1128: Mailbag - Travis Etienne's Workload, Data That Matters, and More
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
19 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 18, 2026
Published
Fri, September 18, 2026
13
Player insights
13
Players mentioned
Topics
Antonio WilliamsCaleb DouglasCam AkersColston LovelandDavid MontgomeryDevin SingletaryEmari DemercadoJake FergusonJaylen WaddleJaylen WarrenKenyon SadiqRico DowdleTravis Etienne
Player analysis
Player insights
Antonio Williams
NegativeBreakout10:17
JJ Zachariason likes Antonio Williams' profile but warns that his path to fantasy relevance may be a 'slow burn' due to the presence of Terry McLaurin and Stefan Diggs.
Insight pageCaleb Douglas
PositiveSleeper10:17
JJ Zachariason identifies Caleb Douglas as an interesting waiver wire target who should be rostered, though he cautions against dropping players with established standalone value like Rico Dowdle to acquire him.
Insight pageCam Akers
NegativeUsage26:47
JJ Zachariason expresses concern over Cam Akers' receiving usage, noting his 27% route share compared to Devin Singletary's 53% in week one. He warns that Akers should not be viewed as a 'league winner' based on his current workload.
Insight pageColston Loveland
PositiveUsage23:26
JJ Zachariason highlights Colston Loveland as a positive prospect because he recorded an elite route share in week one despite failing to score a fantasy point.
Insight pageDavid Montgomery
NegativeProjection3:43
JJ Zachariason notes that while Montgomery is expected to be good this season, fantasy managers should not expect three touchdowns every week; his week one snap share was more split than the high-scoring result suggests.
Insight pageDevin Singletary
PositiveUsage26:47
JJ Zachariason notes that Devin Singletary out-snapped and out-routed Cam Akers in week one, recording a 53% route share compared to Akers' 27%.
Insight pageEmari Demercado
NegativeValue12:24
JJ Zachariason views Emari Demercado as a high-end handcuff who is primarily relevant in the event of a Kenneth Walker injury, making him a more logical drop candidate than a player with standalone value if a roster spot is needed.
Insight pageJake Ferguson
NegativeProjection13:53
JJ Zachariason likes Jake Ferguson for the current week against Washington but notes his fantasy ceiling is capped without an injury to George Pickens or CeeDee Lamb.
Insight pageJaylen Waddle
PositiveValue3:54
JJ Zachariason suggests buying Jaylen Waddle 'ultra low' after his week one performance, noting that week one production is historically uninformative for wide receiver rest-of-season outcomes.
Insight pageJaylen Warren
PositiveProjection13:34
JJ Zachariason maintains that Jalen Warren still possesses more upside than Rico Dowdle, despite Dowdle's higher snap share in week one.
Insight pageKenyon Sadiq
PositiveSleeper15:04
JJ Zachariason remains high on Kenyon Sadiq as a late-round dart throw, citing his elite athleticism, age (21), and an 80th-percentile breakout score. He expects Sadiq's route share to improve as the season progresses.
Insight pageRico Dowdle
PositiveUsage10:38
JJ Zachariason advises against dropping Rico Dowdle, noting he led the Steelers backfield in snaps in week one (19th among RBs) and possesses legitimate standalone value.
Insight pageTravis Etienne
NegativeRole5:06
JJ Zachariason notes that Etienne's week one snap share (58%) and route share (36%) were not significantly different from his 2023 usage in Jacksonville. While he is unlikely to be a true RB1 due to Kellen Moore's rotation-heavy philosophy, he remains a viable RB2.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
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1:00This is the Late Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zacharyarysen.
1:04JJ Zacharyarysen. What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyson. In this episode 1128 of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thank you for tuning in.
1:11If you're interested in my weekly rankings, my rest of season rankings, a great Discord community, a weekly waiver wire live stream
1:18Q&A, and more, you should look into becoming a Late Round Fantasy Football member.
1:22It's a good time. To learn more, just head to LateRound.com.
1:26Now it's a mailbag episode. Let's get to these questions.
1:29The first one's from Twitter. It's from at a Lego.
1:32It says, Hi JJ, been a fan since 2021 and I love to see that you're always stepping it up.
1:38Thank you. I've always thought that week one is the perfect time to be aggressive and make trades since there's still tons
1:45of uncertainty and people tend to overreact. What are your thoughts on this?
1:49Yes, absolutely yes. Average draft position is still far, far more predictive of what's going to happen week two onward than week one production is.
1:57I talked about this on the 10 trends episode earlier this week.
2:00When we're looking at the correlation between week one performance and then week two to end of season performance, points per game
2:07is not that predictive at all, AKA points scored in week one.
2:11It's more predictive at running back and then it's least predictive at wide receiver.
2:15So maybe you'd want to lean into that week one production slightly more at running back, but you still want to be rational about things.
