 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network Each of the past couple of years we have had JJ Zacharyson on covering the spread before the NFL season to talk about NFL Season-long player props and JJ's hit rate has been fantastic. So before the 2023 year gets underway We got him back on once again. We're gonna do that today We're gonna pick JJ's brain about building projections the toughest teams to project this year how to find upside And it's their player props. They like for 2023 over at Fandall Sportsbook This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network. My name is Jim Sonis I am a digital media managing editor for Fandall research joined here as mentioned by JJ Zacharyson Check him out on Twitter at late round QB You find his work at late round comm in the late round fantasy football podcast JJ It is a delight to have you back on the show for today. How you doing? I'm good, man I'm good. It's good to talk to you. I feel like we haven't done a show in a handful of months So it's good to sit down and talk maybe even longer. It's been a lot of draft. Did we talk for the drafter? No I don't know, but it would have been around that time. If not, it's at least then from last football season I mean, it's been a while since we've been able to chop it up. Right. It's weird I don't think I'm that long between shows for a very long time. So it's good to be back in the show I you know, you got you know shelves new shelves and your backdrop Got I believe the sign is somewhat new. I'm not sure if you had that last year as well But like a lot of changes. I like it. Yeah, I mean look my daughter keeps buying me Funko pops I will put the Funko pops behind me when she does. Well, I've only got one So if Avery gets bored to buy them for you, let me know we got bubble Wallace. We're wrong side bubble Wallace over here And he's lonely. So if Avery gets bored needs to buy more, let me know and we can I can accommodate There'll be a lot of she only buys female Funko pops So I've gotten you know on Elsa and Anna from frozen Angelica from Rugrats she bought okay Well, I say she bought obviously, you know, she just turned five So she's not purchasing these things on Amazon. My wife is but it's a it's very endearing She needs and I agree with her there needs to be more female representation on the back shelf there Absolutely, I have none. So we'll get Avery on the job to figure this out for me as well We're gonna pick JJ's brain on all things the season-long props here in just one second First a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the covering the spread podcast feed wherever you get your podcast We had Austin Cass on yesterday to break it break down EPL match week number three I talked some NASCAR and Daytona as well We also had Dr. Ed Feng on Wednesday to break down college football week zero to get those shows Make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast and check us out on the Fandall YouTube page and on Fandall TV plus get ready for the NFL season with incredible offers from Fandall America's number one sportsbook right now new customers can bet five dollars and get 200 in bonus bets guaranteed plus all customers Who bet five dollars will get one hundred dollars off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV now Is he best time to join Fandall the app is easy to use and you can bet on everything from spreads to player props and more Fandall official partner of the NFL Must be 21 plus and president select states Fandall is offering online sports waging in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC first online real money wager only $10 first deposit required a bonus issued as non withdrawal bonus bets that expire seven days after a seat Restrictions applies see terms at sportsbook.fandall.com gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or visit fandall.com Slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee in Virginia call 1-800 next step or text next step to 5334 2 in Arizona 1-888-789-7777 Or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut 1-809 with it in Indiana 1-805-224-700 Visit ksgamblinghealth.com in Kansas 1-877-770 stop in Louisiana Visit mdgamblinghealth.org in Maryland 1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia or call 1-800 5-224-700 in Wyoming Hope is here visit gamblinghealthlinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts Call 1-877 at Hope & Wire text to open Y in New York NFL Sunday ticket offer ends 918-23 no refunds terms and embargoes apply $100 off NFL Sunday ticket not youtube tv YouTube TV base plan required to watch youtube tv redemption requires a google account and current from a payment Commercial use is excluded Now JJ we've had you on the show as mentioned every year we've had covering the spread so far to talk season long props But probably have new listeners from that first show to now So I want to go through your overall process for building out projections which we can leverage to then bet player props What does that process look like for you each year when you're building those projections? Yes, there's a lot of regression analysis that goes on but it starts at the team level where i'm projecting out You know pass rates And then that builds into plays run