# Late-Round Perspectives: Shawn Siegele Returns

An episode of [The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1224965828), 8 Aug 2025, 1 h 26 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0a233618-d694-4c81-a139-b34e00f98fb1/f35338d8-c1aa-4136-9e49-b34e00fca2c3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=5747cc82-33a9-497c-8353-b34e00f98fbe

JJ is joined by RotoViz's Shawn Siegele to talk about the changing fantasy football landscape, the importance of elite tight ends, wide receiver average draft position, and so much more. Order the Late-Round Draft Guide on LateRound.com, and make sure to sign up for the free newsletter. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Sean Siegal is a co owner at Rodovis dot com
[0:02] Speaker 1: and co host of The Roadovis Overtime podcast and Stealing Bananas.
[0:06] Speaker 2: He helped introduce the zero RB strategy to the world.
[0:08] Speaker 1: He's a multi time high stakes league champion, and he's
[0:11] Speaker 1: always someone that I don't look forward to drafting against.
[0:14] Speaker 1: These are his late round perspectives.
[0:32] Speaker 2: This episode is sponsored by DraftKings.
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[2:05] Speaker 1: See terms at draftings dot com. Slash NFL dash Best
[2:09] Speaker 1: Dashball sponsored by dk Now back to the show I
[2:15] Speaker 1: saw today, We got the official Apex Fantasy League invite
[2:21] Speaker 1: to the MFL league that we do. What year this
[2:23] Speaker 1: has got to be? Like year like twelve. I mean,
[2:25] Speaker 1: it's it's been, it's been a minute, it's long. It's
[2:28] Speaker 1: a long standing league. And I saw that we got
[2:31] Speaker 1: the draft order and lo and behold, I got the
[2:34] Speaker 1: seventh spot and you got the eighth spot. And I
[2:36] Speaker 1: am not very happy about it, not very happy about it.
[2:39] Speaker 1: But it should be fun.
[2:40] Speaker 3: It should be. It should be. That's a great league
[2:42] Speaker 3: that Mike Brody runs, and it's always so fun to
[2:45] Speaker 3: see what everybody wants to do. Early in August, we
[2:50] Speaker 3: have some information now, right, and so we're able to
[2:53] Speaker 3: tweak a few things that maybe we got wrong. But
[2:56] Speaker 3: as soon as these preseason games start for real, and
[2:58] Speaker 3: then even in the last you know, we week and
[3:00] Speaker 3: a half, we see a lot of movement. So it's
[3:03] Speaker 3: great to see what you did back in the NFL
[3:06] Speaker 3: Ton of Death. I would checking in on a few
[3:07] Speaker 3: of our picks on the show to see where we
[3:09] Speaker 3: were at for that, and then where we are for Apex,
[3:12] Speaker 3: and then where we are in a couple of weeks.
[3:15] Speaker 1: I got to say, I walked away from the NFL
[3:18] Speaker 1: because like I obviously like that the MFL toen of
[3:21] Speaker 1: Death that we do is the best ball league that
[3:22] Speaker 1: twelve for those of you don't know, it is the
[3:24] Speaker 1: best ball league that twelve of us do every year.
[3:26] Speaker 1: And it started, you know, before the rush of best
[3:30] Speaker 1: ball with DraftKings and with Underdog and such, and.
[3:33] Speaker 2: So we've just done it on MFL.
[3:35] Speaker 1: Pat Thorman puts it together every year, and we do
[3:39] Speaker 1: it usually in like May. I think this one might
[3:41] Speaker 1: have been a couple of weeks later the start. But
[3:43] Speaker 1: I got to say, I look back at that draft
[3:45] Speaker 1: and I have not been drafting my teams in that
[3:48] Speaker 1: way almost at all throughout even the individual players that
[3:51] Speaker 1: I was drafting. I always go back and I've realized that,
[3:54] Speaker 1: I mean, I've had probably my worst success in the
[3:58] Speaker 1: MFL Ten of Death compared to most of the you know,
[4:00] Speaker 1: the leagues that are kind of yearly for me. And
[4:03] Speaker 1: I think it's just that I am not confident enough
[4:06] Speaker 1: in my takes in May and doing my research for
[4:09] Speaker 1: the draft guide and such and the strategic side of things.
[4:13] Speaker 1: And then once I get into you know, later June
[4:16] Speaker 1: and into July, after the draft guides published, that's where
[4:19] Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a real rhythm. So if
[4:21] Speaker 1: anyone sees that MFL ten of death board and you
[4:23] Speaker 1: see my team, don't think that those are really my
[4:25] Speaker 1: strong player takes or anything.
[4:27] Speaker 2: Look at the Apex League.
[4:28] Speaker 1: It'll be it'll be a more you know, accurate description
[4:31] Speaker 1: and depiction of how I'm thinking about things right now.
[4:34] Speaker 3: Well, I loved your picks at the one two turns.
[4:39] Speaker 1: And then and then and then stopped, and then and
[4:41] Speaker 1: then after all it was just over.
[4:43] Speaker 3: And you get Bowers there. And one of the things
[4:45] Speaker 3: that we know in that league is that, even though
[4:50] Speaker 3: to my mind is not what the data suggests, we
[4:53] Speaker 3: know that the drafters are going to completely ignore tight end.
[4:56] Speaker 3: And so you got Bowers, I got McBride. I came
[5:00] Speaker 3: back later and Tuck Hawkinson. You know, we'll talk about
[5:03] Speaker 3: tight ends a little bit later. But I you know,
[5:05] Speaker 3: if we had had a show together at that point,
[5:07] Speaker 3: I would have asked you about some of the later selections,
[5:10] Speaker 3: how much of that is projection based, how much of
[5:13] Speaker 3: it is that? I mean, one of the things I
[5:15] Speaker 3: noted in my write up, I had a controversial players
[5:17] Speaker 3: piece from it. I was like, yeah, at some point
[5:20] Speaker 3: Javonte Williams. Does you know is draftable?
[5:23] Speaker 2: That was easily Sean.
[5:25] Speaker 1: I walked away from that draft and I was like,
[5:27] Speaker 1: why the hell did I take Javonte Williams.
[5:29] Speaker 2: I haven't take. I haven't taken.
[5:31] Speaker 1: I've been so into Jayden Blue and I've hyped him
[5:34] Speaker 1: up on the show, and you know, my prospect guide,
[5:36] Speaker 1: like the prospect stuff that I work with love Blue
[5:39] Speaker 1: as a prospect, and for whatever reason, I was kind
[5:42] Speaker 1: of stuck. You know it. Sometimes in drafts you get
[5:44] Speaker 1: stuck at a point where like you literally have no
[5:46] Speaker 1: direction that you you.
[5:47] Speaker 2: Want to go in.
[5:47] Speaker 1: And I at that point was just like, Okay, it's may.
[5:51] Speaker 1: I'm going to rely on projections right now, which is
[5:53] Speaker 1: something that I literally never do, especially at that point
[5:55] Speaker 1: in the draft.
[5:56] Speaker 2: I mean, you know, like when you're in the middle
[5:58] Speaker 2: rounds and stuff.
[5:59] Speaker 1: And so I I drafted Javonte Williams, And even in
[6:02] Speaker 1: my best ball portfolio, I think I'm out like two
[6:04] Speaker 1: percent Javante. Like it's just not a thing that I
[6:07] Speaker 1: have pushed towards and gone towards. I think I took
[6:10] Speaker 1: Tyrone Tracy in that draft though, too, uh who and
[6:12] Speaker 1: that someone looking that I've actually, yeah, the Tracy one
[6:18] Speaker 1: I feel okay about, but the Javante pick was the
[6:20] Speaker 1: one where I'm like, what am I doing?
[6:21] Speaker 2: After? You know, you make it real, like you're.
[6:23] Speaker 3: Just like, why when he went blue and a couple
[6:26] Speaker 3: of picks later, I should have just six my.
[6:29] Speaker 1: Guy, yeah, because yeah, that happens all the like in
[6:33] Speaker 1: these kinds of drafts. You can't you know, when you're
[6:36] Speaker 1: drafting with sharp people, you just can't get away with stuff, right,
[6:39] Speaker 1: And that's that's a trying to get away with stuff
[6:41] Speaker 1: kind of move where you're like, yes, I wish I
[6:43] Speaker 1: would have just taken him or honestly just not gone
[6:46] Speaker 1: with either at that point in the draft, because I
[6:48] Speaker 1: think it was still probably just not the right time
[6:50] Speaker 1: and not the right spot. But you know, it's I
[6:53] Speaker 1: try not to like dwell on the NFL Ton of
[6:55] Speaker 1: Death because it's obviously not the biggest league in the world,
[6:57] Speaker 1: but yeah, that was definitely a draft that I walked
[7:00] Speaker 1: away from. I'm like, I like some of the guys
[7:02] Speaker 1: that I got, but overall not my standard build, not
[7:05] Speaker 1: really like the go to for me here in twenty
[7:08] Speaker 1: twenty four.
[7:08] Speaker 2: But I have so many questions or sorry twenty twenty five.
[7:11] Speaker 1: I have so many questions that I want to ask you, though,
[7:14] Speaker 1: you know, I think a lot of people at this point,
[7:15] Speaker 1: you're a returning guest on perspectives, and so we don't
[7:18] Speaker 1: have to dig into your background all that kind of stuff.
[7:21] Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about some of that the
[7:23] Speaker 2: last time you were on.
[7:24] Speaker 1: I'm sure the one thing I want to dig into
[7:27] Speaker 1: first is sort of a ten thousand foot view of
[7:31] Speaker 1: this twenty twenty five season. And you do a great
[7:33] Speaker 1: job of this every year. It's something I'm really passionate
[7:36] Speaker 1: looking at. You and Gretch together are probably the best
[7:40] Speaker 1: duo at sort of looking at this kind of stuff.
[7:43] Speaker 1: But when you look at the twenty twenty four season
[7:46] Speaker 1: and what we saw last year, what's one thing that
[7:50] Speaker 1: happened in fantasy football that you think managers into this season?
[7:53] Speaker 1: Because we know that managers are going to be reactionary,
[7:55] Speaker 1: we know that they're they fall victim to recency bias
[7:58] Speaker 1: all the time, what's something that you think that people
[8:00] Speaker 1: might overrate or overstate as we draft Now that we're
[8:04] Speaker 1: in the thicket things in August for this twenty twenty
[8:07] Speaker 1: five season.
[8:08] Speaker 3: So I think it has to be the health and
[8:12] Speaker 3: the viability of running backs. I remember, you know, week
[8:18] Speaker 3: eleven til somewhere in there, like deep into the season.
[8:22] Speaker 3: It was during one of the weeks where McCaffrey actually played,
[8:26] Speaker 3: which would be helpful to this point. But something like
[8:30] Speaker 3: twenty two of the first twenty three backs drafted we're
[8:33] Speaker 3: playing that week, and I mean that's pretty unique. We
[8:37] Speaker 3: also got strong performances from a lot of the guys
[8:41] Speaker 3: who had lagging peripherals both from the previous season. Any
[8:46] Speaker 3: guys who were having lagging peripherals in season were scoring points.
[8:49] Speaker 3: You got a lot of touchdowns from some of those players.
[8:53] Speaker 3: And so you have this combination of good health, high scoring,
[8:58] Speaker 3: including from probably players who either had age concerns which
[9:03] Speaker 3: tends to bring a lot of risk with it, and
[9:08] Speaker 3: orders aren't that some good of players. And when those
[9:11] Speaker 3: guys are all scoring, it really changes what the running
[9:15] Speaker 3: back landscape looks like. And I didn't necessarily think that
[9:19] Speaker 3: was a surprise, because I mean, every season is just
[9:23] Speaker 3: not the same at all, and you can have seasons
[9:26] Speaker 3: that are really dramatically out of the norm. And I
[9:30] Speaker 3: actually thought that it might happen, or that things were
[9:33] Speaker 3: set up for running backs to have a big impact
[9:35] Speaker 3: even the previous season, because we saw a big ADP
[9:38] Speaker 3: shift at that point where coming off of twenty fifteen,
[9:43] Speaker 3: right we have the running back apocalypse and you have
[9:47] Speaker 3: an ADP shift, and then on the heels of that
[9:50] Speaker 3: ADP shift, you have this pretty unique season where running
[9:53] Speaker 3: backs stay healthy, veterans score, everybody scores at the running
[9:58] Speaker 3: back position, and it pushes everything back in the other direction.
[10:02] Speaker 3: And one of the things I had been trying to
[10:07] Speaker 3: communicate to listeners and subscribers is that that type of
[10:10] Speaker 3: season is going to happen at some point, and if
[10:13] Speaker 3: you're not prepared for it in some way with how
[10:16] Speaker 3: you're approaching your leagues or as it's happening, you feel
[10:20] Speaker 3: like it's some betrayal of how football works, how fantasy
[10:24] Speaker 3: football works, it's life in general. That this is incredibly unfair.
[10:29] Speaker 3: Then it doesn't. Then you haven't really positioned yourself or
[10:32] Speaker 3: understood that these types of seasons are going to be
[10:34] Speaker 3: in there. They're going to be pretty infrequent. We know
[10:37] Speaker 3: that from the way that the shape of scoring has gone,
[10:40] Speaker 3: you know, over the last decade, the century, what have you.
[10:44] Speaker 3: We know they're going to be rare, but they're going
[10:45] Speaker 3: to be in there and when they happen, it can't
[10:49] Speaker 3: be something where you feel like it invalidates everything that
[10:51] Speaker 3: you've done to that point or everything that you've thought,
[10:54] Speaker 3: And it can't be something where you try and chase
[10:57] Speaker 3: that in the next season that probably will kill you.
[11:00] Speaker 3: Although again, you know, we don't know. Seasons are going
[11:02] Speaker 3: to be crazy.
[11:03] Speaker 2: I would agree.
[11:04] Speaker 1: I mean, I one of the first topics that I
[11:06] Speaker 1: dug into this offseason after the season ended was that
[11:09] Speaker 1: just to say, is a running back renaissance really happening?
[11:12] Speaker 2: Or what happened this past year?
[11:14] Speaker 1: And it's crazy the kind of domino effect the lack
[11:18] Speaker 1: of injuries has and had last year. And what I
[11:22] Speaker 1: mean by that is, you know, if you look at
[11:24] Speaker 1: the top of the position, it really wasn't anything more
[11:27] Speaker 1: substantial or better than what we'd seen historically. And by
[11:31] Speaker 1: top I mean like top five, top six type players,
[11:34] Speaker 1: right like Saquon Barkley season was really special, but it
[11:36] Speaker 1: wasn't really special from a PPR points per game perspective,
[11:40] Speaker 1: right Like, it wasn't like he was catching It's.