2:23Like I think David Montgomery is going to be good this season, but we also can't expect three touchdowns every single week.
2:30Realistically, his snap share was far more split than you'd probably expect given that result.
2:34So just be rational about things. But when it comes to wide receivers like Jalen Waddle types, I would see if you could buy ultra low.
2:42It can't hurt to send a trade offer to someone who's really upset after that week one performance.
2:48Maybe Waddle doesn't live up to his draft costs this year, but we know factually that week one performances at wide, wide
2:55receiver explained very little about their rest of season production.
2:58So my answer is yes. It's a good time to take advantage of the reactionary fantasy manager.
3:03This next question is from Jackson from the members hub.
3:06It says, I remember you weren't the biggest fan of Travis Achan.
3:10I'm curious if he might be a buy right now.
3:13Everyone seems to be low on him because he's part of a rotation.
3:17However, I see some things that I like. Number one, he's second in targets right now with nine.
3:22Only Bijan has more. Number two, I imagine that this Kellen Moore offense is the kind of offense that might continue this kind of passing volume.
3:30Number three, the vibes around him are bad. So it feels like people might let him go for very little.
3:37I do hear he struggles in pass protection. So maybe that's a concern.
3:41But do we really think that these other running backs are going to beat him out?
3:46This is after all an offensive coordinator who fed Saquon Barkley in 2024.
3:50Okay, let's start with that last point. This is straight from CoachSpeakIndex, who you guys should check out if you're into hearing
3:56what coaches are saying about their players. This is what Kellen Moore said on Wednesday.
4:01Quote, I think it's important to rotate these guys.
4:04We got to rotate all these running backs and there will be different packages or responsibilities from week to week that are different.
4:11I think it's important. My one year in Philly is probably the only year I've ever been where a running back just
4:18kind of takes everything until he can't. But everywhere else, you're usually rotating these guys.
4:22So I really don't think that 2024 Saquon Barkley should really matter that much here.
4:27I also don't think that we should be looking at raw totals with the Saints offense from week one.
4:33And you guys know that I brought up Kellen Moore's pace of play.
4:37The volume in his offense is like 30 times in the past.
4:41But they played extra time. The game script really favored a lot of plays.
4:45They're not going to run that many offensive plays each week.
4:48We should be focused on the rate stats though.
4:51And to be fair, A-Chan's snap share and his route share were not significantly far off from what we saw in Jacksonville last year.
4:58He had a 58% snap share versus a 60% one last season.
5:02His route share was 40% last year. In week one, it was 36%.
5:06And like you said, he did see a lot of targets.
5:10I'd be more concerned about target share than raw volume though, but he did see a 17% target share.
5:15If you look year over year though with Travis A-Chan, the biggest difference is that the Saints probably don't project to be as good as Jacksonville's offense.
5:24At least as a run game and then the offense as a whole during the second half of the year.
5:30And I want to see him get more of that green zone work.
5:34But as someone who was lower than the market with A-Chan this year, as you noted in the question, after digging into
5:41this more, I'm not like totally turned off now and think that you need a panic sell.
5:46Most backfields are split. I do think the idea of him being an RB1 this season, probably not totally reasonable based on
5:53what Kellen Moore is thinking and what we saw in week one.
5:56Especially when Alvin Kamara gets back. But I do definitely think that A-Chan can be an RB2.
6:02The next question is from at good underscore ecosystem on Twitter.
6:05It says, would you drop high end handcuffs and ambiguous backfields to take a shot at a rookie wide receiver if your team needs wide receivers more?
6:13For example, drop Rico Dowdle for Caleb Douglas or Antonio Williams.
6:17Or would you wait for those players to start breaking out and pay the fab premium the week they blow up?
6:23Now look, we want to be one week ahead, right?
6:26I think that Caleb Douglas, Antonio Williams, I talked about him on the 10 trends episode.
6:31They both can be rostered right now. Absolutely. But in this particular example, in a vacuum, I would be keeping Rico Dowdle.
6:38He led the Steelers backfield in snaps in week one.
6:41In most formats, even if that player is more of a flex play, you don't want to be dropping a running back who's leading his team in snaps.
6:50Like, is there an outcome where one of those rookie wide receivers ends up being better than Rico Dowdle?
6:56Of course. But I wouldn't be doing my job if I said to drop Rico Dowdle for someone like Antonio Williams, who's still relatively unknown.
7:03And that's coming from someone who ranked Williams pretty high as a rookie.
7:07I think he has a really fun profile. We just have to recognize that they still have Terry McLaurin and Stefan Diggs.
7:14It might be more of a slow burn until Antonio Williams gets legit playing time.
7:19And look, Caleb Douglas, very, very interesting. If you can get him off the waiver wire, you should.
7:24I talked about him in the 15 transactions episode.
