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0:16Please play responsibly. This is the Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zacharyarysen.
0:21What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyarysen and in this episode 1134 of the Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in.
0:28Late-Round Fantasy Football members get a lot of stuff in season.
0:31There's weekly rankings, which includes my Top 100 Flex rankings.
0:35There's a live stream Q&A with yours truly for over an hour every Tuesday night.
0:40There's rest of season rankings, monthly Dynasty rankings updates, an incredibly awesome and active Discord community, and more.
0:46You can learn more about being a Late-Round member by heading to LateRound.com.
0:50Now let's get to these 10 trends. I want to start today's episode with how I ended the 15 transactions episode, and that's by expanding on Kalief Raymond.
1:00Like I said yesterday, given his usage, given where we're at, you can't leave him on the waiver wire, pretty clearly.
1:07Now I've been doing more work with comps this year because we have access to more data than we have in the past at Late-Round Fantasy Football.
1:16Or I should say, I have the ability to do this a lot faster than I could in the past.
1:23So I was curious about Khalif Raymond. I looked at wide receivers drafted past wide receiver 60 who had comparable route shares,
1:30target shares, and fantasy output through the first three weeks of the season.
1:34To put that another way, they kind of came out of nowhere, but they had pretty good peripherals during those first three weeks.
1:42In that list of comps, it tells a story where the production doesn't maintain, but it doesn't fully drop off either.
1:49Looking at the top 10 player comps, you get no player averaging fewer than about 9 PPR points per game from week 4 onward.
1:57But there's also only one player who's above 13 PPR points per game.
2:02So you're looking at players in like that wide receiver 3 to wide receiver 4 range.
2:07But here's why my rest of season ranking of Khalif Raymond is at wide receiver 53 right now.
2:13So technically outside of that wide receiver 4 range.
2:16I guess it's close, but it's not quite there.
2:19It's also like 15 wide receiver spots higher than consensus for what it's worth.
2:24So I do like Raymond more than most. But when you look at the comps that are popping up, only one of
2:32them, Russell Gage in 2020, had a crowded room like Chicago's by average draft position.
2:37In 2020, Gage was playing for Atlanta. He had Julio Jones, Calvin Ridley, and Hayden Hurst with high average draft positions.
2:44And in weeks 1 through 3, Gage had a 60% route share, a 19% target share, and 13.9 PPR points per game.
2:51Now Khalif Raymond is a little bit better with those peripherals.
2:55He has a 67% route share, a 23% target share, and 15.5 PPR points per game.
3:00But Gage averaged fewer than 10 PPR points per contest rest of season.
3:05And that was in a season where Julio Jones ended up getting hurt.
3:09Basically, this is a really, really unique situation. I can't remember seeing anything like this as a fantasy analyst.
3:15Which is why I'm just so fascinated by it.
3:18Like I said, I'm still adding him if he's out there.
3:22And I'm higher than the market right now. But I do think that these comps, they paint a picture that says Raymond's
3:30performing better right now than he will through the rest of the season.
3:34And no, of course that's not all that shocking.
3:37But I do think it's interesting that a lot of these comps, they still scored like 10 PPR points per game through the end of the year.
3:46But I do think the difference with Raymond is that those other players, they didn't have the same teammate competition that he currently does.
3:54I don't want to overreact because it's only been 3 games.
3:58And he's coming off an ankle injury too. But Ashton Gentey, he's kind of struggling this year.
4:04He hasn't been that great on the ground. In terms of yards after contact per attempt, he ranks 29th out of 43
4:11qualified running backs with 20 or more rush attempts this year.
4:15Among that same group, he's 31st in 10 plus yard run rate.
4:19He still doesn't have a 20 plus yard run.
4:22Meanwhile, his success rate, 35th. And here's another problem.
4:25He hasn't converted at the goal line. But I'm not going to overstate a 7 snap sample within his opponent's 10 yard line.
4:33Where he has 4 rush attempts and minus 1.3 yards before contact on those rush attempts.
