 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network Preseason week one got underway last night Which means it is officially football season and time to talk about some player props today We've got JJ Zachary's of late-round fantasy on the show to break down his favorite season-long player props for this year But also JJ's gonna be joining us throughout this year. It's gonna be a fun ride We'll talk to JJ in just one second. This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire.com joined here by JJ Zachary So my old colleague here at number fire moving on now to be later on podcast Of course and also late-round calm JJ. It's fun to have you back in the mix. How you doing? I'm good, man I'm good. I'm doing better than Traylon Berks after last night apparently You know, he's just in the doghouse a little bit playing into that fourth quarter in the first preseason game Not great not great for Berks so far, but yeah doing great man. I'm excited that football is back So with Berks, I was like playing some DFS last night. I was like, okay Like, you know, he's been the camp reports and bad That means so play a lot and he did he played 30 snaps. He had one target. Yeah across that entire time So like I thought I was into it because I thought it'd be bad And then it was worse somehow than my impression was so Not ideal by any means maybe we'll talk about Traylon Berks later on potential See if we can snag some player props there But if you don't know JJ you can find his his podcast. It's the late-round fantasy football podcast There's a link to that and late round calm in the show notes over on number fire calm to check out all that But of course JJ the projection maestro. We're in talking to him Today to get his read on some season-long player props how to build out projections What goes into that because I think that the process itself is is helpful to know because it can help you think better about player props as well Like I said, well JJ on throughout the season two on Fridays to break down player props for individual weeks We'll talk to JJ about the projection building process in just one second But first big news Fandal has an all-new mobile gaming app Fandal faceoff Fandal faceoff is where you can compete in quick fun games against other real people or real cash It has all sorts of games that you're familiar with like a home run derby wheel of fortune Puzzle and strategy games with more on the way contests are action-packed and last between two to five minutes So you can play wherever and on your schedule plus you can practice for free anytime whether it be head-to-head Multiplayer or larger tournaments Fandal faceoff has something for you plus in most contests We matched against the players of similar skill level So you're never totally overmatched even as a beginner faceoff It's also tied to your Fandal account wallet So you can easily use your daily fantasy funds or sportsbook winnings in the app It's a Fandal comm slash faceoff or download the Fandal faceoff app in the Apple app store today to get in the game agent location restrictions apply void were prohibited see Fandal comm slash faceoff dash terms for terms and Conditions, let's talk. That's in player props for 2022 and JJ I feel like you got to be feeling good right now before you even talk about any of this stuff because I was reading through your your late-round draft guide for Rookies coming out of the draft and that got me on Isaiah Pacheco That work that's working out pretty well. I think you liked Isaiah likely I believe I don't want to project on to you, but I'm pretty sure you talked about him He had a good game last night as well So it seems like things the vibes got to be pretty good just based off camp reports alone so far Yeah, look so far so good, you know from a projection standpoint evidently I like guys named Isaiah although Isaiah spill or didn't look that great in my prospect model But yeah, you know so far so good if Isaiah Pacheco ends up hitting I will be a very very happy man at the end of the day I will be too because again I was on my honeymoon during my rookie drafts and so I was using your draft guide to like Effectively just be my rankings and wound up taking Pacheco in I think two separate leads the moon with you So again, you kind of you played yourself there So yeah, a little bit think about that next time around in the dinosaur leagues We're in together, okay So I want to talk about the projection building process because we've had you on this show to talk season-long player process the past couple of years But obviously not everybody has heard all those shows. So I want to go back through that process once again for new listeners What all goes into building a season-long projection for you? Yeah, so, you know, I go with more of a top-down approach You know, I know that a lot of people probably think that it's just sort of like looking at different Offensive positional players and looking at wide receivers and running backs Just sort of like throwing target numbers at them and then kind of looking at a yards per target rate and doing it Mine's a lot more process than that. You know, I look at it from a top-down approach Like I said, I look at the team level first and then I dig into the individual players So what do I mean by looking at the team level? I'm talking about pass rates I'm looking at plays run per game and I'm able to then project pass and rush attempts based on some of those things to get Those numbers, you know I'm looking at team win totals as one input to see what game script might generally look like because obviously if teams are trailing more Then that means they're not gonna be or they're gonna be a little bit more pass heavy and vice versa You know, obviously there's team philosophy