7:27But again, I would rather be dropping some other piece of my team as opposed to dropping a guy like Rico Dowdle, who has legitimate standalone value.
7:36And remember, both Pittsburgh running backs and backs from ambiguous backfields in general, they have upside.
7:40They have contingent upside with the other running back getting hurt.
7:44Now, if you're talking like Emmitt Johnson, another player I like a lot versus a Caleb Douglas or Antonio Williams, that makes a little bit more sense.
7:52That's a little bit different. The standalone value piece with Johnson, probably going to be tough to predict.
7:58And he's most relevant with a Kenneth Walker injury.
8:01So he's more of that traditional high end handcuff.
8:03In that case, if you need the wide receiver production, that makes way more sense.
8:08But with Dowdle in particular, I can't get behind it.
8:11He was 19th in running back snap share in week one.
8:14I still think Jalen Warren has more upside. But in 99% of leagues, Rico Dowdle should be rostered.
8:20This next question is also from Twitter. It's from at know the good life.
8:24It says rest of season Ferguson or Sadiq and full PPR.
8:28So the funny part of this question is, I don't think it matters which Ferguson you're talking about.
8:33I do like Jake Ferguson this week against Washington, like I said on the sleeper show.
8:38But he's just not someone who has a super high fantasy ceiling week in and week out without an injury to either George Pickens or CeeDee Lamb.
8:47I think he has a decent enough median outcome.
8:49But the ceiling outcome week in and week out just is not that appealing.
8:54And then we've got to wait and see what happens with Terrance Ferguson.
8:58After one week, I'm not amazingly optimistic. So I'm back to what I've been saying this summer about Kenyon Sadiq.
9:04I find it so strange that trends in fantasy football have leaned more and more towards the more unknown younger players.
9:10Right? And yet no one in fantasy football during draft season and even right now after he had a decent week one, no one wants Kenyon Sadiq.
9:19He was a player I had as a late round dart throw and anyone who listened to becoming a best ball bro,
9:25you know that I have a lot of Sadiq in best ball.
9:29So yeah, maybe there is some bias here. And this certainly isn't a week one victory lap.
9:34I mean, he had a sub 50% route share.
9:37With players like Sadiq, we're going to be wrong far more often than we're going to be right for sure.
9:43But I don't really care about being wrong here because his cost is so low.
9:48The very simple take with Sadiq is that he's one of the most athletic tight ends that we've ever seen.
9:54He's still only 21 years old and he was a middle of the first round pick.
9:59And he's playing in an offense that likes to utilize tight ends.
10:03There's been this narrative all summer long that Sadiq had a bad collegiate production profile.
10:07I see it everywhere. I just personally don't see that to be true.
10:11Not only did he have tough competition in college, but we use breakout score as a metric in our tight end model.
10:18Breakout score looks at receiving yards per team pass attempt and it adjusts it for age.
10:23Sadiq's breakout score is well past the 80th percentile.
10:26I think the reason people are down on Sadiq is because we've been spoiled with prospects like Colston Loveland and Brock Bowers.
10:33Which yes, I agree. He's not Colston Loveland or Brock Bowers.
10:36But I don't want to place these guys into two boxes.
10:39That they're either Brock Bowers, where they're breaking reception records, or they're just not important.
10:44There's certainly a gray area here. So to me, Sadiq is one of those players that I'm going to take a chance on strictly for upside purposes.
10:52Maybe it doesn't work out. But I do think it makes plenty of sense from a process standpoint.
10:58We already saw him get manufactured touches in week one.
11:01And I'd assume that route share, it only gets better as the season moves forward.
11:06This next question is from Eric. It says, Hi JJ, in the data dump that you sent out, there's a lot of route share and target share discrepancies.
11:14For example, player A ran the most routes on his team by a long shot, but player B on the same team received many more targets.
11:22Which metrics should we lean into more when determining who to add or buy?
11:27Route share shows how the team wants to utilize the player, but target share could be an indicator of talent.
11:33Curious for your thoughts on this. So I ran some analysis on this because I want to be precise with this question.
11:40I don't want to just sit here and say, both of them matter.
11:44Both of them do matter, but there is some more detail that I want to talk through.
11:49I think we need to first recognize that route share is going to correlate to target share.
11:54A player who has a high route share, he's going to have more opportunity to see a lot of targets.
12:00This question is probably referring to someone like Antonio Williams this past week, where Williams had a 14% target share, despite only having a 26% route share.
12:09Just to be clear, those types of numbers don't happen super frequently across a larger sample.
12:14And actually from my count, that's only happened 26 times since 2020.
12:17Out of thousands of games, where a wide receiver had a sub 30% route share, but a target share of 14%.
12:24Antonio Williams was technically at 13.8%. And we've seen 34 instances where a wide out had a 13.5% target share and a route share below that 30% mark.
