The Show: Preparing for the Combine, Year 2 Running Back Comps, and More

00:00:00
Speaker 1: You're about to listen to the Late Round Fantasy Football show, which originally aired on YouTube. If you'd like to catch the show live this offseason, you can head to the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel YouTube dot com. Slash at Late Round FF will be live each Wednesday at noon Eastern without further ado, here's this week's.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Episode, Welcome In. Welcome in David Kitchen alongside JJ. Zacharieson JJ, as you know, is the CEO of the company. Some that say that I'm the COO of the company. We're just going to guide you through some running back stuff this episode. JJ.

00:00:49
Speaker 1: I'm already like I'm scared for what's to come, because someone in chat right now says, lucky for me, year one and year two running backs is Mike Kink. That's that's where the direction. Not only that, it looks like you, at least in the intrroan, it's gotten a little bit lighter.

00:01:05
Speaker 2: But it looks like I raised the.

00:01:09
Speaker 1: You look like you're about to be in like a you know that like thunderstorm setting where like, yeah, look it's got a little bit brighter there, like I can the storm is and like the house gets darker, but it's mid afternoon. That's kind of what the vibe is and right now just it just it feels like that going on in Tennessee.

00:01:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's it's definitely it's like that Seattle weather right now where it's just misty rain, but it's dark.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: That's not coming from me tomorrow. I'm trying to I'm trying to have a good birthday tomorrow with the sun.

00:01:40
Speaker 2: You know, JJ, is it your birthday tomorrow?

00:01:44
Speaker 1: It is my birthday tomorrow.

00:01:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, yeah, wow forty.

00:01:50
Speaker 1: The big Yeah. Yeah, not quite, buddy, not quite. You know when this goes out, it will be going out on in the podcast feed. Yeah, on the birthday. Yes, tomorrow, February nineteenth is my birthday.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: You've got one year, buddy, Now you got one year.

00:02:05
Speaker 1: I got too.

00:02:06
Speaker 2: I thought you'll be thirty nine.

00:02:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be thirty eight.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, why am I trying to aid you? Yeah?

00:02:12
Speaker 1: Let me be okay, this is still upper thirties. Thirty seven was a very uneventful birth year in terms of just like feeling older. Thirty eight's exact same way. It's like you're not quite thirty nine. Then you start to feel a little more like oh my gosh, it's coming. And then obviously you know forty hits.

00:02:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked to someone who had just turned forty and it was like, this is the same way I felt, just like that was the only time I've felt like old.

00:02:36
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, though, I don't feel like to be fair, you know, you're the way that you view ages you get older, just changes and shifts all the time, right Like you ask anyone who's four years old and you say I'm thirty eight, and they say, you're really really old, right, like talk to any kids. But I genuinely feel probably better right now at thirty eight than I did at twenty eight. Yeah, it's probably the lack of gluten probably is right. Not as many not as many beers in my in my system these days, or the Greek yogurt I am, But yes, I have to throw that out there, especially for anyone who listens to living the stream. I've been dairy free for five years, and I decided that I was going to venture into dairy a little bit, and I've been doing because Greek yogurt macros are just insane, and so I've been I've been eating Greek yogurt It's made me feel great. I felt I've loved it so far, hasn't ruined my stomach, you know, I healed the gut, feel great. I'm just feeling I'm feeling optimal right now. Going into into year thirty eight. Man, it's uh.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: You know you're getting ready for your combine. You're you know you're forty.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: Well, my, my, my, yeah, I see what you did there. My My combine is how many nights can I write these prospect profiles? Yea in a row without you know, just getting overwhelmed by what's going on.

00:03:56
Speaker 2: Speaking of Prospect profiles, we do have the Prospect Guide out for pre sale pre order. So if if you want to save yourself a few dollars and you want to just go ahead and sign up for the Prospect Guide headlightround dot com. And then as soon as that puppy is launched, you get an email.

00:04:18
Speaker 1: Yeah you will. And in early April, I'm taking a week off, I'm going on a spring break VK with the fan.

00:04:24
Speaker 2: There you go, and so you will get an email and then every update that is out you will get an email with the link to the guide. And this year it's bigger, better than ever we've got tight end prospect profiles that we haven't had before and JJ this we'll talk about in a second. But this class is definitely an interesting one when it just comes to especially as it compares to last year and then I guess the year before that as well, just like snip snap, snip snap.

00:05:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we got we definitely have. It's a decent wide receiver class. Me looking into it, like at a high like I've been really dug into running backs this week for the show and then the profiles that I'm writing and stuff wide receiver. I mean, I think Jordan Tyson's a stud. I think he's he's potentially like insanely good. I mean, there's gonna be a lot of cool data on that, whether next week or in the Prospect Guide. But there's other like Cardinal Tate's really really good, you know, Lemon's really really good. So so we have like players at the top at wide receiver. I haven't dug into the depth enough to say, like how good or bad the classes as a whole. It seems okay running back class or sorry, sorry I should say the wide receiver class seems good. Yeah, that class, it's better than twenty twenty four. We'll say that twenty twenty four was a was a rough one where we just didn't get anyone really of substance from that class. But you know, Bucky Irving was was essentially the best one. I mean, we didn't get much more aside from that. You know, Jonathan Brooks came out and wasn't able to do anything yet yet yet. Yeah, but I don't mind this running back class, I think as much as some others do. I think that there's some really interesting players and profiles. You know, I talked about that on the show earlier this week, and I think that the Zap model, you know, there's probably like three guys who I could see being Day two picks hypothetically, you know, with Jeremiah Love then being a you know, top ten, top fifteen pick.

00:06:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty running back twenty one technically twenty running backs invited and then some omissions like I'm just like, if you why why are you going to admit a guy that played for a national championship team just invite him?

00:06:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know enough about college football to know who should have gone that didn't go, but uh, it is a small I mean I'm grateful for it because it's fewer profiles, right, but it is a smaller class intern I think last year we had I don't remember if it was twenty seven or over thirty, because it was a good class too, but we had more running backs at the combine last year. And then it's funny because this is the first year we're doing the tight end profiles and we get I think we mentioned this on the show last week, but we have the most tight ends of the combine. I think Brandon ran it and it's like since two thousand and four or something like that, So that'll be fun.

00:07:20
Speaker 2: Surprise, surprise, Tyler said. Some might say it's the best rookie guide on the market. Thanks buddy, And he said, I can't wait for the Year two scores and breakdowns. Insanely useful for early drafting and north Star all draft and offseason.

00:07:35
Speaker 1: We'll be talking some year two stuff here in a second.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: Yes we will. All right with that being said, JJ, let's get into today's.

00:07:43
Speaker 1: News, today's fantasy news.