driven things You know if a coach likes to do a certain thing or run a certain offense Then they might be a little bit more run heavy or pass heavy But at the end of the day, you know, good a good example This is like Seattle this year where they're just not going to be that good And so, you know, you can look at them philosophically Yeah, Pete Carroll would love to run the ball 50 times a game But it's just not gonna happen in that offense because they're not gonna be, you know ahead And they're gonna be trailing a lot this season So, you know from there then once you get some of those high-level team numbers Where you have pass attempts you have rush attempts You know I can then look at the quarterback numbers and I can start to project quarterback play and that all Feeds back up into the team level stuff. And so instead of looking at it from the perspective of I'm projecting quarterback attempts I'm projecting team attempts and then I'm projecting the percentage of drop-backs or attempts that a particular quarterback on a team would get So, you know, most guys I'm gonna project for like 98% of the teams attempts But there's some situations like Pittsburgh for instance or you know, Cleveland throughout the offseason because we don't know what's going on with The Sean Watson where you know, it's more of like a 50-50 thing or a 70-30 thing or what have you so I'm able to project quarterback numbers and then from there once the quarterback numbers are projected And I have passing output in terms of yardage and stuff and stuff like that I can then start to divide receiving numbers and so I'm looking at more target share stuff rather than Targets themselves because target share again feeds back up into the team level stuff and then for running backs It's rush share and then, you know from it from the standpoint of like efficiency and how they Score touchdowns and how they generate yards all that stuff is really regression analysis It's looking at how these players did previously and historically Combined with you know, some some guys are rookies or some guys, you know You only have one year on them or something like that really just looking at historical averages And you know if some some of it is subjective, you know I'm bumping up if this guy is a good player or not then he's probably gonna be a little bit better than the historical average So there is some subjectivity involved there But I try to keep it as process oriented as possible and then from a touchdown standpoint when I'm projecting touchdowns A lot of that is regression analysis based on just some formulas like I have a pass You know a receiving yardage to touchdown type formula that I that I work with and I look at like Average at the target and I look at where these guys could be seeing looks on the field because obviously if they're seeing more red Zone looks than not then they could see more more scores Overall, so there's a lot of things that go into it But I think the overall Important thing to take away is that I'm looking at the team level first I'm understanding the team what they want to do what their philosophy is what the game scripts might look like and then that's all feeding Into the player stuff. So let's dig into that team level stuff here because that's a huge thing like you mentioned And this is also an inflection point for that because a lot of teams have had Philosophical changes whether it be because of coaching changes or quarterback changes stuff like that They're gonna be different in 2022 than they were in 2021. So when you are Building your projections entering run-pass ratio stuff like that Are there any teams you think could surprise us for this year that could lead to a player being or players on that team on the whole Being either over or undervalued. Yeah, I think there's two teams They're actually from the same division that really are interesting from this perspective because I think there's like some teams Like Minnesota for instance where people just generally know that they're gonna be a little bit more pass-heavy It's gonna be a little bit different than what we've seen with Mike Zimmer But there's one team that there's just natural regression that's likely to hit and that's Baltimore You know, I don't think people fully realize what happened in Baltimore last year offensively from like a pass-rate standpoint and a passing volume standpoint, you know last year they had a lot of more negative game scripts than what we've seen with Greg Roman as offensive coordinator and Lamar Jackson that quarterback obviously Lamar was hurt for some of the season as well But they had bad injuries in their secondary and on defense and that led to a lot of negative game scripts They ended up running by far the most plays in football like by far more than what we've seen You know three or four plays per game more than what we'd seen during this Greg Roman Lamar Jackson era and so on top of that They were also a little bit more pass-heavy in terms of pass rate than what we've seen with Lamar Jackson and Greg Roman You know the two years prior to last year with those two guys. They were 30 second in the league and pass rate They were they were the run heaviest team in football last year. They were 23rd So they were a little bit more pass-heavy, but because they ran so many plays They were ninth in the NFL and pass-a-temp last year Which is wild to think about in this Lamar Jackson era and this offense They had the ninth most pass attempts in the NFL It's crazy because like everyone's talking about marquise brown and fantasy because he's an early earliest round pick etc He's going from a team that actually threw more pass attempts last year to one who threw fewer When he goes from from baltimore to arizona. And so, you know, we