1130: 10 Trends for Week 3

This is an I Heart podcast guaranteed human the new NFL season is here. And you should be listening to NFL daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61. It is in the name NFL daily. You'll have fresh content in your feed every day all season long. That game winning drive, maybe it's Herbert, maybe it's Gino, maybe it's my homes. We'll have the highlights. If Fernando Mendoza or any of the rookies are balling out, we'll break down the tape. Join me Greg Rosenthal and an all star cast of co-host as we preview and recap every game. Listen to NFL daily on the I Heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brett Coleman and I'm Trevor Sikama. If you love football and want to understand what's really happening on the field, check out our show NFL bro. Every week we break down the biggest plays, trends and matchups using exclusive next gen stats insights and NFL content. You will not find anywhere else. Whether you're new to football, a fantasy football fan act or a die hard man, NFL pro will help you analyze the game like a pro. Listen to NFL pro on the I Heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up everyone? It's JJ Zachary sin in this episode 1130 of the late round fantasy football podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get to the trends this week, I want to send another reminder to check out the late round newsletter. The newsletter is absolutely free. Just at the late round.com and sign up. You get the data dump in your inbox every Monday morning. The 15 transactions list on Tuesday morning and awesome matchups column from Brandon Godula. There's a wrap up email from David kitchen at the end of each week. I think it's a great newsletter, but I'm obviously biased. But check it out. It's free late round.com. The question that every fantasy manager is wondering right now is what the heck is going on with the Chicago Bears past catchers. So let's try to simplify this as much as we can. First, I think like anything this time of year, let's remember that we're working off a very small sample sizes. I know it seems like I'm saying that a lot, but it's because it's true. You know how many people were coming after me last week about Jalen Waddle? Now, I have no idea how Waddle is going to end his season, but I know that one game is not going to make or break the way that I view a player. We've got to relax and let things play out at least to some degree. Also, something helpful to look out when you're analyzing an individual players to see what's going on with the rest of the team. Luther Burton has not lived up to expectation this year. That's an L for me so far without a doubt. But there's some comfort in knowing that neither is Colston Loveland, either as Roma Dunesay. This isn't necessarily a Luther Burton problem in the Bears offense. If those two were thriving while Burton was getting destroyed, especially over three, four game sample, there would be a lot more worry then. Now, going back to that Waddle example in week one, the Denver Broncos just sucked entirely as a team. They couldn't do anything offensively. Waddle's stat line was egregious, but so was the entire Broncos offense. That's going to happen sometimes. Teams have bad games. With Chicago, we've got this two game sample, where in one of them, they dominated offensively. They leaned in their run game and so many secondary players ended up working out in the red zone. In game two, they faced a really good defense within their division, and it was in a game with bad weather. If I were to point to one single problem with what's happening with the trio of pass catchers right now, strictly from a usage standpoint, it would be Khalif Raymond, which is insane to say because he's a 32 year old veteran wide receiver who hasn't been super productive throughout his career, but that's where we're at right now. The logic with the Bears pass catchers entering the year would be that targets would funnel to their three main players. I legitimately thought that those three guys could combine for like a 70% target share this year. So far through two games, they have a combined 43% target share. I mean, I couldn't have been more off about those three players. Lovelins at a 9% share, a dunes a 12.5% and burden 21%. And then there's Khalif freaking Raymond with a 25% target share. And while it is kind of fluky, he's not going to maintain a targets per out run rate of 26%. It's not totally fluky because Raymond right now is fourth on the team with a 67% route share. No player on the team right now today has an 80% route share or better. And this is not just like an 11% thing right now. In 12% now this year, a dunes a has a 70% route share, burden 52%, Raymond 44%. In week two, Raymond ran more routes than burden out of 12% now. A dunes a actually had a 92% route share out of 12% now. But that's a big area where we need to see improvement with Luther Burton. Now I'm throwing all of this at you just to say that it's been really, really chaotic for Chicago this year. Like never in a million years did I think Khalif Raymond would make this big of an impact after two weeks. Sometimes you get things right, sometimes you get things