The Show: Super Bowl Hangover, Way-Too-Early Tight End Rankings, 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.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Here's this week's episode.

00:00:33
Speaker 3: Welcome In. Welcome In. It's a Late Round Fantasy Football Show, offseason edition. Episode one really of the off season edition, JJ, how are you?

00:00:43
Speaker 2: I'm good.

00:00:43
Speaker 1: I get to I get to wear a hat forward, which doesn't happen frequently because it's it's it's large enough to uh to.

00:00:50
Speaker 2: Be able to wear forward. But I'm wearing my super Bowl Dad hat.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: You know, I can't believe I did not wear my super Bowl hat.

00:00:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's kind of that's kind of wrong, right.

00:00:58
Speaker 3: It is rude. Yes, I should have done that.

00:01:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I I did realize after I bought the hat. I'm sure you realize this too. We're kind of like Rob Low. You know that the Robb Low meme where he was in the stands wearing the NFL ut.

00:01:12
Speaker 3: I got no, it's it's that would be just the NFL hat. I did get an NFL draft hat in Nashville when the draft came, he went, yeah, because I went, It's like and I got like a cool super Bowl hat where like the super Bowl logo is really small, but there's like some writing on the side, but it's just like if you didn't know it, you just say, oh, that guy is a cool guy, and then if you look closer, you'd be like, oh, that guy is a cool guy who went to the super Bowl.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: I I got like just the loudest possible, which.

00:01:43
Speaker 3: I like, but for audio listeners, my logo is like an inch by an inch, like it's like one square inch. JJ's it's a billboard on top of his hat, which is like this style.

00:01:58
Speaker 2: Well, it was kind of funny.

00:01:59
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like because because we got back on Thursday from the trip and then I went and picked up or sorry, dropped off CJ at daycare on Friday, and I'm walking in and I'm wearing this hat. And how like, from from like another parent's point of view, like someone just wearing the upcoming Super Bowls hat had to have been kind of weird. I mean, it's objectively kind of weird, right, Yeah, yeah, but I.

00:02:24
Speaker 3: Did think if they like recognized the logo and I mean, you've got it. Mine's just black and white, yours you are in full technic color. My friend.

00:02:33
Speaker 1: Speaking of the things that we bought, So, so Kitchen and I got our got some gear from the official shop whenever we were there. Not cheap, but we got you know what, the thing that that my kids like the most, between both CJ and Avery, the one thing that that it's it's CJ's side. He loves the trolley that we got at that one random you remember that we saw. So Kitchen and I were walking back up to our hotel the one night and uh we stopped at like a little convenient in store type place that had some souvenirs and whatnot. So I got my daughter a golden gay Bridge keychain that she can use on like her backpack and stuff like that.

00:03:07
Speaker 2: She loved it. But I got CJ at.

00:03:10
Speaker 1: Trolley like a wooden kind of a wooden like it was like a ten dollars trolley. Yeah, and he keeps calling it at chu Chuo and he's been going around playing with his chew chuo and stuff. So that that the cheapest thing I got was the thing that's been used the most.

00:03:24
Speaker 3: The thing I got for my kids that they have loved is the Super Bowl blanket. Somehow, I was so proud of myself getting it stuffed into the U into the carry on. Because a little bit behind the scenes, JJ text me, we were supposed to leave at like seven o five am so that we can get to the airport. JJ text me, I think six forty. Hey, I got to leave in like five minutes. It was something like that, and I realized.

00:03:53
Speaker 1: I realized I needed to get some food before or else I wasn't gonna eat until five pm Eastern.

00:03:59
Speaker 3: So I'm just getting out of the shower, like I don't know if that's gonna happen. Pal like this is this is gonna be rushing it because I had to get I mean, my bags were packed full of all this stuff. Next next year I might do a carry on. But it worked out. It worked out for me at least. JJ. Your ride was a little nauseous.

00:04:19
Speaker 2: Uh, My ride wasn't It wasn't you know?