per game and and number of pass attempts and rush attempts teams have And so at a high level, you know, i'm looking at things like coordinator data and previous season data all that good stuff to sort of Project what these pass rates are going to be per team looking at win totals It's another thing because obviously game scripts can play a role in how past Having a team is or not and then once you get the team level stuff You can then go to the court. I go to the quarterbacks and I look at go quarterback by quarterback and You know do some regression analysis with their yards per attempt numbers Um, and then you get a yardage total and I have some yards to touchdown conversion stuff that I look at and obviously You can adjust that based on What we've seen and how they've performed like in the red zone and if they're going to be more pass heavy in the Red zone some of it is subjective I think that needs to be said You know with this kind of stuff that there is some a lot of subjectivity involved Um, and then once the quarterback numbers are out there then I can start to essentially divvy up those numbers In terms of passing and rushing, uh, you know with with running backs wide receivers and tight ends So, you know, a lot of people think just in terms of raw targets Whether it's sports betting especially more casual fantasy football managers, uh, but I look in target share and backfield share And so what I mean by that is is a percentage of the team targets as opposed to just raw targets So that's stickier year over year. You know if a player had a 25 target share last season And that equated to 150 targets Well, that offense might not be as pass heavy or might not be or might be, you know More pass heavy would have you um, and so if you just look at the target share You're able to sort of uh, look at these players within the context of their current Projection the team projection. And so I look at target share for wide receivers Backfield share, you know rush share for running backs Um, and then you sort of just project things out, uh, from uh, you know from there I'm getting yardage, you know, I'm looking at yards per target and stuff And then I'm looking at things like average up the target for these guys, but I think that the overall Sort of look at this is that I'm starting at the team level And then I'm going to the individual level after getting those team level numbers And you mentioned that there's a lot of subjectivity involved And like I think there has to be in a sense with NFL stuff because let's take the Baltimore Ravens as an example here like You can look at what Todd Monk and did at in Tampa Bay and try to, you know, project that for for Baltimore But having Jamis Winston Ryan Fitzpatrick is very different than Lamar Jackson So I feel like that'd be the toughest part is trying to You know figure out what to expect from new teams with new situations So how much for you is looking at data for that versus putting your own? I don't know like I think that like just like I feel like just having some level of like personal input has to be involved with that process, right? Yeah, it is and a hundred percent is I mean I I start by looking at it all algorithmically, right? So I'm looking at it all from the standpoint of strictly Numbers and what the regression analysis says and then from there I'm adjusting So if we look at Baltimore, for instance Obviously, if you were to just say, oh, this is a Greg Roman offense once again Then those numbers are going to be really skewed towards the run Then what it's probably going to look like the the nice part too is with like coordinator data You know, you can look at what's happened in like neutral game script situations with these guys to see what they're truly about as opposed to overall situation so You know neutral script pass rate is a lot more predictive year over year Than overall pass rate and the reason for that is because teams when they're when they're leading They run the ball more when they're trailing They throw the ball more and so when games are close, you know within six points lots of ways to measure this obviously But when you know it's within six points, um, you know, that's basically like the true colors if you will Of how these teams operate So, you know, you can look at that with like a Todd Monkin and real and versus like a Greg Roman And realize that, you know, Greg Roman is more run heavy a lot more run heavy even versus a typical team, you know In those neutral script environments Yeah, you gotta you gotta use personnel, uh and just analyze personnel and subjectively say, okay You know, they have Lamar Jackson. So they're going to be more run heavy Um, but I think the the other point with all of this is that you don't need to be so so precise when it comes to projections To me, especially when you're betting these to me It's more about if there are any outliers that you're seeing, you know within these projections There's something glaring or something obvious out there that the market's saying that you're not seeing or vice versa Then those are the guys you can really bet on and if you just have a relatively sound process with the The team stuff and then the player stuff, you're gonna be able to find those those instances Absolutely