00:07:49
Speaker 2: All right, not a ton of stuff to talk about. This is like the slow season where you just have stuff trickling in. You've got lots of opinions out there lots of you know, under like what teams might be saying. You don't know if they're saying it, if their agents are saying it, but we do need to you know how people send like to save the date info out there. We need to save the day because we have some important dates coming up twenty seventh and twenty eighth of February.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: You know what that is, JJ probably combine related.

00:08:22
Speaker 2: That's combine related. Yes, if you look up Brandon Godoula, our senior analysts found this for us. So this is the combine schedule. And you can see tight ends start first as far as fantasy positions go on Friday and they do the measurements and then the on field workout. It's Saturday, the do bench press and then it's a day later for the quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs. So by March first JJ, we will know hand sizes.

00:08:58
Speaker 1: I mean by for the guys that matter. By the end of February, well know, Saturday is the day I mean the the the bench press stuff, you know, the day I like the NFL knows what it's doing. Shockingly, yeah, you know where I remember running backs and like watching TV during the work week watch running backs and wide receivers, you know, run the forty and being able to like live tweet it and stuff. But now it's happening on Saturdays, where you know, it's more of a loose family time, et cetera situation. Now I will be glued to the TV because you know, it's my job. But yeah, you know, and I also want to be like getting these numbers in so I can work on the guide and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, the NFL knows that people care most about running backs, wide receivers and quarterbacks, and that's why they put it on Saturday, because then they know that people will sit down, get a drink, hang out all day and just watch these dudes run in.

00:09:56
Speaker 2: Shorts shorts, and then it just depend on the position, like questionable tops you.

00:10:04
Speaker 1: Know sometimes yeah, sometimes sometimes no tops.

00:10:07
Speaker 2: Sometimes they're topless. Yeah, uh, free March ninth, it's free think the unofficial date. March eleventh is the official date for free agency. So you know, we've got a lot of stuff that's going to be happening. You've got the Combine, then free agency. Then shortly after that we got the release of the Prospect Guide.

00:10:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be a fun, a fun couple of weeks. For me. From a content.

00:10:35
Speaker 2: Perspective, it's madness in March.

00:10:38
Speaker 1: It is. It is madness in March. But after that that Prospect Guides out. Then it becomes just so you guys can see sort of the behind the scenes stuff. It becomes a lot of long form conversations for me on shows, whether it's my show, other people shows, trying to promote the guide a little bit, get it out there, take a like the crazy thing is that post launch of the draft of the Prospect Guide until the NFL Draft is one of the deadest times of year from a from a work perspective for me and for I mean for you indirectly, but for me it's it's there's little to do compared to other times of year. So I like to take that time to be able to relax a little bit, recharge a little bit, because once you know, once the draft is over, there's a little bit of a break in May, but we're right in the Draft Guide. You know, that's that's a month and a half of Draft Guide work right after that. So I am very excited about the combine and free agency and doing all that content but I know that once March sixteen ish hits, I'll be ready to you know, hang out for a second in place in Rocket League.

00:11:42
Speaker 2: There you go. So that's that will be an interesting time as far as free agency goes. And let's just start with the big news this week is that Tyreek Hill he's going to be a free agent. JJ.

00:11:58
Speaker 1: Do you have this highlighted in red and white?

00:12:00
Speaker 2: Maybe? Chiefs maybe?

00:12:02
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I think that obviously Tyreek Hill has had an amazing career. I think at this point, you know, he's well past the AJPEX. He you know, obviously has had some some I don't want to just like put him in his bucket per se, because there's nothing like going on right now, I don't think. But you know, he's had some off the field stuff, and he had a devastating injury last year. Yeah, and his game is focused on his speed, right, and so you have to question what that really looks like. He also, famously, I remember a few years ago, said that like I think it was twenty twenty five was gonna be his last year. Do you remember that, where like he'd said that he was going to retire at this point and it was a big deal in the fund in dynasty circles and whatnot. And so I'm at the point where I just don't, you know, I'm not if I'm a team, I'm not like jumping for JOYD signed Tyreek Hill and to get Tyreek Hill. We'll see what happens. You know, he could prove me wrong, but I think logically it's probably over for Tyreek Hill. And what a career he had. I mean, he was one of the most electric players we've ever watched.

00:13:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's not bury him just yet? I mean, let's see.

00:13:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm saying though, I'm saying there's a non zero chance of that he has just done, you know, like that's that's part of the range of outcomes here.

00:13:25
Speaker 2: But I someone mentioned the number of I'd be pretty.

00:13:28
Speaker 1: Surprised if number one, you know, he has like a top ten round ADP. But number two, if he's someone that is gonna be super fantasy, reliable and relevant. In twenty twenty.

00:13:40
Speaker 2: Six, someone mentioned the number of kids that he has and that like he he just can't retire.

00:13:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's gotta gotta keep working.

00:13:51
Speaker 2: For him, got to keep working. I put him in Titans Blue though, as well as Mike Evans, who's going to explore free agency as well, because.

00:14:00
Speaker 1: Seeing seeing Mike Evans in a you know, non Tampa Bay.

00:14:05
Speaker 2: But this is what happens to Titans receivers. You look at like Randy Moss, Julio Jones, Andre Johnson, Andre Johnson, DeAndre Hopkins. It's just like even the running backs like Adrian Peterson. I think they were his last team, So, uh, Peter was gonna do like a lot.

00:14:25
Speaker 1: He bounced around a little bit towards the end of his career. Did he play for Tennessee, Yes, I don't even remember. Yeah, I mean, look, Evans, I didn't think really looked that bad last year. I'm pulling up his data right now. And in twenty twenty five, you know, he did see a dip in yards parou run as one point six to two, which was actually the lowest of his career. But if you look at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense as a whole, there were a lot of issues with that where some of those yards prout run rates really severely dipped, you know, down the stretch last year, and there were instances where you know that was happening and coinciding with Mike Evans being healthier. But look, they have a lot of good wide receiver talent in Tampa Bay. I think that they can easily get away with a Mecca Bouka, Jalen McMillan and Chris Godwin as a trio and Tess Johnson, you know, who had a pretty surprising rookie season as like a viable depth piece. And so yeah, I mean, like I thought Mike Evans looked okay last year, maybe not to you know, he wasn't peak Mike Evans. The data definitely shows that there's a drop off that's that's happening. But look, I mean it was a year twelve for him, so like this should be expected. Uh, it's just gonna be really hard to see him playing for somebody else if that ends up, you know, happening in the end.

00:15:46
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna read you a post that I found on Instagram.

00:15:51
Speaker 1: Okay, this is this would be good.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: Every chapter in life has taught me something. This one taught me leadership, resilience, and mostly attitude. The love I have for this game is unexplainable. And right now this offseason, for the first time ever, the Cheetah is all the way turned up and locked in period. So period, the Cheetah don't slow down period ever. Period. So to everyone wondering what's next, dot dot dot, just wait on it. The Cheetah will be back period born again.

