🤔 Do The Niners Trust Trey Lance?

The year is 2039. A 47 year-old Jimmy Garoppolo is the starting QB for the San Francisco 49ers...

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by RosterWatch:

Yesterday was an eventful day across the NFL landscape. Here are the three big pieces of news and the subsequent fallout for fantasy...

👻 Jimmy Garoppolo's contract restructured

In a surprising piece of news, the Niners and Jimmy G finalized a new contract that will make him the highest paid backup in the NFL.

He essentially took a $20 million pay cut to remain with the Niners after no viable trade partners emerged.

The signing has proved to be a Rorschach test for fantasy gamers...

If you've been drafting Trey Lance and his sky high upside aggressively, then this is a non-story. The team has made it clear this is Lance's job and if he plays well there is nothing to worry about.

If you've been skeptical of Lance, then this re-signing lends credence to the idea that the Niners aren't fully sold on him and that they wanted to prioritize a known commodity as an insurance policy.

As always, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. If you have a team built to be a Super Bowl contender, it's crucial to have a competent backup QB to weather any potential injury storms. The Niners now have that, but you can continue to draft Lance without hesitation.

🤝 Laviska Shenault traded to Panthers

Well, well, well. The Jaguars parted ways with Viska, just two years after selecting the promising prospect in the 2nd round of the 2020 draft.

We (and I very much use this in the royal sense) were excited to see him get a crack at playing time in a functional offense that didn't have the life drained out of it by Urban Meyer. Instead, he'll get a true change of scenery in a Carolina offense in need of playmakers outside of Christian McCaffrey and DJ Moore.

If you're looking for someone to tell you that Viska isn't an intriguing late round flyer out of the slot with Baker Mayfield, well, you're reading the wrong newsletter.

The Jags, on the other hand, somehow feel comfortable rolling into the year with a trio of Christian Kirk, Zay Jones and Jamal Agnew at WR? Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

✂️ Sony Michel released

The Dolphins backfield was fairly crowded so this isn't necessarily shocking, but it is a big vote of confidence for Raheem Mostert, who is coming back from a knee injury and missed all of last season.

It seems clear that the Dolphins will roll out some version of a thunder and lightning backfied with Mostert handling early down touches and Chase Edmonds dominating the up-tempo and passing game work.

Myles Gaskin is probably back on the deep flier radar in the event Mostert were to get hurt again.

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🤔 Could Alexander Mattison be traded? An interesting report here.

🍽️ Skyy Moore got stuck with an absurd dinner bill. Ouch.

🙏🏻 Good news on Brian Robinson. Ron Rivera shared an update after visiting him.

🦶🏽 Will Najee Harris be ready for Week 1? The Lisfranc sprain is not ideal.

🐬 Is Tyreek Hill the clear WR1 in Miami? I made a contrarian case on our Sirius XM show.

⁉️ Who will be the overall fantasy WR1?? Our staff has some differing opinions.

🏆 The top fantasy players of the past 50 years. Sweet graphic.

JJ Zachariason literally wrote the book on the Late Round QB strategy, and now he shares all of his great fantasy work on LateRound.com, including his terrific Late Round Draft Guide. Today he shares with us his TE target to AVOID in 2022 drafts. Take it away, JJ...

Fantasy football analysts – myself included – can’t stop talking about the running back dead zone.

But what about the tight end dead zone?

You should generally avoid tight ends who get selected in the middle rounds of fantasy drafts. Since 2011, Round 12 tight ends have hit 14 PPR points per game at almost the exact same rate as Round 8 ones. They’ve hit 16 PPR points per game at a better rate.

Round 10 tight ends have been better than Round 7 ones across the board. We’ve seen a third of tight ends drafted in the 10th hit 14 PPR points per game, for example, while that number’s just 20% for tight ends selected in the 7th.

Here’s a straightforward way of looking at this: Over the last 11 seasons, 63 tight ends have played 8 games while being drafted in Rounds 6 through 9 of a standard fantasy draft. Of those 63, 6 were able to hit 14 PPR points per game, a number that would usually get them into the top-5 at the position.

During this same timeframe, we’ve had 54 tight ends with 8-plus games played get selected in Rounds 10 through 12, or the three rounds after the aforementioned subset. Of those 54, 7 hit 14 PPR points per game.

In other words, tight ends drafted in Rounds 10 through 12 have actually hit 14 PPR points per game at a higher rate since 2011 compared to tight ends selected in Rounds 6 through 9. The later-round tight ends got to 14 PPR points per game at a 13.0% clip, whereas the middle-round group has been at 9.5%.

Why spend up in that area of the draft?

Dalton Schultz, Hockenson, and Dallas Goedert are tight end dead zone players this year, and the most obvious fade of those three seems to be Hockenson. You can at least make the argument that Schultz will see a ton of volume to hit a nice floor, and Goedert’s coming off an incredibly underrated season from an efficiency standpoint. He’s kind of a beast.

