This is the lad Podcast with your host JJ Zacheratha j J zacher reson what's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode oney sixteen of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by DraftKings.

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We've got ten trends to talk about.

Let's get right to it.

The first trend this week has to do with the Minnesota Vikings backfield.

We finally got some answers to that backfield split.

Here's how it went down.

Jordan Mason saw sixty five percent of the team's running back rushes.

Aaron Jones was at thirty five percent.

Aaron Jones saw fifteen percent target share, Jordan Mason a five percent share.

Jones ran around on fifty two percent of the team's dropbacks according to PFF, Jordan Mason thirty six percent.

Now, I talked about this split during the offseason, mentioning that Aaron Jones is a really good pass catcher and that's what would get in the way of Mason, while also mentioning that I wouldn't be surprised if Mason sees more work on the ground this year.

Now, that obviously all came to fruition in Week one, so I can't say that I'm super shocked.

However, I do think Mason's usage it was better than I expected early on in this season.

His receiving upside looks capped, but a Kevin O'Connell offense with that kind of ground game usage, he moved up a little bit in my rest of season rankings, and that's versus where I had him in my draft rankings.

The Steelers were in a back and forth game against the Jets, on Sunday, which is a surprise to pretty much everyone who watches football.

But one takeaway from that game was how Arthur Smith called the offense last season when looking at pass attempts and rush attempts only so not dropbacks, the Steelers never had a pass rate above fifty nine percent in a single game.

In Week one, they had a pass rate of sixty percent.

It was actually sixty three percent when you factor in dropbacks and not just pass attempts.

I had mentioned over the offseason how yes, Arthur Smith wants to run the ball, but when he's had competent quarterback play, like when he had Matt Ryan in Atlanta, they actually had a higher pass rate.

Now I'm not saying that's a lock to happen this year with Pittsburgh, but I think we need to be more open minded about that possibility.

It's something to watch.

Alvin Kamara saw a four point nine percent target share in Week one.

The last time he saw a sub five percent target share in a game was Week seventeen of the twenty twenty two season.

His lowest single game share last year was thirteen percent, So yeah, kind of a big deal that he was at four point nine percent now to make anyone out there who has Kamara feel a little bit better.

He fortunately ran a route on seventy three percent of New Orleans dropbacks and week won.

The only other running backs with a seventy percent RALE participation rate where Bjeon Robinson, Christian McCaffrey, Javonte Williams, Saquon Barkley, and Jonathan Taylor.

And shout out to PFF for that route data.

Better days are ahead for Kamara in the pass catching department.

I almost made Bucky Irving a bye on the fifteen Transaction Show this week because his Week one usage was really encouraging.

Irving finished the day with an eighty two percent running back rush share.

He reached that number just twice last year.

Meanwhile, he had a thirteen point three percent target share that was above average for him compared to what we saw last season, and most importantly, that was on a RALE participation rate of about fifty seven percent.

That's a number that he reached only twice last year.

Essentially, all of these usage marks that we look for and care about, they came together for Irving in Week one.

His output wasn't spectacular, but better days are ahead, so yes, I think he is a by candidate.

I just have to talk about how absolutely ridiculous Jackson Smith and Jigba's Week one was against the forty nine ers.

JSN saw fifty nine percent target share.

He saw ninety one percent of the team's airyards Malik Neighbors.

He was second in the league this past week in airyard share.

He was at sixty eight percent.

JSN was at ninety one percent.

The crazy part is he ran just twenty three routes.

Cooper Cup ran twenty six routes for Seattle.

Cup had three targets on those routes.

JSN had thirteen targets on twenty three routes run.

Now, clearly this is not going to keep up, but JSN moved up in my rest of season rankings compared to where I had him during draft season, and I was not low on during draft season.

I just don't know how you can't react to that kind of usage, especially when you compare it to history.

I went back and I looked.

I want to see if an insane target shair like this correlated to full season success, and generally it does.