[11:42] Speaker 3: Only special because he was set up for such a
[11:45] Speaker 3: bad scoring environment, right and managed to counterbalance that with
[11:50] Speaker 3: extraordinary play.
[11:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly.
[11:52] Speaker 1: And so if you look at like the top six
[11:55] Speaker 1: top seven running backs in the way, if you were
[11:57] Speaker 1: to just layer them and say, okay, RB one scored
[11:59] Speaker 1: this many points, RB two scored this many parts, RB three,
[12:01] Speaker 1: et cetera, the way that those top six top seven
[12:05] Speaker 1: running backs scored was really no different. It is actually
[12:07] Speaker 1: kind of worse than what we'd seen over the decade prior.
[12:11] Speaker 1: Right What really changed things was the thing that fantasy
[12:15] Speaker 1: analysts have talked about and spoken about for years now
[12:19] Speaker 1: in that like standard running back dead zone range if
[12:22] Speaker 1: you will, which I think is a whole other topic
[12:24] Speaker 1: for conversation, but is the idea that like the Josh
[12:28] Speaker 1: Jacobs of the world, and all of these players stayed
[12:30] Speaker 1: healthy and they were able to also have pretty decent seasons.
[12:34] Speaker 1: The thing that I don't think gets and I've said
[12:37] Speaker 1: it plenty on this show throughout the offseason, but I
[12:40] Speaker 1: still don't think gets enough run in general, is the
[12:42] Speaker 1: idea that when you don't have those injuries like pardon
[12:46] Speaker 1: we can talk about zero RB in a second here,
[12:48] Speaker 1: but when you don't have those injuries, backup running backs
[12:51] Speaker 1: are not stepping in for those players, right, So, you're
[12:53] Speaker 1: getting like relatively decent running backs who can can carry
[12:58] Speaker 1: a big workload, and they're going to score points just
[13:00] Speaker 1: based on the fact that they can carry a decent workload.
[13:03] Speaker 1: And then when they don't get hurt, that means backup
[13:05] Speaker 1: running backs aren't stepping in and you're not having that
[13:08] Speaker 1: insanity go on in your leagues with waivers, et cetera.
[13:11] Speaker 1: And so as a result of that, the backup running
[13:15] Speaker 1: backs were never selling backup running backs to just do
[13:18] Speaker 1: exactly what the starting running backs would be able to do.
[13:20] Speaker 2: Right, Josh Jacobs goes down.
[13:22] Speaker 1: Maybe he's not the best example because there would be
[13:24] Speaker 1: like a very clear cut split backfield, but you know,
[13:26] Speaker 1: Josh Jacobs goes down. Let's just assume that there's a
[13:28] Speaker 1: running back that Let's assume marshn Lloyd didn't get hurt
[13:31] Speaker 1: last year, and he would have stepped in and maybe
[13:33] Speaker 1: been eighty percent of Josh Jacobs, while the rest of
[13:36] Speaker 1: your league, whoever drafted Josh Jacobs, was then hurting because
[13:38] Speaker 1: they lost, you know, a top three round pick and Jacobs.
[13:42] Speaker 1: But what that does is that those RB twos are
[13:45] Speaker 1: scoring more points than than the traditional RB twos in
[13:48] Speaker 1: the way that they finish because the traditional RB twos
[13:51] Speaker 1: are not filled with guys who are healthy all year,
[13:54] Speaker 1: you know, and so like it's just a wild, wild
[13:57] Speaker 1: domino effect and thing that can that went on last year,
[14:00] Speaker 1: and that I think is definitely an impact the way
[14:02] Speaker 1: that people draft this year, as you said, and I
[14:05] Speaker 1: kind of want to piggyback off of that as the
[14:08] Speaker 1: person who wrote about zero RB so many years ago.
[14:11] Speaker 1: And look, I think I probably said it the last
[14:13] Speaker 1: time we talked, but I know that when you go
[14:15] Speaker 1: on shows, people ask you about zero RB the same
[14:18] Speaker 1: way that they will just ask me about late round quarterback.
[14:20] Speaker 1: It's just like the go to you got to talk
[14:23] Speaker 1: about it. But I think that this year in particular,
[14:25] Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting for both strategies. I think we're
[14:27] Speaker 1: in a really interesting spot with both of them, and
[14:30] Speaker 1: we will get to both of them. But since we're
[14:31] Speaker 1: talking about running backs here, is zero RB now dead
[14:36] Speaker 1: or is it now more alive than ever? Based on
[14:38] Speaker 1: what you said with the injuries that did not happen
[14:41] Speaker 1: last season, there's a.
[14:42] Speaker 3: Lot of nuance that goes into it. Even kind of
[14:47] Speaker 3: setting aside this conversation about what does zero RB mean,
[14:50] Speaker 3: which we talked about last time that I was on
[14:54] Speaker 3: with you.
[14:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, we have.
[14:57] Speaker 3: So the thing that happens in twenty twenty five in
[15:00] Speaker 3: concert with what we just talked about, is that last season,
[15:07] Speaker 3: the running back class the rookies was very weak, and
[15:13] Speaker 3: so you maybe had a limited number of players who
[15:15] Speaker 3: were going to be able to take advantage anyway, and
[15:18] Speaker 3: you had a limited number of players who were going
[15:20] Speaker 3: to push for starting jobs sort of on their own merits. Now,
[15:25] Speaker 3: it was really exciting that a couple of the guys
[15:28] Speaker 3: that we really liked, I'm sure you really liked in
[15:31] Speaker 3: Irving and Tracy, you had extremely high roster exposure to them,
[15:40] Speaker 3: and then they actually still go and accomplish a lot
[15:43] Speaker 3: of what you need from a certain type of build.
[15:46] Speaker 3: And you throw into Chase Brown and you're still able
[15:50] Speaker 3: to accomplish a lot of the things. But just the
[15:53] Speaker 3: started were so healthy, the backups were so weak. You
[15:56] Speaker 3: go into this season the players who were already kind
[15:59] Speaker 3: of peripherals wise are now a year older, and people
[16:03] Speaker 3: are more comfortable with them now because they've done it
[16:06] Speaker 3: when people said they couldn't do it, and so then
[16:08] Speaker 3: everybody's like, you're wrong. Now we're comfortable with these players,
[16:12] Speaker 3: and at the same time you have i mean, maybe
[16:15] Speaker 3: the greatest running back class that we've seen. There are
[16:18] Speaker 3: there are two or three within the last ten to
[16:20] Speaker 3: fifteen years that certainly are elite and maybe better at
[16:24] Speaker 3: the top, maybe like at the top five versus top five,
[16:27] Speaker 3: there are a couple of classes that are better. I
[16:30] Speaker 3: would argue that when you look all the way through
[16:32] Speaker 3: the draft and getting down to Brishard Smith and then
[16:37] Speaker 3: even like the last back who is the type monster
[16:40] Speaker 3: of really the entire offseason, you know, you have guys
[16:44] Speaker 3: who are interesting and in some cases you have guys
[16:46] Speaker 3: that I would argue were even elite, and you have
[16:52] Speaker 3: a weird context because people are coming off of a
[16:54] Speaker 3: year where you just didn't have that, and so it's
[16:55] Speaker 3: it can be hard to say, okay, just the classes
[16:57] Speaker 3: are so completely different. Yeah, But then I think think
[17:00] Speaker 3: also we have this tendency structurally when we're looking at
[17:04] Speaker 3: prospects and we're looking at the draft to so number one,
[17:08] Speaker 3: the draft makes a huge impact, and where people are
[17:10] Speaker 3: drafted gives you a really good understanding of baseline what
[17:17] Speaker 3: players drafted in those ranges have done historically, and also
[17:21] Speaker 3: what a team is likely to expect and want from
[17:24] Speaker 3: players there, and the team gets to decide the usage.
[17:26] Speaker 3: So if they've drafted a player in a certain range,
[17:28] Speaker 3: you get a little bit of sense of what they
[17:30] Speaker 3: plan to do with that player. At the same time,
[17:34] Speaker 3: classes are very different in terms of the overall talent
[17:38] Speaker 3: in them, and you can't compare a class that has
[17:41] Speaker 3: a bunch of really good Day three prospects to what's
[17:44] Speaker 3: happened over the last fifteen years and say it's going
[17:46] Speaker 3: to be similar, because it's probably not right. The player's
[17:49] Speaker 3: talent is still the thing that in the end swamps
[17:52] Speaker 3: everything else. It's one of the reasons that Bucky Irving
[17:54] Speaker 3: and Tyrond Tracy were able to come through, right, they
[17:56] Speaker 3: had those elements to the profile that they weren't guaranteed
[17:59] Speaker 3: to come through. They had a great shot, and then
[18:01] Speaker 3: they proved that they were that good. And so where
[18:02] Speaker 3: they were drafted, the coaches were like, well, we drafted
[18:05] Speaker 3: you in a spot where you know, we're just going
[18:07] Speaker 3: to keep you on the bench. Look at our starters
[18:09] Speaker 3: you're going to play.
[18:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're going to have more.
[18:12] Speaker 3: Of that in twenty twenty five. And at the same time,
[18:17] Speaker 3: I do think that the shifts, and this kind of
[18:19] Speaker 3: goes to a different question that you have as well.
[18:21] Speaker 3: But the shifts in the way people are playing have
[18:26] Speaker 3: neutralized some of the extreme advantages of zero RB, especially
[18:30] Speaker 3: in redraft. I think the best ball is different where
[18:33] Speaker 3: one of the experiences I had last year was that
[18:35] Speaker 3: my teams are basically all zero RB. It was a
[18:38] Speaker 3: horrible season for that, and they still had a good year. Now,
[18:40] Speaker 3: it does help you to hit on some guys like
[18:42] Speaker 3: Chase Brown and Irving, and it helps a lot of
[18:46] Speaker 3: rock powers, But the idea that you're going to be
[18:50] Speaker 3: completely stopped even in a running back weight year is
[18:54] Speaker 3: just simply not true because of the structure of best ball.
[18:57] Speaker 3: I mean, the structure of best ball is basically that
[18:59] Speaker 3: zero RB or things in that direction are utterly dominant,
[19:03] Speaker 3: and if you go against that, especially in two three
[19:06] Speaker 3: one types of lineup structures, you need to have just
[19:12] Speaker 3: like the perfect draw to have much chance to compete
[19:14] Speaker 3: with those teams. In redraft, it's very very interesting, especially
[19:17] Speaker 3: if you're playing in two to two formats or anything
[19:21] Speaker 3: where you can just play a lot of running backs,
[19:23] Speaker 3: because the ADP now is interesting enough and there's enough
[19:27] Speaker 3: lack of respect for this rookie running back class. And
[19:31] Speaker 3: at the same time, I dislike the wide receiver ordering
[19:36] Speaker 3: to the extent that I wouldn't go out and just
[19:38] Speaker 3: draft zero RB because actually like receivers later more so,
[19:44] Speaker 3: why would you hold yourself to a strategy that's actually
[19:48] Speaker 3: not going to get you the players. If you approach
[19:53] Speaker 3: a season and draft a structure that doesn't help you
[19:57] Speaker 3: maximize what you have on your own rankings, probably not
[20:00] Speaker 3: the right way to do it. And for me, drafting
[20:02] Speaker 3: zero RB in twenty twenty five would not get me
[20:06] Speaker 3: the best ranking space team just from my own my
[20:09] Speaker 3: own ranking set.
[20:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, I can, I can, I can.
[20:12] Speaker 1: I guess where you see problems with ADP right now?
[20:17] Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess that what you're referring to is at
[20:22] Speaker 1: wide receiver. When you get into like round three, and
[20:26] Speaker 1: especially after like that J Brown, I guess, well, you know,
[20:30] Speaker 1: we can throw Lad McConkey in there too, even you know,
[20:32] Speaker 1: regardless of the Keenan Allen signing. But then you get
[20:34] Speaker 1: into round three and you're staring at players who you
[20:39] Speaker 1: can understand the upside profiles. But you this is my experience,
[20:44] Speaker 1: and I'm just assuming that you're feeling the same way
[20:46] Speaker 1: based on your answer there, But you look at round
[20:49] Speaker 1: five and into round six and you're like, but these
[20:52] Speaker 1: guys have just as good of ceiling profiles as those
[20:55] Speaker 1: guys do, Like are like, would we be shocked if
[20:58] Speaker 1: George Pickens out scores Marvin Harrison Junior this year?
[21:02] Speaker 2: Like would it be like that shocking of a thing
[21:04] Speaker 2: to see?
[21:05] Speaker 1: Or even like the way that JSN is set up
[21:07] Speaker 1: right now, we love JASN the talent, but we know
[21:09] Speaker 1: that situationally, things are still questionable.
[21:12] Speaker 2: Like is that what you're feeling?
[21:13] Speaker 1: And then if it is, does that also this can
[21:16] Speaker 1: this can lead us to the to the quarterback conversation
[21:19] Speaker 1: a little bit? Does that then make you pivot to
[21:22] Speaker 1: another position like a quarterback, like an elite quarterback getting
[21:26] Speaker 1: a guy like Josh Allen Lamar Jackson because you do
[21:28] Speaker 1: hit a wall where you can get a comparable player
[21:31] Speaker 1: a round or two later.
[21:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned, you know, Pickens versus Harrison.
[21:36] Speaker 2: And I really like.
[21:42] Speaker 3: The elite young receivers. I like betting on the second
[21:46] Speaker 3: year of breakouts, But I do think that all of
[21:48] Speaker 3: that has to be calibrated right right, and when we're
[21:51] Speaker 3: looking at this and saying George Pickens is likely to
[21:55] Speaker 3: outscore him, not just that it's possible, right, and so
[22:00] Speaker 3: I mean, if that's the case. One of the things
[22:03] Speaker 3: that I think is hard is that in twenty twenty five,
[22:08] Speaker 3: there's almost no one that you want to pick in
[22:10] Speaker 3: rounds three and four, and then you want to make
[22:12] Speaker 3: like five picks in round five, And so you have
[22:15] Speaker 3: to develop an approach that allows you to have some
[22:19] Speaker 3: respect for ADP, but that you also end up getting
[22:22] Speaker 3: some of your guys, because if you are really trying
[22:27] Speaker 3: to play the ADP value game, then you're going to
[22:31] Speaker 3: be underweight on the players with the best league winning outcomes.
[22:35] Speaker 3: And this is something where in some ways it's inevitable
[22:40] Speaker 3: and in some ways it's probably correct. But we do
[22:42] Speaker 3: have a little bit of the portfolio based element of
[22:45] Speaker 3: best ball and the sort of risk aversion that comes
[22:49] Speaker 3: with that, where it is important to not take too
[22:51] Speaker 3: many zeros as you build out your best ball team.