12:32So it doesn't happen that much at all. But route share and target share, they matter at different levels depending on the position that you're analyzing.
12:40And depending on the part of the season that you're actually in.
12:44Since we're in the early parts of the season, let's just focus on that.
12:48At wide receiver, generally speaking, early on, there's a pretty similar predictive nature between route share and target share.
12:54And actually, they're both more predictive than actual points scored after week one.
12:58Which is why I always tell people to not get so focused on actual production early on.
13:04Look at peripherals. But almost immediately as we get into week two, target share becomes the more predictive factor.
13:09So I would say at wide receiver, if a player after a couple of weeks isn't seeing a high route share, but
13:16is seeing a high target share, maybe there's some concern, but the target share piece is going to be a little bit more important.
13:24Right now it's about even. What's interesting is what happens at the other positions.
13:28After the first couple of weeks of the season, route share is still more important at tight end than target share is.
13:35Once we get past the first few weeks, target share starts to become a little bit more stable and we'll see it become a more predictive piece.
13:43But we're feeling things out at tight end right now.
13:46We're seeing usage and there's going to be some volatility with how these guys are targeted.
13:51It's why when I sent that tweet out last week about Terrence Ferguson, it actually did matter.
13:56Week one route share at tight end is more predictive than both week one points scored and week one target share.
14:03Unfortunately for Ferguson, that route share dropped in the second half.
14:06This is very good news for Colson Loveland given that he didn't score a point last week, but he had an elite route share.
14:14And by the way, route share is a much better predictor for future tight end success than simple snap share.
14:20I see that all the time. People are referencing snaps at tight end.
14:24It doesn't matter. I care far, far more about routes run at tight end.
14:28Because obviously with snaps, you're seeing when they're out there blocking, not just running routes.
14:33Running back is actually even more extreme than tight end.
14:36Route share is very consistently more important than target share at running back.
14:40Like when a running back is a random one game dip in target share, it's really not that massive of a deal
14:47when it comes to rest of season fantasy production.
14:49When he dips in route share, it's actually a bigger deal.
14:53That's actually not the case at wide receiver. If a wide receiver keeps his route share, but sees a dip in target
15:00share, they tend to then start to perform worse moving forward.
15:03Now I'm not saying it's the end of the world.
15:06I'm just saying that target share is going to have a more profound impact at wide receiver than it is going to
15:13be at running back when it comes to predictiveness.
15:16So the TLDR here early on in the season, we probably should care more about target share for wide receivers than for running backs and tight ends.
15:24But then for those two positions, we should care a little bit more about route share.
15:29And it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? The primary function for a wide receiver is to catch the freaking football.
15:35With tight ends and running backs, they have different jobs.
15:39So there's going to be more volatility to their actual receiving work week to week.
15:43But if they're out there, if they're running routes, and they're being deployed in that way, you can expect things to eventually normalize.
15:50So with this last one, we can kind of use what I was just talking about and apply it to a real life example.
15:58This one's from Brandon. It says, Hey JJ, I've been listening to two years and you helped me win my first championship last year.
16:05So thanks for the great advice. So is Cam Scadaboo coming back and getting zero targets while Singletary got four?
16:11Are you at all concerned about Scadaboo's receiving work this season?
16:15So naturally, as we just talked about, target share is not going to be quite as important in week one as route share for running backs.
16:23But in this case, you're comparing a running back target total to another running back target total on the exact same team.
16:29Which should definitely make you curious about route share.
16:32If Singletary was getting more looks through the air than Scadaboo, there's probably a chance that he had a better route share.
16:39And we know that route share, it's important for running back production.
16:43And that was the case in week one. Singletary had a 53% route share, Scadaboo 27%.
16:48If we assume that that continues, yes, that's a very, very big problem.
16:52But like anything that I do on this show or that we all do collectively with data, context is necessary.
16:58We should never pretend that one data point after one week predicts everything for everyone.
17:02And we also just need to understand ball. Cam Scadaboo is coming off a serious injury.
17:07There is a chance that the Giants just didn't want to give him a full blown bell cow workload right away.
17:14We've got to be very open to that possibility.
17:17But at face value, I don't think that we should walk away from that game and say, Man, Cam Scadaboo is a league winner.
17:24He's going to see the same workload that he did last year.
17:28Because that's just objectively not true. His receiving usage was a lot worse.
17:32And that's something that we need to be aware of.
17:35Especially because we know route share does matter at running back early on.
17:39That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening.
17:43If you had subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are by searching for it.
17:49Pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. And if you follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky, at LateRoundQB.
17:55I'll have a Late Round Perspectives episode for you guys later this morning.
17:59And then at 1pm Eastern, myself, David Kitchen, will be live with the Late Round Fantasy Football Show.
18:04That'll then hit your podcast feeds tomorrow morning. Otherwise everyone, have a great weekend and enjoy week two.
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