

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Speaker 1: generally speaking, things regress in fantasy football. If running backs

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Speaker 1: had a great season one year, which they did last year,

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Speaker 1: you can generally assume that the market will like that

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Speaker 1: position more the following season. And since you know regression

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Speaker 1: is a thing, you can usually zig while others are zagging.

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Speaker 1: That's essentially what these questions are asking. If running backs

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Speaker 1: were so good last year, shouldn't we get wide receivers

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Speaker 1: this year? But the question you should be asking is

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Speaker 1: why we're running backs so good last year? And what

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Speaker 1: kind of running backs can I get if I don't

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Speaker 1: get them early on in my draft? And the answer

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Speaker 1: to that is actually pretty deep, and it's discussed for

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Speaker 1: pages and pages and this year guide. But I think

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Speaker 1: there are some tangible football reasons for running backs performing

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Speaker 1: better in recent years or us feeling more comfortable with

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Speaker 1: these running backs. The uptick and heavy personnel definitely helps.

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Speaker 1: It's not so much that running backs are dominating as

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Speaker 1: a result of this, but teams are more run heavy

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Speaker 1: than they've been historically. Last year was the run heaviest

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Speaker 1: year in the NFL since at least twenty eleven. And

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Speaker 1: then all the while, teams aren't giving us as much

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Speaker 1: wide receiver usage because there's more tight ends on the field.

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Speaker 1: They're gobbling up more routes and more targets, so we're

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Speaker 1: getting this flatness at wide receiver, which naturally makes running

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Speaker 1: back more appetizing. And I said this at the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the offseason, and I'll say it again. This is

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Speaker 1: not some random blip where injuries were the reason that

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Speaker 1: running backs were doing well or not well. I think

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Speaker 1: you could argue that maybe there was something there in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, but this helped combat that. Defenses need

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Speaker 1: to adjust, and it takes time for defenses to adjust. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: just look at the NFL draft. Offenses aren't going away

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Speaker 1: from tight end heavy formations. They're leaning into it. This

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Speaker 1: isn't a trend that's leaving in twenty twenty six, which

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Speaker 1: means we could see more volatility from wide receivers. We

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Speaker 1: could see less stability overall, which yes, it does make

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Speaker 1: those elite wide receivers a little bit more valuable, but

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Speaker 1: the market's also accounting for that. Right now, Like we

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Speaker 1: sit here and we say, is this where hero wide

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Speaker 1: receiver could be a good strategy. Sure, yes, I think

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Speaker 1: there are instances we're going hero wide receiver getting three

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Speaker 1: running backs after that. Sure that makes sense, but it

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Speaker 1: depends on how the board falls. We understand that hero

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Speaker 1: wide receivers an approach that we can take based on

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Speaker 1: what we know might be available in around two, three, four,

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Speaker 1: and five. But if your league drafts Pukina Kua, Jamar

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Speaker 1: Chase and Jackson Smith and Jigba before Jamiir Gives and

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Speaker 1: Jon Robinson, it's not smart to draft al Monross Saint

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Speaker 1: Brown before those two running backs. And I think average

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Speaker 1: DRAPT position is doing a pretty good job of setting

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Speaker 1: up those pockets for us. You look at ADP and

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Speaker 1: you're still getting plenty of wide receivers drafted in the

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Speaker 1: first round. You have this burst of running backs in

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Speaker 1: round two with like Drake London, and then in round

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Speaker 1: three things shift back to wide receiver. And if I'm

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Speaker 1: being honest, that's part of what I'm really struggling with

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Speaker 1: this year, with the way that people are talking about

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Speaker 1: these strategies. People are acting like this is a totally

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Speaker 1: different ADP landscape than what we've seen over the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years, but really it's pretty identical to previous seasons.