[22:55] Speaker 3: And then as you work through and you look at
[22:57] Speaker 3: some of this ADP and you look at the receivers
[22:59] Speaker 3: that being elevated, because again in bestball, you need those receivers,
[23:02] Speaker 3: and you're looking at it and you're like this has
[23:04] Speaker 3: created similar dead zones to what we talked in the
[23:07] Speaker 3: past about with running backs, where you're actually going for
[23:12] Speaker 3: floor types of plays that, especially in formats where you
[23:16] Speaker 3: get to choose your own lineup, maybe you are even
[23:19] Speaker 3: still maximizing for finishing in the top third of your
[23:23] Speaker 3: twelve team league. You're probably not maximizing for winning it.
[23:26] Speaker 3: And certainly if you're playing in tournaments, you're probably not
[23:29] Speaker 3: building teams that have the best shot to go on
[23:31] Speaker 3: and compete with them. Specifically again in redraft, where you
[23:35] Speaker 3: building that starting lineup. And I do think that there
[23:38] Speaker 3: are some really interesting elements of the QB question that
[23:43] Speaker 3: also come back to this running back health from last season,
[23:49] Speaker 3: because one of the things that I keep working through
[23:53] Speaker 3: and you look at last year and I think you
[23:54] Speaker 3: would really have liked to have had elite QBS. Part
[24:00] Speaker 3: of that is that you're looking at a full, healthy
[24:03] Speaker 3: roster compared to other years, and you're thinking, like, I
[24:08] Speaker 3: don't need to make free agent pickups, I don't to
[24:12] Speaker 3: have all of these contingency based running back stashes on
[24:17] Speaker 3: my bench because I already can't get all the good
[24:20] Speaker 3: players I have into the lineup. And if you have
[24:25] Speaker 3: that then you can forego that additional you know, potentially
[24:31] Speaker 3: big time player running back or wide receiver, although as
[24:34] Speaker 3: you know we're talking about round three are big time
[24:36] Speaker 3: players even going in that round in the area where
[24:39] Speaker 3: these qbs are right, you can.
[24:42] Speaker 2: Give that up.
[24:42] Speaker 3: If everybody on your roster stays healthy, it's more difficult,
[24:49] Speaker 3: and that additional star at a different position is more valuable.
[24:53] Speaker 3: If you're in a what I would think of as
[24:55] Speaker 3: a more normal year with more chaos, You get into
[24:58] Speaker 3: the buys you're starting and it actually looks pretty bad.
[25:01] Speaker 3: You're thinking, you know, how do I try and deal
[25:06] Speaker 3: with the damage here the fact that I waited late
[25:09] Speaker 3: and I hit on a QB that's so much more
[25:14] Speaker 3: potent than And again it comes down to just how
[25:17] Speaker 3: deep your starting lineup has to be, but then how
[25:19] Speaker 3: healthy all of your guys are. But then the additional
[25:23] Speaker 3: question for tournaments is simply, okay, well, the teams that
[25:26] Speaker 3: are competing for the whole thing are just the luckiest,
[25:28] Speaker 3: healthiest teams anyway, then why wouldn't you just draft as
[25:31] Speaker 3: though you're going to be healthy, Which to me, that's
[25:35] Speaker 3: not exactly fantasy football from a tournament winning perspective. It's
[25:39] Speaker 3: an important thing to consider because you know, if you're
[25:42] Speaker 3: involved of us, you do want to win the million dollars.
[25:45] Speaker 3: And so, I mean, I've got lots of other things
[25:47] Speaker 3: on this QB topic as well that I want to
[25:51] Speaker 3: think through with you, because I do think it's fascinating.
[25:53] Speaker 3: It's one of the things I've had the most trouble
[25:54] Speaker 3: with this year. Yeah, yeah, and even to the point
[25:57] Speaker 3: of looking at last year and being like, yeah, we
[25:59] Speaker 3: want an elite QB, but really what we wanted was
[26:01] Speaker 3: Jadan Daniels, who wasn't drafted in that range. Right. The
[26:03] Speaker 3: problem again individual seasons where I mean last year, just
[26:08] Speaker 3: the two flagrantly obvious players that you needed to draft
[26:12] Speaker 3: in every league, where Jade and Daniels and brock Bowers.
[26:15] Speaker 3: It's really easy to say that after it's worked out, right, right,
[26:19] Speaker 3: it was easy to say before it happened. And then
[26:22] Speaker 3: you're just like, I've said this all year, I hope
[26:24] Speaker 3: it doesn't blow up, because then you can never really
[26:27] Speaker 3: make those comments again. Last time you said these were
[26:29] Speaker 3: the two guys you had to have, and it was
[26:30] Speaker 3: so clear and it was going to be clear at
[26:32] Speaker 3: every point, like you were wrong. Yeah, I don't think
[26:35] Speaker 3: the twenty twenty five has that, at least not to
[26:38] Speaker 3: that extent. And so again we're dealing with a different environment.
[26:40] Speaker 3: You've got to play the year that you're in.
[26:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, first off, it really reminds me of whenever
[26:45] Speaker 1: I was at number five back in the day. We
[26:47] Speaker 1: would always do, you know, like yesterday's optimal DFS lineup, right,
[26:50] Speaker 1: and we would just run an algorithm to say, to
[26:52] Speaker 1: show what the optimal DFS lineup was, and it was
[26:55] Speaker 1: always you know, in hindsight, it's very easy to see
[26:58] Speaker 1: who those players would be, but you're never playing those
[27:01] Speaker 1: players in that combination, right. And I feel similarly, you know,
[27:04] Speaker 1: you look at last year like we were on you know,
[27:07] Speaker 1: like a Jayden Daniels for instance, like he was one
[27:09] Speaker 1: of the most obvious late round quarterbacks that you could
[27:12] Speaker 1: have gone for because we know, you know, quarterback has
[27:14] Speaker 1: gotten to this processed point of like we generally know
[27:18] Speaker 1: what we're looking for and the market has started to
[27:20] Speaker 1: notice and.
[27:21] Speaker 2: Know what we should be looking for.
[27:23] Speaker 1: I always say that Lamar Jackson's first MVP season was
[27:27] Speaker 1: sort of like the oh, like we need we need
[27:29] Speaker 1: these like mobile guys who could also and then obviously
[27:32] Speaker 1: we've been introduced then to Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen
[27:34] Speaker 1: and these unicorns who can just do everything. And the
[27:38] Speaker 1: weird thing that's gone through my head is it's almost
[27:41] Speaker 1: like the the one meme where it's like the the
[27:44] Speaker 1: parabola of you know, you have like the really basic thinker,
[27:48] Speaker 1: and then you have like the nerd who's like really
[27:50] Speaker 1: thinking about stuff more deeply, and then the final it
[27:53] Speaker 1: just goes back to you know, it's like the person
[27:55] Speaker 1: who solved everything, and it just goes back to how
[27:57] Speaker 1: that original person was thinking. And I almost feel like
[28:00] Speaker 1: that in fantasy football right now, where and the original
[28:05] Speaker 1: basic thinker is the lineup filler, right It's the person
[28:09] Speaker 1: who is just drafting based on, oh, I need two
[28:12] Speaker 1: running backs, I need three wide receivers, I need a
[28:14] Speaker 1: tight end a quarterback, and so I'm fine with taking
[28:17] Speaker 1: a tight end in round two, and then I'm fine
[28:19] Speaker 1: with taking a quarterback in round three. When like the
[28:22] Speaker 1: basis of like the late round quarterback whenever I came
[28:25] Speaker 1: out with that e book and stuff was literally the
[28:27] Speaker 1: opposite of that. It was the idea that there is
[28:30] Speaker 1: all this volatility, there is all of this variance, and
[28:33] Speaker 1: we need to play into that and understand that that exists.
[28:36] Speaker 1: And there's no reason when you can because of the
[28:37] Speaker 1: supply and demand side of things. There's no reason to
[28:40] Speaker 1: reach for a quarterback when there's volatility with how they finish,
[28:43] Speaker 1: and you can get a guy in around eleven, round
[28:46] Speaker 1: twelve who is going to perform just as well as
[28:48] Speaker 1: the guys who are being drafted in round one at
[28:50] Speaker 1: that point, round one and in round two, And so
[28:53] Speaker 1: I think, like what I've seen, like what I've thought
[28:57] Speaker 1: about is number one, like we write now, have very
[29:01] Speaker 1: segmented onesie positions where tight end is very obvious. Who
[29:06] Speaker 1: the top tight ends are in fantasy football right now.
[29:09] Speaker 1: And like I did an episode on I don't like
[29:11] Speaker 1: the name of it because.
[29:13] Speaker 2: I just couldn't.
[29:13] Speaker 1: It was more of a clickbait name of the tight
[29:16] Speaker 1: end dead zone, right, but it was basically the idea
[29:19] Speaker 1: that if you look at the last ten years of
[29:21] Speaker 1: data and you look at tight end seven to tight
[29:23] Speaker 1: end eighteen, there is quite literally zero correlation between where
[29:28] Speaker 1: those tight ends have been drafted and how many points
[29:30] Speaker 1: per game they actually score. And you know, obviously you're
[29:33] Speaker 1: gonna get Brock Bauers, who skews it a little bit
[29:35] Speaker 1: because he's what tight end ten or whatever last season,
[29:37] Speaker 1: And then you're gonna get guys who are in that
[29:39] Speaker 1: tight end seven range who are more floor not ceiling,
[29:41] Speaker 1: and so essentially there's just been no correlation. You could
[29:44] Speaker 1: just grab someone out of a hat and that player
[29:47] Speaker 1: has just as good of odds to finish high as
[29:49] Speaker 1: someone who is drafted way higher than them. But right
[29:52] Speaker 1: now we have like that jumble right of players that
[29:55] Speaker 1: you can be higher lower. Like I'm not saying that
[29:57] Speaker 1: you just avoid it no matter what. But we I
[30:00] Speaker 1: feel a lot better about Trey McBride, Brock Bauers, and
[30:04] Speaker 1: George Kittle, then we're going to feel about pretty much
[30:07] Speaker 1: everyone else at that position. And so that's segmented, right.
[30:10] Speaker 1: And then at quarterback, I mean, my my angle at quarterback,
[30:14] Speaker 1: Like there's still people coming at me being like, oh,
[30:16] Speaker 1: late round quarterback isn't a great strategy this year.
[30:18] Speaker 2: I'm like, bro, I haven't been saying that. I haven't.
[30:21] Speaker 2: I haven't said that that's the go to.
[30:22] Speaker 1: Strategy for years now because the market has adjusted and changed.
[30:26] Speaker 1: When when people draft based on VORP and only VORP,
[30:30] Speaker 1: they might see, you know, Josh Allen gives you X
[30:32] Speaker 1: number of points better than whatever running back would be
[30:35] Speaker 1: drafted in that range. Let's say it's Breise Hall, or
[30:38] Speaker 1: you know, Lamar Jackson will give you X number of
[30:40] Speaker 1: points better than Marvin Harrison Junior would versus his baseline.
[30:43] Speaker 1: The thing that still does not get enough attention is
[30:46] Speaker 1: the fact that we know who these quarterbacks are going
[30:50] Speaker 1: to be. Right, Like we just talked about how we
[30:54] Speaker 1: have no idea what Marvin Harrison Junior like, Like we
[30:58] Speaker 1: could easily see George Pickens if not projecting, we could
[31:01] Speaker 1: see Pickens just out scoring Marvin Harrison Junior and you're
[31:04] Speaker 1: getting him two rounds later. Whereas when we say that
[31:07] Speaker 1: at quarterback, we're not saying that for anyone outside the
[31:10] Speaker 1: top four. I mean, maybe people really like Joe Burrow,
[31:13] Speaker 1: but I'm not in that camp. Maybe you are, but regardless,
[31:16] Speaker 1: like you're not looking at a quarterback going in round
[31:19] Speaker 1: seven and saying confidently the same way that you're saying
[31:23] Speaker 1: it with George Pickens to Marvin Harrison Junior or you know,
[31:26] Speaker 1: insert round five wide receiver here, You're not saying it
[31:29] Speaker 1: nearly as confidently when you look at a matchup that way.
[31:32] Speaker 1: And so I've actually gone through the exercise quite often
[31:36] Speaker 1: in the shower a lot of times of of me
[31:39] Speaker 1: thinking through, like, what if that really basic way of
[31:43] Speaker 1: playing fantasy football of lineup filling is actually the way
[31:47] Speaker 1: that we should be doing things this year. And you know,
[31:50] Speaker 1: I think that a lot of times people are afraid
[31:53] Speaker 1: of going double onesie in the first like five rounds
[31:56] Speaker 1: of their draft because we know intuitively that running back
[32:00] Speaker 1: a wide receiver matter way more than the other positions
[32:02] Speaker 1: do because you're starting more of them. But I do
[32:05] Speaker 1: think we're at a spot right now where the ADP
[32:09] Speaker 1: of wide receiver of like wide receiver eighteen to wide
[32:13] Speaker 1: receiver forty two or something like that. I think the
[32:16] Speaker 1: right wide receivers are in there, but you're right where
[32:19] Speaker 1: it's like some of us just jumbled around, and I
[32:23] Speaker 1: can make arguments for guys who are going two or
[32:25] Speaker 1: three rounds later than other guys over those players, right,
[32:28] Speaker 1: And so why would I not take advantage of that
[32:30] Speaker 1: as opposed to just being very strict with the way
[32:33] Speaker 1: that ADP has historically fallen and approaching things that way. Now,
[32:38] Speaker 1: I'll ask you if you are seeing things similarly, But Also,
[32:42] Speaker 1: I would imagine that it's easier to go about drafts
[32:45] Speaker 1: in that manner when you are in a ten team league,
[32:48] Speaker 1: when you are in a more casual league, home league.
[32:51] Speaker 2: Where one where it's going to be easier to.
[32:54] Speaker 1: Make up for that opportunity cost to you that you've
[32:56] Speaker 1: incurred by going with an early round tight end end quarterback.
[33:00] Speaker 1: But do you think it's viable this year even in
[33:01] Speaker 1: a relative like we're about to enter the Apex League, which,
[33:05] Speaker 1: by the way, the last couple of years in the
[33:07] Speaker 1: Apex League, I've been drafting early around quarterbacks like I
[33:10] Speaker 1: had Josh Allen, I think last year, to me, it's
[33:13] Speaker 1: gone way too far because of the predictability of those positions.
[33:17] Speaker 1: So do you think it's viable to go double onesie
[33:20] Speaker 1: like that? That's my first question. And then do you
[33:22] Speaker 1: think that it's viable across any kind of league that
[33:25] Speaker 1: you're in.