00:04:21
Speaker 1: I didn't turn my light on over here. I'm gonna do that really quick. Yeah, well I'll do it after I talk about this. No, I just had the most annoying uber driver of all time. I mean, the dude would not stop talking. And he's talking to me about how what what kind of businesses Magic Johnson has, Like he didn't ask me a single question until he just wanted somebody to talk. And then the worst part, I didn't even tell you this. The worst part is that he got hit. Not while he was driving me, but his car had gotten hit. He was telling me some story about how he was up in the mountains and a mountain lion. He saw a mountain lion and the mountain lion started clawing at his car.

00:04:54
Speaker 2: He had to get back in. He tried to run over the mountain lion.

00:04:56
Speaker 1: He was telling me all these crazy stories, but then the back door censor was screwed up because it had gotten hit. So literally, like like every like when we were downtown San Francisco. We would be driving and he's going like twenty twenty five miles an hour. He's like, hey, can you open and close that door real quick? Do it really hard because it's got Like I'm like a sure guy, but yeah, it was, uh, it was I was not.

00:05:21
Speaker 3: I was after I was after a late night out with the guys.

00:05:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, some drinks and like I was a little bit hungover, and I did not you know, I didn't want to go through that. And then the worst part was that you and I got different ubers, like five minutes apart, which I would have when you were about to leave like that.

00:05:38
Speaker 2: But then the.

00:05:39
Speaker 1: Other the other part was that my my flight was delayed by three hours getting there. It was kind of a disastrous morning slash travel back, but you know, I made it back, and I'm very glad that we we made that trip.

00:05:50
Speaker 3: I had the nicest old man in a brand new Ford Mustange mock whatever suv, and he was he was deaf, and that's it showed.

00:06:04
Speaker 2: At least that morning.

00:06:04
Speaker 1: I liked talking to drivers and stuff like it's fun, but that morning I would have loved a deaf man.

00:06:09
Speaker 2: That would have been great.

00:06:09
Speaker 3: So he was like, you know, he motioned that he could read lips, but he wasn't going to talk, and I was like, no worries, fine, you know, we're good, And it was like probably the opposite. It sounded like the opposite.

00:06:23
Speaker 2: Bro would not stop.

00:06:25
Speaker 1: And then he's telling me about these stories about this orthopedic surgeon that he always picks up and that they trade story and then there was a psychology a psychiatrist, and I'm just I'm like, bro, look had some Tito's and ginger last night. You know, I'm trying to get home to my family. I don't I don't need this right now. I don't need this.

00:06:44
Speaker 3: Other than that, it was a great trip. Shout out to the folks at iHeart in the NFL. Was a good trip, and hopefully you enjoyed the shows last week and the interviews. You know that's not going to be the norm. That was just a super Bowl only type of thing.

00:07:00
Speaker 1: I do want to say, and I know that we're we kind of have this as a news item like the Super Bowl recap type stuff, but since we're talking about it right now, I do want to get a little vulnerable slash transparent about that whole experience because it was, like, from my perspective, I like, I think that the cool part for us was that we can act and serve as like a glimpse into like what goes on in radio row and like what that's all like and stuff, because we had never experienced it before, and they're they're just like transparently there there aren't many fantasy shows there like that all the fantasy shows that are there are you know, the Carmen was there with Yahoo, and then there's there's Rotal World and such and and you know it's so Barry was there and you know Denny and Rodopat, but there aren't you know, there aren't many fantasy guys there, right, So we we had a very unique experience from that perspective. But I will say, and this is just a thank you to everyone who has listened through the years, who has supported me through the years, it was so surreal to the point of like I get on comfortable to a degree with this.

00:08:02
Speaker 2: But you know for the hour and a half period that we.