00:16:25
Speaker 1: All right, I'm buying. I'm in.

00:16:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, top ten ADP.

00:16:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, tyree, late round Darthrow, let's go, Yeah, let's go. I mean, look, if he has a twelfth round ADP, I don't care, like you can draft him. I'll probably draft him whatever. Maybe not in best ball because you know, you got to get some some production and there's the risk of him like not doing much at all. But yeah, I mean that's that's motivating that he's gonna play.

00:16:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's and turned up and locked in for the first time ever. He was just playing around all those years before. Yeah, Okay, there is a report that Kenneth Walker they're gonna let.

00:17:03
Speaker 1: Him walk a little surprising because of the Charbonnat injury at the end of last year. I thought, because of that, like I thought, this is a possible, very real possibility if Sharbonay were healthy. Because Sharbona is fine. He can carry a big workload. He's not a bad back. Is he a game breaking back? No, probably not. Can he work in tandem very well? Yes, if they let Kenneth Walker walk, which they I should clarify, they're not going to.

00:17:30
Speaker 2: Reports are that they're not going to franchise Tim right now.

00:17:32
Speaker 1: I still think that they. I still think that he might get a contract with them. We often see that kind of thing happening, and it's a but like it's a competitive free agent poll, right, And so what that means is is that you know, he would be the best free agent running back, but like teams are not necessarily gonna line up as much because they might feel like they have a backup play. With that being said, I don't think the running back class is unbelievably deep. And so one guy working this is this is the player we're going to see tied to Seattle throughout the draft process. Is generium price out of out of Notre Dame because he is a you know, if you squint, not analytically as much, but if you squint, you can see Kenneth Walker in his game. He's he's got a lot of burst, unbelieva like just great speed, big playability.

00:18:19
Speaker 2: You know.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: The ZAP model is teammate scores basically doing a lot of the work for Price in the ZAP model because Jeremiah Love played ahead of him throughout his collegiate career. But like we've never really and and you know, Kenneth Walker had volume concerns as a receiver entering the league. It wasn't the fact that he couldn't do it. You know, We've talked about this plenty of times. It's the idea that he wouldn't necessarily be deployed super, super heavily as a receiver. Generium Price is kind of in the same bucket. I mean, he's definitely in the bucket of we just had to forecast a lot because he had a sub three percent best season reception share. His receiving yards per team pass atten number is really weak, Like he's not he and even film grinders will say that they question his like true three down ability, but early down stuff. And if they keep this system in Seattle year over year to a degree, the early down stuff and the big play the home run ability is definitely there for Price. People love Price. I'm probably just gonna land more in the middle and just kind of let draft capital and landing spot take the wheel here because his analytical profile is so unique, but I we're gonna see that name. If not we, I mean, I'm sure people have already seen it tied to Seattle because he does work really well in tandem with a guy like Sharpen Nay.

00:19:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, And speaking of franchise tags, yesterday was the first day through March third that teams can franchise tag their players. So these would be the fantasy relevant players. Pickens obviously with Dallas, Kyle Pitts with Atlanta could be franchise tag We talked about Kenneth Walker, and then Indianapolis has an interesting yeah, because they've got Daniel Jones and Alec Pierce.

00:20:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've seen some reports that they're going to try to keep Pierce and maybe do something else with the other wide receivers there. We'll see.

00:20:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then you know t's and p's for Breese Hall, who expect to be so gross, just.

00:20:23
Speaker 1: One of the best running back talents we've seen, you know, in the last ten years, and he's just franchise tagged dying in New York.

00:20:31
Speaker 2: By the worst franchise. Yes, one of the worst franchises, not the worst. For I don't want to find like rich our buddy rich.

00:20:39
Speaker 1: Ryan, how would you put below the Jets at this point.

00:20:41
Speaker 2: The Browns are like, you know, they're I.

00:20:43
Speaker 1: Mean, the Browns are probably down there, like it's probably that, you know, like you could maybe say the Raiders, but there's at least like, yeah, the Raiders have hope. Yeah. Right, there's some like fun vibes around that with Cleveland, and I mean Cleveland has some pieces, but the Jets. The Jets are the reason why I I fear that I think that Aaron Glenn is just not good at being a head coach. And so you know, prove me wrong.

00:21:06
Speaker 2: Buddy, old Aaron Glenn. All right, as far as the coaching tree, we have it all filled out right now. And I think I counted twenty new offensive coordinators.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: Some of them I don't even know much about, like Angelico or whatever. We I'll eventually get his name right or or yeah, like there's a lot of guys that I need to study up. Still, I'm just not I'm frankly and transparently, I'm just not gonna be able to get to a lot of the stuff until the prospect guid's done.

00:21:37
Speaker 2: And some of it, like Janako, he was the quarterback coach for the Seahawks, so he moved over with Kubiak. Kubiak is still the main offensive mine there. Brian Fleury is the title was the tight ends coach for the forty nine ers, so he moved over to the offensive coordinator for the Seahawks. But there's just a lot of changes, man in the NFL.

00:22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know Andrew Janako, I think that's how you pronounce it.

00:22:05
Speaker 2: He played for Pitt, who hasn't played for Pitt, his.

00:22:10
Speaker 1: Quarterback for pet I just can't I just can't remember like that was. That was when I was in school. Literally, I just can't remember the pronunciation for a lot of these.

00:22:18
Speaker 2: You like saw him walking on campus.

00:22:20
Speaker 1: I mean I wouldn't say I would be able to spot him, you know.

00:22:26
Speaker 2: Jake Kwon said, as a Cardinals fan, the only other fan bases I feel worse for are the Jets and the Browns, And then Spider said, thanks, Jake quin is a Browns fan. We feel pretty bad about ourselves too.

00:22:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, the the Cardinals are another good call out.

00:22:42
Speaker 2: Though.

00:22:42
Speaker 1: The Cardinals are pretty like they have fun players, like with McBride and Marvin Harrison junior, you know, Michael Wilson of the breakout. So there's like from like a fantasy perspective. There's some there's some juice and some fun to it. And obviously Kyler, you know, uh, and I still think I still think Kyler's under underrated. But well, we'll save that for another day. Wow, yeah, we'll save that for another.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a spy. It's a little spicy take. And we have to uh, we have to get on to more of the running Backs JJ.

00:23:10
Speaker 1: Today's data all right, yeah, uh, this is just an extension from the show that you guys hopefully listened to that dropped on Tuesday, of the running Backs who produced like studs in college. Now the I've gotten questions about this. Actually I got one on Patreon this week for the mailbag. Then I'm not going to get to on the mail bag, but I did talk about it on Patreon with the person who asked it.