[33:26] Speaker 3: The different formats are so interesting, in part because the
[33:31] Speaker 3: environment is just so completely different. If you were playing
[33:36] Speaker 3: a home league, not only can you but you absolutely should. Yeah,
[33:43] Speaker 3: get I mean you probably want to try and get
[33:46] Speaker 3: the cheapest of the elite qbs so that it doesn't
[33:49] Speaker 3: wipe out maybe your first round pick. The same thing
[33:52] Speaker 3: with like brock Powers versus Training Bride. I think that
[33:55] Speaker 3: on the tight ends there are four to me that
[33:58] Speaker 3: you really probably want to build your team around. You
[34:02] Speaker 3: were mentioning sort of the tiend. So that was something
[34:05] Speaker 3: that was obviously it was something that was always very
[34:08] Speaker 3: very clear from the great tools that Mike bears where
[34:13] Speaker 3: you can see the win rates by position. You can
[34:16] Speaker 3: look at it from round, but you can look at
[34:18] Speaker 3: it just the heat maps that he was able to
[34:21] Speaker 3: pull together and show that drafting basically non elite tight
[34:27] Speaker 3: ends crushed you. It wasn't that it couldn't possibly work,
[34:32] Speaker 3: but over time the general results were absolutely terrible. And
[34:37] Speaker 3: so when people push back against elite tight end, you
[34:39] Speaker 3: need to again, play every season for the season that
[34:43] Speaker 3: you're in. You shouldn't look at a season where Sam
[34:46] Speaker 3: Laporta is extremely expensive and has a terrible team context
[34:53] Speaker 3: for being a truly elite scorer. You shouldn't look at
[34:56] Speaker 3: a season where Travis who again he's one of these
[35:00] Speaker 3: like these running backs right where people are saying, okay,
[35:04] Speaker 3: well you said he was going to slow down, You
[35:06] Speaker 3: said he was going to slow down. You were wrong.
[35:08] Speaker 3: I'm no longer scared of Travis Kelce like, well, you
[35:11] Speaker 3: can continue to ignore the red flags, but he's falling
[35:13] Speaker 3: off a cliff. He's not going to come and do
[35:15] Speaker 3: the same thing for you. You can look at some similar
[35:18] Speaker 3: things with Mark Andrews and the situation that he was in,
[35:22] Speaker 3: and then fail to see that George Kittle is basically
[35:27] Speaker 3: Mark Andrews maybe better at a pretty big discount. Fail
[35:31] Speaker 3: to see that Trey McBride has had this huge breakout
[35:34] Speaker 3: and that not only it's not only a good pick
[35:39] Speaker 3: in isolation, but it's also basically your chance to play
[35:44] Speaker 3: off of and to short Marvin Harrison's absurd adpeah.
[35:50] Speaker 2: And then look at brock.
[35:51] Speaker 3: Bauers as the greatest tight end prospect of all time.
[35:54] Speaker 3: You can look at that and say, well, maybe the
[35:55] Speaker 3: more expensive and then I got Daln Kincaid wrong, and
[36:00] Speaker 3: so obviously you can make mistakes. Sure, well, you look
[36:03] Speaker 3: at that, and you look at the different guys within
[36:06] Speaker 3: that group, you still have to do your own evaluation
[36:08] Speaker 3: and you still have to try and understand the season
[36:10] Speaker 3: that you're in. To me, last year's failure of Sullen
[36:14] Speaker 3: Elite tight ends was very obvious that that was going
[36:17] Speaker 3: to happen, but that the elite tight ends who weren't
[36:20] Speaker 3: in great situations and were breakout players were going to crush,
[36:23] Speaker 3: and that you had to have them, and the fact
[36:25] Speaker 3: that they were cheaper, that you've got these great prices
[36:27] Speaker 3: on guys like Kittle and Bowers, not that you had
[36:30] Speaker 3: to have them in basically every league. For me, the
[36:32] Speaker 3: guys who are kind of priced like that now are
[36:35] Speaker 3: Laporta and Hawkinson, and then you have the guys like
[36:38] Speaker 3: Bowers and McBride who don't have the same concerns that
[36:42] Speaker 3: Kelsey and Laporta had at the top prices last year.
[36:46] Speaker 3: So Mkittle is awesome, He'll probably be fine. It's one
[36:49] Speaker 3: of those things where anytime with forty nine ers, I
[36:52] Speaker 3: think that when you have this efficiency element to it,
[36:55] Speaker 3: take them when they're cheap and people seem concerned about that,
[36:58] Speaker 3: and maybe fade them a little bit when they get
[36:59] Speaker 3: expensive and you're increasing your risk, and then obviously Kelse
[37:03] Speaker 3: has collapsed, you probably shouldn't take it. So you look
[37:06] Speaker 3: at these other four tight ends, right, and the situation
[37:11] Speaker 3: with their scoring to the price is fantastic. In your
[37:14] Speaker 3: home league, you should have one of those four guys
[37:16] Speaker 3: it completely changes your starting lineup. The same thing with
[37:20] Speaker 3: the qbs, And the thing that makes it so you
[37:23] Speaker 3: have almost no risk is that in home leagues the
[37:27] Speaker 3: ADP that you draft with originally and then how people
[37:30] Speaker 3: tend to approach waivers, so you just have no scarcity
[37:34] Speaker 3: at running back or wide receiver. Now that becomes even
[37:37] Speaker 3: more the case if you have shallow we're starting lineups.
[37:41] Speaker 3: It is even more the case if you have shallower benches.
[37:44] Speaker 3: But it's basically the case regardless, right that if you
[37:47] Speaker 3: do a good job of drafting and you understand the
[37:49] Speaker 3: profiles of guys who are likely to break out, those
[37:51] Speaker 3: players are cheap to free. In home leagues, you're going
[37:55] Speaker 3: to make sure that you get all of those guys
[37:57] Speaker 3: so that once you've drafted the early QB, you've drafted
[37:59] Speaker 3: the early time and you still have you still want
[38:01] Speaker 3: to score with the other positions. But it's so easy
[38:03] Speaker 3: to do, right, that's much much less, you know, much
[38:06] Speaker 3: more difficult to do. It's less of a clear cut
[38:10] Speaker 3: path in say an f FPC main event. Right in
[38:13] Speaker 3: APEX League, you're going to really struggle to do the
[38:16] Speaker 3: same type of thing, which doesn't mean it's not still
[38:18] Speaker 3: the play, but it is a different environment in which
[38:20] Speaker 3: to do it.
[38:20] Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree, I think it's going to be
[38:22] Speaker 1: more difficult. The only thing that I'll say about like
[38:26] Speaker 1: APEX for instance, like f FPC won't be this way,
[38:29] Speaker 1: but like an APEX draft, like the reason that I've
[38:31] Speaker 1: gotten a Josh Allen for instance, like the last couple
[38:34] Speaker 1: of years, like I think I might have had Hurts
[38:36] Speaker 1: two years ago and I had Allen last year is
[38:38] Speaker 1: because they've fall into round five. You know, like it's
[38:40] Speaker 1: it's you're getting. You're getting a two round discount often
[38:44] Speaker 1: on those kinds of players. So I think that if
[38:46] Speaker 1: you're in a league where it is sharp and people
[38:49] Speaker 1: are rightfully going after wide receivers and running backs at
[38:52] Speaker 1: a pretty high clip, you know that that also could
[38:55] Speaker 1: turn around into your favor and you could go with
[38:58] Speaker 1: one of those really predictable onesies because their cost has
[39:01] Speaker 1: fallen and you get to a point where the opportunity
[39:04] Speaker 1: cost realistically, you know, if you're in round five, and sure,
[39:07] Speaker 1: I'm probably you know, revealing too much to the person
[39:10] Speaker 1: that's drafting right next to me in this draft that
[39:12] Speaker 1: starts on Friday. But but if we're fortunately round five,
[39:16] Speaker 1: I'll be picking right before you. So Josh Allen's still
[39:18] Speaker 1: on the board, just get ready for me to take
[39:20] Speaker 1: Josh Allen.
[39:21] Speaker 3: But you know, if he's got on the sheet, who
[39:23] Speaker 3: do you want to come out of every draft with?
[39:25] Speaker 3: And I'm like, like, I'm gonna tell you, yeah.
[39:27] Speaker 2: Right exactly, yeah yeah.
[39:29] Speaker 1: And so you know, I do think that obviously it's
[39:32] Speaker 1: gonna be draft dependent. But I think that people, you know,
[39:35] Speaker 1: because I think the safest sort of bet and approach
[39:38] Speaker 1: has historically been to not overload the onesie positions. Like
[39:42] Speaker 1: it's just been that way since we started analyzing this
[39:45] Speaker 1: stuff and to you know, started started voicing our opinions
[39:48] Speaker 1: on this game. It's been a fairly obvious way. I'm
[39:52] Speaker 1: not saying like, don't you know, never get into lead
[39:54] Speaker 1: to end, never get to lead quarterback. I'm saying doubling
[39:56] Speaker 1: up is not an easy thing to take on from
[39:58] Speaker 1: an opportunity cost perspective. But I think that of all
[40:01] Speaker 1: years that I've seen from just like the way the
[40:03] Speaker 1: ADP is laid out, it does feel most comfortable doing
[40:08] Speaker 1: that this year, especially like in certain pockets of your draft,
[40:11] Speaker 1: Like I personally have actually a be and I know
[40:13] Speaker 1: that I took brock Bowers and the MFL ten of Death,
[40:15] Speaker 1: But I actually have an easier time drafting Trade McBride
[40:19] Speaker 1: than I do Bowers in a non tight end premium
[40:21] Speaker 1: format because of the opportunity costs side, Because once where
[40:25] Speaker 1: brock Bowers goes, generally you're going to have to take
[40:28] Speaker 1: him over really really elite wide receivers and it's really
[40:31] Speaker 1: really difficult to do that, right. But then where McBride goes,
[40:35] Speaker 1: that's where you're starting to get into the Marvin Harrison
[40:37] Speaker 1: Junior opportunity cost. And to me, that's the difference in
[40:40] Speaker 1: exposure for me, you know, right now, where I'm at
[40:43] Speaker 1: like twenty percent McBride and I'm at like, you know,
[40:46] Speaker 1: eleven percent Boers. Let's say it's it's or ten percent.
[40:49] Speaker 1: It's all because of that opportunity cost. So I think
[40:51] Speaker 1: that like the overall theme of what we're saying here,
[40:55] Speaker 1: or at least what I'm trying to communicate, is to
[40:58] Speaker 1: understand the pockets of your draft and where things do
[41:00] Speaker 1: get really flat and recognize that, Like, you know, this
[41:04] Speaker 1: is partially why I wanted to get away from talking
[41:08] Speaker 1: about the running back dead zone the way that we've
[41:10] Speaker 1: always talked about the running back dead zone because at
[41:13] Speaker 1: the end of the day, it really is more of
[41:15] Speaker 1: an archetype zone. It just so happens that a lot
[41:18] Speaker 1: of those types of backs are just going in the
[41:20] Speaker 1: same area of drafts year and you're out. So it's
[41:22] Speaker 1: a very easy shorthand way for us to discuss that.
[41:25] Speaker 1: But realistically, like you said, you could argue that there's
[41:29] Speaker 1: sort of a wide receiver dead zone this year where
[41:31] Speaker 1: people are kind of forcing the issue because they know
[41:34] Speaker 1: they need wide receiver and they're like, oh, crap, I
[41:35] Speaker 1: missed out on these elite guys, so now I got
[41:37] Speaker 1: to push it a little bit and get these inferior
[41:39] Speaker 1: talents or inferior players who aren't in that great of
[41:41] Speaker 1: situations when I realistically can get that same player two
[41:45] Speaker 1: rounds later, take advantage of that, like like use that
[41:48] Speaker 1: to your advantage and say, Okay, I'll throw a dart
[41:51] Speaker 1: and take a chance on Amari and Hampton, or I'll
[41:53] Speaker 1: take a chance on an elite quarterback, or I'll take
[41:55] Speaker 1: a chance on.
[41:56] Speaker 2: Maybe McBride falls or whomever.
[41:58] Speaker 1: I think that is sort of the way that I've
[42:00] Speaker 1: viewed things, you know, this season, and it's just forced
[42:04] Speaker 1: me to think about that double doubling up the onesie
[42:07] Speaker 1: positions and such. But do you think the fantasy football
[42:10] Speaker 1: market has gotten sharper? And then kind of on top
[42:14] Speaker 1: of that, has that affected the way that you've approached
[42:17] Speaker 1: the game from a game theory perspective and like an
[42:19] Speaker 1: archetype drafting perspective, Like we you know, I just talked
[42:22] Speaker 1: about the running back dead zone and how that seems
[42:25] Speaker 1: to have at least shifted a little bit. You know,
[42:27] Speaker 1: right now, it's kind of difficult to know exactly how
[42:31] Speaker 1: drafts are formulated because so many of us are playing
[42:33] Speaker 1: best ball and it's just it's just a different game
[42:35] Speaker 1: and people are drafting differently than they will in a
[42:37] Speaker 1: home league or even in an f FPC type environment.
[42:40] Speaker 1: But like other things are happening right now, where like
[42:43] Speaker 1: rookies might be going a little bit earlier, Like does
[42:45] Speaker 1: that does that make you not want to throw darts
[42:48] Speaker 1: at at rookies? Like is the market in your opinion,
[42:52] Speaker 1: getting sharper? And if it is getting sharper, is that
[42:55] Speaker 1: switching and changing the way that you're approaching drafts from
[42:58] Speaker 1: an archetype standpoint?
[43:00] Speaker 3: So I think there are three big ways in which
[43:02] Speaker 3: drafts have gotten sharper or the community has gotten better
[43:07] Speaker 3: at fantasy, and those would be the one is just
[43:15] Speaker 3: basically giving up on this idea that running back scarcity
[43:20] Speaker 3: means that you should draft all of the running backs
[43:22] Speaker 3: at the beginning of drafts and failing to understand both
[43:26] Speaker 3: the contingency based aspect to a lot of running back scoring,
[43:31] Speaker 3: which was kind of the crucial and most important point
[43:34] Speaker 3: right from the beginning, and then also the scoring is
[43:37] Speaker 3: what matters, and the flex position and certainly if you
[43:42] Speaker 3: have flex positions that those are real positions that you
[43:45] Speaker 3: have to treat again from a perspective of scoring matters.
[43:50] Speaker 3: That has changed ADP pretty dramatically, and I think that
[43:54] Speaker 3: you could argue that it's made fantasy sharper in that
[43:59] Speaker 3: has taken away very obvious structural approaches that were pretty dominant.