shouldn't expect this to continue For baltimore year over year, you know, it's a team that's naturally going to regress from a plays run standpoint I think they they'll probably run four or so fewer plays per game this year You know, they have jk dobbins who's looking at least a little bit healthier. He's definitely healthier than he was last year Um, and so they might just lean on the run game a little bit more naturally They don't have hollywood brown anymore. So that's another reason why and the defense is healthier So they could see better game scripts overall. They have their running backs more intact It just makes sense that we would see them regress a little bit back towards What we saw the first two years when lemar jackson was the full-time starter So that's one team and then another team within that same division Who I think is going to dramatically change from a from an offensive philosophy standpoint is pittsburgh Uh, pittsburgh the last two seasons has been the second most pass heavy team in the nfl Only tampa bay has been more pass heavy and it's because they've been running this offense with this horrible offensive line The statue in ben roethlisberger under center, uh, and he's just trying to get the ball out quick He's been first in time to throw over the last couple of years He's not been sacked that that often and now you get the quarterback change and really the quarterback change They're going to go to a quarter even if the quarterback isn't good or effective They're they're moving to a quarterback that fits the mac canada scheme a lot better Who can roll out who's more mobile? Look what they did this off season. They they signed mitzger biskey. Who's a mobile quarterback? They draft kenny pickett who's a mobile quarterback He's not, you know, they're neither of them are trail ants But they're both guys who can escape the pocket and create with their legs And so I think we're going to see the stealers then as a result of that, you know Have just a different philosophy in general They're not going to want to lean on their quarterbacks either as much probably as they did with ben roethlisberger And so I think the offense just going to look a lot different Hopefully the offensive line is a little bit better because they did make at least some moves But still probably going to be one of the worst in the league Um, but you know overall, I think we're going to see the stealers lean more naji harris And this is one of those teams too, you know, mike tommons never had a losing season in the nfl It's one of those teams where you know from a game script perspective the defense is good enough We could probably expect them to at least be in games And so it's not a situation like seattle where they want to run the football and they just can't I think the stealers could hypothetically, you know, just be a lower score You know have be in some lower scoring games Uh and really force the run a little bit because the defense is actually decent And it's important to keep those philosophical changes in mind Not just for these season long player props, but also once we get to week one Keep that in mind with baltimore pittsburgh too because that'll be applicable to You know russia bateman yardage props and stuff like that. So keep that in mind for weekly props as well Well, we've had you on the show in the past jj. You have absolutely nailed the yardage leader categories over on fanglia derrick henry and nick chub Whatever year that the first year was and they were one too in league and rushing for that year so Finding guys who will blow up seems to be a strength for you for this year fandalizad's up Not just yardage leaders, but also touchdown leaders. So Where are you finding value across those markets at fanglia sportsbook? Yeah, so I have three, um, you know, I I think that uh with what I just talked about with pittsburgh We could see, you know more rushing yards for that team in general You know the stealers aren't a great team, uh, but like I said, mike tom has never had a losing season I think they're philosophically they're gonna want to run the football Naji harris right now is plus 1800 to lead the nfl In rushing, you know, he was that that's ninth on fandal sportsbook at the position Right now. He's fourth in my projections You know in terms of rushing yards, uh total rushing yards You know volume is really the thing that's going to drive something like this It's not really efficiency that's going to drive it. I mean obviously, you know You want efficiency and you likely will need a decent yards per carry rate to lead the nfl in rushing But really, you know, if one of the top guys misses a game Like a jonathan taylor or derek henry or someone like that Then all of a sudden it's not crazy to think that that naji harris would be able to do it And then the other thing with naji is that the stealers don't have a backup running back I mean they do but not a good one, right? I mean it's benny snell right now I still think the stealers are in play to maybe take advantage of a of a team's running back depth chart right now When they cut, uh, some of these running backs to sign one of those running backs and that guy might be their number two But regardless, you know right now as it stands the stealers are entering the season With benny snell as their their rb2 and you know, you know, anthony mcfarland there too and such but no one who is scaring you So I think, you know, they can say what they want about naji harris not seeing the same exact workflow that he did last year I do think that they might limit his snaps a little bit, but at the end of the day Um, you know, I could see them maybe limiting his receiving snaps more than I could see them limiting his rushing snaps So I'm gonna I'm gonna lean into naji