1116: Mailbag - Breece Hall's Value, Ambiguous Backfields, and More

This is an "I Heart" podcast, Guaranteed Human. What's up everyone, it's JJ Zacharyson in this episode 11/16 of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before getting into the mailbag questions this week, I just want to send another reminder to check out the Late Round Draft Guide. There's over 270 pages of content that includes game theory, strategy, ways of spot breakouts and busts, players to target, players to avoid, and more. You get cheat sheets with the guide, and the guide is updated every week, and it goes directly to your email inbox when the guide is updated. You can learn more about it over on lateround.com. The first question this week is from Ranch Dressing in the Members Hub. It says, "Hi, JJ, and crew, I was looking at the rankings, and one thing that stood out was Breeze Hall being ranked a number of spots ahead of current ADP. He seems like a very risky running back given his past usage as well as the offence he plays in. He could be a good value where he's currently going, but I have a hard time clicking his name due to the factors listed above. Out of the top 14 running backs, he's got the biggest delta. I would love your insight on him and what you are seeing, thanks for everything you do. Yeah, I mean look, part of that is because I have him ranked as the RB14, and when you talk about early round running backs, there's just less volatility with the rankings in general. So with him being at the end of that range, there's more of a chance that there's differentiation versus ADP. No different than how a late round pick might be 20 running back spots higher than the market. That's just what happens as you get deeper into the draft. But that's beside the point. I've contemplated putting Breeze Hall as a player to target in the draft guide. The reason I haven't is because of where my tears sit with him, and the fact that I like so many wide receivers in that range. Even I'm not super overweight on Hall because of that. But yeah, I do think Breeze Hall is at least an interesting option. First off, I do agree that the situation in New York is generally risky. Geno Smith, Frank Reich, the last time we saw these guys, it was bad. With that being said, we have a pretty stable backbone with Hall himself. He saw a 77% running back rush share last season to go along with a 10.7% target share. He's one of six players that hit a 70% running back rush share and a 10% target share last year. The other five were CMC, Jonathan Taylor, Ash and Gen T, Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs. The biggest problem for Hall was that the offense was complete garbage. The jets were 29th and total yards last year, 30th and total touchdowns, 27th and plays run and 29th and yards per play. The thesis here is that they could easily be better offensively with Geno Smith under center. Of course, I'm not trying to predict greatness from Geno Smith. Look at what we saw last season. But I do think they're going to be better. And the jets offensive line, it's not a huge problem for them at this point. This is also just where we're at with the running back landscape. After Derek Henry, Devon H and Kenneth Walker, whoever that RB12 is in your draft, after that players off the board, there's a pretty big gap to the RB13. Which by the way, I think I said RB14 for Breeze Hall earlier, I actually have him at RB13. And maybe you want to throw Kyron Williams in there or Cam Skataboo in there, maybe even Josh Jacobs. But literally all of those running backs come with question marks. Hall has offensive situation questions, though there was that report this past week which is nice to see that said Breeze Hall is being treated as the bell cow. So to be fair, he kind of was treated that way last year. I just think that he has room to see more work as a pass catcher because this is a very good pass catcher. But then Jeremiah Love, what's that backfield split really going to look like? Javante Williams was super inefficient as a receiver. Kyron Williams has Blake Korm to deal with. Cam Skataboo has the injury though I am pretty high on him. Josh Jacobs is a healthy Martian Lloyd now. He has a lot of seasons with a lot of touches and he has off the field stuff too. So it's really just me trying to bring all of that together and say hey, I think Breeze Hall is extremely talented and really good at the position. And we've seen evidence of him being a true three down bell cow back. His situation might be a little bit better this year so I'll rank him in that RB 13 spot. Do I feel unbelievably confident? No, not necessarily. Like I said, I think there's a drop off to him. And that's why I haven't made him a player to target. I just don't want to force it. But I do think he is a very good running back and that's why I haven't ranked there. This last question is from Blind Egghead. It says, "How should managers balance market score with ADP during a draft?" If market score identifies a player as undervalued, how aggressively should we draft him? For example, if a player has a fourth round ADP but market score suggests he's one of the best values on the board, would you ever take him in the third round or do you generally trust ADP and wait? So I've gotten questions about market score and market score's application. Some