and finding those outliers is always gonna be important when it comes to this kind of stuff Now you've built out your projections a long time ago for this year You've had them ready for a bit when you were going through that process What were the toughest teams to project because you look at this from a betting perspective Having teams that are tough to project me both good and bad if it's bad, it means just don't bet him Who cares, you know, no bet is better than a bad bet But it can also present opportunities if sportsbooks also have issues projecting those situations So what teams to you were toughest to project for 2023? Yeah, and look sportsbooks will have a hard time projecting them too I think, you know, it's not like this is this is a lot of subjectivity as we've been saying so You know, I think I think Baltimore is one team that you mentioned, you know with the coordinator change They're going to be more past heavy every move that they've made this offseason has hinted You know towards them throwing the ball more they get obj Zay flowers were shot Bateman's back, uh, you know, they obviously have not just one good tight end But you know, I say it likely is not bad either So I think that they're going to be a lot more past heavy So they're a little bit hard to project only because we've seen them run their offense a certain way over the last Four years or so with with Greg Irwin or however long it's been But two other teams that I think are are even more difficult One of them Chicago And I say Chicago because they had a historically low pass rate last year with Justin Fields and company But they add DJ more to the mix and what we've seen over the last, you know Few seasons is when these teams add these, uh top-notch wide receivers We have seen a slight bump in the way that they operate their offense in terms of pass rates So I think that we can expect that the problem with them is more the projection on like an individual level Where I feel good about DJ Moore seeing a high target share. So DJ Moore fine He's not that hard to project But what's darnel mooney's target you're gonna look like what's what's chase claypool's target you're gonna look like And then that backfield is a complete disaster with uh, clill herbert Uh, they draft roshan johnson and then diante foreman who I think is sort of the rb3 on that team How is that gonna really unfold and look and then of course they have Justin Fields And how much is he gonna run, you know, what's this offense going to look like? Are they gonna try to really get a true look at him as a passer in this sort of newer look offense? So I think chicago is difficult But I would argue the most difficult team to project this year offensively is green bay. Um, you know, I I think that I can give you a general idea Of target shares for their big three wide receivers. So that's good. They don't have that much depth there so you can kind of have a decent idea as to Um, you know, how many what the target is going to look like for christian watson versus romeo dobbs Which is jaden reed, but there's just a lot of question marks as to the talent on that team You know christian watson showed up last year He absolutely hits a lot of the marks that we should look for and what could be an elite wide receiver But there's a lot of downside to his profile too as a four-year smaller school wide receiver Um, you know, he didn't see that amazing of target share numbers across the entire season So there are some you know, there is some volatility there romeo dobbs You know was good as a rookie all things considered, you know within the context But uh, it could just go in a lot of directions. I really like jaden reed as a player I like luke musgrave as a player But when you have rookies and starting roles right away, you know, that just invites more volatility to your projection And so and then obviously the the big wild card is is jordan love good We have no idea if he's good or not So I just think because of that because of those individual players from a talent perspective I'd say that chicago is more of a muddied situation outside of dj more But then green bay is more of a talent driven one Where it's just hard to know how good these players actually are And like the pass to run ratio is tough too because you know, they were kind of run heavy more than you'd expect And what do they do with that when their quarterback is not potentially maybe is a future hall of famer Um, it's a very different thing to go from erin rogers jordan love like do they become very run heavy in the situation? I don't know which is why i'm glad i'm not doing it You are uh because that team would be a massive massive headache for sure Now you've had success on this show and identifying upside markets, you know guys to Lead the league in rushing yard and stuff like that and If a player is going to wind up doing that They almost always have to beat their projections unless there's like some crazy situation where guy is like already projected to be Well above the pack So in a way you have to project Predict where your your projections may be wrong or predict where there is additional upside who for players You could blow past their projections. So what do you look for when trying to identify players who have