00:08:05
Speaker 1: Had the set, and that we were working on the set for those two days, so we you know, day one we were there, we had it for about an hour and a half. Day two, same deal. And while that's going on for some like behind the scenes type stuff. While that's going on, you have the great folks at iHeart in the NFL that are that are trying to make sure that we're good from a production standpoint, and we're getting all our assets and you know, everything looks good from a video and an audio standpoint, and then on the NFL side, they're trying to talk to agents and PR people of these athletes, and they're trying to get folks to slot in to these different shows, while these athletes are literally bouncing from one show to another and doing appearances and doing you know, their their PR thing that they got to do. And so in this moment of an hour and a half, this was when when I went back and reflected on the whole week. The thing that just like shocked me and got me and made me feel incredibly grateful was that in that like hour and a half timeframe, there were like fifteen to twenty people that were solely focused on the Late.

00:09:03
Speaker 2: Round Fantasy Football Show.

00:09:05
Speaker 1: You know, like from between the athletes themselves, the people representing the athletes, the people at the NFL, the people at iHeart, and then us, there were.

00:09:13
Speaker 2: All of these people who were.

00:09:15
Speaker 1: Solely just thinking about the Late Round Fantasy Football Show. Whether it was like T MAX people or Kendrick Burns people, or the folks that we weren't able to get in Alec Pearson, Romeo Dobbs who were gonna be on the show but they were running late and such. It was just a moment and I talked to my wife about this. It was a moment where I'm like, why, why am I the one that's that's got the show that this is for? And then my wife's answer was, well, it's got to be somebody, and I'm like.

00:09:41
Speaker 2: That's true.

00:09:41
Speaker 1: It's very fair. They're gonna fill that time with somebody. It might as well be the Late Round Show, you know. So I just wanted to say all that to say, like, none of that would have ever ever happened if not for the support that I've had through the years that you've now had for the last year plus, you know, after joining Lee Round.

00:10:00
Speaker 2: It's the greatest audience on earth. You guys are the greatest people.

00:10:04
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's just been an incredible ride, and I'm so pumped that like this is where things are at now, and I, you know, I hope it just continues and keeps getting, you know, more and more fun because it's really fun.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: I really enjoy it.

00:10:18
Speaker 1: Like it was a in the end, you look back and you're like, man, I'm really really glad that we got to experience that, because it was it was just something that I didn't think that we were ever gonna.

00:10:26
Speaker 2: Be able to do.

00:10:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was fun. And when I saw those pictures, like I iHeart sent us some like professional pictures they took, like candid shots. Yeah, and just like not even the ones where it's just it's you know, you and me and t Mac or whatever, but like just to see the one with t mac or Josh Johnson, it's just just them, but you can see the Late Round podcast logo like in the shot. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. That's how you know the platform has arrived. So kudos to you JJ and you Yeah, well thanks, you're only saying it because it's true. Let's let's talk about we have going on it Later Round though. Other than that, we have obviously the newsletter, and you know, Godula just keeps on cranking out newsletters for us and good stuff there. Newsletter this year is going to be even bigger than it was in the past. We also have the prospect guide for pre order, go to Late Round dot com. We'll be talking about that in a second, because we started working on it and it looks like we're going to have to put a little bit more work into it, and so lots of work by us, mainly JJ, some Godula. I'm just providing the hex codes and like document stuff, making sure that it looks good. But all that work just means that it's going to be the biggest and best prospect guide. Yeah, JJ, literally literally literally.

00:12:00
Speaker 2: By the way, I changed the super Bowl countdown.

00:12:02
Speaker 3: While you were said negative three.

00:12:04
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, So now it's three hundred and sixty eight days because I only know that because I know it's on Valentine's Day next year.

00:12:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the following day is President's Day, so it actually is a national holiday next year after the super Bowl.

00:12:15
Speaker 2: Dang, that's finally finally happening.

00:12:18
Speaker 1: Because my birthday is always around this time too, and I've i've you know, it will fall on President's Day at times, and I've always I always look forward to when it is on President's Day, even though I don't even take off those days anymore.