With Hockenson, there’s not much to like.

Not only has he failed to be a consistent elite tight end through his three years in the league, but the Lions have more legit competition on the roster now. Amon-Ra St. Brown broke out at the end of last year, DJ Chark is there, and they drafted Jameson Williams.

Should we expect Hockenson’s target share to go up? I don’t think so.

Hockenson also has two average draft position-related marks against him as well. Traditionally, we’ve seen breakout tight ends come from offenses with good quarterbacks by average draft position. Jared Goff, while a potential sleeper, is not that.

Tight ends also hit at a higher rate in fantasy football when they’re the first pass-catcher being selected from their team. That’s not the case with Hockenson, since Amon-Ra St. Brown gets drafted ahead of him.

We’ve had 19 tight ends drafted in Rounds 6 through 9 since 2011 where the tight end wasn’t the top pass-catcher from his team, and where the tight end didn’t have a top-16 quarterback by average draft position. Of those 19, none hit 14 PPR points per game, and just one hit 13 points per contest.

The odds that Hockenson is a difference-making tight end this year is slim.

For more of JJ's great work, head over to LateRound.com, and use promo code LIFE to save 20% from your Draft Guide order!

In this series, our contributors will share the sleepers that they're targeting in drafts. Today, Jonathan hypes up two cheap RBs available in the late rounds of drafts...

💤 Michael Carter (RB40)

There is no doubt Michael Carter’s outlook took a big hit when the Jets selected Breece Hall with the 36th overall pick in the draft. However, the fantasy community may be underestimating Carter’s role and they are definitely underestimating his talent by letting him fall to the double digit rounds of drafts.

Carter was very effective despite playing on a terrible team last season. Among the 77 RBs with at least 50 carries he ranked:

• 3rd in PFF’s elusive rating

• 16th in yards after contact per attempt

• 16th in yards per route run

• 18th in PFF’s rushing grade

By a number of measures, Carter proved he is a very capable NFL back in 2021. He was the RB29 in half PPR scoring despite receiving just 45% of the RB touches on one of the league’s worst offenses. He currently goes 80 picks after Breece Hall but I think it could be much more of a timeshare than those draft positions suggest.

Don’t be surprised if Carter has a significant role to start the season and plays well enough to keep it. He should be a priority target to fill out your RB depth late in drafts.

💤 James Robinson (RB44)

The drumbeat has been consistently positive for James Robinson. Ever since their first unofficial depth chart and all through training camp, the Jaguars have referred to Robinson as their RB1. Early videos from camp have been encouraging and he is expected to be ready for Week 1.

Travis Etienne will be a major weapon in this offense, but he brings a very different skill set from Robinson. While Etienne should be a key part of the passing game, Robinson will likely handle more of the inside running and goal line work. The Jaguars clearly like both players and have big plans for them.

By taking Robinson you may be able to get a high volume, starting RB in the final rounds of your draft because everyone is scared of the injury. Although history may not be on his side, I at least want to have Robinson on my roster when we find out how he looks in game action. If he looks bad for the first few weeks I will have no problem cutting him for a waiver wire option, but if he looks good I will have a starting RB at an extreme discount.

I don’t blame anyone who avoids players coming off of serious injury, but in this case there are enough positive signs and the cost is low enough that I like taking a swing for the fences.

Season long drafts are just around the corner. In this new series, our contributors will get you prepared from all twelve of the first round draft slots. Today, Linda shares how to attack a draft from the seventh pick...

People will tell you that drafting from the #7 spot isn’t ideal, but I firmly believe you can turn any draft spot into an ideal draft as long as you remain fluid.

By the seventh pick in round one, you’ve likely missed out on the two top tier RBs, Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey. If you’re drafting with sharks, the Big Three WRs Cooper Kupp, Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase are also off the board.

Now you get to be flexible. You have every roster build imaginable in front of you, it’s up to you to decide. You can be bold and take TE Travis Kelce, eliminating the worry for an entire position. Kelce hasn’t seen fewer than 100 targets since 2014 and the Chiefs just lost WR Tyreek Hill this off-season. Kelce is getting older, but I don’t think he falls off a cliff this season.

Maybe you’d rather lock up a RB, in which case I’m honing in on Derrick Henry, who averaged 21.9 PPG and was the RB1 thru week 8 before getting injured, or Austin Ekeler, who finished the season with 647 receiving yards and 8 receiving touchdowns, both the most at the RB position.

RB Najee Harris saw mass amounts of volume last season and tied Ekeler for the most amount of targets for RBs (94), but we just found out he’s been dealing with a foot injury which is not what you want to hear right before the season starts.

If you want your WR1 taken care of, might I suggest WR Stefon Diggs who has finished as a top-10 WR the last two years in Buffalo. Diggs was paid handsomely over the off-season and there’s nothing that suggests his fantasy production will take a hit in 2022. (Yes, I know).