0:00This is an iHeartPodcast. Guaranteed human. Scams don't always look like scams anymore.
0:04AI can make a fake ticket offer look legit or a sportsbook text sound official.
0:09And once an identity thief gets your personal information and starts using your name, then what?
0:15LifeLock helps detect potential identity threats and suspicious activity.
0:18And if identity theft happens, LifeLock's restoration specialists help restore your identity.
0:22Guaranteed it's identity theft protection for the life you are building.
0:25Get LifeLock at LifeLock.com. Use the code FOOTBALL for up to 30% off your first year.
0:31That's LifeLock.com, code FOOTBALL, because isn't your identity worth protecting?
0:34This is the Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zacharyarysen.
0:37JJ Zacharyarysen. What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharyarysen and this episode 1136 of the Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast.
0:43Thanks for tuning in. Before we get to the mailbag questions this week, I want to send another reminder about the Late-Round newsletter.
0:51That newsletter is absolutely free. Just head to Late-Round.com and sign up.
0:55You get the data dump in your inbox every Monday morning.
0:59You get the 15 transactions list on Tuesday morning.
1:02You get an awesome matchups column from Brandon Gadula on Wednesday.
1:06And then David Kitchen wraps it all up at the end of the week with one more newsletter.
1:12Again, it's totally free. Just head to Late-Round.com and sign up.
1:15The first question this week says, Hi JJ, I'm a long-time listener and a big fan from Brazil.
1:21Thanks for everything you do. I'll tell you what man, every interaction that I've had with a listener from Brazil has been awesome.
1:29So shout out Brazil. But anyway, the question says, The Rams have historically had a very low running back target share under Sean McVay.
1:37And Kyron Williams has never really stood out as a receiving back, especially while sharing the backfield with Blake Corum.
1:44But this year, the running back target shares increased every week.
1:47And Kyron had 7 targets in week 3 with a very high yards per target for a running back.
1:54Do you think this is a real change in the Rams offense or mostly a temporary result of the injuries to Puka Nakua and Terrence Ferguson?
2:02So one of the things that people might not remember about Kyron Williams when he came out of school was that pass
2:10catching was what he was really good at. Like as a prospect, I thought Kyron profiled more as a part-time early down
2:17runner who could do a lot on third downs and be good as a pass catcher.
2:22It's honestly kind of bizarre what he's turned into, at least from a usage standpoint.
2:28The ability for Williams as a pass catcher has always been there.
2:32This system, as you noted, just hasn't exactly allowed for it.
2:35Todd Gurley was done in LA after the 2019 season.
2:39Since 2020, so 6 seasons worth of data, Rams running backs have an 11.6% target share.
2:44It's the lowest in football. And it's the lowest by 3.5 percentage points.
2:48Like it's the lowest by an insane margin. Every year, the Rams have been a bottom 3 team in running back target share since that point in time.
2:58And get this, from 2020 to 2025, we've had 192 completed team seasons.
3:0232 teams, 6 seasons. That equals 192. LA's best season in running back target share over that time frame ranks 182nd out of 192.
3:10They own 6 of the bottom 11 running back target share seasons.
3:14Now this year, they're still on the lower side, but they're barely below average at a near 16% running back target share.
3:21Now my initial thought with this was that the Rams were just running more 13 personnel, and that was helping things.
3:28They've run 84 plays out of 13 personnel this year.
3:32That's like 30 more than any other team. Basically, half the league hasn't even run 10 plays out of 13 personnel.
3:39When you have three tight ends on the field, there's easier competition for a running back to see a target.
3:45And out of 13 personnel, the Rams running back target share is 17%.
3:50So I thought to myself, oh, that must be the answer then.
3:54Puka Nakua's hurt, they're turning to more 13, and that's helping boost the target share for Kyron Williams.
4:00The thing is though, over a larger sample, when you include last year, the Rams had a running back target share last
4:07season under 12% when running out of 13 personnel.
4:10Which is still really low. So I don't think it's just simply that.
4:15So I dug in a little bit further. When Puka Nakua has been on the field with Kyron Williams since the start
4:22of the 2025 season, Williams has seen a targets per route run rate of 14.6%.
4:27When he's been off the field, that number does jump to 18.8%.
4:31So I do think it's natural to believe that Nakua being off the field would be helpful for all the pass catchers in the Rams offense.
4:40Just from a volume perspective. And that includes Kyron Williams.
4:43That includes the running backs. Kyron's usage as a receiver really hasn't changed.
4:47In fact, he had a 53% route share last year.
4:51It's 50% this year. He's just seeing a target on 20% of his routes run versus last year it was 15%.
4:58Maybe they're making an effort to get their running backs more involved.