wrong. But I do deep down still think that this is not going to last forever. Remember a dunes a was banged up entering the season. There's a chance that Luther Burton's conditioning just isn't there right now. He missed a ton of camp. That seems logical enough to me as to why the bears might be using Raymond as much as they're using him. If things don't change though, then there's almost no chance of these pass catchers are going to live up to expectation. And I will say based on what I just talked about, I think Khalif Raymond is going to have a bigger impact on Roma dunes a in Luther Burton than Colston Loveland. Loveland's been getting a lot of run. He leads that team in route share. It's just that things haven't converted. They haven't clicked. Better days should be ahead for Colston Loveland. But because there's not this direct positional reason for his lack of production, I am slightly more concerned about him becoming that beast that you drafted him to be. And look, let's be honest, that's always the risk you run into when you take a tight end early in your draft. We saw a backfield flip this past week in New England. With the caveat that Ramondre Stevenson, who has fumbling issues, fumbled the ball on their first drive. But when that game was over, Travion Henderson, he out snapped Ramondre Stevenson 32-19. He saw 62% of New England's rush attempts, Stevenson 23% and obviously, Travion Henderson had that big touchdown run. The thing is, New England couldn't completely pull the plug on Ramondre Stevenson in week two, because they like using him and passing down situations. He played two-thirds of their third downs and despite the snap share discrepancy, there was only a one-row difference between the two backs. Now I thought Henderson looked pretty good in that game, but Stevenson was still better at fighting for those tough yards. That's just by the eye test. When looking at the data, that actually played out. On a six-rush sample, Stevenson saw a successful run on four of them. On 16 rushes for Henderson, he was also successful on just four of them. And those are runs that resulted in a positive EPA play. My stance is that we don't really know right now. I don't want to throw away months of research on his backfield after just one game and think that Henderson's just going to take over, especially because Stevenson was playing over him to start that game before the fumble. But I do think we're kind of back to where we were during the draft. I've got them back-to-back on my rest of season rankings right now, which by the way are available on LateRound.com. I can understand if you want to drop Marvin Harrison Jr. right now, at least in shallow release. But going back to what I said about the Bears, we should definitely pay attention to what this team has done as a whole to start the season. Not just Marvin Harrison Jr. And what they've done is feed Trey McBride like he's just been rescued from a deserted island. McBride currently has a 37% target share. He's seeing a target on over 40% of his routes run. Just for some context, last season, when McBride not only played part of the season without Marvin Harrison Jr. but when he was dominating fantasy football, he was targeted on 24.7% of his routes. There's been a more than 15% of his point increase in targets per route run rate for Trey McBride from 2025 to 2026. Now as many of you know, I was lower than consensus with every major Arizona Cardinals player this year in my rankings. That unfortunately did include Trey McBride. Because if McBride maintained his peripherals last year doing a really good season, given the fact that he ran 100 more routes than any other tight ends since at least 2016, he was going to suffer in fantasy. Now how do you combat that lower route volume? More volume per route run. And that's what we've seen through two games with Trey McBride. The thing is this is not sustainable. I would bet my house. Okay maybe not my house because I have a family, but I would bet a lot that Trey McBride does not end the year with a target on 40% of his routes run. So if and when that starts to shift, those looks are going to naturally funnel to Marvin Harrison Jr. and Michael Wilson. And by the way, Michael Wilson, he's off to a slow start too. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think Marvin Harrison Jr. has played well. I watched the games each week. He looks so disinterested because he's clearly not a focus in this offensive system. Only Bryce Lans, Jacobi Myers and Calvin Ridley have been targeted at a lower rate per route run to start the year among relevant wide receivers compared to Marvin Harrison Jr. That's why I'm saying that you can still drop him in some formats. But I also think it's really important to have that holistic view of these offenses. That after two games, how an offense operates, it doesn't mean it's going to operate that way all season long. And for the record, this doesn't mean that I think that McBride is some screaming cell. It just means the way things have gone, I don't think it's going to be that way weekend and week out. I mentioned this in the 15 transactions show with Bryce Young, but the Panthers right now, they lead the league