00:23:39
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:23:40
Speaker 1: They were asking about you know, last year, I changed the model up a lot at Running Back to only feature receiving metrics, and they're like, you know, how do you think it went, and blah blah blah blah blah. I think it was fine and good. I still am very very hopefully I was clear on the show and I still strongly believe that things like draft capital are capturing rushing production pretty well already. And if draft capital is in the model, you know, my whole philosophy with this modeling stuff is that I'm trying to find when we should deviate from draft capital. And one way of doing that is to think about what are the things that draft capital and teams aren't necessarily valuing as much from a fantasy perspective. And they might not be valuing receiving enough in general, but receiving matters in fantasy because of PPR formats and such, right, So it's also a way to just differentiate one running back from another. Now that being said, I did add more of a safeguard metric this year in adjusted yards per team pass attempt a right, sorry, adjusted yards per team play. This just takes total yards divides it by plays. If you guys listen to that episode you heard all of that, there's some predictiveness to it because this is adjusting for age, so the age in which these players hit this mark. It's like a multiplier. And then there's another multiplier that looks at program strength, right, and that's based on strength of schedule from College Football Reference and so you know, if a guy has a two point one total yards per team play rate, but he did it at nineteen years old and then he played at Alabama, who would likely have a strong strength of schedule, that two point one might look more like two point four in this metric. Right, So what I have here is the top season for each running back that's going to the Combine this year, and Emmitt Johnson is the one who ranks top at two point five to four in total yards per team play, which is why the model likes him and why I talked about him having a pretty complete production profile overall, because again this is looking at receiving stuff. Now, yards per team play is obviously total yards, so you're looking at rushing and receiving, but receiving can still play a decent role within this metric. So Jeremiah Love Number two, Desmond Reid does reed pit small pick guy. He's more of a scat back, you know, like a like a change of pace like Gadget. I'm not highlighting him because the other guys who are highlighted or are guys who have interesting projected draft capital. Gotcha, Dez read You know, every once in a while you're gonna get players who look good from a production standpoint, but won't have the draft capital associated because of other reasons. You know. With des Reed, it's it's the fact that he's a pretty small back. He's like a gadget, you know, Dimitric Felton type player, and so you know, you can't you know, I don't want to say that he's like the third best with it because it's it's you know, skewed with his side. Remember, I remember Donnel Pumphrey out of San Diego State is just off the top of my head, who's a really small running back but had like a two thousand yard season.

00:26:39
Speaker 2: Right.

00:26:39
Speaker 1: But what the model does is it recognizes, oh, you're small. Oh your draft capital isn't good. Okay, you're probably not going to be that strong of a running back, but if you if you look. The reason I highlighted this is because most of the guys who are good within this metric are also projected to have the better draft capital within this class in general. The guys who are kind of interesting on the other side of this list, or Seth mcgallan and Adam Randall, I don't think either of those guys are gonna be close to day two picks. You know, I actually wrote both of them up already in the Prospect Guide. Uh, and so I'm you know, I'm only highlighting them because of the other guys. You know, they're they're kind of getting some love from people, whether within the fantasy space or within the the the prospect and space in general. You know, I did demon Claiborne.

00:27:26
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:27:27
Speaker 1: You know, he's kind of in the middle here. He's kind of like a quick, fast, high acceleration receiving back that is maybe a little undersize. I'm very interested to see where he lands at the combine from a size perspective. But look, Jodah Coleman, who looks good analytically. Nick Singleton, who the the Prospect model, really likes Nick Singleton. I mean k Tron Allen, who's his teammate in college, was more of that thunder to Nick Singleton being the lightning. And yes, there is a little bit of a bias in my opinion with model and with my own evaluation of kind of going after the lightning in those kind of situations because they're more dynamic, you get big plays, and that's what matters and fantasy football oftentimes. But Nick Singleton broke his foot at the Senior Bowl. He was a Penn State guy. If you guys watched any Penn State football, you saw Nick Singleton with like highlight plays over the last four years. But Singleton broke his foot at the Senior Bowl, and so I'm curious to see what his draft capital is now going to look like because of that. But on paper, like if you were to run the forty, and he had some projected forty times for Nick Singleton were like absurd. I'm talking like low four fours, even breaking four four in some places, and he's like not small, and so that combination would have given him a crazy speed score. And he also has a really good receiving profile because he was the lightning to that backfield, so he was getting more of those looks through the air. K Tron Allen is more like I don't know, Damien Harris if you will, or something like that. You know more of that like stable, early down kind of back And so Singleton's a really really interesting prospect to me. I think there might be some value to be had as long as that foot's okay. But like I said, overall, I think this class is not that bad. And if you look at their are justice yards per team play numbers, which again that you don't have that much context for what these numbers mean, right, But you know, overall it's not these numbers aren't that bad for the entirety of the class.

00:29:24
Speaker 2: Jim Miller is an interesting one because he's not a small guy. Dude is Beefy, the running back from Alabama, and he was hurt a lot of his senior year.

00:29:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't. I haven't written his profile yet, so I don't want to, you know, comment on how where I stand with him, but I would imagine, you know, if he's as low as he is. You know, Jenerium Price, I didn't highlight here because I've talked about him enough. Yeah, split a backfield like you're not gonna see great production from him. But one of the very interesting things I will say this with Jenerium Price, one of the really interesting things with running backs who have you know, good teammates is that if they do get Day two capital, and they had good teammates, whether going in Day two or day one. Now if they will go day if they go on round one, then they're gonna get an even bigger boost, which I don't even know if we have an example of that where we had a Day two back with a Day one teammate that same year. Now, what we did have was Dereck Henry in you know, however many years ago, having teammates going in the draft like before and after him, you know, because Alabama was just churning out all of these running backs around that time, right where you were just seeing you know, mark ingram and seeing like really good running backs coming out over you know, year in and year out. And so Henry actually in teammates score got a boost in the model, and that was after kind of messing with teammates score a little bit more, you know, this this offseason. So Henry got a little bit of a boost. But there there aren't many players. What I'm getting at is there aren't many Day two running backs who have unbelievable teammate scores in general. But the ones who do and had sort of like compressed production profiles as a result of that, they're not like horrific players. And it's there. It's not a bad group for Jenerium Price to be. Part of the difference is that, like Derrick, Henry didn't do much through the air, but he got a lot done on the ground, so his totally ars per team play was great. Right, And Deontay Foreman is another one in this and who who had a really low he didn't have. I don't think his teammates scorer was out of control, but he was one of those guys who had a really low reception share. But he was prolific on the ground, so he was able to do a lot in the total arts per team play, which is why I think that metric being back in the model is helpful for the balance of those kinds of archetypes.

00:31:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was looking up if I could see a day two, day one versus Day two pick.