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Speaker 1: It's what I talked about on the Late Round show

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Speaker 1: this week. I feel like the narrative is that everyone's

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Speaker 1: just drafting running backs early now, but I think the

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Speaker 1: narrative should more so be that we've seen analysts out

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Speaker 1: there and talking heads out there, people like me who

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Speaker 1: have historically gone more zero RB. Not to say that

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Speaker 1: I've done that recently, but there's been plenty of analysts

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Speaker 1: who have and now they're not. But that doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: that the market itself is shifting. It doesn't even mean

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Speaker 1: that my approach is shifting. But like ADP, right now,

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Speaker 1: really isn't that different compared to previous years in season

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Speaker 1: long formats. Maybe you think it's different because in Bestball

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Speaker 1: that one two turn has fewer wide receivers in it,

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Speaker 1: But like, I don't know, man, I think we're over

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Speaker 1: complicating this. The bottom line goes back to this idea

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Speaker 1: of what can I get later? And Karine really nailed

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Speaker 1: this on becoming a Best Ball bro this week. In

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Speaker 1: my opinion, the market seems to be sharper with their

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Speaker 1: running back picks right now. There aren't as many obvious choices. Later.

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Speaker 1: We have our favorites, but like Beashall, Tutin would have

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Speaker 1: been going much later in this position five years ago,

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Speaker 1: Traveon Henderson probably would be going after Remandre Stevenson five

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Speaker 1: or six years ago. Those upside running back plays they

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Speaker 1: used to make going early wide receiver a lot easier

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Speaker 1: because you know that in like round eight, round nine,

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Speaker 1: you'd be getting a profile that had a ton of upside.

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Speaker 1: But those round eight, round nine running backs they're in

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Speaker 1: like round five now. And part of the reason for

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Speaker 1: that is the market people have gotten sharper, and then

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Speaker 1: I also think part of it is just the current

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Speaker 1: NFL meta with these heavier formations. I think it's a

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Speaker 1: combination of a lot of things happening, and we've seen

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Speaker 1: some really good predictability at the running back position over

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Speaker 1: the last five or six years when looking at ADP

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Speaker 1: versus actual result. But what it means is that I

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Speaker 1: don't think the simple answer this year is just be

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Speaker 1: wide receiver heavy. Those elite guys just don't go on

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Speaker 1: forever and ever, and it's not like you're getting a

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Speaker 1: huge discount on some of them. We're still getting plenty

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Speaker 1: of first round wide receiver picks. I still think the

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Speaker 1: play is flexibility. You should be fine if one of

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Speaker 1: those wide receivers is your optimal choice in round one,

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Speaker 1: and then you should just understand where there are pockets

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Speaker 1: of value throughout the draft. Like I really like late

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Speaker 1: round three into early round five at wide receiver, and

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Speaker 1: if that's the case, you can plan ahead. I just

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Speaker 1: think that we have to stop generalizing what the winning

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Speaker 1: formula is in fantasy football, because the winning formula isn't

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Speaker 1: strict structural drafting. The winning formula is understanding the various

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Speaker 1: approaches for what they are and being flexible to adapt

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Speaker 1: into one of those approaches as your draft goes on.

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Speaker 1: That's what wins fantasy titles. The last question this week

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Speaker 1: is from WVOQ on Blue Sky. It's kind of related

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Speaker 1: to the last question, but it says regarding the death

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Speaker 1: of the wide receiver two. League wide passing attempts have

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Speaker 1: dropped over the past two years to a historically low level.

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Speaker 1: League Wide rushing attempts have been stable around fourteen six

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Speaker 1: hundred attempts since twenty twenty one. When passing attempts for

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Speaker 1: this low in twenty seventeen, they rebounded over the following

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Speaker 1: three years by about two hundred attempts per year. Couldn't

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Speaker 1: passing attempts start to rebound this coming year similar to

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Speaker 1: what happened before, especially considering quarterbacks coming back from their

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Speaker 1: injuries last year, and since volume drives production, maybe the

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Speaker 1: wide receiver two starts to rebound as well. Love all

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Speaker 1: of your work, by the way, way, thank you. So

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Speaker 1: I think it's better to look at this through the

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Speaker 1: pass rate lens the proportion of pass attempts to rush

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Speaker 1: attempts in the given season. When you look at raw totals,

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Speaker 1: you're really saying the same thing. But this keeps it

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Speaker 1: easier to follow in more one to one. But to me,

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Speaker 1: there's a pretty big difference between what happened in twenty

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Speaker 1: seventeen and what happened in twenty twenty five. And you

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Speaker 1: can see this through pass rate and twenty eleven, so

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Speaker 1: we'll go even further back than twenty seventeen and twenty eleven,

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Speaker 1: the pass rate across the NFL was fifty five point

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Speaker 1: five percent, and again I'm using attempts for this, not dropbacks.