people are asking why my rankings don't just reflect market score. Others are asking questions like this one. Now this is all very new to late round fantasy football and new to this audience. So I'm not surprised at all, I totally get it. And this isn't over. We're going to continue working on market score if that's something that you guys want. But I think people should just look at market score as just another metric. Just like yards per out run is another metric. Or yards before contact per attempt, that's a metric. Market score is just another one. And like any metric, it's not flawless. But the reason I was into the idea of creating it was because so many fantasy managers draft off of ADP. And I said to myself, "There's a market component here that's predictive. ADP is predictive. But what if we can enhance that and take it even further? Similar to what I do with the zap model and NFL draft capital, that's market score." So do your question of how aggressively you should draft them? I don't think that's the right question to ask. That makes it seem like you're drafting off of market score and wondering how aggressively you should stray away from ADP in the name of market score. Your question really should just be about rankings. My rankings are factoring in market score alongside other factors to help you guys out. Market score is predictive, we know it's predictive. But my rankings are too. And so it's no different than the answer that I give about my rankings. I have guys ranked generally where I would draft them. But if you think that you can extract value via ADP based on your room, go for it. I talk about how to do that in the draft guide every single year. But it's not really a market score question here. It's a rankings question. But I do want to again point out that market score is simply another tool for you guys to analyze the game. And it's something I can talk about on this show. I still think that market score comps are really fun to dig into and analyze. In the end, I'm using it as a helper, not as my everything. And look guys, full transparency. If it's something that people end up not liking, or that we want to move on from after this draft season's over, because market score becomes irrelevant once the season starts. But if that's the case, that's cool too. I've heard a lot of good feedback, but there are some people out there who have voiced their opinion on the other side of that. Who don't like market score, who don't care for it. All I'm trying to do here is to innovate and give you guys the best experience with this fantasy football hobby. Hopefully things hit and hopefully they work out. But I really don't think that people should use it as giving you the answer this season. That's just not how I see market score. It's just another tool to keep me honest and keep me level-headed. My league allows us to play tight ends in the flex positions. For half PPR or full PPR, would it be a bad call to snag a falling tight end such as Kyle Pits or Sam Laporta to play in a flex spot, assuming I've filled my tight end spot already? Thanks. So it's not necessarily a bad call, but it's not something that I tend to do very often. And here's why. It handcuffs you. The demand of the tight end position, it's low. We know this. You're usually only starting one of them in your league, but then you're starting two or three running max, two or three wide receivers if not more. So let's just run through an example here. Sam Laporta is going a couple spots ahead of Chris Godwin according to fantasy pros consensus ADP. Let's just pretend that Sam Laporta is projected to score like one and a half PPR points per game more than Chris Godwin, and you drafted Brock Bauer's early. But you're staring at this part of the draft and you're saying, "I'll take Laporta because he's projected to be better than Chris Godwin." I've seen a lot of analysis just stop right there, but I really disagree with that approach. It's completely ignoring how fantasy football has played. Look, I think there are flaws to value over replacement player type formulas and strictly drafting in that way. But I write about this in the draft guide every year too. It's still a way to get a general grasp of positional value in your particular league by looking at vorp. Chris Godwin might be projected to score one and a half PPR points per game less than Sam Laporta. But he might still be the better pick in that spot, regardless of what you did early with Brock Bauer's. And it's because of what you might be able to get later in your draft. If you can get a comparable tight end three rounds later, but you can't get a comparable wide receiver with your next pick, then the wide receiver is probably the better choice. You should go with Chris Godwin. Remember, when you start one quarterback or one tight end, The position falls in your draft, you can get usable players later. You can't do that with the higher-in-demand positions. It's why running max and wide receivers get drafted so early in your fantasy drafts. So okay, now let's say that you're doing some warp calculation and there's a slight lean towards drafting Sam LaPorta. In a slight lean instance, I'm probably still taking the wide receiver and less we're in a clear, dart-throw territory. Like if we're in a territory where the tight end is a player like LaPorta and