[44:04] Speaker 3: And so we had the conversation about zero RB earlier.
[44:07] Speaker 3: I would say that I think that it has taken
[44:11] Speaker 3: that away at least for twenty twenty five in redraft,
[44:16] Speaker 3: which I mean, when you have connected to something, you
[44:20] Speaker 3: can look at it in a variety of ways, but
[44:22] Speaker 3: I just in many ways, I think it's a relief
[44:24] Speaker 3: and It's something that's fantastic about drafting because it makes
[44:29] Speaker 3: drafts a lot more fun. You have a lot more
[44:32] Speaker 3: that you can do, and you also, I think now
[44:36] Speaker 3: have more ways to actually beat the field because you're
[44:39] Speaker 3: not as limited to a dominant structure. That. Yeah, doing
[44:44] Speaker 3: something as dominant is always very helpful, but it does
[44:48] Speaker 3: impose some limitations on you that maybe hurt you as
[44:52] Speaker 3: a draft or at least weren't fun. Right, And so
[44:55] Speaker 3: even though fantasy has gotten sharper from that perspective, I
[44:58] Speaker 3: think in some ways it actually makes it easier in
[45:03] Speaker 3: that now there's potentially more separation between good drafters and
[45:10] Speaker 3: simply drafters who understood that yeah, I probably should do
[45:13] Speaker 3: as a RBSH type of approach, you now have a
[45:16] Speaker 3: bigger gap if you do more things well. Potentially the
[45:21] Speaker 3: other thing that I think I said there were three,
[45:24] Speaker 3: but there are just so many different offshoots of all
[45:26] Speaker 3: these different pieces. I think that drafters are more willing
[45:31] Speaker 3: now to emphasize talent, and I think that that is huge. Yeah,
[45:38] Speaker 3: at the same time, I don't think it's very efficiently applied.
[45:45] Speaker 3: I think that we have a tendency to want shortcuts
[45:50] Speaker 3: and to strip away context and believe that there are
[45:55] Speaker 3: like the best st out of this or the best
[45:57] Speaker 3: st out of that, And if my guys doing well
[46:00] Speaker 3: in this, and if the cohort for this supposedly does
[46:04] Speaker 3: a certain thing, that I can feel a lot of
[46:07] Speaker 3: confidence and I can strip away a lot of other
[46:10] Speaker 3: context and not worry about that. I could potentially strip
[46:13] Speaker 3: away previous seasons and not worry about that. One of
[46:16] Speaker 3: the things that I thought was really strange. And again,
[46:18] Speaker 3: human nature is to point out the ones where you
[46:20] Speaker 3: were right and I'm wrong all the time, So I
[46:23] Speaker 3: just want to stipulate that as well. One of the
[46:25] Speaker 3: things that I thought was weird last season is there
[46:28] Speaker 3: was so much concern about Jackson Smith and Jigba because
[46:32] Speaker 3: of certain stats that he'd put up as a rookie
[46:34] Speaker 3: that were not ideal. Yeah, failing to look at what
[46:38] Speaker 3: the context was in terms of coordinator play, what the
[46:41] Speaker 3: context was in terms of dealing with DK Metcalf and
[46:45] Speaker 3: Tyler Lockett, and failing to understand who he was as
[46:49] Speaker 3: a prospect. And this kind of goes back to kind
[46:52] Speaker 3: of the brief distress I had earlier where suggesting that
[46:57] Speaker 3: draft position gives us so much information on aspects, but
[47:01] Speaker 3: it also informs ADP to such an extent that your
[47:06] Speaker 3: edge is actually understanding where draft position misleads you on
[47:11] Speaker 3: a player. Yeah, it's not an understanding what draft position
[47:15] Speaker 3: tells you because that's priced in. You have to understand
[47:17] Speaker 3: the places where it's misleading, and so if you have
[47:20] Speaker 3: some of those elements, certainly you can also debate the
[47:23] Speaker 3: JSN profile. There were some weaknesses to it, but there
[47:26] Speaker 3: were also extraordinary things about it. They're like, I'm very
[47:30] Speaker 3: willing to bet on this guy in year two, especially
[47:32] Speaker 3: with the price. I mean that Harrison one is interesting
[47:35] Speaker 3: because there were actually some red flags in his profile
[47:37] Speaker 3: that people didn't give enough weight to and certainly weren't
[47:42] Speaker 3: the most salient thing about him, sure by any stretch,
[47:44] Speaker 3: but there were.
[47:45] Speaker 2: Some red flags.
[47:46] Speaker 3: And even with those red flags then manifesting at the
[47:49] Speaker 3: NFL level, his price is still pretty hot. Again, that's
[47:53] Speaker 3: not to say that someone with the background that Marvin
[47:56] Speaker 3: Harrison has couldn't blow up in year two, because he
[47:58] Speaker 3: definitely could, sure, but I would say that I don't
[48:03] Speaker 3: necessarily so. I think because people are more willing to
[48:07] Speaker 3: emphasize talent, and because we do have a lot of information,
[48:10] Speaker 3: and we do understand generally how good individual stats are.
[48:16] Speaker 3: We get overconfident in this track of important context, where
[48:20] Speaker 3: does a bunch of great articles every year sort of
[48:23] Speaker 3: gently pointing out that a lot of the superstar stats
[48:27] Speaker 3: are the best st out of this or the best
[48:29] Speaker 3: out of that, perform worse than just fantasy points. Yeah.
[48:34] Speaker 3: You know that's not always great for someone trying to
[48:37] Speaker 3: sell for our job analysis, right, but it is actually
[48:42] Speaker 3: valuable to have someone come back and say, look, I
[48:44] Speaker 3: mean understand the entire context. But so it's not even
[48:47] Speaker 3: necessarily a matter of not understanding the context, but it
[48:49] Speaker 3: is something where you get over confident and then you
[48:52] Speaker 3: don't price scenarios very well.
[48:54] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[48:54] Speaker 3: And when I look at the twenty twenty five ADP, like,
[48:58] Speaker 3: I'm just missing information because j J as you know,
[49:01] Speaker 3: I have a process that is somewhat cloistered. But and
[49:05] Speaker 3: so I always kind of try and approach it from
[49:07] Speaker 3: the humility perspective myself. Really, it's probably just that I
[49:10] Speaker 3: don't know things a long Yeah, when I look at
[49:12] Speaker 3: eighty Yeah, but when I look at ADPM, like, I
[49:15] Speaker 3: don't think the scenarios for just so many players are
[49:18] Speaker 3: priced correctly and if the scenarios are not priced correctly,
[49:21] Speaker 3: then ADP is still pretty exploitable. And so, yeah, fantasy
[49:24] Speaker 3: has evolved so much, it's gotten so much better, it's
[49:28] Speaker 3: gotten so much more interesting. It's always been interesting. But
[49:31] Speaker 3: the wealth of information that we have is lot in
[49:35] Speaker 3: twenty twenty. And yet I think that even though we
[49:39] Speaker 3: have made we've journeyed down this path. If you're looking at,
[49:43] Speaker 3: you know, a Fantasy redraft league of all types and
[49:48] Speaker 3: trying to decide should I play it? Like does AI
[49:51] Speaker 3: and does you know do sims and all these great stats?
[49:55] Speaker 3: Does that make it something where it's not really beatable?
[49:57] Speaker 3: I should just draft ADP. People telling me ADP value
[50:00] Speaker 3: is all that matters. I would push back against that
[50:04] Speaker 3: and say no, I mean, if anything, you have as
[50:09] Speaker 3: good a better chance to beat your league mates in
[50:11] Speaker 3: twenty twenty five than you've ever had.
[50:14] Speaker 1: I love the point about the lack of context, Like,
[50:17] Speaker 1: if you were to just dumb this down and do
[50:19] Speaker 1: a really simple idea, I think that it would be
[50:22] Speaker 1: that we see these skeleton key analyzes all the time
[50:28] Speaker 1: with Fantasy that if this guy does not hit this threshold,
[50:32] Speaker 1: like there's no there's no nuance to look even like
[50:36] Speaker 1: roma Dunza last year, right where he has a really
[50:40] Speaker 1: awful season peripheral wise, and everything that we would look
[50:44] Speaker 1: at analytically and statistically, we'd say this is a red
[50:48] Speaker 1: flag with a Dounezay and my approach, I did an
[50:51] Speaker 1: entire episode on this. People were angry at me for
[50:55] Speaker 1: it because they thought that it was me just complaining.
[50:58] Speaker 1: I did a reroll trade in a Dynasty league this
[51:01] Speaker 1: offseason where I did let go of a Dunza because
[51:03] Speaker 1: his Dynasty price was just really really high at this point,
[51:06] Speaker 1: and I took on I think the one to oh
[51:09] Speaker 1: eight and it was a Mecha Guka was my worst
[51:11] Speaker 1: case scenario, right, and to me, I saw them as
[51:14] Speaker 1: comparable prospects. But we had a situation where we already
[51:17] Speaker 1: had a season of a Dunza not necessarily living up
[51:20] Speaker 1: to quite the hype, and so the idea was, Okay,
[51:24] Speaker 1: well maybe he I mean, I'm certainly open to the
[51:27] Speaker 1: possibility of like, we know the situation was bad, but
[51:29] Speaker 1: it's just this binary thinking that people have all the
[51:32] Speaker 1: time of like now I'm the guy who thinks that
[51:35] Speaker 1: a Duneza is really bad, but I think a Dunsay's
[51:36] Speaker 1: a decent redraft target just because the cost is different.
[51:40] Speaker 2: Right, Everything comes down to that factor.
[51:42] Speaker 1: But there's there's two examples I think actually I'll just
[51:45] Speaker 1: go with one of them that I think is really
[51:47] Speaker 1: really important here. So a lot of times, like I'll
[51:50] Speaker 1: dig up some sort of you know, data point or
[51:53] Speaker 1: something that I see as predictive, and a lot of
[51:55] Speaker 1: the stuff that I do is based off of ADP
[51:57] Speaker 1: analysis because a lot of times the date, the points
[52:00] Speaker 1: that you talked about, like Blair talking about like points
[52:02] Speaker 1: per game and stuff being like that's all you got
[52:04] Speaker 1: to look at, Like that's the that's the thing to
[52:07] Speaker 1: go to whenever you're trying to predict how well player
[52:09] Speaker 1: are going to do in a future season. The thing
[52:11] Speaker 1: that I think gets lost too is that people aren't
[52:14] Speaker 1: layering on cost to any of that kind of analysis oftentimes,
[52:17] Speaker 1: and so they're saying, hey, look, anyone who has a
[52:20] Speaker 1: two point five yards per out run or better one
[52:22] Speaker 1: season is automatically going to have a great season the
[52:25] Speaker 1: next year. But what if that guy is being drafted
[52:27] Speaker 1: one oh three and he does you know, there's other
[52:29] Speaker 1: things going on with that player's profile that dictates and
[52:33] Speaker 1: says that he's not a one oh three player. Just
[52:35] Speaker 1: because he hit that mark doesn't mean that we automatically
[52:37] Speaker 1: need to be drafting him, because there's a cost element
[52:40] Speaker 1: to this. That is everything. That's literally what drives draft
[52:44] Speaker 1: strategy and drives all the work that we're doing is
[52:47] Speaker 1: cost at the end of the day. And so when
[52:49] Speaker 1: I go and I do like my draft guide, for instance,
[52:52] Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking at at previous season numbers and
[52:54] Speaker 1: I'm trying to see what's predictive and what's not.
[52:56] Speaker 2: It's all in relation to a player's cost.
[52:59] Speaker 1: And so I'll try to bucket players in these different
[53:00] Speaker 1: areas of the draft to say, okay, when you're in
[53:03] Speaker 1: like wide receiver, you know, nineteen to forty two range,
[53:06] Speaker 1: like this is what you're looking for, but it's a
[53:07] Speaker 1: little bit different than what we're looking for for like
[53:09] Speaker 1: top eighteen wide.
[53:10] Speaker 2: Receivers and so on and so forth.
[53:12] Speaker 1: And the one example of that this year was at
[53:14] Speaker 1: the running back position. We know that target share is
[53:17] Speaker 1: just unbelievably important at running back, right Like, we want
[53:20] Speaker 1: pass catching running backs, and it's been the case forever
[53:23] Speaker 1: and still the market tends to undervalue pass catching running
[53:26] Speaker 1: backs for whatever reason. But we'll we'll take it, right, like,
[53:28] Speaker 1: we'll take all the edges a week and get perfictly
[53:31] Speaker 1: price is weird coming off of what he did last year?
[53:34] Speaker 1: Yeah where I mean he's a folloer and some yeah
[53:37] Speaker 1: in some formats, which is interesting. It is, it is,
[53:41] Speaker 1: And so we know that we know that pass catching
[53:44] Speaker 1: generally speaking, is something that people even even when you
[53:48] Speaker 1: go and you look at and I want to ask
[53:49] Speaker 1: you about this too, you go and look at like
[53:51] Speaker 1: beat reports right now about like the Jacksonville backfield, the
[53:55] Speaker 1: Minnesota backfield, and or the Jets backfield.
[53:59] Speaker 2: Maybe the Jets is an even better example.
[54:01] Speaker 1: I have nothing against tank bigsby Jordan Mason and Braylan Allen,
[54:05] Speaker 1: but when it's discussed, it's always like, this is a
[54:08] Speaker 1: split backfield.
[54:09] Speaker 2: It's going to be a forty five to fifty five split.
[54:11] Speaker 2: It's gonna be a fifty to fifty split, whatever that
[54:13] Speaker 2: split is.
[54:14] Speaker 1: But that's not really what we care about in fantasy
[54:16] Speaker 1: football at the end of the day, Like we're much
[54:18] Speaker 1: more concerned about the pass catching stuff and to a degree,
[54:22] Speaker 1: the goal line stuff, right, like the important touches that
[54:24] Speaker 1: these guys are going to have. And so when I
[54:27] Speaker 1: looked at running backs this offseason. I know that target
[54:29] Speaker 1: share is so important. I said to myself, well, what
[54:32] Speaker 1: we need to at least try to predict target share
[54:34] Speaker 1: to some you know, stronger degree than just saying like,
[54:37] Speaker 1: this guy had a good receiving profile in college, and
[54:40] Speaker 1: we like them. We know that he can he can
[54:42] Speaker 1: catch passes. And so the one thing that actually got
[54:44] Speaker 1: a lot of signal versus ADP and versus cost was
[54:47] Speaker 1: yards per out run previous season yards per out run
[54:49] Speaker 1: at running back. You know, obviously we're looking at it
[54:50] Speaker 1: a wide receiver all the time, but at running back too.