4:38Or his 3 goal line rushes where his yards before contact is minus 2.3 per rush.
4:43People are going to compare and contrast Gentey to Mike Washington for sure.
4:48Because Washington stepped in last week, he immediately had a long touchdown.
4:52On a very limited sample, he's got the better 10 plus yard run rate and 20 plus yard run rate.
4:59He's electric with the ball in his hands. We might see Washington dig a little bit more into Gentey's workload on the ground.
5:06Gentey wasn't great in pass pro in week 3, but I don't think he's just ready to give up that work either.
5:14The Raiders have made it clear that Washington's not ready for that.
5:18He has 12 routes in the season. He's playing 13% of their 3rd down snaps.
5:23And Gentey's actually been really effective per route run.
5:26So where we're at is that I wouldn't be surprised if Gentey's rush share does dip just a little bit.
5:33We might not get such a lopsided split. Right now it's 74% for Gentey and rush share, 18% for Washington.
5:39But Gentey's coming off that injury and he's 3rd among running backs right now and expected fantasy points per game.
5:46The usage has been amazing. I don't think the efficiency on the ground and some bad pass pro reps is the reason we should be panicking.
5:55Even if he does lose a little bit of work to Mike Washington.
5:59So every week I do my rest of season rankings.
6:03I work on them on Monday night during that game so I can publish them on Tuesday morning for late round fantasy football members.
6:11When I publish them, I compare and contrast my rankings to other expert rankings that are out there on fantasy pros.
6:18The ones that are updated. It gives me an idea of who I might be higher or lower on.
6:24Which can then help me with how I describe things with my content.
6:29One player I'm higher than the market on right now at least compared to other rankers is DJ Moore.
6:35By like 5 or 6 wide receiver spots. Which is actually a lot when you're talking about a top 30, top 24 wide receiver.
6:43I'm pretty bullish about what we could see rest of season from Moore.
6:48Now I don't love doing this because Moore was active for the first half of that week 2 game against the Lions.
6:55And he wasn't heavily involved. But in weeks 1 and 3, Moore had an expected PPR points per game rate of 16.2.
7:03Which by the way, a lot of people are asking about the expected points per game numbers.
7:08We built our own formula this offseason with Brandon Gadula joining the Late Round squad.
7:13And those numbers are available in the data dump section for Late Round members.
7:18You can check it out, Lateround.com. All of the expected fantasy points numbers are right there.
7:23I'm able to reference them more this year than I have in the past because we have our own proprietary formula.
7:31Before I was relying on other spots for that data, which would often publish like on Wednesdays.
7:36I just never had time to build one for myself.
7:40But now we have one. Anyway, in those two contests, weeks 1 and 3, Moore's expected PPR points per game put him around wide receiver 9.
7:48When you include week 2, that falls to wide receiver 34.
7:52Now obviously, we can just look at per route run numbers here too.
7:56Because he did run routes in that week 2 game.
8:00We can include those. When you look at his whole season from a routes run perspective, Moore's second in the league in
8:07targets per route run among wide outs with 30 or more routes.
8:11He trails only Jackson, Smith, and Jigba in that category.
8:15He's sixth in yards per route run. So yeah, I'm higher than the market with DJ Moore.
8:20I think he's kind of a buy candidate right now.
8:24We saw a distinct change in usage with the Arizona backfield in week 3.
8:29And it's a very big deal for Jeremiah Love.
8:32Love finished the day with a 63% snap share when his previous season high was 44%.
8:37His rush share was 78%. That was highest among any Arizona Cardinals running back in a single game this year by 23 percentage points.
8:45Now the weird thing is that his route share didn't dramatically change against the 49ers.
8:50It was basically identical to week 2. He did split snaps at the goal line with Tyler Algier, but overall it was
8:58a really good day for Jeremiah Love's fantasy outlook.
9:01His expected PPR point total was 20.2. In weeks 1 and 2, it was 12.3 and 8.6.