upside in those markets? Yeah, I think that there's two sort of things that work in parallel here one of them being competition on the team right so I always say that you know targets are earned for instance that wide receiver or or you know rush attempts are earned Hypothetically, I mean it's a little bit easier for a running back to just see rush attempts because a coach is just sitting there saying Hey get on the field We're going to give you the ball But you have to be talented enough to rise on your depth chart and to be that guy who's going to see the ball In those situations a wide receiver you have to get open in order to see a target You have to you have to run the right route if you're on the same page as your quarterback There's more talent involved in seeing volume at wide receiver and there is at running back And so what I always say is that targets are earned But in order to see a crazy ceiling in terms of target share or in terms of backfield share If you are a good player and if you are going to earn those targets If there's a lack of competition around you that's when you can really hit that crazy crazy See that like brandon marshal back in chicago is like 40 target share or whatever it was That's where that ceiling can really come into play. And so that's one piece is competition But the other piece really is talent, uh, you know, the league leaders every year Are very talented players, right? Don't get cute and bet guys who don't have a backbone as a prospect that don't have a backbone Even in terms of just showing us something obviously, you know, you're not going to bet like a rookie to lead the league I mean, maybe be john robinson's side if you want to but you know, at least that wide receiver You're not going to bet a rookie wide receiver to lead the league and basically any statistical category Um, you know, because there's not that much of a backbone there. We don't know if they're good or not yet Um, but when it comes to to wide outs, especially, you know, you you want those players to be uber talented In order to really, um, you know hit that upside and then the last thing i'll say too That's sort of popping to my head right now but there are certain roles that these players play and If it's if if you're looking at like a rushing prop and you're staring at a guy like austin eckler or something Understand that he's not playing a role on his team Even with the lack of competition on that team where he's going to carry the ball 25 times a game like a derrick henry or a nick chubb And so understanding the roles of these individual players also goes a long way for sure So there are a lot of factors involved and it's important to consider all of them before you end up placing a bet Oh speaking of which let's do so and take a look at these markets over at fandals sportsbook Let's begin with those leaders. It can be a rush rushing leader passing leader touchdown leaders, etc Etc got all those over a fandals sportsbook when you look at those markets jj Which bets stand out to you right now? Yeah, I got a couple. I think that trevor laurence right now at plus 1800 to throw the most passing touchdowns is pretty intriguing Uh, those are those are the eighth highest odds, but I have him fifth and projected passing touchdowns this year There's volatility to it to any touch touchdown statistic But I think that the case for laurence is pretty obvious where the weapons are there, you know They have christian curc evin ingram zay zay jones looked good last year Um, and and now they add calvin ridley. So that's there at least and then You know laurence taking a step forward again. This is essentially his like year two I would say, you know, not only in this system, but year one is just really hard with urban mire to really Get take anything away from it So I do think that he's a pretty interesting bet at plus 1800 and then i'm looking at the wide receiver market And looking at the the league leaders and receiving yards One guy that first popped out to me a little bit and this is this is sort of outside the box thinking This isn't my main bet but jaylon waddle is kind of interesting at plus 2500 and the main reason I say that is I think there's an outside chance that he's just good enough to like get close to being the league leader and receiving yards because The way they're the the target tree works in that offense is two of those guys tyrie kill and jaylon waddle We're going to see over 50 of the team's targets And so obviously, you know tyrie kill should be the odds on favorite to uh out do an outpace jaylon waddle and receiving yards But what I like about this number is the fact that if tyrie kill misses three games four games Then waddle all of a sudden would would probably have closer to like plus 1200 or so odds uh to to to uh to be that league Leader so I think waddle is interesting, but I think the better bet is amin rasen brown at plus 3000 One of the things that I feel like is kind of going overlooked with him Uh is the fact you know they they add jamir gibbs They add sam laporta Both of those guys are more than likely lower average depth of target players And their guys we're going to see you know catches closer to the line of scrimmage Some could see that as a bad thing for amin rasen