[54:53] Speaker 1: And there are certain thresholds where when like middle round
[54:56] Speaker 1: running backs are below like a point seven ish yards
[55:00] Speaker 1: per out run from the previous season, they've never at
[55:03] Speaker 1: least in the it's not as I mean it's like
[55:05] Speaker 1: twenty six to thirty running backs or so since twenty
[55:08] Speaker 1: fourteen is when the data dates back to, they've never
[55:10] Speaker 1: had a double digit percentage target share the following season,
[55:12] Speaker 1: even if they had a double digit percentage target share
[55:15] Speaker 1: in the current season. Now and then the d versus
[55:18] Speaker 1: true where players who had really really really strong yards
[55:22] Speaker 1: par out run rates, they tend to have stickier target
[55:25] Speaker 1: shares year over year and be able to maintain really
[55:28] Speaker 1: high target shares. Now it's funny because then I dug
[55:31] Speaker 1: into it and one of the players that had a
[55:33] Speaker 1: really high yards perrout run rate last year at running
[55:35] Speaker 1: back who's now in the middle rounds is David Montgomery.
[55:38] Speaker 2: And so I can't sit here and say, go.
[55:42] Speaker 1: Draft David Montgomery because he's gonna catch a lot of
[55:44] Speaker 1: passes this year because obviously Jamir Gibbs is in that
[55:48] Speaker 1: backfield with him.
[55:49] Speaker 3: One of the weird things that really does jump out
[55:51] Speaker 3: as Montgomery's receiving last year, right, is one of the
[55:53] Speaker 3: strangest stats that we have in all of Fantasy.
[55:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really really weird, but like we have
[55:58] Speaker 1: to obviously bring that in and bring the contextan The
[56:01] Speaker 1: other one was Chewba Hubbard on the other end, right,
[56:04] Speaker 1: Chuba Hubbard had. I mean, this is a pretty consistent
[56:07] Speaker 1: thing throughout his career so far, is that he's not
[56:09] Speaker 1: been a very efficient receiver per route run. You know,
[56:12] Speaker 1: last year he had a spike in target share, you know,
[56:14] Speaker 1: a little over twelve percent. But when you then give
[56:18] Speaker 1: it the context and say, like, I'm not trying to
[56:20] Speaker 1: stop there right. I think a lot of people see
[56:24] Speaker 1: a data point and then they stop and they say, okay,
[56:26] Speaker 1: fade or target right, just.
[56:27] Speaker 2: Based on this data point.
[56:29] Speaker 1: But to me, there are other things that add up
[56:32] Speaker 1: to Chuba Hubbard probably seeing a decline in target share
[56:37] Speaker 1: year over year, which is, they added Rico Dowdle to
[56:39] Speaker 1: the backfield, which they didn't have any competition for for
[56:42] Speaker 1: I mean, they had Jonathan Brooks obviously, which which didn't
[56:45] Speaker 1: work out, but they add Ricodoudle to the backfield. And
[56:48] Speaker 1: they also drafted Trevor Etn who is purely a pass
[56:52] Speaker 1: like that is what he did in college and that
[56:54] Speaker 1: he is a receiving back. And so to me, it's
[56:58] Speaker 1: this this merging of the data points that you know
[57:01] Speaker 1: that you're referring to that a lot of people that
[57:03] Speaker 1: like lack the context with, but then adding sort of
[57:06] Speaker 1: the story and the the GM moves and the team
[57:10] Speaker 1: actual interactions in the draft and what they might have
[57:12] Speaker 1: been thinking with the draft, and like all of those
[57:14] Speaker 1: layers to create the story about that player. And so like, yeah,
[57:18] Speaker 1: I've been really low in Tuba Hubbard this year versus
[57:20] Speaker 1: the market, But it's based off of not just the
[57:22] Speaker 1: data point of me being fearful of what that receiving
[57:25] Speaker 1: workload might look like. And for the record, they have
[57:27] Speaker 1: a great schedule to start the year, so when he
[57:29] Speaker 1: dominates the first month of the season, please don't don't
[57:31] Speaker 1: at me about about Cuba. But to me, that's what
[57:35] Speaker 1: it's all about, is like giving it that type of context, like,
[57:38] Speaker 1: are there are there any players who come to mind
[57:41] Speaker 1: for you? And maybe I could I could associate this
[57:45] Speaker 1: with another question I wanted to ask you because I
[57:48] Speaker 1: look at wide receiver like we talked about in that
[57:51] Speaker 1: like wide receiver twenty to wide receiver forty range, and
[57:55] Speaker 1: while we can see like I'll have wide receivers that
[57:59] Speaker 1: are five or six wide receiver spots different from ADP,
[58:02] Speaker 1: but all of the players in that range are generally
[58:05] Speaker 1: in that range for me. But are there any general
[58:09] Speaker 1: fades in that area? And do you think some of
[58:11] Speaker 1: this thinking is the reason why their ADP is where
[58:13] Speaker 1: it's at.
[58:14] Speaker 3: I think some of it is that some of it
[58:16] Speaker 3: is a willingness to lean on the background in a
[58:22] Speaker 3: way that I think is good in general. But it's
[58:25] Speaker 3: also a question of what is your ceiling and what
[58:30] Speaker 3: have these guys demonstrated in terms of the ability, you know,
[58:36] Speaker 3: to really emerge as a star. And then what is
[58:38] Speaker 3: the context again as it relates to pricing scenarios, Right,
[58:45] Speaker 3: So you look at DK Metcalf and you have someone
[58:49] Speaker 3: who really struggled down the stretch last year, and now
[58:52] Speaker 3: part of that is probably playing at less than one
[58:54] Speaker 3: hundred percent. But you've got a guy who is not
[58:57] Speaker 3: a big target earner, he's not a big ball in
[59:00] Speaker 3: hand guy, and the offensive context there in Pittsburgh could
[59:03] Speaker 3: be really bad. And so I think that one of
[59:06] Speaker 3: the things that we have to kind of balance on
[59:10] Speaker 3: some of the offenses, you know, and something that you
[59:13] Speaker 3: kind of have to work with on JSN as well
[59:16] Speaker 3: is that, yes, the target competition is very minimal, and
[59:22] Speaker 3: yet if the offense has no ceiling, then you're going
[59:27] Speaker 3: to have this counterbalancing type of effect. I'm not guess
[59:31] Speaker 3: more concerned about an offense that's coordinated by Arthur Smith.
[59:35] Speaker 3: One of the things too, is you know you have
[59:37] Speaker 3: these sort of run oriented teams, right, and we think
[59:40] Speaker 3: about context and you think about, okay, we have the
[59:44] Speaker 3: Caleb Johnson price, you have the Jalen Warren price. It's
[59:49] Speaker 3: interesting to debate those guys against each other, even though
[59:51] Speaker 3: they're two rounds apart. But there's also just the element that,
[59:54] Speaker 3: even though this offense is supposedly run based, it's very
[59:57] Speaker 3: bad for running back scoring. So how good would you
[1:00:00] Speaker 3: actually have to be if you're either of those guys
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: to both convincingly defeat the other player and still be
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: able to flourish within an offense that does weird things
[1:00:13] Speaker 3: to destroy fantasy scoring. So I think with DK Metcalf
[1:00:16] Speaker 3: at wide receiver twenty and my understanding is that the
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: reports out of camp are not good for Aaron Rodgers,
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: which it's always one of those things where you look
[1:00:26] Speaker 3: at and you like, maybe a Hall of Fame MVP
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: type of player could get kind of that final gasp
[1:00:32] Speaker 3: could be in a little bit better situation. You play
[1:00:35] Speaker 3: for a team like the Steelers or organizationally they're very
[1:00:38] Speaker 3: strong and you get this. It's not really obviously a
[1:00:42] Speaker 3: dead cat bounce, but you get some little boost at
[1:00:45] Speaker 3: the end. But that's not reportedly what we're getting. I mean,
[1:00:48] Speaker 3: DK Metcalf at his price is really weird to me
[1:00:51] Speaker 3: because you have mostly downside. You can look at someone
[1:00:55] Speaker 3: who is a little bit different than that. In Terry McLaurin,
[1:00:58] Speaker 3: who's someone who's coming off of a career year, and
[1:01:01] Speaker 3: yet we still have that issue of not being an
[1:01:04] Speaker 3: elite target earner having this sort of extended track record,
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: which is again the thing for Metcalf, where an extended
[1:01:11] Speaker 3: track record and the early career suggested a secondary breakout,
[1:01:16] Speaker 3: but that faded and he sort of re established where
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: he was at a much lower level and certainly a
[1:01:22] Speaker 3: much lower ceiling type of thing with with Lauren, you're
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: kind of counting on just how good Jaden Daniels is.
[1:01:27] Speaker 3: You're counting on those touchdowns. You have the uncertainty. It's
[1:01:31] Speaker 3: surprising to me that he hasn't been punished more for
[1:01:35] Speaker 3: some of the contexts here. Now they're still pretty early,
[1:01:37] Speaker 3: and so I think a lot of drafters are thinking
[1:01:39] Speaker 3: this is going to work out fine, and you know,
[1:01:41] Speaker 3: you're thinking about, well, but Jamar Chase got punished on
[1:01:44] Speaker 3: last year. He had one of the greatest seasons of
[1:01:47] Speaker 3: all time, so we should throw that out the window.
[1:01:49] Speaker 3: It's like, again, we shouldn't pattern match to something that
[1:01:52] Speaker 3: is pretty unique there. It does create additional concern because
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: mclaurin's ADP was already hot, right right, and then you
[1:01:59] Speaker 3: have someone like Dj Moore who's in many ways the opposite.
[1:02:02] Speaker 3: He is a big, big target guy. He is a
[1:02:04] Speaker 3: ball in hand guy. But like the strengths that he has,
[1:02:09] Speaker 3: they also have contextual elements they added that are a
[1:02:13] Speaker 3: big problem, which is that if you are a ball
[1:02:16] Speaker 3: in hand guy and they've added Luther Burden, that's potentially
[1:02:20] Speaker 3: catastrophe right right, if you are a big target guy
[1:02:23] Speaker 3: and now your team is the deepest team in terms
[1:02:27] Speaker 3: of skill position talent, at least at the receiving positions,
[1:02:30] Speaker 3: maybe in the entire NFL, even with uncertainty. Really with
[1:02:33] Speaker 3: Dj Moore, with how poorly he played last year, it's
[1:02:35] Speaker 3: sort of funny. They're very different profiles in some ways.
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: But the Keenan Allen thing, I've had Keenan Allen ranked
[1:02:44] Speaker 3: for most of the off season and mostly ranked way
[1:02:48] Speaker 3: ahead of Roy's been draftings. He's eventually going to sign
[1:02:50] Speaker 3: right and two years ago he was absolutely awesome. Last
[1:02:53] Speaker 3: year he was more or less the same as Dj
[1:02:56] Speaker 3: Moore and romadoonsay. Now because of trajectory, because of where
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: people are in their careers, there are big differences in
[1:03:03] Speaker 3: these guys, and the old guy is never appealing as like,
[1:03:06] Speaker 3: I want to build my team around the old guy,
[1:03:09] Speaker 3: and at the same time, the scenarios for all three
[1:03:11] Speaker 3: players are priced incorrectly. So at the different prices, maybe
[1:03:15] Speaker 3: you just you know, draft a Keenan Allen, But so
[1:03:18] Speaker 3: for DJ Moore you have probably you have more things
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: that he does well, you have more ways to win,
[1:03:22] Speaker 3: but you also have more ceiling paths just closed off
[1:03:26] Speaker 3: by again the context. I don't understand why those three
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: guys are going where they're going other than you have
[1:03:36] Speaker 3: a decent track record for them. And that decent track
[1:03:39] Speaker 3: record when you have the best ball adp that then
[1:03:43] Speaker 3: washes down through everything else and people are saying, Okay,
[1:03:46] Speaker 3: Terry McLaurin, you know, especially those touchdowns are going to
[1:03:49] Speaker 3: be very valuable in best ball where you just get
[1:03:53] Speaker 3: them right. In a redraft situation, you probably would just
[1:03:56] Speaker 3: prefer to start someone who's going to score more points
[1:03:59] Speaker 3: for the full season than Terry McLaurin and doesn't have
[1:04:02] Speaker 3: all of these red flags. So I think you can
[1:04:05] Speaker 3: go through that. And there are players who are being
[1:04:07] Speaker 3: drafted just after in McMillan and Pickens and Jamison Williams.
[1:04:11] Speaker 3: DeVante Smith is weird to me. Where he's got this
[1:04:15] Speaker 3: just horrible, horrible context, and yet his talent is such
[1:04:19] Speaker 3: that he's outscored that context relative to price. So yes,
[1:04:25] Speaker 3: I always kind of second guess my own calibration, and
[1:04:27] Speaker 3: I want to keep looking at these guys. Sean, are
[1:04:29] Speaker 3: you just addicted to the more fun players and you're
[1:04:32] Speaker 3: drafting them specifically because of that, and you are willing
[1:04:36] Speaker 3: to set aside actual scoring, and so you always want
[1:04:39] Speaker 3: to go back through look at those things, try and
[1:04:41] Speaker 3: figure out where guys are, figure out how the scenarios
[1:04:45] Speaker 3: are being priced. But even when I try and second
[1:04:47] Speaker 3: guess myself on a lot of these players, I don't understand,
[1:04:50] Speaker 3: and I mean, Mike Evans at wide receiver eighteen is
[1:04:52] Speaker 3: utterly bizarre. And so when we work through that and
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: you look at track record and context, but also on
[1:05:00] Speaker 3: understanding what it means that a guy has been this
[1:05:03] Speaker 3: throughout his career, and then if you add bad context
[1:05:05] Speaker 3: on top of it, and you're trying to win your
[1:05:08] Speaker 3: league or stack potential league winning outcomes as you go
[1:05:12] Speaker 3: through your individual picks those players at those prices, it's
[1:05:15] Speaker 3: not even necessarily something where you're saying, Okay, I definitely
[1:05:18] Speaker 3: have to pick up, pull up George Pickens, or going
[1:05:20] Speaker 3: to pull up Jamison Williams, or I'm just going to say, yeah,
[1:05:23] Speaker 3: Javonte Williams is in this offense that is catastrophic for
[1:05:25] Speaker 3: his scoring, but he still scores, So I'm going to
[1:05:28] Speaker 3: pick him. You can pick a different position.
[1:05:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No. I like those call outs a lot.