9:06So the arrow is definitely pointing up for Jeremiah Love.
9:10Throughout the summer, I worked with our new market score metric to find player comps.
9:15It was a fun way to sort of look at range of outcomes for certain players.
9:20We layered on their average draft position on top of their market score.
9:25And then we looked at their experience in the league.
9:28Now I'm saying that because Zay Flowers' top comp, if you guys remember, was 2025 Jackson Smith and Jigba.
9:34If there was a player who looked like this year's JSN, statistically, it was Zay Flowers.
9:40Now we haven't been able to see it all come to fruition just yet because of his injury.
9:46But his per-route run numbers are absolutely bonkers right now.
9:49It's a limited sample. This isn't to say it's going to happen all year.
9:54But it is pretty crazy. Flowers is currently 11th among wide receivers and receiving yards this year.
10:00Meanwhile, he's 114th in routes run. He's only run 25 routes.
10:03His snap share is 30% right now. But Flowers has averaged over 9 yards per route run this season.
10:10He's seen a league high 48% targets per route run rate.
10:14Yes, I understand it's a tiny, tiny sample. And it was against two beatable defenses.
10:19He's not going to maintain that kind of rate.
10:22But that doesn't mean that he can't destroy defenses this year.
10:25This could be a monster, monster season for Zay Flowers.
10:29Bashaw Tootin has really looked the part this year.
10:32I think it's only a matter of time before he takes another step forward with fantasy production.
10:37Tootin's snap share and rush share have stayed really consistent through his three games this year.
10:43He's been between a 48% and 50% snap share each game and a 50% and 55% rush share.
10:49And he's split the goal line work completely evenly with Chris Rodriguez.
10:53But among running backs with 20 or more rush attempts this season, Tootin only trails Kyle Monungay and both the Falcons running
11:00backs in yards after contact per attempt. The only reason Monungay is at the top of that list is because of that big run in week one.
11:10In terms of just raw yards after contact, only B.
11:13John Robinson and Kenneth Walker rank ahead of Bashaw Tootin.
11:16Meanwhile, you can look at success rate. Because yards after contact, it can be skewed by a big run like I talked about with Kyle Monungay.
11:25Success rate is the percentage of rushes that result in a positive EPA play.
11:30Tootin ranks fourth. He's only behind Kyron Williams, Jameer Gibbs, and Christian McCaffrey.
11:34As a cherry on top, Tootin's seventh in 10 plus yard run rate.
11:39Chris Rodriguez has not seen a single run of 10 plus yards.
11:43He's the only player with 20 or more rushes without one of those runs.
11:47I mean, an argument can be made that only Kenneth Walker, Jameer Gibbs, and B.
11:52John Robinson have been better pure runners than Bashaw Tootin this season.
11:56You could argue that Tootin's been better than some of them.
12:00The biggest issue from a true RB1 ceiling right now in fantasy football is that Tootin's route share is 25th among these running backs.
12:08He's only seen five targets as a result. That's keeping him in RB2 land.
12:13But there's no doubt he's been awesome to start the year.
12:17Another area where Tootin has looked really good is when initial contact has been behind the line of scrimmage.
12:23Those Atlanta running backs are first and second in yards after contact per attempt when yards before contact is less than zero.
12:31So they're being hit at the line of scrimmage or before the line of scrimmage.
12:36Jalen Warren, who I still think is just one of the most underrated backs in football, is next.
12:42And then look who's fourth. It's Bashaw Tootin. Tootin is also seventh in success rate on those rushes.
12:48So that's when yards before contact is below zero.
12:51There's some interesting stuff on the other side of this list.
12:54The bottom five players in yards after contact per attempt when hit behind the line of scrimmage or at the line of scrimmage are Marshawn Lloyd.
13:03No surprise there. But then there's Derrick Henry, DeAndre Swift, Aaron Jones, and Javante Williams.