brown But I also see it as we we know or we at least believe that same brown is a really good wide receiver And over his first two years in the league He's seen very very low average at the targets because he's played this slot role Where he's the one who's sort of hovering closer to the line of scrimmage Jamison williams out for the first six weeks Who knows if he's even good or not very bad vibes around I keep saying that on podcast Just very bad vibes surrounding jamison williams So what if amin rasen brown maybe plays the perimeter a little bit more Maybe sees more down the field targets than all of a sudden his yards per target rate can really increase And we know that volume is going to associate and correlate to high receiving totals And we know that this lion's offense is likely to be one that throws the ball a decent bit So I think amin rasen brown at plus 3000 Especially when you look at some of the guys going around him and the odds around him I think that he's the obvious like just sticking out to me as the best bet there Well, he gets the best quarterback in football jared goff He gets to play eight eight home or nine home games because the nse has the set week 17 or week 18 this year They have Nine home games plus one road game in a dome in minneapolis So that's all beneficial as well. And those first six weeks with no jamison williams Their number two receiver is going to be either khalif ramond or marvin jones in 2023 Which is wild and like khalif ramond is probably the best field stretcher of that group So yeah, if you add on a couple of downfield targets for amin rasen brown I think that really is you were talking about building blocks for upside that I feel like that's exactly what you're looking for Yep, 100% all right. So amin rasen brown 30 to 1 to lead receiving trevor lorenz 18 to 1 to lead in passing touchdowns a couple of spots. JJ is looking at there We also do have individual over unders posted for It feels like every person so JJ looking at those any of those saying out to you it's fandal Yeah, so I have a few of these uh ramond rey stevensson right now who's over under rushing yards is 875 and a half Um, I'm taking the under there I'm a little bit afraid of him hitting that number in games without damien harris last year And I'm not counting the game where where stevensson got hurt early against arizona When everyone thought he was just going to dominate and then he gets hurt as a prime time game We see some kevin harris and pierre strong and ramond rey stevensson didn't do anything But in games without damien harris, he averages 79 running back rush air per game With damien harris last year that dropped from 79 to 55 percent His yards per game on the ground was 78 versus 58 with and without damien harris Um, and that's skewed very that 58 number with damien harris is skewed very very heavily By a 161 yard performance against the lions where damien harris got hurt in the first quarter So technically that 58 number is kind of closer to like 48 if you take that that game away, right? And i'm only running through that just to show you that when he's had more competition in that backfield They didn't split up the receiving work He was still seeing a crazy crazy target share in that offense because they were using him As their primary pass catching back and their third down back But without damien harris in the lineup He definitely saw a huge uptake in running back and in rushing numbers And so I don't know if zeke is just going to play a one-to-one role like damien harris played But I do think that zeke is going to hurt ramond rey stevensson a lot more on the ground Than through the air and i'm not sure new england's going to be a good team this year And if they see negative game scripts, that's great for ramond rey stevensson from a Pass catching standpoint even a fantasy standpoint because he's going to get a lot of dump buffs He's going to be fine as a receiver, but I do have You know some some hesitation With him on the ground because if you were to take that number that i was talking about earlier without damien harris and pro rate that Even across 17 games. He's hitting 850 yards. That's still under that's without a potential injury happening So I think stevensson under that mark makes a lot of sense. So that's the first one Darren waller is another one right now. His line is set at 640 receiving yards and i'm going over There's obvious injury risk with waller, but I have him projected for over 200 more yards than that And so I think that that's baked in well enough Given the injury risk to go with the over there There's not much competition that offense He should have an easy time hitting a 20 target share and then sticking with the tight end position George kiddle right now his over under 675 and a half I'm taking the under for his total receiving yards when uh, their big four were healthy last year So that's cmc debo samuel brend and iuk and george kiddle Uh, george kiddle average under a 14 target share in that offense. It was not good I think a lot of people think that brock perty was this great thing for kiddle Uh, but it was really just from a touchdown standpoint Down the stretch last year perty in the regular season when he was starting george kiddle average Or