5:02We have to be open-minded to that kind of change.
5:05But an 8.6% target share that he had last year to an 11.3% target share this year across a three-game sample, that could also just be noisy.
5:14The Rams have also faced the 49ers, Giants, and Broncos this season.
5:18The 49ers and the Broncos, their top five teams in adjusted running back target share allowed.
5:23So that's not just one game against the Rams that's looking at all of their opponents and adjusting for how those opponents typically target their running backs.
5:32So I would imagine that matchups themselves are actually playing a role here too.
5:37So if I were to guess, I think moving forward, especially with Nakua hopefully back this week, I think odds are that
5:45we're going to see this offense use their running backs a little bit less as pass catchers out of the backfield.
5:52That's just because Nakua is going to be back and we're going to see some normalization with these matchups.
5:58But it's definitely something that we should monitor, right?
6:01This is something that we should keep an eye on because trends don't last forever.
6:06This next question is from Justin. It says, How do you view Makai Lemon and Jordan Tyson as upside stashes for rest of season?
6:14I'm in need of a high upside stash now that I lost Jaden Reed and Mike Evans is consistently hurt.
6:21Thanks. So if I'm choosing strictly to stash and not needing production in like week five, week six, like if Makai Lemon
6:28breaks out this week, I could then more confidently use him in week five or week six.
6:34But guys, Jordan Tyson could legitimately go nuts in the Saints offense.
6:38Like absolutely nuts. The Saints are top half of the league in pass rate over expected and neutral situations, and they're running at the second fastest pace.
6:47Now I know I've been talking about Devon Vele for over a month on this podcast now, but I don't think Vele is like a special talent.
6:56Even still, despite that fact, he has 14.1 expected PPR points per game right now.
7:01Imagine Jordan Tyson in more of like an underneath role in this offense.
7:05We caught a glimpse of that in Saints practices, and my goodness, that dude was a special prospect, and he's in an
7:12offense that in my opinion fits exactly what he can do well.
7:17This is no shade to Makai Lemon. I think he's a good stash.
7:21I would not be giving up all hope on Makai Lemon right now, especially in Dynasty.
7:26I do think we need to see more consistency from Jalen Hurts in that offense in general, and more passing to the
7:34middle of the field, which has consistently been a problem for Hurts.
7:38But Makai Lemon is a good player. But if we're talking about like pure upside, and if we're looking at like week
7:4510 and beyond, I know the injury risk is absolutely crazy for Jordan Tyson.
7:50But the upside, in my opinion, in this offense, it's kind of insane.
7:54This next question is from John. It says, My question isn't about how the expected points model is calculated.
8:00I trust the methodology. It's about how to interpret and act on the gaps between actuals and expected.
8:06Is the default approach basically mean aversion, i.e., players significantly outperforming expected points or sell candidates are likely to regress, while those
8:14underperforming or buy candidates are likely to improve toward expectation?
8:17What are the key signals or contexts that suggest the current over or underperformance is sticky and we shouldn't fade it?
8:24Conversely, when should we trust the expected points baseline and expect regression?
8:28Would love any practical framework or examples that you use when deciding whether to buy, sell, or hold based on these gaps.
8:35Thanks. So yeah, this is a really, really good question.
8:39I think it needs to be addressed. Because as much as I like expected points models and I've used them for years,
8:46I do think that context is necessary. An expected fantasy points model, not to be confused with an expected points added model
8:54or EPA, an expected fantasy points model is looking at how a player is being used, where he's being used, and it
9:01determines how many fantasy points he should have scored based on that usage.
9:05So a player who's being targeted a whole lot in his offense, but he's not seeing catches on those targets, his expected
9:13fantasy points total is going to be much better than his actual total.
9:17Last week, Ryan Flannoy scored 4.2 PPR points, not great.
9:20But he actually saw a 20% target share, a 32% air yard share, and he had two end zone targets.
9:27He obviously didn't convert, but his expected total was actually 16.3.
9:31He was the biggest underachiever in week 3 at any position according to the model.
9:36Here's what's really important to understand though. Yes, he underachieved, but there's nuance to this.
9:41We can't just sit here and say that Ryan Flannoy is going to score 12 more PPR points per game moving forward.
9:48Because that's then under the assumption that he's going to see those exact same peripherals every single week.
9:54I can guarantee you that Ryan Flannoy is not going to see two end zone targets every week.
10:00He probably won't even hit a 20% target share.
10:03But when you stack weeks of similar usage and a player is simply underperforming, you should expect that player to eventually regress to the mean.
10:11Like look at Cortland Sutton right now. And I'll actually say something nice about him.
