1122: 10 Trends for Week 1

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, it's Ashanti Plummer from Foot Around and Find Out. Coming out of the draft, it's been a special time for us here at Foot Around. I want to thank everyone from the fans to the sponsors, especially GEICO. Not just for supporting AZ, but for showing up where it matters, like the Business of Women's Sports Summit. That kind of thing really moves the needle. And now that AZ is starting a new life in Dallas, we don't know what next season is going to bring, but we know that we're all on the same team. And it's been amazing to feel the love and support. So keep showing up for our girl. Show up for each other. Thanks to GEICO and our listeners. Overwhelmed? That was me with diabetes. Hey, I'm Jabron. Between teaching and coaching, managing diabetes felt like an extra job. With the Freestyle Libre 3CGM, I get real-time glucose readings and have the insights to make informed decisions. My life feels lighter now. Learn more at FreestyleLibre.us. The views expressed should not be used for medical diagnosis or treatment as a substitute for professional medical advice. Individual circumstances may vary. For prescription only. Safety info found at FreestyleLibre.us. This is the Late Round Podcast with your host, J.J. Zacharysen. What's up, everyone? It's J.J. Zacharysen. And in this episode 1122 of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. This 10 Trends episode is going to be the shortest one that you get all week, but it's still packed full of information. As the title suggests, I go through 10 different trends that should help you out with your roster management. A lot of times, the things I talk about on here, they're not immediately actionable like the 15 transactions list. But they're things that you may want to keep an eye on because they might become super actionable if the trends continue. Now, before we get into that first trend this week, I do want to remind you guys to check out LateRound.com. At some point, this week before the games really get going. We've got brand new offerings this year for members, a much better interface for the weekly and rest of season rankings, new metrics in the data dump, and so much more. You can learn more about what it means to be a Late Round Fantasy Football member by just going to LateRound.com. Now, let's get to trend number one. I'm really interested to see what happens with the Rams' backfield split this year. Kyron Williams ended up seeing about 56% of the Rams' rushes last year, which was down from the 75%. That's the 44% mark that he saw in 2024. In 2024, his snap share was almost 87%. Last year, 68%. And his PPR points per game fell from 17% to 15.5%. He was still good last year, but not nearly as dominant. As we know, a lot of that extra work went to Blake Corum. Corum saw his snap share rise to about 29% across the entirety of the season, with his rush share going from 13% in 2024 to 33% in 2025. A split like this is not uncommon in today's NFL. But what I'm interested to see is if the Rams lean into Corum even more this year than they did last year. I think it's very possible. Because last year, Corum had an adjusted yards after contact per rush of 4.1. Williams was at 3.9. We saw Corum hit a 10-plus yard run at a 16% rate. Kyron Williams at a 10% rate. And Corum outperformed him in 20-plus yard run rate as well. Corum played really well. Really well on the ground last year. Now, we should have a little bit of context here and understand that he didn't have quite the same workload as Kyron Williams. So maybe general rest had something to do with that. But it's interesting nonetheless. Where I do think Kyron will still win out is through the air. Even last year, we're talking about a 53% route share for Williams versus a 17% route share for Corum. And Corum had a pretty pathetic 0.34 yards per out run. Kyron Williams, 0.84. This is all to say that, you know, that yes, Kyron Williams did indeed see a dip in production last year with Corum digging into his workload more. And given Blake Corum's ground game work, I do wonder if he sees even more work this year than he did last year. One area where Williams is probably safe, though, is as a receiver. The problem is that this McVay offense has traditionally not been friendly for running back targets. So that may or may not be that big of a boost for Williams as it would be in another offense. I'm not moving either player right now. If I have one of them, I'm just holding. This is not a transaction. I'm just really anxious to see how this Rams backfield ends up being split. Because things have been trending away from Kyron Williams. Sticking with the Rams, one of the weirder things about fantasy football last year was that Puka Nakua dominated. He was the wide receiver one. But he wasn't really used that close to the end zone. Nakua ranked behind players like Malik Washington and Sterling Shepard last year in green zone route share, which is route share on drop backs within the opponent's 10-yard line. The Rams use a lot of heavy personnel. And Devontae Adams, he was their main go-to wide receiver at the goal line last year. Which is why he finished with 28 end zone targets to Nakua's six. Adams had 14 touchdowns on targets that came to him while in the end zone. Nakua had only three. Now this is partially a load management thing for Puka, because he's borderline reckless with his body