13:08That's kind of a surprising list. The issue is that yards after contact per attempt, like I said earlier, can be skewed with bigger plays.
13:17Which is also why we should look at success rate.
13:20Some of those backs though, like Derrick Henry, he's actually been bad in success rate on those rushes.
13:26Aaron Jones is fourth worst. Javante Williams is sixth worst.
13:30But Jadarian Price is second worst, ahead of only Chase Brown.
13:33The difference is that Price is also dead last in rushing yards per attempt on those types of runs.
13:40Those runs where they're hit at the line or before the line.
13:44Now what got me thinking about this is that I saw a tweet from my friend Rich Rebar at Lord Rebs that talked about this with Jadarian Price.
13:53And he made the point that when you look at the plays where contact was made after the line of scrimmage, things really flipped for Jadarian Price.
14:02So I went and I looked. On plays where contact is first made after the line, Price has the fifth best yards per carry in the league.
14:11His success rate is 14th best. That's among 43 running backs.
14:15So he's really good after the line of scrimmage when he's not hit, but if he's hit at or before the line
14:23of scrimmage, things have been really bad for Price so far.
14:26But with Jadarian Price, I think we're unfortunately for fantasy purposes, so far we're seeing a player who could use a better hammer like Zach Charbonnet.
14:35Just so far. It doesn't mean he can't improve.
14:38It's just what we've seen through three weeks. It just makes me feel a little bit less enthusiastic about a late season surge from Price.
14:47But look, overall these numbers aren't amazingly predictive. We're just trying to put puzzle pieces together.
14:52If Zach Charbonnet is out on your waiver wire though, it might not be a bad idea to add him.
14:59I'm still incredibly bullish about Josh Downs' rest of season.
15:02I still don't think the market is totally caught up.
15:05We have no idea if and when Alec Pierce is going to be back.
15:10But get this, Josh Downs has played three games in the NFL where he hit an 80% route share and a 30% target share.
15:18Two of those three games have come over the last two weeks.
15:22According to our expected PPR points model, he's averaged 19.4 expected PPR points per game over these two games.
15:29His yards per route run is over two. He has the 12th best wide receiver target share and he's top 20 in air yards per game.
15:37I just think that Josh Downs right now, he can be a reliable wide receiver too, rest of season.
15:44Part of me really does want to buy into Carnell Tate right now.
15:48I mentioned some numbers with Casey Concepcion on yesterday's 15 transaction show.
15:52Tate's not that far behind him in a lot of those volume related metrics.
15:57Concepcion is seeing more work per route run, which is what that transaction really focused on.
16:02But Carnell Tate has a 25% target share this season.
16:06The only two rookie wide receivers with a target share above 20% this year are Carnell Tate and Casey Concepcion.
16:13Tate's actually ninth in target share among rookie wide receivers across the first three weeks of the season since 2016.
16:19And the guys in front of them, they're the studs that I talked about on yesterday's show.
16:25And then there's Marvin Harrison Jr. To me, rookies this time of year who are seeing this kind of volume, similar to
16:32the Casey Concepcion thing, I love sending bench assets for them.
16:36Guys who are just stashes. Because I don't think the problem for Carnell Tate right now is really Carnell Tate.
16:43I think it's very obviously the situation. The Titans are currently dead last in offensive plays run.
16:49They have the lowest time of possession in the entire NFL.
16:52And look, let's just be real. Cam Ward doesn't really look like the answer.
16:57There have been 340 quarterback seasons over the last 10 years, where across weeks one through three, the quarterback had 50 or more pass attempts.
17:06Cam Ward's completion rate on 10 plus air yard throws this season ranks 309th.
17:10His rate last year was 324th. He's currently 277th in EPA per play.
17:15His two seasons in the league are 324th and 325th in passing yards per game.
17:20That's over the first three weeks of the season.
17:23The bottom line here is that if this situation is fixed in any way, Carnell Tate is going to have fantasy relevance.