10:16Well, kind of nice about him. Sutton's averaging just 5.4 PPR points per game this year.
10:22That's the mean thing that I'm going to say about him.
10:25But his expected points per game number is at 11.
10:29He's been a massive underachiever. Across three games, he's not doing anything usage wise that makes me think that this is like some outlier season for him.
10:38He's had an 18% target share, an 84% route share, a few end zone targets.
10:43With a profile like that, I would expect him to regress to that 11 point per game mean.
10:49Now there's obviously other factors at play. Like we have to look at Pat Bryant.
10:54What if Pat Bryant starts stealing more routes from Cortland Sutton?
10:58This is why I always say that we're just trying to put together this giant puzzle.
11:03This is all case by case. Clearly someone in a one game sample who sees a lot of goal line work, he's
11:10going to have a higher expected fantasy points total.
11:13But who's to say that that goal line work is going to continue week in and week out?
11:19Like look at David Montgomery in week one. It's not like he had a crazy snap share against the Bills.
11:26But according to expected fantasy points, Montgomery was at 23.6 PPR points in week one.
11:31He actually scored almost 29. So he outperformed that number.
11:34But a lot of that was just usage at the goal line and just being in favorable spots.
11:40Those are spots that you can't guarantee week in and week out.
11:44So the larger sample that we have of a player either over or underperforming, the easier it's going to be to call
11:52that player a buy or a sell. Straight up.
11:55But sometimes we do have to make decisions off of small sample sizes.
11:59That's what I did in week one with Matthew Golden.
12:02Because he underperformed by 8 PPR points. And I looked at his peripherals and I said, okay wow.
12:09These peripherals are actually pretty good. If this maintains even at an 80% rate, he's going to be a really good asset in fantasy football.
12:17And the market is not recognizing that right now.
12:20And so I took a chance and I said that Matthew Golden was a buy.
12:25So again, it's all case by case. But hopefully that does help you guys wrap your head around expected fantasy points.
12:32I love these mailbag episodes because we can do these types of deep dives.
12:37I think they're really important if you're going to consume my content.
12:41Because it reveals that a lot of times with the advice that I'm giving, I'm not giving it because I know that something's going to happen for sure.
12:50In the end, I'm just playing probability. The last question this week is from Twitter.
12:55It's from at G.H. Horsfield. It says, seems like the young wide receivers that are struggling this year, Marvin Harrison Jr., Roma
13:02Dunze, Brian Thomas Jr., they're all playing the X for their offense.
13:06Is this more of a reflection of them and their skill?
13:10Or the way current offenses are focused on slot slash ISOed middle of the field routes?
13:15Okay, so I think the fantasy football community has kind of done a disservice through the years when talking about average depth of target.
13:23There's a sweet spot. You don't want a Khalil Shakir type role where your wide receiver is going to be targeted like two yards down the field.
13:32You don't necessarily want that. But you also don't want your wide receiver to be 17, 18 yards down the field every time he sees a target.
13:42That's going to bring volatility to his fantasy production.
13:45This is the sacrificial X stuff that Matt Harmon of Reception Perception talks about all the time.
13:50Because a lot of times, those players aren't running a full route tree on the outside.
13:56And they're not getting the more valuable routes from a fantasy football perspective.
14:00This isn't as simple as high depth versus low depth though.
14:04It's what comes attached to that type of deployment.
14:07A player like Shakir could be absolutely fine in fantasy football if he had a 38% target share.
14:13But obviously, if a team's going to use him just like four yards past the line of scrimmage, you can't just run your offense through Khalil Shakir.
14:22It's not going to be very efficient. Meanwhile, someone who's only seeing looks when he's 19 yards downfield, chances are he's not
14:29going to be a high volume player. Now, what I don't want to do here is just generalize.
14:35The three wide receivers that you mentioned, they're not seeing the exact same type of deployment.
14:40But there's a general through line here. There are alternatives in their offenses who are seeing more valuable routes from a fantasy football perspective.
14:48Pre-Thursday night football, there have been 108 wide receivers who have run 30 or more routes this season.
14:54When looking strictly at the types of routes that are typically down the field, Marvin Harrison Jr.
15:00is 7th in his rate of running those routes.
15:03Brian Thomas Jr. is 31st. Roma Dunze, he's 37th.
15:06So all of them, especially Marv, are skewing in that direction.
15:10That the routes that they're running are down the field routes.
15:13And then you look at when they're actually targeted or average depth of target.
15:18Because obviously, they're not just only running down the field.
15:22They're still running crossers and outs. They just might not be targeted on those plays.
15:27And among those same 108 wide receivers, Marvin Harrison Jr., unsurprisingly, he's 9th in average depth of target.