00:31:56
Speaker 1: The most recent example of what Jenerarium Price kind of is is Rochean Johnson right with with Bijon with them being in the same class. But Roean Johnson wasn't looked at this. He's a Day three pick. You know, this isn't the same thing. I like, Price has traits that Rochean Johnson did not have, and so he's likely going to see way better draft capital. And that's where the difference from a modeling perspective exists. Now, from a zapp score standpoint, I can tell you confidently that with the updated teammate score and the way that I've kind of like looked at this and takeing U step because teammate score I'm gonna be talking about on the mailbag this week. Yeah, it's a really tough metric to nail down and figure like it's it's really you know, there's some subjectivity to it. It's just difficult. But with the teammate score, generium price is is kind of bucketed with EMMTT Johnson and Joonah Coleman in the in the model at this point, so those are kind of like the to me, those are like the consideration set for the RB two in this class behind jereedmile Love.

00:32:58
Speaker 2: It's funny because we just got an email four minutes ago from someone and the title is Notre Dame twenty twenty six running Backs versus Ohio State twenty twenty five running Backs.

00:33:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's long.

00:33:10
Speaker 2: It's a pretty long email a listener that's trying to from someone who's a data analyst. Yeah.

00:33:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I mean, like I again, traveon Quinn Chun Judkins got boosted in the model for teammate score. That the problem with teammate score again, I'm gonna be talking about this on the mailbag in more detail. The problem with teammate score is that's very difficult to project future like underclassmen. For instance, Carnel Tait right playing at Ohio State. You're not getting Jeremiah Smith in the teammate score because we don't know where he's going to be. Now we can sit here and say, oh, we know he's going to be a stud, right, but we do kind of know that though, yeah, right, but you can you can make that, you can you can do that more subjectively in the profile right up in stead as opposed to changing the entirety of a model with you know, hundreds of wide receivers, because at some point you're gonna say, okay, am I now evaluating next year's class and saying this guy's good, this guy's not. There's just a lot that would go into that and a lot of problems you know, that can arise from doing that. And so that is the downside of teammate score. Now, the way the teammate score is factored right now, it gets signal I know that it's predicted like it helps the model. It's not like standalone predictive, but it does help the model, and so if it helps the model, i'm gonna I'm gonna use it. But it's not perfect. It's a far from perfect metric.

00:34:38
Speaker 2: Just ball with Jay, say what's up, guys, And I just want to say what's up Jamie. If you're not familiar, go follow just Ballin' with Jade no I in there. Just if you're listening on audio. It's just ball the letter in with Jay. He's got some awesome artwork. We met him at the Expo last year. I got the artwork I'm in right, Yeah, I know I do too. On this leapt I got the King Henry and I bought a shirt with that.

00:35:04
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is the three guys that I that I bought the stickers that I bought were Devon Chan, Chrysal. This is the beginning of the season. This is in August, right, Devon Chan, Travis Hunter, and Chris Lave. I drafted all three of them in my home league, and then I won my home league. So I'm buying more stickers this year, is what I'm saying.

00:35:22
Speaker 2: I forgot to put the Travis Hunter blurb on the news, but I definitely thought about it.

00:35:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll be able to get didn't we talk about already?

00:35:32
Speaker 2: What's that?

00:35:33
Speaker 1: Maybe we didn't talk about it. The weird thing.

00:35:35
Speaker 2: I don't think we've talked a little bit about how he might be used with that Jacksonville offense. But next week, oh.

00:35:41
Speaker 1: I did on the Mailbag, that's what it was, or on the Cell.

00:35:43
Speaker 2: Candidates and next right, yeah, definitely.

00:35:47
Speaker 1: Well the weird thing. The weird thing is that this report comes out about him playing corner when we had the exact same report two weeks prior, because I used that report in the Cell Candidates episode. So it's just weird how like one got traction and the other one didn't, and if you were ahead, you were able to sell them. Yeah, sell them at a better price, all right.

00:36:10
Speaker 2: I do as someone who listens to your podcast like this Cell and the by Can its early. As someone I feel like it's almost like insider trading. If I make a move before it comes out.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not moving markets over here, buddy, Yeah for me, you are, so I just you know, I want to.

00:36:30
Speaker 2: I want everyone else to have the same access to information that I have before moves are made. So but next week we'll be talking about year two receivers.

00:36:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk about Travis Hunter next week.

00:36:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we can. We can talk about it then, no worries. All right. With that being said, let's get on to the main event.

00:36:49
Speaker 1: It's the late round main event.

00:36:53
Speaker 2: All right.

00:36:54
Speaker 1: JJ.

00:36:54
Speaker 2: We have year two running back journey comps, and you need to kind of to clarify something before we start on this.

00:37:01
Speaker 1: I need to explain this, Okay. These comps are not stylistic comps. They're not this guy is this weight, this height, This is what he looks like, this is how he plays. These comps are based strictly on a player's Zapp score entering the league, so his prospect score and then his year two score. Because I have a year two model that looks at how a player performed as a rookie in the NFL. It combines that with the player's prospect score because you're gonna get some funky stuff that happens in year one, and it projects how well that player is going to do in years two through four. I was doing year two and three before I switched that this year to years two through four to get a little bit more stability within that model now. And it also it makes sense to do through four years because it's their rookie deal typically.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: And so.

00:37:46
Speaker 1: The one thing I'll say with running back, it's easier to model than wide receiver. And I say that, or it's easier to differentiate from modeling perspective. When I go and I model you know, prospects or year two guys, I am trying to beat something you know in terms of the predictability and the predictiveness of that model. At when it comes to the zapped model stuff, I'm trying to be better than draft capital. So where these guys get drafted by NFL teams, Okay, check mark success. That's that's done, and I can test it and I can show people that it is more predictive, uh than what draft capital says. When it comes to the year two stuff, I am attempting to be more predictive than year one PPR points per game and that looks at how well they perform then in years two, three, and four. And that's the way I measure year two through four is the same way I measure year one to three with the Zapp model, which is best two seasons average out of those three years. Right, So it's B two s as I've called it, so I'm measuring against that. Running back is easier because if you look at year one PPR points per game and you correlate that to B two s and years two through four, the R squared is actually stronger for a players zapp score than it is his year one PPR points per game, which is kind of crazy to think about.

00:39:06
Speaker 2: Right, getting so so nerdy, right now? What that?