the opportunity cost is a much more questionable player. But if you're talking like top seven, top eight rounds of your draft, I'd need a very clear lean and that tight end's direction. Because remember, when we draft a lot of running max and wide receivers early on, we're not just doing it because their value over replacement looks really good on paper. And that's obviously on the projections front. We're doing it because we know those positions, they're really important to fantasy football. So we're getting a lot of them in case a player gets hurt or if he just buss. Worst case scenario, we have extra usable pieces at very important positions that we can use as trade leverage for later in the season. But in many scenarios, we're gonna be using those players at some point in the season. And if you take a tight end over one of those players, after you already took one early in your draft very high, you have a really big opportunity cost with where you took Brock Bowers. Like I said, you're handcuffing yourself. Because you're gonna force yourself to use that tight end in the flex spot, which limits your flexibility overall on your lineup. I'm not saying that you can't or shouldn't ever do this. But I'm more inclined to do it later as opposed to in the middle rounds. And keep in mind, you're talking like round nine through round 12. Those players are gonna look a lot different in every draft, but there are still some very viable and good wide receivers and running backs in that range. But look, the overall sentiment here though for me is not to fall into the trap that your fantasy football team is gonna be perfect. As in, when you make that seventh round wide receiver pick, you might feel really good about that player. There are plenty of guys that I like in that range too. But chances are, they're not gonna live up to the hype. They're not gonna be incredibly useful as more than like a flex player because historical hit rates show us that. So in order to make sure you're gonna hit on those important positions, you've gotta take more of them. And generally, you have to take a lot of them early. As usual though, it does depend on the players that we're analyzing here. I have to answer this as a hypothetical. But I can think of plenty of instances where I'd gladly take the tight end. Sure. I just don't think those instances pop up very frequently after I've taken a player like Brock Bowers. This has questions from Drew. It says, "Hey JJ, loving the draft guy again this year and your year two analysis has always a highlight for me." Thanks. I'm curious why Jackson Dart is not more of a breakout target for you this season like Drake May was last season. Does this stem from current ADP cost? His character and injury concerns? Or something else that you've noticed from his underlying profile and offensive environment? Thanks. So I do think that Drake May showed a little bit more promise than Dart as a rookie. Part of that was just what I saw with my eyes, but it comes through in some numbers too, like completion percentage over expected, being about five points higher than Dart as a rookie. But cost is the biggest thing here. People want to revise history a bit and say that Drake May was drafted pretty high last year. But Fantasy Pros has him as the QB16 last year, drafted 125th overall. It was the easiest call in the world to take that on because we know with quarterbacks, even if they do bust, we can find replacements. We shoot for ceiling given the availability of the position on waivers in most leagues. With Dart, the market's just not doing that. Largely because Dart was very usable last year because of his rushing. So right now, when you look at his ADP, he's firmly a top 100 pick. And on some platforms, he's going as high as QB8. Now I still think he's a fine target. And honestly, I'm still fine with double tapping quarterback that you're getting a player who has huge upside like Jackson Dart and then getting a more stable piece if you're feeling uncomfortable. That's fine. But this is just a cost thing. Dart on ESPN, QB7, QB9 on CBS, QB7 on Sleeper, even though I like him. And I'm generally ahead of the market, or at least at market. Those costs are why it's not that easy to call him out. And in my opinion, if you want exposure, check out Bestball Drafts for real. He's going a lot later in those drafts. Dart's rushing upside was wild last year and year two quarterbacks. They're the players that you want to bet on. They have really low floors, but they have really high ceilings against ADP too. The volatility is exactly what you want at quarterback. The last one this week is from Twitter. It's from Joe and I can't pronounce his last name. But it says, "It seems like this year the fantasy football hive mind is fading a lot of the younger, cheaper running backs in ambiguous backfields. You've got years of data showing that we shouldn't be. Are we overconfident in the likes of Dobbins, Remondre, etc." So I wouldn't say that I've got years of data showing the opposite. When looking at ambiguous backfields, the answer is not always simply draft the younger guy. I think that's one of the many misunderstandings about these types of backfields. And I don't think it's a misunderstanding of what I've said, but what other analysts have said when they've dissected ambiguous backfields, when