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Speaker 1: Then it was fifty six point one percent, fifty six

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Speaker 1: point seven percent, fifty six point six percent through twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 1: so it's a gradual increase in pass rate. And then

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Speaker 1: we saw a big jump in twenty fifteen with pass

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Speaker 1: rates at fifty seven point six percent that was a

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Speaker 1: full percentage points higher than the previous two seasons. Twenty

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Speaker 1: sixteen that went up again, it was fifty seven point

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Speaker 1: nine percent, and then, as you noted, twenty seventeen happened.

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Speaker 1: We saw fewer pass attempts and the pass rate was

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Speaker 1: fifty six percent. That was the lowest mark that we

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Speaker 1: had seen since twenty eleven at that time. So from

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven to twenty sixteen, we saw a general increase

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Speaker 1: in pass rate. Almost every single year, pass rates got higher,

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Speaker 1: and then twenty seventeen happened and pass rate dropped, and

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Speaker 1: then as you noted, there was a rebound in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and that continued into twenty nineteen. Those two years we

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Speaker 1: had pass rates of fifty seven point one percent. But

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Speaker 1: since twenty nineteen we've had a gradual decrease in pass rate.

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Speaker 1: There's only been one season since twenty nineteen where the

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Speaker 1: pass rate in one season was higher than the pass

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Speaker 1: rate in the previous season. That came in twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 1: when pass rates jumped to fifty five point six percent

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Speaker 1: from fifty five percent. But we've literally been going down

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Speaker 1: and down and down and down in pass rate, and

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Speaker 1: this has coincided almost directly with more use of twelve

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Speaker 1: and thirteen personnel. The year you mentioned back in twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 1: we actually saw twelve and thirteen personnel deployed at the

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Speaker 1: highest rate between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty. Teams do

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Speaker 1: that because they want to run, and there were probably

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Speaker 1: some specific circumstances, some volatile circumstances that led to sort

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Speaker 1: of an outlier pass rate that year, because, as I noted,

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Speaker 1: things were going up and up and up they hit

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, pass rate went down, but then in twenty

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Speaker 1: eighteen it went up again. So could pass rates increase

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Speaker 1: this year. Yeah, there's at least some chance that things

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Speaker 1: come together a little bit better at quarterback and teams

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Speaker 1: go through the air a little bit more. But I

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Speaker 1: would be shocked if we see a crazy rebound because

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Speaker 1: the NFL is moving in this direction very clearly. It's

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Speaker 1: not just the one year thing like it was in

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. It's a multi year thing, and there are

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Speaker 1: football reasons as to why this is all happening. So

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Speaker 1: while we might see some increase and that could just

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Speaker 1: be variance related, I do think that teams are still

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Speaker 1: thinking about having a rushing mentality, more of a run

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Speaker 1: first approach than they did ten years ago. That's just

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Speaker 1: where the NFL is right now. That's it for today's show, though,

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Speaker 1: thanks to all of you for listening. If you get

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Speaker 1: subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure

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Speaker 1: you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast

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Speaker 1: can be found, and don't follow me on Twitter and

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Speaker 1: on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone,

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Speaker 1: I greatly appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend. And as a reminder,

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Speaker 1: I don't think we announced this on the Late Round

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Speaker 1: Show this week, but next week, the Late Round Fantasy

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Speaker 1: Football Show will be happening on Tuesday at noon instead

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Speaker 1: of Wednesday at noon, so be on the lookout. I'll

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Speaker 1: shoot out that link whenever we go live, but we

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Speaker 1: will be recording a day early next week. But thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening, enjoy your weekend and I'll catch you next

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Speaker 1: week