00:39:09
Speaker 1: What that? What I'm saying there is that that you could you could say that there is more predictiveness, or at least it explained that his player zapp score explains his year two through four production better than his year one PPR points per game, and it matters more running back, that's not the case a wide receiver. Wide receiver's harder to model, it's harder to prospect. There's a lot more nuanced to it. Running back is relatively straightforward, and a lot of the reason for that is because we get these random day three running backs who you know, Damian Pierce, who just pop up and they have these good what he marks might be that guy who pop up and they have these productive year ones and then they kind of fall off because the team's like, oh, you're actually not someone that we can rely on at the position, and so we're gonna draft someone else. And when we draft someone else, we plug them into the backfield. You're not getting any touches anymore, whereas at wide receiver, you could draft another wide receiver and that wide receiver still gets some work. So the predictiveness just changes, the equation changes. The year two model at running back is so much more predictive than year one PPR points per game, Like the delta between the model and year one PPR points per game at running back is so much greater than is a wide receiver. So I actually feel better about, you know, how people might be viewing the running backs versus what the year two models saying at running back than I would at wide receivers. That's the caveat. Now what we're gonna do today is look at what I call journey comparables, which again are players who entered the NFL with a certain ZAP score and then they have a year two score of some sort, and they're players that similar that share similar ZAPP to year two scores in that journey, right, and then there's a similarity score that gets spit out that says this is as you know, it's ninety nine point. You know this similar to this guy or the similar this guy. And so what I'm gonna do on today's show. In the guide, you're gonna get the top three journey comps for for every relevant running back and wide receiver in the Year two models, so everyone through the flex play category. But today I looked at all of the comps that pop up whenever, you know, I type in the player's name, and so you know, I can get tens of them if I want to, And I picked out sort of like the low outcome for a player based in those comps, the median outcome based on those comps that are spit out. This is just a fun exercise, and the high outcome for those players. Let's start with Ashton gent who And this is in no particular.

00:41:38
Speaker 2: Order because that's why I wanted to really clarify, no particular order. If you want the actual Zappa and Year two scores, it's in the Draft Guide or Prospect Guide rather.

00:41:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so this is in no particular order because I don't want to give that order away because you can get the scores in the Prospect yet. All right, So Ashton we'll start there, Gentle. This is gonna be controversial, but Genti's I'm just gonna say his app score was one hundred. Okay, the scaling of the scores a little bit different than it was before. We have multiple players with a score of one hundred in the Zapp model now at running back, which is Christian McCaffrey and Jamier Gibbs and Nash and gent his year two score is ninety nine point six. So it's still very very good, and people are gonna say, how is that possible? He really underperformed in year one, But again, the year two model will weigh that running back prospects score really, really heavily. And then gent also had a really good weighted opportunity per game, which is just a formula within that year two model that I look at targets and you know, rush attempts, et cetera. It was top ten since twenty eleven. So as a result, his low outcome I picked out as Leonard Fournette, which you know has had his moments in the NFL.

00:42:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I mean he had some.

00:42:56
Speaker 1: It's definitely the best low outcome that you're gonna find on this list. Median outcome is Saquon Barkley high outcome as Christian McCaffrey, which I don't know which one is better or worse between us two, to be honest with you. But this is all to say that Ashton Gent's comps are like ridiculous. Yeah, I don't think that, Like the model is not looking at team context and stuff, So I don't think we can just assume that this happens. But I would be shocked out of my freaking mind if Ashton genty is not an RB one in one of his next three seasons, I'd be shocked. Like I'm talking like, you know, eighteen twenty PPR points per game.

00:43:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:43:34
Speaker 1: No. I remember the.

00:43:35
Speaker 2: Week sixteen game when I was battling for a top spot in the in one of the best ball tournaments and the other guy had Ashton Gent and.

00:43:44
Speaker 1: He was just just dump off dump off after dump off.

00:43:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was like Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley if they had a kid, you know, Like that's what he was like that game. So this guy this also might be a little interesting. We're talking about it's R. J.

00:44:01
Speaker 1: Harvey. Look, I've voiced my concerns about Harvey where I think mostly I'm voicing them because I think there's like this Harvey hive who just absolutely love him, like they're just obsessed with RJ. Harvey. I think he's good, but like, can we just pump the brakes for a second. Like last year he was forty six out of forty eight qualified running backs and rushing yards overexpected per rush. He's an explosive running back, but he's not super He was not super consistent showing off that explosiveness. Last year. He had a five point five percent ten plus yard carry rate among all year two running backs in the year two model who had one hundred and more carries. That was sixth worst of gaining ten or more yards. But he did have a good receiving profile, you know, ten percent target share, which is good for rookie. All of that, his low median in high comps okay A mir Abdullah is his low one, which is a little bit scary. Miles Sanders is the median one, which you know, he had some some productive seasons in fantasy, and then I put David Montgomery as the as the high. Now, if you look at the similarity scores here, am Abdullah is actually more similar to r J. Harvey than Miles Sanders and David Montgomery are, but both of them are, you know, relatively strong from a similarity score to r. J. Harvey. This just is what was playing into the cell r J. Harvey recommendation that I had just versus the market. Yeah, I think Harvey could be a guy that I'm into and Redraft I just don't necessarily see the RB one ceiling. You know, there's a lot of touchdown regression that's going to hit him this year too.

00:45:30
Speaker 2: Bro Kyle Yeats and his prediction on the Tyler Aljeer, Yeah.

00:45:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, like the I think Denver is going to add a running back, right, I there there were times this past year where they just didn't seem confident enough in Harvey to really carry that workload. Now, he was a rookie and maybe that's part of it, but he's also an old rookie.

00:45:50
Speaker 2: He was over twenty four when they might add multiple running backs, knowing how Sean Payton wor.

00:45:55
Speaker 1: Right, I think there's I just think that there's a lot of volatility here. I mean it could he could run out out really well and just have you know, a good runout and be a viable fantasy asset. But I do think that logically a lot of the analytical signs are pointing to him being good, not great.

00:46:10
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Harvey Hive, don't don't hurt us, Okay. Third in the list, Trevon Henderson.

00:46:19
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, the more I've dug into Henderson's profile, the more I'm semi regretting calling him a cell on the cell can in his podcast in an episode, because I know I do think that I like I have James Cook ranked ahead of him.

00:46:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so this is the snip snap, snip snap kind of thing.

00:46:38
Speaker 1: From that perspective, yes, he's a cell. And the wide receivers at that time when I was doing that show, the wide receivers that were ranked ahead of him or below him, rather, there were like five or six of them that I have ranked ahead. So from that standpoint, I think he's more of a cell than a bye. If you look at his comps, his low comp we have Jeremy Hill at ninety eight point one, me, Javonte Williams in ninety eight high, Josh Jacobs. Again, these are not stylistic comps, they're just how they were as prospects how they look, you know, entering year two and kind of going from there, he had the highest rate of gaining twenty plus yards this past year in this class, which is not surprising. There's only thirty three other running backs though in the year two database who reached a three percent rate of gaining twenty or more yards. That's per rush of those with four years in the league, So I'm looking only through twenty twenty two. They averaged a best season in years two through four fourteen and a half pper points per game, which that's the average, Like, that's the median outcome of these like big play running backs. Now that's gonna skew obviously towards player. You know, players who make big plays are better running backs are guys who would get drafted early. But like that's what Trevon Henderson is. Like, he was a pretty good prospect, drafted early, explosive, had his moments in fantasy football. The downside here just continues to be Ramandre Stevenson. But I'm gonna I'm gonna back off to take a little bit, okay, Like and I hope I was clear on that show that it wasn't like a strong take, but it was a process oriented one that I still believe as like a general transaction. But there are degrees to these transactions, like one player can be way more of a cell than another. You know, even though one guy gets bucketed the exact same.