00:12:31
Speaker 3: Definitely not now. Yeah. All right, Well, so with that being said, let's get to today's.

00:12:35
Speaker 2: News, today's fantasy news.

00:12:41
Speaker 3: Okay, we got the super Bowl recap, the super Bowl recap, he said, As far as what happened before then, what about during the game, JJ, Any big surprises because for me, there wasn't really that much.

00:12:55
Speaker 1: I would say, first off, I think that I'm pleased with the analysis I did on the shows last week. The one thing I missed was the MVP of the game and how well Kenneth Walker ran. I didn't think that they were gonna be able to do that well. A lot of outside zone stuff that is where koub acs. You know, I should have looked into that a little bit more and done a little bit more there. I looked more into like the stack box stuff with Walker, But you know, I got a lot of it was cool. I got a lot of messages from people where they were like, it's the off season, but I'm still making money off your advice. And they were sending me screenshots of like the over sacks and you know, Drake May scrambling that kind of stuff, like a lot of you know, and a lot of like I mean, you can, like think about how many deep balls you really saw from the Patriots.

00:13:39
Speaker 2: It didn't seem super super frequent.

00:13:40
Speaker 1: So like, you know, I feel good about how that went down. I do wish I would have just leaned into more of the you know, what the analytics were saying between the two teams. I mean, I still did bet Seattle, as I said, but I was getting more and more nervous about that as the as the week went on, and then obviously my my twenty four to twenty you know prediction would have said, you know, maybe maybe don't take a side, you know, in this game. But look, I think in the end, the better team won the Super Bowl. Seattle was the best team in football this year in my opinion. You know, I think a lot of people had the sentiment and they were they were right that the NFC Championship was sort of like the Super Bowl this year because the Rams played well against Seattle.

00:14:20
Speaker 3: You know.

00:14:22
Speaker 1: But but again, I still I don't think that this is like what I'm what I'm really kind of upset about is how people are treating Drake May and the Patriots. Never thought I'd be a Patriots defender in my life, but the way that people are saying that they didn't deserve to be there, and this is proof they didn't deserve to be there, and YadA, yadayada.

00:14:38
Speaker 2: Guys, the AFC sucked the AFC.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: Maybe you could argue that we should have watched Josh Allen and that would have been a much more entertaining Super Bowl.

00:14:46
Speaker 2: Don't disagree.

00:14:47
Speaker 1: I think that the Bills probably give the Seahawks a little bit better of a game. But at the same time, you know, the Bills were not a complete team. They made a lot of mistakes in that game against Denver. And that's the way that things go in football. You know, we can't just wish uh. You know, these these these Super Bowl uh, you know, uh matchups and stuff. You gotta like teams got to earn it, and so uh. I thought the Patriots had a good season. I thought they played really pretty miserable on offense in this game against Seattle. Uh, the defense played well. I thought the Christian Gonzalez had a great game like he was. He was fantastic in that game. Yes, And that was honestly a little bit of a surprise to me too. Not that I like, he's obviously really good, but a lot of the analysis that I looked at showed that, you know, top receivers against New England don't necessarily get shut down. Now, New England can do a lot in their secondary because Christian Gonzales can can shut a player down to a degree, but it's not like a Revis Island type situation yet for him. But he played that way in the Super Bowl, so so kudos to him, I think, I mean, if New England would have somehow won, he would have been MVP probably, But yeah, I mean overall, I think that the best team won.

00:15:55
Speaker 2: Happy for Sam Darnold. I think that story is really awesome.

00:15:58
Speaker 1: Uh and the one the one thing I've say and maybe people feel this way too. When I was watching them celebrate and win, it was probably the least dramatic like finish to a Super Bowl slash celebration.

00:16:11
Speaker 2: That I've ever watched in my life.

00:16:13
Speaker 1: Like it it just felt like a bunch of dudes just hanging out and yeah, celebrating like a Madden you know, victory of some sort.