15:33Roma Dunze is 12th. And then Brian Thomas Jr., he's actually 61st.
15:37That's why I wanted to preface by saying that these three wide receivers that you mentioned, they're not necessarily seeing the exact same type of deployment.
15:45To me, the issue with Brian Thomas right now is that his route share is under 60%.
15:51As I talked about on the 10 trends episode, he's not out there when the Jags are in heavy personnel.
15:58And they've been going heavier this year. Now, if you extend this season to last season as well, and you look at
16:05all wide receivers with 200 or more routes run, those three wide receivers, they all rank top 24.
16:11An average depth of target. That's out of 125 wide outs.
16:15It's very, very difficult for wide receivers with high air yards per target rates to see a lot of volume.
16:21From 2016 through 2025, there have been 45 wide receivers who had at least a 70% route share in their offense while
16:29hitting an average depth of target above 15 yards.
16:32Of those 45 wide receiver seasons, only two of them finished with more than 14.5 PPR points per game.
16:38Those two seasons, they were both by Mike Evans, who's been one of the best wide receivers of this entire era.
16:45Otherwise, you're going to get names like Will Fuller, Gabe Davis, Henry Ruggs, Alec Pierce, Marvin Jones, Paul Richardson, those types of players.
16:53And the bottom line is that these players are not commanding targets at a high rate.
16:58Of course, we'd want a player who has like an 18-yard A dot and he's seeing a target on 40% of his routes run.
17:06That'd be amazing. But of the 45 wide receivers I was just talking about, only four of them had a targets per route run rate above 25%.
17:15And three of those four players only ended up playing six or fewer games in that season.
17:21Meaning that number probably would not have sustained had they played the entire year.
17:26Now, if you recall, over the summer, I'd mentioned multiple times how I thought the difference in the Roma-Dunze versus Luther Burden
17:33debate came down to what people saw on film versus what matters in fantasy football.
17:38I think a Dunze, regardless of that drop on Monday night, I think he's a good wide receiver.
17:44And there are friends of mine in this space who do unbelievably good work, who think very highly of Roma-Dunze.
17:51But my concern was that specifically in this offense, a player like Burden would just see a lot of the routes and
17:58the looks that matter for fantasy purposes. A lot of the crossers, a lot of those intermediate routes.
18:04And because I thought that he had a really good backbone, that I thought he was a really good player, I leaned into that.
18:12Now, you could look at Arizona as a place where I missed.
18:16I was lower than the market on pretty much every single player in that Arizona offense this year.
18:22So I didn't get a lot of Marvin Harrison Jr., but I also didn't get a lot of Michael Wilson.
18:29And sitting here before week four, had I known the deployment would look like this, there's no doubt in my mind that
18:36I would have leaned hard towards Michael Wilson during the draft process.
18:40And I would have leaned far away from Marvin Harrison Jr.
18:44Which is why I shouted Wilson out last week as a player who wasn't getting enough love in fantasy football.
18:51But it's because Marvin Harrison Jr. is quite literally the definition of a sacrificial X right now.
18:56His route deployment is largely down the field. So when he's targeted, there's a high probability that his target is going to be a down the field target.
19:06That's not sustainable at all in fantasy football. But I do think that it can work in some spots, which is why
19:13I think he's at least an interesting sleeper this week against the Giants.
19:17Now, in hindsight, we can all sit here and be like, oh yeah, of course.
19:22Sometimes these things appear more predictable than others though.
19:25With Arizona, there at least was a new system.
19:28We just didn't know what this deployment would look like.
19:32We kind of did. There were hints and such.
19:35And I should have been better at analyzing that.
19:38But in Chicago, we had a season where we saw how this offense operated.
19:42And we had seasons of Ben Johnson in Detroit too.
19:46Now, I don't say this to take wins or losses right now.
19:50I say this because using examples, using examples when we didn't have that information, it's really, really important.
19:56This is how you learn. This is how I learn.
19:59But the bottom line here, if you know a wide receiver is just going to largely play a downfield role, that wide
20:07receiver, he's going to struggle to be consistently good in fantasy football.
20:11That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening.
20:15If you've yet subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found.
20:24And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at LateRoundQB.
20:28Thanks for listening this week, everyone. I greatly appreciate it.
20:32There'll be a Late Round Perspectives episode dropping in your podcast feed later this morning.
20:37And then of course, 1 p.m. Eastern on the YouTube channel, myself and David Kitchen will be live with the Late Round
20:44Fantasy Football Show that'll drop in your podcast feeds on Saturday morning.
20:48Appreciate all of you. Good luck in week four.
20:51This is an iHeartPodcasts. Guaranteed human.