george kiddle saw 54 percent of san francisco's receiving touchdowns, but his yardage totals Yeah, they were fine. I mean he had big plays and such but this is a tight end that that historically has had a lot of peaks and valleys You know weekend and week out There's just not that much consistency with him and with all of these other weapons in the offense It's pretty easy to see that he could be the odd man out Especially if they're leading in games they have positive game scripts They use him frequently as a blocker because he can do that so well, so i'm going to take the under with george kiddle You know, I honestly think that the the over under the lines for waller versus kiddle should be flipped Yeah, and I think it'd be fun to have a head to head marker between those two guys because one is I know that the the giants were somewhat run heavy last year But they were more past heavy than you'd think with daniel jones Uh back there. So that was intriguing. Also with san francisco like they're gonna be run heavy They're always slow from a pace perspective too And like you said we've seen spots where kiddle when guys are healthy just not doing any big target It was super annoying last year when he had that like crazy run of efficiency because I never used him in dfs And it was very annoying But it's hard to keep that up and there was a reason I was not using him in the situations I didn't go back to new england for a second year because when they signed zeke I thought the the money they gave him stood out Uh three million is like the I think his cap hits like just south of that just south of three million That's a lot of money for a guy being brought in at this point in the year So it's not as if they were signing Latavius merch would be a factor for buffalo But like if they had brought in latavius murray at this point in the year And paid him, you know close to the vet minimum That would have been a lot less of a red flag for me than bringing in zeke for how much they paid him Yeah, 100 percent totally agree. I I just think that you know in the fantasy world A lot of people sort of brushed off the zeke signing as it wasn't that big of a deal for remandre I don't know if it's like a massive deal But it's definitely something especially from a rushing perspective and you know a lot of remandre's work as a receiver last year Was very dump-off heavy was very I mean it's like cheap receiving yards It wasn't like they were lining him up in the slot and stuff and so right I do think there's some concern about remandre's role this year Yeah, he's he's still the best pass catcher on the team probably which is an indictment of that offense But like, you know from a rushing perspective, there are serious downside cases there Any final futures you want to lock in before the season kicks off JJ? Yeah, I got one. I like drake london at plus 140 to score six or more touchdowns this year last season in One of the most run heavy offenses basically since the 1960s in atlanta He actually had an expected touchdown number of 7.8 according to pro football focuses refer formula And so he only scored four of those 7.8. He didn't get to 7.8 But if you look at his numbers, he was 14th in the league in red zone targets He was top 20 in end zone targets, which is the same as a jay brown You know, that's in a run heavy offense The falcon should see natural regression favorably in terms of them being a little bit more past heavy this year And again, I mean he's someone who there's not that much Outside of him in that offense to really steal some of those looks So I you know, he was a big underachiever in the touchdown column last year That's why I think his line is the way that it is right now But I would be smashing the over the six six touchdowns for drake london He realistically could get there in 10 or so games. Yeah, if you don't want as big of a payout You can't also take london over four and a half. That's uh minus 116 right now and I think that um, you could justify that one too But he wanted a bit more fun I think that that uh mark of jj was talking about makes a lot of sense as well That is jj. Zachariessen has mentioned you can find him on twitter at late round qb find his work Over at late round com check out the late round fantasy football podcast and jj. You've got your uh, Your draft kit available as well over at late round com Where can we find that if they're looking to get some insights in their season long leaks? Yeah, late round com just click guides at the top. Uh, and it's the the draft guide you can um, You know get a lot of strategy related information players the target players to avoid my rankings and tiers and it's updated weekly So uh, check it out late round com and we'll have you back here on the show every friday talking player Props once again. I am psych for that so jj. Have fun for the rest of the summer and we'll talk to you again on friday week one Sounds good, man. Appreciate it. All right. That is all that we have here for today. If you got any questions for me I am on twitter at gymson as j i m s a n n e s You can also follow fandal research at fandal research. Have a fantastic weekend everybody. We'll talk to you once again next week This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network