00:16:20
Speaker 2: Like it just wasn't It wasn't that dramatic.

00:16:22
Speaker 1: And I think that that's the way that people are kind of feeling but not necessarily saying it is just that, you know, it was. It's a very humble team, that Seahawks team, and I think that kind of came out in their celebration to a degree to and then you get Kenneth Walker as MVP, who's the like this soft spoken guy, yeah and you know, not super loud and uh, you know, a humble dude, and you know, he had I don't know if you saw this, but he had Zach Charbonnat's number on his wristbands Kenneth Walker did, which I thought was really really cool too. So there's a lot of just like of that team stuff with the Seahawks team, and that's how they performed this year. They didn't they were just good together as a unit. And then I think that really came through in the Super Bowl.

00:17:00
Speaker 3: Cooper Cup stepped up. Yeah, you know, they Kenneth Walker think is they're like, we have to give MVP to somebody, you know, and you can't give it to the whole Seattle defense, and so you had to give it to somebody. And so that's like when Kenth Walker broke that long run for the touchdowns, I well there you go, yeah, right, and then he got called back and say okay, but still but you you know, I do wonder how recency bias towards the end of these playoffs will affect next year, because I I mean, if anything, someone said it, someone said it on X But it was like it's okay to be wrong, Like we were wrong about like Kenneth Walker during the season. Yeah, but we were justified at the end when you see how talented he was. Yeah, I mean, you know, the talent is there.

00:17:50
Speaker 1: Guys, this is but this is the thing that I talk about all the time on the show about how running back is dictated by.

00:17:56
Speaker 2: Coaching decisions, Like there's no better example of that.

00:17:59
Speaker 1: But I would also say, like this goes into like the Remandre Travion type stuff as well, and the way that like you know, recency bias can really play a role. Like I in the end, at the end of the season, I was wrong about the way that I approached Traveon Henderson and Romandre Stevenson and how I felt that Trayon deserved more work all that kind of stuff, because Ramandre stepped up during the second half of the you know, during the final month of the season. He was good in the playoffs and and that, you know, like like he played well, right, But there are some things that like we can still be critical of Kenneth Walker with something I'm pulling it up right now. But Kenneth Walker, I believe this past year was among qualified running backs, which is there's forty eight of them in next According to next Gen stats, Kenneth Walker was thirty fifth out of forty eight in success rate for instance, you know, like he didn't have like this unbelievably you know, amazing, amazing season. But I do think that he's a better player and a more explosive player than Zach Sharbonet is right, And so yeah, I don't know, man, I think that this is just the way that I think people come to this show for measured takes.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: I hope they do.

00:19:10
Speaker 1: And and and there's just a lot of like this, you gotta go to the extreme when this stuff happens.

00:19:16
Speaker 2: It's like, Kenneth Walker is good.

00:19:18
Speaker 1: His problem still to this day, is that he is a home run hitting back and he often looks for those big plays and you can show you can watch plays from the regular season where he's trying to do too much. But in that game against New England, he was very decisive. He was That was one of the best games that I've seen Kenneth Walker play. And so it's fine that in that one game, similar to Drake May, in that one game sample, he was horrible. You know, in that one game sample, Kenneth Walker was great. But you got to look at the larger sample and realize, like, yeah, there's still some stuff that Walker does doesn't do you know? And then there was the the note that so Walker had that drop you know early on in the game. Yes, and Chris Collinsworth made the comment on he was yeah, yeah, And naturally someone flooded my mentions and was like, you know, saying that I also have said that he's a bad receiver. I've never said that he's a bad receiving back, you guys. I said that as a prospect. I questioned how much receiving work he was going to see based on trends that we've seen in the data historically. And guess what, he's been under a ten percent target share in three or four seasons. Like, I think that was pretty much on point. It's just that when Ryan Grubb was there, he had that spiked target share season.

00:20:29
Speaker 2: It's just the way they deploy him.