they've done this work too. Others have come to their own conclusions. Like one of the more popular takes is just take the cheapest guy in one of those backfields, the one with the lowest ADP. That's not really what my research has shown. If there's something to latch on to, yes, you do probably want younger versus older. But it's more so about specifically year two players. Those running backs in the middle rounds, they hit at a really solid rate. And then you also, more importantly, you want pass catchers. You really, really want pass catchers. But more broadly, the idea with ambiguous backfields is that you should be leaning into the backfields where we don't know the starter. Where the ADP gap between one running back in the backfield to the other one is relatively small. Especially when they're middle round players. Because that tells us that the situation might be pretty good. Whereas if it's just an ambiguous backfield with late round guys, maybe not as good. Or if you have a standalone running back in the middle rounds with no real competition, you have to ask yourself why that guy isn't being drafted higher. If there's no competition in his backfield, why is he not a top 20 pick or a top 15 pick? It's probably because either he's not very good, which means another running back can take over that backfield. Or the backfield itself isn't a pretty crappy situation. But getting specific here, you named a couple of these backfields and the Broncos and the Patriots. There's also the commanders at this point. There's Carolina. There's Pittsburgh. We get a decent number of these backfields every single year. And my answer to your question is, I genuinely don't know. Like, I've been much lower than the market with JK Dobbins. I do not understand the JK Dobbins hype. Like, I feel like I see no one saying that JK Dobbins is just a low ceiling play. Because that's generally how I feel. I think he's a middle to late round, single or double and not a triple or a home run. And in that range of the draft, I want a big play. I want a ceiling play. Dobbins was limited last year's receiver with a sub 5% target share. And he was limited in his route share too, which is what led to that. Now, I'm willing to be wrong, but process wise, it's really weird to me that Dobbins is getting the love that he's getting when he's had the injury history that he's had. He's coming off a pretty major injury and he hasn't been used as a pass catcher. And then, oh, by the way, they've only added competition this off season. And I think Jonah Coleman's a good player. But even last year, when situationally, things were going JK Dobbins way. We would all agree on that. He was the starter in that backfield. He averaged just 11.6 PPR points per game. That's not even close to league winning. So I'm out on Dobbins this year because I just want more of a ceiling. I think RJ Harvey is more appetizing because the ADP gap is so small on some of the major platforms. There are some platforms out there where JK Dobbins just goes straight up ahead of RJ Harvey. And I get it, RJ Harvey wasn't a great runner last year. Go ahead and read the year 2 profile in the late round prospect guide this year. I was not high on RJ Harvey earlier this off season. But his ADP is also lowered quite a bit. His cost to acquire is totally different. That's not really a dynasty take, but is definitely a season long take. There's just so much more upside to Harvey's profile from a burst youth and just receiving perspective. Though I will say Jonah Coleman, he's the one that I'm going to have the most exposure to by far out of this backfield. Because I just want to throw that late round dart. Meanwhile, you look at New England. And like I just said, year 2 running max, you generally do want to invest in them. Historically, they've been pretty good bets. But you don't just do that blindly. I'm still worried about what we saw in the playoffs last year. And the fact that the Patriots should have a tougher schedule this year. Because a tougher schedule means more negative game scripts. More negative game scripts means you need a reliable running back back there and past protection. And that's Ramandre Stevenson right now. Travian Henderson has not shown us that he can be that player. He's not shown New England that he can be that player. So I have more Stevenson than I have Henderson right now. Though I have to say, I don't think that Henderson is a full fade. He's obviously explosive. There's contingent upside. And again, he's a year 2 player. Players can get better. So basically what I'm saying. What I'm saying here though is that everything's cased by case. I'll generally lean towards youth, sure, but we need to look at all of this with more context. It's not as simple as saying he's the cheapest one or he's the youngest one out of this ambiguous backfield. It's more about understanding that there's value with ambiguous backfields and then you take it from there. That's it for today's show, though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the late round fantasy football podcast, make sure you are researching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found. And to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at late round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. Have a great weekend. I'll catch you next week.