when he's playing. But even a small shift in that ratio, between himself and Devontae Adams can go a seriously long way for Nakua being even more dominant in fantasy football year over year, which is crazy to even imagine. Another thing I'm looking forward to seeing this year is how the Packers and Colts end up deploying Josh Downs and Jaden Reed. Get this, both players entered the NFL in 2023. So they played three seasons in the league. Jaden Reed has run just eight routes out of 12 and 13 personnel throughout his career. Downs has only run three in the league. Now Reed's run roughly 27% of his routes from the outside. It's not like he's never lined up there. It's just that it's come in 11 personnel mostly. And for Josh Downs, his split is even more intense. He's played even less on the outside. It's all interesting to me because there's at least some chance we see a shift with those players this year. Downs is competing with an age Keenan Allen and Alec Pierce, who's coming off that ankle injury. The Packers want Matthew Golden to be that primary perimeter guy. He'll get every shot to do so with Christian Watson. But what happens if his 2025 just moves right into 2026, where it just wasn't that effective? It's all something I'm going to be monitoring very closely. The Patriots finished 2025 with a plays run while trailing rate of just 27.6%. That was a bottom 20 rate since 2016. It was technically the lowest in football last year. New England's 2024 to 2025 swing and percentage of plays run while trailing was the fourth biggest shift that we've seen over the last 10 years. That's not that surprising though. They went from a team with very little hope to AFC champions in one season. The thing is, those numbers tend to regress. New England faced a very easy schedule last year when looking at opponent win percentage. So things will naturally just be tougher this year. And if they're trailing more, that means more passing and more passing volume overall. It's interesting. Drake May was the number two quarterback in points per game last year. But he averaged just 2.9 fourth quarter points per game. That ranked outside the top 30 at the position. For context, the QB won last year, Josh Allen. He averaged over 8.5 points per game in the fourth quarter. Matthew Stafford, the QB3, was at 5.1. Now obviously part of the reason for this is May himself. So it's not as simple as Drake May will score four more points per game this year because of his lack of fourth quarter scoring last year. They were in those positions. They were in those positions largely because of Drake May. But that's what makes the bet on May a little bit easier this year. He's more than likely going to regress a bit on the efficiency front, even with improved pass catchers. But he could hypothetically maintain fantasy dominance with fewer positive game scripts. If the efficiency drops, he'll more than likely be relevant in fantasy throughout the entirety of games, not just in the beginning. In 2025, the Steelers targeted the running back position at the second highest in the NFL. And in 2024, the Jets ranked 7th in running back target share. You can probably see where I'm going with this. Over the last two seasons, among 32 quarterbacks with 500 or more dropbacks, only Tua Tungavailoa, Russell Wilson, and Mac Jones have targeted the running back position at a higher rate than Aaron Rodgers has. We have a lot of debate about who's the RB1 in the backfield, but a lot of times, people treat that more like a depth chart. I really don't care what a depth chart says. Depth charts are not scoring fantasy points. The RB1 on one team's depth chart can see a massively different workload than the RB1 on another. In the case of Pittsburgh, whoever sees more work through the air has a chance to be the most valuable player in that backfield, or probably will be the most valuable player in that backfield, regardless of the depth chart. And the market's been on that with Jalen Warren, who's been top 7 in yards per outrun among 85 qualified running backs over the last 5 years. This isn't even an anti-Rico Doudle trend, just for the record. This is mostly just to say… that I think both will be involved in this offense, given Aaron Rodgers' tendencies. A big lower-key storyline for me this week is Bucky Irving's workload. We saw him with an awesome workload to start last season before his injury, then when he returned, things changed a little bit. From week 1 through week 3, he was injured in week 4, we'll remove that game from our sample. Bucky Irving saw a 76% snap rate and 15 expected fantasy points per game. When he returned in week 13… through the end of the fantasy season, that snap share fell to 55%. percent. His expected fantasy points per game went from 15 to 11.3. Now, part of the problem with Irving is that he failed to see a goal line rush last year. Sean Tucker started playing that role more down the stretch, and then Rashad White, he had 40 percent of the team's goal line rushes. Irving didn't have any, and even when you look within the 10-yard line, his rush share was only 20 percent. Meanwhile, the Bucs added Kenneth Gainwell to complement Irving as a receiver. Sean Tucker's status is up in the air apparently for week one, so I would expect Irving to see that work if Tucker's out. But if Tucker's in, that's where I'm really interested to see how the Bucs divvy up their work close to the end zone. This could