00:20:31
Speaker 1: Like I think that with the receiving back stuff. And I know that I'm ranting and going in a different direction here, but the receiving back stuff.

00:20:38
Speaker 2: Another thing I say often is that with prospecting and.

00:20:41
Speaker 1: With with the capabilities of these guys, to ninety five percent of running backs can do the basic stuff that they need to do from a receiving standpoint. At the position right, and then you get like that upper ninety fifth percentile and greater type player, which is you know, Chris McCaffrey, et cetera, who can line up in the slot. You can use them like all over the formation. And then there's the Gus Edwards of the world who you know, Gus Edward's cautching strays on today's show. But you know there's the Gus Edwards of the world who who just don't do that. They they they don't even function on swing passes and they can't do those things very well. Kenneth Walker's just in that giant range like he's capable. He you know, has has had some I remember that one game against Atlanta last year.

00:21:25
Speaker 2: He had a really good receiving game and some really nice catches. He's capable, but.

00:21:30
Speaker 1: He's not that ninety fifth percentile or better type running back. You're not lining up Kenneth Walker in the slot, and part of that is because he is really good on the ground and you want to save his body for some of those ground game touches. But in fantasy football, we're projecting that usage, and that usage at.

00:21:45
Speaker 2: Receiving is very very important for fantasy scoring, and so.

00:21:48
Speaker 1: I'm going to look at like, not the not only is the is he able to do this question?

00:21:54
Speaker 2: I'm asking the will he do this? Because the will he do this.

00:21:58
Speaker 1: Is what's most important from a fantasy perspective and being a fantasy anamalist. So that's my general rant about, like, you know, these guys playing in these one game samples and what we take away from them, look at the larger sample and don't just make these really strong opinions based on what you see in sixty minutes or you know, four hours during the Super Bowl, because it's just not going to serve you well long term.

00:22:21
Speaker 3: The gust bus having a drive by by JJ.

00:22:24
Speaker 2: Sorry buddy, rant.

00:22:27
Speaker 3: All right to the next item. They've been Joku pens a farewell on social media to the Browns saying that say, he's not going to be back in Cleveland. Who's to blame him?

00:22:39
Speaker 2: JJ, Who's to what?

00:22:41
Speaker 3: Who's to blame him?

00:22:42
Speaker 2: Oh? For one out of Cleveland?

00:22:43
Speaker 3: Want and get out of Cleveland.

00:22:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, it's Harold Fannon's time. Very happy for Harold Fannon's mom of course with this news. But yeah, I mean I think at Djoku, what I've seen from him, not just through the spreadsheets, but I think that we've seen a little bit of his athletics loss. And this is part of the problem that you have when you know at tight end or in general, like we see it with some wide receivers, where when when their athleticism is what wins, you can sometimes see a pretty strict drop off.

00:23:14
Speaker 3: Right.

00:23:15
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's necessarily going to happen with David Njoku, but I'm fearful of that happening. You know that that we could just see this like wall hit for him and then all of a sudden, you know, he's not He's not very viable anymore.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: But he's a freak. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say never.

00:23:29
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people are matching him to the Falcons because Kyle Pitts is a free agent. Kevin Stefanski now head coach there, wouldn't be shocked if something like that happened. But you know, I think from like a target share standpoint, Kyle Pitts probably commands a higher target shair at this point in their careers than David Njoku does.

00:23:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're saying that Pitts's might be franchise tag. And that's like when I was looking for some of the news, there's just a lot of opinions out there about, yeah, what the team should do, what they could do, and where players should go, where players are rumored towards. So lots of that stuff out there, not exactly news. But when someone pins a farewell saying that they're not coming back, yeah.

00:24:09
Speaker 2: That's usually a sign that's similar.

00:24:11
Speaker 1: Like Rashad White on Instagram was saying a lot of stuff about not being back in Tampa Bay. We should probably say with like ninety five percent certainty that they're not gonna be back.