00:48:23
Speaker 2: Way, I have a feeling this next guy is gonna be. You know, we always get those questions about sleepers, and we can't really answer them because we don't know the like league settings or not sleepers, but keepers rather. Yeah, this guy is gonna be one of those. It's Cam Skataboo.

00:48:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Skataboo the you know, obviously, I think the year two model would have liked him even more had he not gotten hurt, just because there's something.

00:48:47
Speaker 2: It was a bad injury. I mean it was really bad injury.

00:48:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, but but weighted opportunity wise, only gent and a Marion Hampton were better in this Year two class. The one thing that did translate for Skataboo is that he didn't have many big plays. Fewer than one percent of his rushes went for twenty or more yards, and that was the big question mark with his speed coming out last year. It's just that his bulldozing ability did translate to the league, and you know, it's like, you know, one of the beautiful parts about Derrick Henry in his game is that he does that the tackle breaking stuff while also generating big plays because he's so fast. Yeah, Skattaboo doesn't have that. Now, It's funny that his median comp here is Kareem Hunt because if you go back and look at last year's Prospect Guide, Kareem Hunt was one of his top comps in that guide, so I can see that trajectory kind of happening for him. The high comp here is not definitely not a stylistic comp but James Cook and his trajectory in the league as a Day two guy. Now, Skattaboo was a Day three guy. But you're seeing Day two running backs listed here because again, if you think about what journey comparables are, it's ZAP score, year two score, they generally align. The fact that Cam Scattaboo is listed among, the fact that that Day two running backs are listed among Camp Scataboo tells you that Skataboo's Zapp score was really good for a Day three pick, for a Round four guy, because he's being elevated to these other Day two picks from a zap score standpoint. The low end one is cam Akers. Also kind of interesting is camp Makers dealt with injury and that that could be a really big reason why Acres never really developed. But I do think overall, Skataboo is a fun prospect guy that you can have on your fantasy roster and just be excited about it. And his his year two score, like I said, it would be even better had he stayed healthy.

00:50:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna have to pay attention to just the medical stuff this offseason to see where he ends up. If he's a you know, someone that is cleared early and he's gonna play the whole season, or if he's you know, if he's gonna miss a few games, Yeah, because that will definitely affect his is draft capital. All right. The next one also dealing with an injury, quin Shawn Judkins.

00:51:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Judkins, i'd say is not unlike Scataboo from like a prospects score standpoint. You know, he was a little bit higher than Skataboo, but then their year two score spoiler alert, they're not that far from one another. And if you look at his he has pretty similar comps where it's like cam Akers as the low end, Miles Sanders as the median, and Le'Veon Bell is the high. For quin Shown Judkins, I think, like my vibe and outlook for quin shown Judkins, I think he's good. But I do think that the market has some anchoring bias going on with Judkins. If you look at his top four games last year and yards over expected per rush, three of those four games came during his first three games this season, and so for three of those four games came during the first four games of the season for Judkins, meaning a lot of his really efficient, effective games came early on. I think every one's like, oh, Judkins is awesome, and I think he is. If you look at the data, you know, PFF yards before contact per attempt among high volume backs, his was absolute worst. Gent was second worst. So the offensive line was doing them no favors. I still think though, that receiving is a question mark for Quinnjahn Judkins. It was a question mark for him entering the league. You know, I think that a lot of times when it comes to prospecting and analysis of running backs in the NFL for fantasy purposes, for whatever reason, people get enamored with just the running ability of these guys, and we ignore the receiving ability. Now, an argument can be made that running is becoming a little bit more important than it did three or four years ago, and then it was three or four years ago. But even still, the receiving side, especially in a PPR format, matters a lot. And I don't know if Judkins is you know, like he has Le'Veon Bell as a compier. Le'Veon Bell is gonna like like he's not gonna see Le'Veon Bell type receiving volume in the NFL. And so you know, he had a thirty percent route share last year, which is which is a red flag. You know. So I like Judkins, but I do think that if there's someone who's like in love with Judkins, I'm talking like, you know, five spot running back spots ahead of market whatever, you could look to trade him away.

00:53:14
Speaker 2: Cleveland fan speaking of trades, K Crash said, I sold the farm Pitts in late second for Hampton last year because the prospect guy and he said, okay, it wasn't that great of a farm. But speaking of Hampton, we have him next in the list.

00:53:34
Speaker 1: A Marion Hampton. Yeah, the that model loves a Marion Hampton. That is Foreshore. Uh so Hampton. His his low comp is Trent Richardson so could go could go south. And his Leonard Median is Leonard Fournette. So it's like kind of one step off of Ashton gent and the high end one is Ezekiel Elliott.

00:53:56
Speaker 2: Didn't he have a Zeke comp? Yeah, hit a z.

00:53:59
Speaker 1: Comp as a as a resulte Prospect.

00:54:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:54:03
Speaker 1: Obviously we didn't see a ton of Maria and Hampton last year because the injury. But he was fifteenth in rushing yards over expected per attempt in the NFL. He had a twelve percent target shair and that's in a tougher offense, a great Roman offense, where it's not as easy to get that high of a number. So I have this blurb from his profile right up in the Prospect gud. I'll just read it and look. Whenever I say and do these like thre this threshold analysis, it's more of a nugget than like a sure thing, and it's just a fun and interesting thing to analyze and look at. But from twenty eleven through twenty twenty two, there have been ten running backs in the year two model database who entered the league as a legendary performer or elite producer. So Marion Hampton was an elite producer and then earned at least a twelve percent target share as a rookie. Six of those players had an RB one season within their next three seasons. So we're looking at a situation where there's like, you know, based on that, it's a sixty percent chance, so we get like a true RB one season from Marion Hampton over the next three years. I just think he's a good player, and the data really likes him. Admittedly, this app model like really really loved him. I don't think it was the wrong call though, Like he was good when he was active, and he was you know, he was a very able player. That injury just kind of derailed things. I am very excited about Mike McDaniel, a better offensive line. I mean, things could really come together for Marion Hampton in year two for sure.

00:55:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. And people, I mean people are feeling really good about him at the you know, at the start of the season. And now do we have to worry about camani Vedel.