harris there at plus 1800 To lead the league in rushing. Um I also from a receiving perspective I think that dj more at plus 3000 is an unbelievable value right now That's tied for 13th unfandall sports book. My projections right now have him at seventh In in receiving, uh, you know, I think more is really interesting because he's just been really efficient throughout his his career From a yards per target standpoint last year was his lowest season in yards per target at 7.1 But he was at 10.1 the year before that his career yards per target is 8.7 That's way above the league average because he's a really good wide receiver You know, that number generally does regress year over year a little bit But if you're looking at last season and that 7.1 number it wouldn't shock me if from a projection standpoint and from a Market standpoint, you know, they're weighing that a little bit more than what they would weigh What he did previously potential quarterback upgrade probable quarterback upgrade in baker mayfield Negative game scripts in carolina because they're not going to be a very good team You know and since his rookie season dj more has seen target shares of 22.4 percent 23.4 percent and last year 28.2 percent So if he's able to continue and maintain that kind of target share I don't think it'll be as high this season because cmc will be healthy But regardless even if he can get to a 27 percent target share if he's efficient enough He at least has a chance in this in this offense and on this team where they should see some negative game scripts Um, you know to to really put up great receiving numbers. So that's my pick for receiving yards and then I got one more for you I like russell wilson that plus 1600 to lead the nfl in passing that russ cook. Let's go. Yeah You know, here's a thing here's a thing with quarterbacks from a projection standpoint You want quarterbacks if they're gonna if they're gonna throw a lot of touchdowns They need to have some sort of crazy touchdown rate and with crazy touchdown rates You want them closing or you want them throwing close to the end zone? You want them throwing at the goal line and in the red zone? This should be a more pass-heavy scheme for him The broncos now have nathaniel hack it as head coach who was the offensive coordinator for the packers from 2019 to 2021 Now I understand they had erin rogers. So take this all with a grain of salt But russell wilson's still a very very good quarterback. I mean, it's not like russell wilson's this like insane You know, it's not like he's going from erin rogers to gino smith here He's going from erin rogers to russell wilson Green bay is tied for the most pass attempts within the five yard line While nathaniel hack it was offensive coordinator there. That's at the goal line. So that's over the last three years They've thrown the ball at the goal line more than any other team or at least tied for and not only that But they're second they were second in pass rate The only team that was higher at the goal line in pass rate has been jacksonville over the last three years Which is crazy because green bay has been a good team Which means that you know, they haven't really been trailing and they're throwing at the goal line Because this is just what they want to do You know some of that again some of this might just be an erin rogers thing But look at what russell wilson has done historically He's had insane touchdown rates year after year after year because he too is aggressive closer to the end zone So I think that you know, this offense is awesome I'm really excited to see them But I think russell wilson at plus 1600 right now is a really good bet to throw the most touchdowns And they've got some great red zone bodies too between albert wavenham Coral and sudden typically pretty good down there as well. So that's that's exciting I'm curious. So does the terrible corny. Let's ride tagline Is that a boost up in your projections for us or because I feel like that's like at least a 5% decrease of our building line Yeah, look, I mean like the the cornball factor is always there for for rus in my projection. I guess that's big No, you're right. It's all that's big. Yeah, okay. That makes a lot of sense. Okay So you mentioned the touchdown numbers rus for wilson I want to talk about individual player props as well starting with russian because I think that you were talking about regression and The regression piece is going to be biggest in the touchdown markets I'm curious if you found any individual touchdown props You liked or if we're sticking with the yardage here because the the touchdown one intrigued me I don't know a lot about it. That's why I'm asking you but an individual player prop standing up for you Over a fan dual sports book. Yeah, look, you know, if you look at rachad penny right now He has an over under of 799 and a half rushing yards If you look at his situation He has one of the worst offensive lines in football He has the worst quarterback situation in football and his team has one of the worst team totals in football So i'm going to take the under with rachad penny getting to about 800 rushing yards The other thing with rachad pennies. He's not in every down back. He wasn't utilized that way at all last year You know, even when he was dominating in fantasy football and dominating Even you know on the ground in real football get eight targets last year rachad penny did that was one of the the lowest rush attempts to One of the highest rush attempts to target rates that we've seen from 100 plus attempt running back over the last decade And so that's bad because if there's a negative game script for this offense Then rachad penny is not going to be on the field. Um, and so, you know, you do want three down backs You