Since twenty eleven, we've had thirty three instances where a wide receiver hit a fifty percent target chair in a game and then went on to play eight or more games in that same season.

Of those thirty three wideouts, seventeen of them ended up finishing the season as a top twelve wide receiver a wide receiver one in full PPR leagues, twenty four of the thirty three were top twenty wideouts.

Now, obviously this is because good players are the ones who are usually seeing fifty percent target shairs.

But that's entirely the point.

Jackson Smith and Jigba is good, and he's got a legit shot to be a great fantasy football asset here in twenty twenty five.

For as much as people were talking about Travis Kelcey and his age and his decline, and this includes myself, we might want to do the same thing for Mark Andrews.

I say might because it's not like Andrews saw drop an efficiency per route like Kelsey did last year.

His YAK profile was mostly the same two but Week one was not good for Mark Andrews.

He had a seventy three percent route share, which is honestly lower than where I'd won it, given Isaiah likely was not in that game.

He was out likely missed one game last year, and in that game, Andrews had a season high ninety four percent route participation rate and his target share was well over twenty percent.

In that game against the Bills this past week, his target shore was five point three percent.

Honestly, Mark Andrews peripherals in Week one against the Bills they looked a lot like what we saw last year in Week one against the Chiefs in that game that Isaiah Likely went off.

Now, it's not time to give up on Mark Andrews.

It just would have been nice to see him at least get the routes without likely.

Instead, it was basically as if he was playing with an active likely.

Another tight end to talk about Dalton Kincaid.

He probably could have made the fifteen transactions list this week as a cell because his end of game stat line looked fine.

He found the end zone.

He had a four for forty eight performance, but he had just an eight point seven percent target share and he ran a route on only sixty percent of Josh Allen's dropbacks.

Those numbers are not gonna make Kincaid usable each week.

I honestly just don't view him anymore as anything other than a streamer.

Breecee.

Hall looked like his old self in Week one.

It was great to see and it showed up in the advanced metrics.

According to next Gen Stats, Hall was the only Jets running back who had a rushing EPA per rush that was above zero in week one, and it was way better than Braylan Allen.

Hall was at plus point one to one expected points per rush.

Allen was minus.

Point two to one.

Meanwhile, Hall had a fifty three percent success rate Braylan Allen was at seventeen percent.

Breese.

Hal's overall usage was awesome too.

He saw seventy percent of the team's running back rushes and a nineteen percent target chair.

I mean, if this continues, Hall's gonna pay off at his ADP.

You just have to hope that the Jets offense stays as legit as it was in Week one.

DeAndre Swift operated as the Bears bell cow in Week one.

His box score didn't look amazing.

He scored fewer than ten PPR points, but I think he mostly passed the eye test.

And remember he's facing Minnesota.

That's a tough matchup.

But Swift saw every single running back rush to go along with a fifteen percent target chair.

He had a really solid sixty eight percent route participation rate too.

If that kind of usage continues, he's gonna be an RB two in fantasy, even if he loses work of the goal line.

And I do think that's still an if maybe Chicago makes a move, maybe they use more kyleman Ung guy.

But it's at least a good first game for DeAndre Swift on the usage front, and I would definitely consider him more of a buye than a cell Right now.

I've got one more for you this week, and it's another Bears trend.

Something that was great to see in that Minnesota Chicago game on Monday night was Caleb Williams.

Running the ball.

He was moving, he looked fast.

But in that game against the Vikings, Williams went six for fifty eight and one on the ground.

He scrambled six times for the second highest scramble rate in the league, trailing only Jalen Hurts.

Last season, Williams scrambled on seven percent of his dropbacks, so half of the rate that we saw in Week one.

If that continues, even if he.

Does struggle a little bit as a thrower, he should be fantasy relevant, just like we saw in week one.

That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening.

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I'll talk to you tomorrow with the week Glee Sleeper Show