00:55:37
Speaker 1: I think that he's going to play a role. I mean most backfields are split in some way, and so I think I think Videll will be a piece there in that backfield. But Marion Hampton's a bellcow like he and he's like again, he's one of those players where you give him the hole, he's going to be able to break off huge plays and and and generate those splash plays that we love in fantasy. I don't think that he's the best creator in the world, but he has that size, speed, combination and the ability to be a decent receiver. You know, He's part of that giant bucket that I was talking about where guys are at least capable of seeing those double digit percentage target shares. He's did that last year, right, and all of that combined, You're like, is he the most talented elite running back?

00:56:21
Speaker 2: No?

00:56:21
Speaker 1: Situationally though he can get there.

00:56:23
Speaker 2: From a fantasy perspective, I don't know if if k Crash feels better. Hopefully he does, does, I mean, because it wasn't that big of a farm and Hampton could just go off. So speaking of comments, JJ, We've got an interesting one. Did you see third down deal? Our buddy? No?

00:56:47
Speaker 1: Should we should we go onto the final section of the show?

00:56:49
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah we should? Here you go a final section of the show. I don't know if you saw our buddy third down deal. You remember the guy that stopped us on the street at the Super Bowl.

00:57:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. Of course, he's a Charlotte guy.

00:57:08
Speaker 2: That was his buddy.

00:57:10
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. Yeah, nice.

00:57:12
Speaker 2: So he said, I can't believe I told my buddy Taylor from barstool to look you look for you in San Francisco and a few days later he sends a pick with you. We literally saw him on the street.

00:57:22
Speaker 1: So this is what happened though. We were about two blocks away from Radio Row and we're walking from our hotels in the morning and someone just walks up behind us and he goes, hey, are you JJ zach Reason? And I turned around like yeah, I'm JJ zachar Reason. And then we started talking and he lives in outside of Charlotte, like pretty close to me, listens to the show and stuff, and he said that his friend had said that JJ that I was going to be out there. Yeah, And then you were like, do you want to get a picture. Yeah, And then he's like, yeah, I want to get a picture. So we just got a picture and then he must have sent it to the league or whatever. You know the group of friends. And that's hilarious.

00:57:58
Speaker 2: Because I think I may have told a story on this show, but a number of years ago. This was twenty twenty, right before things went south COVID. But we went to Disney World and I'm talking in five minutes and someone comes up and goes, are you soccer Dave David Kitchen?

00:58:20
Speaker 1: It's so funny And I was.

00:58:21
Speaker 2: Like, yes, absolutely I am. And my wife and kids were like, what is happening right now? And I was so proud of that moment. And he said, can we get a picture? And so I said yes. I then went to Twitter at the time and bragged about it. The guy never tagged me with the picture. It never saw the light of day. So naturally my swolcast's co host think that it was a big, you know, made up.

00:58:52
Speaker 1: Yeah farce farce. I there was. There was one situation. So like, I'll get recognized at times whenever it's not it's not very frequent, and I like it. It's great if you guys recognize me though in public, like come say hi because I want to talk to you.

00:59:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but.

00:59:06
Speaker 1: I uh, you know, I've had I've had like spurts randomly where it's like I've seen, you know, there's like three people in a two week span or something, which is always funny and cool. But there was one where I was I ran a marathon relay with Leoni, Mike Leoni, friend of the show, uh, and his sister and brother in law and someone else one of their friends. We did a marathon relay downtown Charlotte. This was years ago. And afterwards we went and got brunch downtown Charlotte and we walk in and mind you, Leoni lives in Buffalo, so I don't get to see Leoni very often. Okay, but his sister lives down here in Charlotte, and so I'll get to see him every so often. And so I'm not like out with Leoni very frequently. Well, we're out at this brunch place and someone's like are you JJ Zach Reeson and and so from Leo, I was like, yeah, yeah, let's me know whatever. Like you know, I talked to him a little bit and uh, from I thought to myself afterwards, like from leonipective, he probably thinks that everywhere I go. So it's just like, did he ask are you the late round quarterback?

01:00:07
Speaker 2: Did he ask if he was two hats one Mike Michael Leoni.

01:00:10
Speaker 1: He did not. No. I don't know if you realize though, that that Leoni was. You know, I'm I stand out more than Leoni because I'm bigger than Leoni and I've got a giant head. That's that's tough to miss.

01:00:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you the spreadsheet socialist? Michael Leoni?

01:00:23
Speaker 1: We did get a question in Chad, how does Love grade compared to gent genty? Was better than Love? As a prospect? I really like Jeremiah Love. I don't think he's gonna make it into the legendary producer category, which only like a handful of running backs have since twenty eleven, but he's gonna be on the high end of the elite producer category. He's a very very good prospect.

01:00:42
Speaker 2: Okay, shout out to everyone that interacted with the show. Again, we are we get down and nerdy on the show. It's an interactive show. So if you join us live, we welcome your comments, and then after the show we welcome your comments, feedback, whatever you have for us all. So, if you're not joining the Discord and the late Round Patreon, do that. We've got Dynasty season coming up. Talking ball in the Patreon so and in Discord, so that will be good, and JJ we have a few things for them to listen to. The running Backs episode.

01:01:19
Speaker 1: Yep, got a running Back episode that was out on Tuesday, and then on Friday. We will have the Mailbag episode this week, and then a newsletter that went out about be shall tooton another player who I said to buy who I'm now after doing more research kind of pumping the brakes a little bit there on Henderson.

01:01:36
Speaker 2: That's what happens when you like do research in real time. You don't have like you don't have like a month. Yeah.

01:01:42
Speaker 1: I also think that like my job is to be transparent of course, but also like I'm going on this journey with other people to discover things to you know, talk about them. I'm not gonna like hide things. But at the same time, I don't want to just say something and it be concrete for the rest of my life. The same thing happened with like Chase Brown a few years ago, where I had Chase Brown as a cell at first, and then after about a month of research, I was like, Eh, maybe I shouldn't have this as a you know, this him as a cell, And I ended up buying Chase Brown, you know, after doing that. So, like, I think that it's important for me to be honest and transparent with people. And if that's not your vibe, that's not your vibe, that's fine. But I think that most people should want to have an analyst or a person giving them advice who changes their opinion with new information. That new information is often just research, and that's what I'm doing with these you know, prospects and year two guys. It doesn't happen super frequently, but it's gonna happen, and I'm gonna change my opinion and I'll let you guys know when I am changing my opinion.

01:02:45
Speaker 2: There you go again, laterround dot com to purchase the Prospect Guide, sign up for the free newsletter more free content that we've done before. And jjmember the viewer that said year one, in year two running backs were kink, My kink has been satiated. Is that how you're saying? Associated associated?

01:03:07
Speaker 1: Yeah?

01:03:08
Speaker 2: Thank you Kings so no, thank you and thank you JJ. Thank you all for tuning in, and we will see you next time here on the Late Round Fantasy Football show piece