be the reason that Bucky Irving either lives up to ADP or doesn't. There's definitely a sentiment out there that Amarion Hampton isn't nearly as good as his ADP indicated this summer. And while I do think that we have to project a lot for Amarion Hampton, clearly he's not going to be as good as his ADP indicated this summer. Situation was a huge part of his ADP. But I really don't think the metrics say that Amarion Hampton was like bad or even an average player last year. Last season, Hampton ranked 11th out of 49 running backs with 100 or more carries and adjusted yards after contact per attempt. He was 21st, so above average in success rate. I think there was room for him to do more on the ground, but the offensive line just didn't allow for it. He ranked 47th out of those 49 running backs and adjusted yards before contact per attempt. Meaning, he's not going to be as good after touch, but he didn't get a lot of room on each carry. Now that we've got a new offensive coordinator and a healthier offensive line, I'm excited to see what Hampton can do in year two. That yards before contact number should be much improved year over year. Speaking of the Chargers, Mike McDaniel, he's that new offensive coordinator, as we all know. During his four years in Miami, the Dolphins ran nearly 55% of their plays with two or fewer wide receivers on the field. They didn't run a lot of yards, but they ran a lot of yards. So, at a very high rate at all. When that's the case, the wide receivers who are actually on the field tend to see better efficiency metrics. That's because they're competing with fewer capable pass catchers. Oftentimes, instead of a wide receiver, it's either another tight end or it's a fullback. This could be really big for Ladd McConkie this year. Last season, McConkie ranked 76th and routes run with two or fewer wide receivers on the field. But on those plays over the last two seasons, he's seen a 2.5% increase in the number of wide receivers on the field, significantly higher than his 1.83 yards per route run rate with three or more wide outs on the field. This is a key reason that we could see a big Ladd McConkie season. Now, I'm going to shift to another team, but within the same topic. Let's talk about the Houston Texans. Jaden Higgins going down sucks for fantasy football on a lot of levels. He was going to be their clear number two. He had a really promising camp. There was a lot to like. But one other thing that I want to talk about is Jaden Higgins. He was going to be their clear number one. But one other reason to have been in on Higgins is what I just talked about with Ladd McConkie. The Texans actually ranked first in the league in plays with three or more wide receivers on the field last year. There's been a lot of talk about Houston running more 12-13 personnel. That could be big because they ran out of heavy at the second lowest rate in the league last year. Now, this obviously could be big for someone like Kayshaun Booty if he ends up winning that wide receiver two role on the outside. But the real winner here, let's just be real, it's Nico Collins. Nico Collins really flew under the radar during draft season because there were just sexier round two, three turn picks for most people, whether it be Malik Neighbors or Chris Alave without Jordan Tyson. But I'm pretty bullish on Collins this year. I actually wouldn't be surprised if he goes absolutely nuts. On plays over the last two years with two or fewer wide receivers on the field, Nico Collins has averaged three yards per route run. Meanwhile, he's ranked 49th in routes run in that kind of environment. He's one spot ahead of Calvin Austin and one behind Ricky Pearsall. If we see fewer wideouts on the field this year for Houston, which I think we will, I'd expect Nico Collins to really, really thrive in fantasy football. The last trend this week is about Patrick Mahomes. Over the last three seasons, there have been 40 quarterbacks with 500 or more dropbacks. Among those quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes ranks 27th in percentage of pass attempts that traveled 20 or more air yards. So he's been below average in just 20 plus air yard rate. But get this, on those throws, on those throws that travel 20 or more air yards, he ranks 37th out of those 40 quarterbacks in completion percentage. And the wild part is that he's been 36th in completion percentage on throws that travel zero to 10 air yards. I think we're all crossing our fingers that the Kenneth Walker move is going to force the Chiefs to be a little bit more balanced, which will force teams to stop playing too high against them so much. But there's no doubt about it. I think we're all crossing our fingers that the Kenneth Walker move is going to force the Chiefs to stop playing too high against them so much. Patrick Mahomes has not been Patrick Mahomes over the last few years. That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you haven't subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are budgeting for it. Pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll be back in your ears tomorrow with the weekly sleepers episode. We'll see you then. I want to thank everyone from the fans to the sponsors, especially Geico, not just for supporting AZ, but for showing up where it matters, like the Business of Women's Sports Summit. So keep showing up for the next season. Show up for our girl. Guaranteed human.