17:30That's why he's not a bad stash. You want talented players on your fantasy bench.
17:35And we have to be open minded to things just getting better for the Tennessee offense.
17:41I know it's hard to envision that. I don't even think that's the likely outcome here.
17:46But we have to be open minded. This is only a three game sample with a new coaching staff.
17:52I wouldn't be giving up on Carnell Tate. And in fact, if you can just throw a bench player at him, I would be trading for him.
18:02I want to end today's show by talking about something that I just think gets overlooked when we look at wide receiver usage early on in the season.
18:11And that's the difference between snap share and route share.
18:14Most of us treat them as the same thing.
18:17And for the most part, that's pretty fair. There's going to be insane overlap when it comes to snap share and route share.
18:25You have to be on the field to run routes.
18:29And if you're running routes, you're on the field.
18:32When I looked at every wide receiver game since 2016, snap share and route share were almost equally predictive of rest of season fantasy production.
18:40So if you only have one of them, you're not missing that much across a larger sample.
18:46But they do measure different things. Snap share is how often a wide receiver is just on the field for any play.
18:53While route share is how often they're actually running a route on a pass play.
18:58And those two numbers, they don't always line up.
19:01And that's when you get something that's actually pretty interesting.
19:05If a receiver is on the field, he has a lot of snaps, but he's not running a route on a lot of drop backs.
19:13What's he doing then? He's blocking. He's out there on running plays.
19:17And blocking doesn't score fantasy points. So I looked at receivers who had at least a 50% snap share through week three
19:25since 2016, about 750 seasons of data. And I asked a very simple question.
19:29If two receivers have the same snap share, but one runs routes more often relative to his snaps, who scores more the rest of the way?
19:38And it really isn't close. Among receivers with a 50-70% snap share, the ones running routes least often relative to their snaps,
19:46averaged about 6 PPR points per game from week four onward.
19:49Receivers with the exact same snap share, but a better route profile, they average about 8.5.
19:55So it's the same playing time, 2.5 more points per game.
19:58Which makes sense intuitively, but it often can get lost in fantasy football conversation.
20:03Here's another way to put it. 10 points of route share was worth about twice as much in rest of season scoring as 10 points in snap share.
20:13Look at Jacksonville right now as a perfect example.
20:16Parker Washington has a 73% snap share, but he has an 84% route share.
20:20When Jacksonville puts him on the field, he's actually running routes.
20:24That's all we should really care about when it comes to fantasy football.
20:28But beyond Parker Washington, look at Josh Cameron vs.
20:31Brian Thomas Jr. this past week. I've seen a lot of chatter about Cameron having more snaps played in week three than Brian Thomas Jr.
20:40And yes, it's true. He did. He played more snaps.
20:43But he played more snaps because they deployed him mostly as a blocker.
20:48The Jags ended up running 43% of their offensive plays in week three out of 12 and 13 personnel.
20:54Josh Cameron played half of their snaps in those situations.
20:57He had 13 snaps on those plays. Brian Thomas didn't have any.
21:01But guess what? On those 13 snaps, Cameron ran two routes.
21:05Brian Thomas Jr. still ran six more routes in total than Cameron last week.
21:10And those six routes, it doesn't seem like a lot.
21:13That's a 75% increase from where Cameron was actually at.
21:17Imagine that type of delta across the entirety of the season.
21:20This isn't to say that what's happening with Brian Thomas Jr.
21:24is a good thing. He's losing work by not playing in heavy personnel.
21:28There's a reason I had him as a sell entering week one.
21:32Trust me, I'm not on that train. What I am saying is that snap share will not tell you the whole story
21:40for a wide receiver and his usage, not even close.
21:43You gotta pay attention to how they're actually deploying these guys as wideouts.
21:48That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening.
21:52If you yet subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found.
22:01And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at LateRoundQB.
22:06Thanks for listening everyone. I'll be back in your ears tomorrow with the weekly sleepers episode.
22:11This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. We'll see you next time.