and neutral script pass rate over expected. They're throwing in at a higher rate than any other team versus what we'd expect, which is crazy because they ranked 20 second in that statistic last year. But another reason we've gotten this fantasy relevance from this Panthers offense this year is pace of play. They've run in a faster pace than any other team through two games, even in week two alone, when they had a nice lead they were running fast. So you're getting this combination of more pass volume than expected, alongside more plays being run. It's literally a perfect fantasy football storm. Now we'll see if this continues. But if it does, it means a player like Jalen Koker should be able to really stick around. I mean, I think he's going to stick around regardless. The 49ers cannot catch a break at wide receiver. You've got Dejan Stribling, who's out for an extended period of time. We thought to mark his Robinson could be a thing for them, he was carted off against the dolphins. Now there was a report floating around on Tuesday that the next man up could be Jacob Cowing. So I wanted to dig into the data to see how valid that report might be. And on our very small sample, it's pretty valid. After DeMarcus Robinson left that game, and on plays when Mike Evans and Brock Perty were on the field, the only other wide receivers to run even one route against the dolphins were obviously Debo Samuel, but then Jacob Cowing. Cowing actually had a really impressive collegiate production profile, but he's undersized. That's one of the biggest issues. But this being a trend show, he's trending in the right direction to get more playing time with Robinson out. And data really backs up that news story. So yeah, it appears to be happening for Parker Washington. We got a much more neutral game script for the Jags in week two. We got to see a little bit more of what this offense might look like usage wise for most of the season. Week one was kind of weird from a game script perspective. And my goodness, Parker Washington had a 90% route share. The Jags ran out of 11 personnel more in week two than they did in week one, but when they were in 12 personnel, the odd man out was Brian Thomas Jr. Washington ran around on every dropback out of 12 personnel. For the record, after the Jags buy last year, which is when Washington started playing more in that offense, Washington only had a 57% route share out of 12 personnel. So far this season, among all wide receivers with 30 or more routes run, Washington is fourth and PPR points per out run. He's third in yards per out run and he's second in targets per out run. He's not going to finish the year being targeted on 40% of his routes. But this is a sincerely amazing role for Parker Washington in this offense, which is why I currently have him ranked as a wide receiver one rest of season. Baker Mayfield has been really struggling. He hasn't scored 20 standard fantasy points in the game since week 10 of the 2025 season. And his splits with and without Mike Evans on the field are honestly frightening. Since joining the Buccaneers, Baker Mayfield has a plus 0.15 EPA per dropback and 0.52 standard fantasy points per dropback when Mike Evans has been on the field. I'm sure you need some context there. That dates back to 2023. During that time frame, among quarterbacks with 300 or more pass attempts, there's 54 of them. Mayfield's EPA per dropback with Evans on the field. It ranks tied for fourth best. The only quarterbacks who have been better are Brock Perty, Jared Goff and Josh Allen. Meanwhile, his fantasy points per dropback 0.52, that's 10th best. And someone like Justin Fields, Marcus Marriota and Anthony Richardson, they rank ahead of him there. So among like the actual starting quarterbacks, Baker Mayfields like 7th best and fantasy points per dropback with Mike Evans. Without Evans, that fantasy points per dropback is 0.41. That's tied for 30 second. We're talking worse than Derek Carr, worse than Russell Wilson, worse than Jake Browning. His EPA per dropback is minus 0.01 without Mike Evans. That ranks 31st. It's barely ahead of Aiden O'Connell. This isn't some small sample size either. He's had over 800 dropbacks without Mike Evans on the field. He's almost at 1200 with him. Now I'm not saying that this is the problem, but I think it's A problem. I think we're going to need multiple good performances from Mayfield and fantasy football before we let him back into our single quarterback league lineups. Speaking of the bucks, one player who no one seems to be talking about right now is Ted Hurst. I think he's actually a pretty good stash. He should at least be on your radar. He's actually getting legitimate run in the Buccaneers' offense. He's a 72% route share. He's seen 17% of Tampa Bay's targets when no one on that team is above 18.3%. And he's actually second on the team right now behind only Bucky Irving and expected fantasy points. He's tied with Ameca Bucca. That means his usage should be producing way more fantasy points and it's currently producing. He's underperformed by nearly six PPR points per game. He's just playing a pretty volatile role. Hurst has seen an average at the target of nearly 18 yards. A