know, even for for props like this because uh, you know, even when teams are trailing They still run the ball sometimes they're not just only throwing the football And so if that's the case you can you can obviously gobble up more rushing yards and such But i'm just worried about how game scripts are going to go for this really not good seattle team And then on top of that they went out and they drafted kenneth walker and kenneth walker is a great runner I mean, you know, you can question how he how he looked as a prospect from a receiving perspective But it's really tough to question what he is as a runner Um, and so he's sort of a redundant piece to rachad penny where we could see a scenario where pennies phased out Penny's not used nearly as much, you know down the stretch and he hasn't been able to stay healthy either throughout his career So there's just a lot going against rachad penny. Don't think he's going to maintain his 6.3 yards per carry rate year over year Um, I just think there's a lot of reasons to take the under here and when i'm looking for an under I'm looking for paths to an under. I want to find different routes to having that under hit you mentioned Uh, the fact that he could get I mean he's any running back and get hurt. So that's always in play The kenneth walker factor whether be he outplays him or they're You know, they're a two-in team late in the year and want to go look at kenneth walker with rachad penny being in a contract year You know, they may want to do that as well There's a lot of routes routes to an under here. I think that makes a lot of sense with regards to a shot penny Uh, what about receiving props? Were you finding value over there? Yeah, I have one I usually don't like taking overs that much with player props But there's one that I think is pretty glaring and it's t higgins His over under right now is at a thousand yards a thousand and a half yards You know, like I said, I hate going with overs But the bangles, um, and not only that the bangles have some some passing regression coming this year burrow led the league last year in yards per attempt and it was one of the best yards per attempt rates of all time You know, understandably, they have some of the best weapons in football. They have a much improved offensive line That's another reason to just sort of think that the regression, you know, it might happen But it might not be as severe as what we would otherwise see But higgins right now for me and again, I project generally healthy seasons for these guys So, you know take that with a grain of salt, but he's projected for 1150 yards in my projections right now So even accounting for a small injury he could hypothetically miss two games and still get to that 1 000 yard mark Maybe he could even miss three games if he's very efficient Or if we see like an a jamar chase injury or something and then more targets are funneled Uh t higgins way, but you know last season higgins actually average a higher target share per game than jamar chased it Um, you know, he just missed time and jamar chase didn't miss that the same amount of time So, you know, I do think that chase is going to naturally see a little bit more love this year as a second year guy As opposed to a first year guy, and you know, he's not rookie anymore more experience all that But t higgins is probably a lock to see at least a 22 target share in that offense And it's an offense that should be explosive that should be good I think getting to 1 000 yards should be pretty easy for such a talented guy I think the important thing with them too is they were very conservative last year I think in large part to conserve joe burrow at coming out that acl and You talked about potentially baltimore and pittsburgh be more run heavy I think since that he could be more past heavy despite the fact They are a good team just because they were so conservative at times last year that benefit t higgins the benefit Hayden hurst like everybody associated with this team could get a boost up because of that That is jj zacker race and you can find him on twitter at late round. You can be qb You can find him at the late round fantasy football podcast and late round dot com JD before let you go where people find your Season long draft guide if they want to get some help with their upcoming season long grass Yeah, it's all over on late round dot com You know, I I I did this draft guide to not necessarily just throw a bunch of player profiles at you Which is fine. You know, that's there's definitely a place for that But I'd say like 90, you know 85 of this guide is more game theory focused and strategy focused So you're gonna understand a little bit better how to attack your draft and not just picking the right players So I do have players to target players to avoid and my tiers and all that kind of stuff in there But a lot of it is more game theory stuff. So hopefully people dig it. I think people have so far It's all over on late round dot com Alrighty, I'm excited to have you back on the show as well to talk about in season player props 2 that is going to be a blast I have a fantastic weekend jj and thank you for coming on the show. Thanks man. Appreciate it All right, again, check out jj on twitter at late round qb. You'll hear him again in season It's going to be a fun time. That is all we got here for today on covering the spread Thank you all for joining us for this first week of daily shows We'll be back with you on monday to talk about some major league baseball Make sure you're subscribed on the to the covering the spread podcast feed wherever you get your podcast And i'm on twitter at jim saunas as well. Have a fantastic weekend. We'll talk to you all next week This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network