[1:05:32] Speaker 1: There's also sometimes like DJ Moore is someone who I
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: haven't drafted a lot of from a best ball perspective,
[1:05:39] Speaker 1: I'm probably at like, I don't know, four percent maybe
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: at this point, and I have a decent amount of
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: Roma Dunza, and a lot of it for me is
[1:05:46] Speaker 1: as simple as what you said, is what he's doing
[1:05:51] Speaker 1: on a football field, like replicable by another player on
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: this team, And I think a Doonsay is the one
[1:05:57] Speaker 1: player on that team this year that at least has
[1:06:00] Speaker 1: the more individualized skill set that is not easy to duplicate.
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: Whereas you know, Burden was someone that a lot of people,
[1:06:08] Speaker 1: even my prospect model comped to, had DJ Moore as
[1:06:12] Speaker 1: a comp right, and so I'm not saying that they
[1:06:14] Speaker 1: played the same. I know we're going to get back
[1:06:16] Speaker 1: into the people yelling at me because Burden was much
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: more of a gadgety, you know, slot guy in college
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: and DJ Moore was not that. But when you look
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: at size, when you look at general production profile that
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: sophomore year, especially with Burden, there was a decent amount
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: of overlap just in the stuff that I'm looking at
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: with like my breakout score, metric and stuff. And so
[1:06:33] Speaker 1: I think it's a really really important exercise to go
[1:06:35] Speaker 1: through and why I feel similarly as you do, like
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: the round four wide receivers, I'm just not that keen
[1:06:42] Speaker 1: and going after them when you get the George Pickens,
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: DeVante Smith's after them, even like a Ted Roe McMillan,
[1:06:49] Speaker 1: who has a really interesting upside case as a as
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: a rookie. You know, it's just it's harder to go
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: after some of those players. I do want to ask
[1:06:56] Speaker 1: one more question before I let you go, and it's
[1:06:58] Speaker 1: about coach speak and about sort of what we see
[1:07:01] Speaker 1: with reporting right now and what you hear in the media.
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: I'm curious how you approach you know, what you read
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: this time of year, if you care at all about
[1:07:10] Speaker 1: what you're reading, and how you sort of internalize that
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: and then use it and deploy it during a draft,
[1:07:17] Speaker 1: and how you go about like, for instance, Ja Cory
[1:07:20] Speaker 1: Krosky Marrit getting a ton of buzz right now, just
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: an absurd amount of buzz. Or you know, you're seeing
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: Tory Horton right now getting love out of Seattle these
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: day three rookies where we know, you know, the hit
[1:07:32] Speaker 1: rates are supremely low for these kinds of players, but
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: the hype is certainly there. And then you know, you
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: can talk veterans too, but how much are you internalizing
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: coach speak, like does it matter for your process and
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: how are you actually using that when you're drafting.
[1:07:45] Speaker 3: So one of the things that always jumps out to me,
[1:07:46] Speaker 3: and I'm sure jumps out to you, is the coaches
[1:07:51] Speaker 3: are very poorly calibrated on like how many plays there
[1:07:55] Speaker 3: are and and so you add up how they're supposedly
[1:08:00] Speaker 3: going to use the players, and you're like, you're going
[1:08:02] Speaker 3: to play three games every week. That's that's impressive. Just
[1:08:07] Speaker 3: in some cases will probably push back and be like,
[1:08:10] Speaker 3: you understand that we're just talking to fans and reporters
[1:08:13] Speaker 3: and that we're keeping some of this a little closer
[1:08:17] Speaker 3: to the best. Yeah, but you also have poor calibration
[1:08:21] Speaker 3: from you know, the reporters covering the teams in terms
[1:08:26] Speaker 3: of what's likely to happen based on offseason moves and
[1:08:30] Speaker 3: how good the individual players on the teams they're covering are.
[1:08:33] Speaker 3: And I don't mean that in a nasty way like
[1:08:36] Speaker 3: they don't know what they're talking about, because there are
[1:08:37] Speaker 3: certainly tons of things that they know that I don't know, right,
[1:08:42] Speaker 3: But it does help you, I think, when you're filtering
[1:08:45] Speaker 3: this information that's coming at you to understand the profiles
[1:08:49] Speaker 3: of the players coming out. And I think one of
[1:08:53] Speaker 3: the areas that was kind of a sub point to
[1:08:56] Speaker 3: a sub point in the earlier conversation we were having,
[1:08:58] Speaker 3: which is I don't think that in part because people
[1:09:03] Speaker 3: like you were doing such great prospect research and in
[1:09:06] Speaker 3: part because it takes a lot of time to do
[1:09:10] Speaker 3: everything yourself. I don't think that people have the context
[1:09:14] Speaker 3: for the prospects either, and so it's very easy to
[1:09:17] Speaker 3: grab onto certain specific things that this guy is good
[1:09:22] Speaker 3: and this guy is not because they did a certain
[1:09:24] Speaker 3: thing as opposed to now. I mean, you had a
[1:09:27] Speaker 3: lot of great innovations with your stuff, and I you know,
[1:09:29] Speaker 3: people are always mentioning your guide me, which I think
[1:09:32] Speaker 3: is really cool. But a lot of this stuff is
[1:09:34] Speaker 3: going to be difficult to capture through.
[1:09:39] Speaker 2: Models.
[1:09:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that for people who for someone
[1:09:45] Speaker 3: who's dug into all of the information and then has
[1:09:48] Speaker 3: a very dynamic model, you have both sides of it
[1:09:51] Speaker 3: where you did all of the research and you have
[1:09:53] Speaker 3: the familiarity with the players, and then you have also
[1:09:56] Speaker 3: what the analytics are telling you, and the combination of
[1:09:59] Speaker 3: those things is just so potent. But if you just
[1:10:02] Speaker 3: have some of the key stats, then again it's really
[1:10:08] Speaker 3: tough to understand who players are as prospects. Now. I'm
[1:10:11] Speaker 3: sure certain that there are people who are much much
[1:10:13] Speaker 3: better than I, but going through the prospect of writing
[1:10:17] Speaker 3: our guide each year in the recent past, and then
[1:10:22] Speaker 3: some of the innovations back in the early part of
[1:10:25] Speaker 3: RHOTAZ that guys like John Moore and obviously the fantasy
[1:10:30] Speaker 3: dues did such an amazing job with, I feel like
[1:10:33] Speaker 3: being familiar with prospects is helpful because you have more
[1:10:39] Speaker 3: context for understanding how people are going to move through
[1:10:43] Speaker 3: their early years. I mean, so much of beating fantasy
[1:10:46] Speaker 3: is going to be beating the first year, the second
[1:10:48] Speaker 3: year of the third year, and then trying to resist
[1:10:52] Speaker 3: holding onto guys too long your ability to beat and
[1:10:55] Speaker 3: I just mentioned a bunch of guys who actually in
[1:10:57] Speaker 3: their peak ish time frames and say that you can
[1:10:59] Speaker 3: beat them. Those guys too, But fantasy is mostly about,
[1:11:02] Speaker 3: you know, beating the two edges, right, the young players
[1:11:05] Speaker 3: and the old players. Not getting caught up in that
[1:11:08] Speaker 3: and having more information, digging into it more deeply is
[1:11:11] Speaker 3: very helpful with that, and then you can process the
[1:11:13] Speaker 3: coach speak a little bit better. You mentioned some of
[1:11:16] Speaker 3: the stuff with the Jaguars. One of the things with
[1:11:17] Speaker 3: the Jaguars that's pretty interesting, and Ben says this a
[1:11:21] Speaker 3: lot on steeling bananas. But it's just that in some
[1:11:23] Speaker 3: ways it can be scary when Tank Bigsby is supposedly
[1:11:27] Speaker 3: having this great camp, But it's fantastic for Batial Tutan
[1:11:33] Speaker 3: that that is the guy exactly because the scary person
[1:11:36] Speaker 3: for Tutin would be Etn. Exactly. If Etn were playing
[1:11:40] Speaker 3: well and seemed like he had the starting job, that
[1:11:44] Speaker 3: would be a threat. The weird thing. And I took
[1:11:46] Speaker 3: Etn in death that we were talking about, I believe
[1:11:52] Speaker 3: in part because I was trying to balance some explosion
[1:11:54] Speaker 3: and part because I mean, Etn is one of these
[1:11:56] Speaker 3: guys who was just such a transcendent college player that
[1:11:59] Speaker 3: in the back of my mind and I'm always thinking like,
[1:12:03] Speaker 3: maybe he could do the Saquon Barkley thing where you
[1:12:06] Speaker 3: have a lot of injuries and then you have some
[1:12:08] Speaker 3: bad peripherals. But it turns out that what you are
[1:12:12] Speaker 3: sometime deeper into your career is what you were a
[1:12:15] Speaker 3: long time ago, and you're a superstar. It doesn't seem
[1:12:18] Speaker 3: like we're on that path with Etn And if we're not,
[1:12:22] Speaker 3: then the fact that Bachel Tuton is actually a much
[1:12:24] Speaker 3: better prospect, I think than people realize. Sometimes if you
[1:12:28] Speaker 3: were not trendy going into the combine and then you
[1:12:33] Speaker 3: have a huge combine, people think that you're just that.
[1:12:36] Speaker 3: And then as soon as you have any issues like
[1:12:38] Speaker 3: a fumbling issue or you have a little bit of
[1:12:40] Speaker 3: an injury thing. You know, your coach is saying you
[1:12:42] Speaker 3: need a pass block better, and people are like, oh,
[1:12:44] Speaker 3: he's got all of these problems. It's like, no, the
[1:12:46] Speaker 3: team knew all of those things. They're trying to communicate
[1:12:48] Speaker 3: to him that this is your way to get to
[1:12:51] Speaker 3: be Jamal Charles, not to be like, you know, this
[1:12:54] Speaker 3: is why we're going to put you on the bench
[1:12:55] Speaker 3: for the next two years. They want him to get better.
[1:12:57] Speaker 3: So when that information filters out in the media, you
[1:13:00] Speaker 3: have to understand the context of they're trying to let
[1:13:03] Speaker 3: him know. He's got some funny quotes about okay in
[1:13:07] Speaker 3: college coming to the sideline and his coach being like,
[1:13:10] Speaker 3: you've got to finish these runs, and he's like, coach,
[1:13:13] Speaker 3: they can't catch me, right, and you know, so a
[1:13:18] Speaker 3: certain point and then the coach is like, yeah, he
[1:13:20] Speaker 3: was right, they never caught him. Yeah, the NFL is
[1:13:24] Speaker 3: going to be a little different, and they're gonna be
[1:13:25] Speaker 3: things you need to execute, and certainly you're need to
[1:13:27] Speaker 3: not fumble. But Tutin is better than people realize. He's
[1:13:31] Speaker 3: better than. So it hits on these points where he's
[1:13:34] Speaker 3: better than his draft slot by a ton, and you know,
[1:13:38] Speaker 3: you work through that and you're like, this is a
[1:13:40] Speaker 3: guy where I feel a lot of comfort kind of
[1:13:42] Speaker 3: grabbing him up as he falls, because yeah, maybe this
[1:13:45] Speaker 3: is kind of going in a direction where he's not
[1:13:47] Speaker 3: going to score a lot in weeks one and two,
[1:13:48] Speaker 3: but at the prices now, I don't need the week
[1:13:51] Speaker 3: one and two scoring. He's probably going to score a
[1:13:54] Speaker 3: ton at some point, and this fits perfectly. So the
[1:13:57] Speaker 3: fall is fine. There are gonna be some other play
[1:14:00] Speaker 3: where maybe you have some more questions yourself, or you
[1:14:02] Speaker 3: have questions about what the team thinks, and so some
[1:14:05] Speaker 3: of those things when you're getting some insights either from
[1:14:08] Speaker 3: the coach himself or how practice is being reported, who
[1:14:11] Speaker 3: is filtering in here? I mean one of the things too,
[1:14:14] Speaker 3: with all of these depth chart reveals, and even just
[1:14:17] Speaker 3: like who's playing with the first team in this practice,
[1:14:19] Speaker 3: in this practice, in this practice, it's not so much
[1:14:21] Speaker 3: about necessarily who's playing with the first team or the
[1:14:24] Speaker 3: second team, but if those things come as a surprise,
[1:14:28] Speaker 3: if it's in a point in time, like it's going
[1:14:30] Speaker 3: to be a bigger problem for a veteran that you
[1:14:32] Speaker 3: actually thought was going to score for you right away,
[1:14:34] Speaker 3: then for you know, maybe a Day two rookie where
[1:14:38] Speaker 3: you're like, yeah, I mean I didn't think he was
[1:14:40] Speaker 3: going to be with the first team now, and to
[1:14:42] Speaker 3: a certain time, I don't even want one is priced
[1:14:44] Speaker 3: arise so much that he moves out of the range
[1:14:46] Speaker 3: where I can get him. And so it's going to
[1:14:50] Speaker 3: come down to player by player in these individual situations
[1:14:54] Speaker 3: of really trying to filter what you mentioned with price
[1:14:57] Speaker 3: price being just incredibly important for understanding how much you
[1:15:02] Speaker 3: want a factor and start not factor in, but just
[1:15:04] Speaker 3: what the repercussions are, right. And then also just again
[1:15:08] Speaker 3: this element of you need to know the context. You
[1:15:11] Speaker 3: need to know what you think about the player before
[1:15:13] Speaker 3: you hear all of these reports so that you can
[1:15:15] Speaker 3: balance those things. If you are setting yourself up entirely
[1:15:21] Speaker 3: in terms of what you come down as your evaluation
[1:15:23] Speaker 3: based on what a coach or a reporter is saying,
[1:15:26] Speaker 3: then you don't have the other part of it, which
[1:15:28] Speaker 3: is that context, that belief going in of who this
[1:15:31] Speaker 3: guy is.
[1:15:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. I love that take.
[1:15:34] Speaker 1: I mean I kind of view it too, And I
[1:15:36] Speaker 1: go back to like pukin Nakua when he came out,
[1:15:38] Speaker 1: where I liked him right as a prospect, and I
[1:15:41] Speaker 1: think there are parallels.
[1:15:43] Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that this is the outcome that's going.
[1:15:45] Speaker 1: To happen for Tory Horton at all, right, but there's
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: parallels in the not not even the profile. So I
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: don't want people's brains to go in the wrong direction here,
[1:15:54] Speaker 1: but there are parallels in the idea that you know,
[1:15:56] Speaker 1: I liked Tory Horton more than where he ended up
[1:15:59] Speaker 1: getting draft did, for instance, right, And I liked puokin
[1:16:02] Speaker 1: Akua more than where he ended up getting drafted. And
[1:16:05] Speaker 1: then I hear that they're dominating kid, because there was
[1:16:07] Speaker 1: a drum beat for pokin Akua for like a month
[1:16:09] Speaker 1: and a half if you were you know, like Jordan
[1:16:11] Speaker 1: rod Reege was really on top of it that offseason
[1:16:13] Speaker 1: with both him and Kien Williams, and like Tory Horton
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: right now, there's enough of a drum beat where there's
[1:16:18] Speaker 1: a lot of favorable things coming out of Seattle where
[1:16:21] Speaker 1: I'm like, look my evaluation, I never in a million
[1:16:26] Speaker 1: years expected pookin Akua to be what he is, right,
[1:16:29] Speaker 1: But that doesn't matter. You only have to be a
[1:16:31] Speaker 1: little bit better than your opponents in fantasy football. And
[1:16:34] Speaker 1: all that means is, Okay, I liked Tory Horton more
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: than the consensus. I recognize fully that a Day three
[1:16:41] Speaker 1: wide receiver generally is not going to hit.