Bucca is about four yards lower. And then we've seen a couple of end zone targets for Hurst as well. That's why his expected total is higher than you'd probably expect. The Bucks are running out of 11 personnel at the highest rate in the league. That's allowing Hurst to be on the field with Ameca Bucca and Chris Godwin. And maybe that changes as Jalen McMillan gets healthier. But Hurst at the very least, you should keep an eye on him. A lot of you are probably wondering what to do with Quinchon Judkins. And my answer is that I don't think there's a ton that you can do right now. I will say this. His usage from week two needs a little bit more context than what was provided in the weekly data dump. Judkins technically didn't see a route share change from week one to week two, even without Dylan Samson. In fact, his route share fell by five percentage points. He did however in week two, see five targets, and week one, he had two. But we know that route shares can be more predictive for running backs this time of year. There is some good news here though. And this is the context that wasn't talked about in the data dump. Judkins did see an uptick and third down snap share on Sunday. And I'm not just talking about third and shorts here. Judkins played 50% of the brown snaps on third down and five or more. That was 17% in week one. Unfortunately, a lot of those plays resulted in more pass blocking than actually running routes. So essentially I just want to see more. I want to see more of Judkins without Dylan Samson in the lineup. I want to see more of the browns in neutral game scripts, where maybe the matchup calls to use him more on third downs as a pass catcher. There's a chance that Judkins sees a better route share moving forward than what we saw in week two. And that could go a very, very long way for his fantasy value because this browns team isn't expected to be that good offensively. Something that's keeping me from ranking Lamar Jackson higher in my overall rest of season rankings right now is how he's been deployed as a rusher to start the year. After two games, Jackson has one designed run one in 2025, even with him being banged up, he averaged 2.2 designed rushes per game right now. He's at 0.5. There's a downward trend here unfortunately. In 2024, Lamar was at 4.8 designed rushes per game. Now his scrambling has mostly stayed the same. 2.6 scrambles per game in 2024, 2.3 in 2025. And so far this year, he's at seven scrambles, a three and a half per game. But look, we've got a new offensive system in Baltimore. We've got a new coordinator and there's something that could be driving this. They're playing more from under center. 29.5% of Baltimore's passes this season have come under center. In 2024 and 2025, that number was 15.8%. So it's not far from double the rate this year. When teams are under center, there's less opportunity for design runs from the quarterback. I actually was researching this for this episode, and I came across a substack called Gridiron Deep Dive. This guy named Robbie Marriage runs it. I don't know him, I'm not affiliated with him, but if I can shout out any content creator trying to just get their name out there, I'll gladly do it when the analysis is great. And this analysis is very legit. He did something in 2025 that was really thorough on modern offenses going shotgun versus under center. He concluded the following as part of it, quote, "shotgun rush plays are almost twice as likely to be quarterback rushes than rush plays from under center. Almost 10% of all design rushes, not counting scrambles from the gun are quarterback runs, compared to just 5% from under center, most of which I would suppose are quarterback sneak plays." So look, this is definitely something I'm going to monitor with Lamar Jackson. He seems like his old self in terms of his rushing ability. But he may need to scramble more this year, if he's going to maintain his cheat code ability in fantasy football. That's it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you have subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are researching 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 talk to you tomorrow with the weekly sleeper show. The new NFL season is here, and you should be listening to NFL Daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61. You'll have fresh content in your feed every day, all season long. That game winning drive, maybe it's Herbert, maybe it's Gino, maybe it's my homes, we'll have the highlights. If Fernando Mendoza or any of those rookies are balling out, we'll break down the tape, join me, Greg Rosenthal, and an all-star cast of co-hosts as we preview. and recap every game, listen to NFL Daily on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. If you love football and want to understand what's really happening on the field, check out our show NFL Pro. Every week we break down the biggest plays, trends and matchups using exclusive next-gen stats, insights, and NFL content you will not find anywhere else. Whether you're new to football, a fantasy football finag, or a die-hard fan, NFL Pro will help you analyze the game like a pro. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.