[1:16:43] Speaker 2: But when you.
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: Combine these ideas of this player having a favorable profile
[1:16:49] Speaker 1: with the stuff coming out of Seattle, that makes me
[1:16:53] Speaker 1: want at least makes me interested in drafting him right.
[1:16:56] Speaker 1: And then there's the cost element where even like a
[1:17:00] Speaker 1: Corey Krosky merrit right now, who like for my stuff
[1:17:03] Speaker 1: that I look at him, like number one, he didn't
[1:17:05] Speaker 1: even get a combine invite, So that was That's that's
[1:17:08] Speaker 1: one hard thing to deal with whenever you're modeling and
[1:17:11] Speaker 1: looking at things analytically, and there are some per rush
[1:17:14] Speaker 1: stuff that I understand is looks favorable for him, but
[1:17:17] Speaker 1: like there's a lot of red flags too.
[1:17:18] Speaker 2: You know, he's he's a twenty four year old rookie.
[1:17:21] Speaker 1: Like there's there's stuff that's like we're like, okay, like
[1:17:24] Speaker 1: how many of these kinds of players have really hit
[1:17:27] Speaker 1: in the past, and or Kyle Manungai, right, how many
[1:17:30] Speaker 1: of these kinds of players have really hit in the past.
[1:17:33] Speaker 1: And my answer though is I'll care when they have
[1:17:36] Speaker 1: a real opportunity cost to their costs, right, Like even
[1:17:40] Speaker 1: in the Prospect Guide, the later on Prospect Guide this
[1:17:43] Speaker 1: year when I did the Kyle Mnungui right up, because
[1:17:45] Speaker 1: we were all waiting for which running back is going
[1:17:47] Speaker 1: to go to Chicago, Like we were all ready for
[1:17:50] Speaker 1: it to be Trayveon and then tootin and then you know,
[1:17:52] Speaker 1: I'm part of the conspiracy theory that thinks that they
[1:17:54] Speaker 1: did want some of those pockets of running backs, but
[1:17:57] Speaker 1: they just they all went right before they ended up picking.
[1:18:00] Speaker 1: But regardless, however, you you know, we're all excited about
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: the Chicago running back and then they get Kyle Mnung,
[1:18:05] Speaker 1: guy who did not check most of the boxes that
[1:18:09] Speaker 1: I care about for a fantasy football running back. Right
[1:18:12] Speaker 1: But even in the draft guide or the prospect guide,
[1:18:16] Speaker 1: my thinking was, people are gonna buy into this just
[1:18:19] Speaker 1: because of the situation when the player himself, in my opinion,
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: is not really like that special. Maybe he could give
[1:18:26] Speaker 1: you like an RB three type season, but like he's
[1:18:27] Speaker 1: not a truly truly special talent in my opinion based
[1:18:31] Speaker 1: on my analysis. But that didn't really happen from like
[1:18:34] Speaker 1: a rookie draft perspective, and it's not really happening from
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: a best ball or season long perspective. You're still getting
[1:18:41] Speaker 1: him the final rounds of drafts, So why would I care?
[1:18:44] Speaker 1: You know, like, it just doesn't matter if if there's
[1:18:46] Speaker 1: going to be steam, I can buy into that when
[1:18:49] Speaker 1: it just doesn't matter enough the cost would be that
[1:18:52] Speaker 1: you're using a roster spot on that player. Of course, right,
[1:18:55] Speaker 1: I think it's a lot easier to lean into that
[1:18:57] Speaker 1: in a managed league where you're running the way and
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: you're able to drop the guy if you know he
[1:19:02] Speaker 1: doesn't show anything that kind of thing. But at the
[1:19:04] Speaker 1: same time, when the cost is not increasing based on
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: the reports, it's a lot easier to buy into and stuff.
[1:19:09] Speaker 1: The harder part is what we were just talking about
[1:19:12] Speaker 1: with Jacksonville, is when Tank Bigsby, who I mean, for
[1:19:16] Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, is not going to be a
[1:19:19] Speaker 1: supreme pass catcher at the NFL level right like there's.
[1:19:21] Speaker 2: Been now multiple seasons where that's not in the case.
[1:19:23] Speaker 1: He was fine from a volume perspective in college as
[1:19:26] Speaker 1: a pass catcher, but even his peripherals we were pretty
[1:19:28] Speaker 1: average to below average, and we not, you know, we
[1:19:31] Speaker 1: saw him the first two years in the NFL. Chances
[1:19:33] Speaker 1: are that's not going to be his role, and so
[1:19:36] Speaker 1: we know that we will buy into the steam to
[1:19:39] Speaker 1: a certain point, and then the cost gets too high
[1:19:42] Speaker 1: and we say, look, we don't need to We don't
[1:19:44] Speaker 1: need to buy into this right now because we know
[1:19:46] Speaker 1: what what wins and what's what works.
[1:19:48] Speaker 2: At the end of the day in fantasy football.
[1:19:50] Speaker 1: So I love love the answer, and hopefully people are
[1:19:53] Speaker 1: able to take something away from that whole discussion with
[1:19:56] Speaker 1: with coach speak and stuff. I think it's important, Like
[1:19:58] Speaker 1: I don't think it's nothing. I think I think that
[1:20:00] Speaker 1: it's something that we should be internalizing. It's just so easy.
[1:20:06] Speaker 1: You can see it on social media. And I know Sean,
[1:20:09] Speaker 1: for the record, is one of the smart ones who's
[1:20:11] Speaker 1: gotten off of social media. But I see it on
[1:20:13] Speaker 1: social media where people who don't even do prospect evaluation,
[1:20:17] Speaker 1: which is fine, I'm not expecting you to do prospect evaluation,
[1:20:20] Speaker 1: but everything hinges off of the beat reports, Everything hinges
[1:20:25] Speaker 1: off of what you're reading in practice when there's a
[1:20:29] Speaker 1: lot more that goes into that kind of thing.
[1:20:32] Speaker 3: And those are definitely sym of the thing with Jalen Royals,
[1:20:36] Speaker 3: I think is very interesting, and that a lot of
[1:20:38] Speaker 3: people want to throw him to the side because of
[1:20:41] Speaker 3: where he was drafted and because the Day three hits
[1:20:45] Speaker 3: in a similar type of thing with the Tory Horton.
[1:20:47] Speaker 3: And my point is just that the reason that there
[1:20:49] Speaker 3: are very few Day three hits at wide receiver is
[1:20:51] Speaker 3: that teams should not be drafting receivers on Day three
[1:20:54] Speaker 3: in almost any cases because basically everyone who has been
[1:20:58] Speaker 3: drafted on Day three is a non prospect. But if
[1:21:03] Speaker 3: you go and look at the players who would have
[1:21:05] Speaker 3: the prospect profile to be drafted earlier, and it's interesting
[1:21:08] Speaker 3: in terms of some of these guys being small school
[1:21:10] Speaker 3: guys as well, where you have guys who maybe had
[1:21:14] Speaker 3: the prospect profile and you know that it's less clear
[1:21:17] Speaker 3: if they played at a lower level, but the hit rate,
[1:21:22] Speaker 3: while still not like glowing, it's just very different if
[1:21:25] Speaker 3: you pull out only the players who were good in college. Yeah, yeah, right,
[1:21:29] Speaker 3: And so that part is interesting, And I mean Tory Horton,
[1:21:31] Speaker 3: it's always cracks me up. Like Jaden Blue, My understanding is,
[1:21:35] Speaker 3: you know, rerunning the forty even though he crushed the
[1:21:38] Speaker 3: combine because he's like, I'm a little bit faster. I
[1:21:40] Speaker 3: can show you I'm even faster. Yeah, yeah, And Tory
[1:21:42] Speaker 3: Horton is like, I'm a fantastic athlete, but you need
[1:21:44] Speaker 3: to know that I was like seventy five percent during
[1:21:46] Speaker 3: all that stuff. Right, Tory Horton thinks he's a superstar. Y.
[1:21:50] Speaker 3: I mean it is kind of helpful for that guy, yeah,
[1:21:53] Speaker 3: to also think he's good. It's probably mostly relevant for
[1:21:57] Speaker 3: Cooper Cup, right, which is another somewhat weird wide receiver price.
[1:22:01] Speaker 3: I mean, even if you're saying that these guys aren't
[1:22:03] Speaker 3: going to use the same way, it's still relevant for
[1:22:05] Speaker 3: the guy who is a declining player.
[1:22:08] Speaker 2: I mean there's one hundred percent target share pie, right.
[1:22:10] Speaker 1: I mean, like that's if it declines because another guy's good,
[1:22:14] Speaker 1: then that's going to hurt the player that it would
[1:22:15] Speaker 1: be declining for. Yeah, the Tory Horton thinks crazy too,
[1:22:18] Speaker 1: because he was hurt last year. I think it was
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: a foot injury, right, and he like no one really
[1:22:24] Speaker 1: expected him to do anything at the combine and then
[1:22:26] Speaker 1: he did and he tested well, and he still thinks
[1:22:30] Speaker 1: he can tell like there's still more there potentially, which
[1:22:33] Speaker 1: is why of all the sort of like player and
[1:22:35] Speaker 1: Jalen Royals is really interesting. I agree, because one of
[1:22:38] Speaker 1: his top comps and my prospect model was where she rice,
[1:22:40] Speaker 1: and so to see that connection makes it more obvious
[1:22:44] Speaker 1: to be like, yeah, let's throw that dart. But with
[1:22:47] Speaker 1: Tory Horton, like of all the Day three players, he's
[1:22:51] Speaker 1: probably the one where it's like, Okay, there's this injury
[1:22:54] Speaker 1: and he didn't get any production.
[1:22:55] Speaker 2: His final years.
[1:22:56] Speaker 1: So from a modeling standpoint, it's not really counting that
[1:22:58] Speaker 1: final season. It's only hurting him because the season was
[1:23:01] Speaker 1: kind of a wash. And so of all these wide receivers,
[1:23:04] Speaker 1: Like really, and I know that this seems like it's
[1:23:06] Speaker 1: in hindsight, but like, I'm not overly shocked that it
[1:23:09] Speaker 1: would be, like, this is the dude who's getting, you know,
[1:23:11] Speaker 1: the most love out of camp right now. So definitely
[1:23:14] Speaker 1: a name that I think folks should be at least
[1:23:17] Speaker 1: paying attention to. Maybe a waiver wire guy, you know,
[1:23:19] Speaker 1: most home leagues you don't need a draft Tory Horton
[1:23:21] Speaker 1: more than likely, but definitely pay attention to it. But Sean,
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: I appreciate the time. This is such an awesome conversation.
[1:23:27] Speaker 1: I always love sitting down and chopping it up with you.
[1:23:30] Speaker 1: Let every know what you're working on where they can
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: find you, because you guys are doing some awesome stuff
[1:23:34] Speaker 1: right now.
[1:23:34] Speaker 3: Yeah. So I have lots of different deep divish articles
[1:23:38] Speaker 3: coming out trying to provide some of this context and
[1:23:41] Speaker 3: look at players from a variety of different perspectives. You know,
[1:23:46] Speaker 3: a layer upon layer upon layer. For the guys had
[1:23:48] Speaker 3: a big King the City Chiefs piece. Obviously they are
[1:23:52] Speaker 3: pretty controversial or interesting for a team that's been in
[1:23:54] Speaker 3: so many Super Bowls that so many things could happen
[1:23:57] Speaker 3: with them. Jas En somebody who talked about a little
[1:23:59] Speaker 3: bit today. Kevin's doing great stuff over there for us.
[1:24:02] Speaker 3: Everyone knows Blair having a lot of fun on seeing Banas.
[1:24:06] Speaker 3: Thanks for mentioning that. And then Colin Kelly and I.
[1:24:08] Speaker 3: Colin's doing his own show. It's been fantastic. And then
[1:24:12] Speaker 3: we have Rodavis over time together. Yeah, we'd love to
[1:24:15] Speaker 3: have you guys over Rodaviz.
[1:24:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely check them out.
[1:24:18] Speaker 1: And look, I have to shout out too that Rodoviz
[1:24:22] Speaker 1: is a legitimate og from a like I started prospecting
[1:24:27] Speaker 1: probably twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and it doesn't happen without
[1:24:31] Speaker 1: the work that Rodoviz did originally with a lot of
[1:24:34] Speaker 1: this stuff, and it needs to be shouted out, and
[1:24:36] Speaker 1: I try to give, you know, love to that. I
[1:24:38] Speaker 1: think even in the prospect Guy, whenever I talk about
[1:24:40] Speaker 1: the modeling and like understanding what metrics work and what,
[1:24:43] Speaker 1: don't you know, I think that the baseline, if you will,
[1:24:45] Speaker 1: it's sort of like with Joe Bryant and value based drafting,
[1:24:48] Speaker 1: where you know it's it's a VORP strategy that everyone
[1:24:52] Speaker 1: kind of has built off of. In a way, I
[1:24:54] Speaker 1: feel similarly about Rodoviz and all the work that you
[1:24:57] Speaker 1: guys have done with prospects and the data that you
[1:25:00] Speaker 1: and covered so far before it became more mainstream than
[1:25:03] Speaker 1: it is now, So shouts to rotovi Is. Definitely check
[1:25:06] Speaker 1: them out. You guys can find all my stuff over
[1:25:08] Speaker 1: on lateround dot com. Make sure you're ordering that draft guide.
[1:25:12] Speaker 1: A lot of game theory stuff in it, a lot
[1:25:13] Speaker 1: of stuff that you know we talked about on today's show,
[1:25:16] Speaker 1: and then obviously the players to target avoid dart throws
[1:25:19] Speaker 1: and rankings will update each week.
[1:25:21] Speaker 2: Make sure you're stro out of the podcast.
[1:25:23] Speaker 1: You can check this out on YouTube as well, YouTube
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: dot com slash at Late round FF. But otherwise, everyone
[1:25:29] Speaker 1: have a great weekend and thanks for tuning in.

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