00:24:18
Speaker 3: Yes, if did you see Zach Robinson say that of Bucky Irving, Bucky Irving was gonna basically assume a Bijon type role.

00:24:29
Speaker 1: I mean, but this is the thing to again coaching decisions, right, Like Bucky Irving.

00:24:34
Speaker 2: You got, first off, Rashot White's a good pass catcher like you.

00:24:37
Speaker 1: Like you can argue that he's bad between the tackles, and I would agree with you, but he's a good pass catcher, and I think that obviously limited Bucky Irving. And the interesting thing is that they then kind of use Bucky Irving as in that early down role with Rashad White there, and so like Bucky Irving as a prospect was a pass catching prospect. Like the fact that he has handled as much work on the ground as he has so far in his career is a little bit surprising to me as someone who wasn't like, you know, jumping for joy about Bucky Irving as a prospect. Now the model fortunately in the last couple of years, as I've iterated, and Bucky's not even part of this testing set, so it has nothing to do with him, but it's liked Bucky Irving a little bit more. But even still Bucky Irving came out this year, it would like Irving, or it would be fine with Irving, but it wouldn't. It wouldn't like, you know, be saying that he's like a low risk profile or anything like that. And so I'm not surprised that you have a situation where the new OC is excited about what he can do as a receiver and as a passcutter, because that's what he did an organ like that.

00:25:36
Speaker 2: That's that's what his profile looked like.

00:25:38
Speaker 1: And then I'll say this again, you know I had Sean Tucker as a by candidate as long as they do keep.

00:25:44
Speaker 2: Him around because he's restricted.

00:25:46
Speaker 1: But that tandem actually makes a lot of sense Sean Tucker and Bucky Irving if yea, they use Irving and sort of that like Bijon light kind of role where a lot of receiving work, maybe not as much work on the ground, and then Tyler Algier would be the the you know, Sean Tucker would be the Tyler Algier in that backfield hypothetically. So you know, I know it's only been a year for you know, Zach Robinson wasn't in the a couple of years how long Zach Robinson was in Atlanta?

00:26:12
Speaker 2: But was it two years that he was there?

00:26:15
Speaker 1: I can't even remember, yes, But like you know, so we can't just be like, oh, he's the one who made it, like Tyler Algier was the thing when Arthur Smith was there. But what I'm saying is is that I do think that that kind of like idea makes sense with the backfield in Tampa Bay right now.

00:26:31
Speaker 3: Okay, JJ, the Combine list just came out, your big gift because you were always like, when's the Combine list coming out? Because for those that do not know. The Prospect Guide in the past has featured running backs and wide receivers invited to the Combine. This is why Bill Krosskey Merritt last year he does not have a light round prospect profile, you know, in the guide because he wasn't Yeah, because he wasn't invited into to the combine.

00:27:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we got the So a little bit of behind the scenes with how this all comes together. I have not written a single prospect profile yet, okay, And this is not uncommon for me, because I wait until we get a lot of this information from the Combine. And unfortunately, this Combine list used to come out like a week and a half earlier than it does now. And so what I've been doing is kind of cranking on the year two profiles I started. I finished all the wide receivers. I'm starting on the running back. You know, there's like fourteen of them. So I'll hopefully get those done over the next couple of days because I'm just this time here, I'm just working a lot, like I'll just do it when everyone goes to bed, I'll come and open my laptop and start writing. But when it comes to the prospects stuff, yeah, we profile every single running back, wide receiver, and now tight end.

00:27:46
Speaker 2: Godula is going to be doing a lot.

00:27:47
Speaker 1: Of the heavy lifting with the tight end stuff with my oversight and then with the running backs and wide receivers.

00:27:53
Speaker 2: The thing that is honestly the most daunting.

00:27:57
Speaker 1: You know, the research is fun, the research, and like seeing the journey that these guys went down, and like the schools they played for, and like understanding their stories more. I enjoyed that because then I can go on other shows and like talk about them more deeply as prospects. But the difficult thing, and the annoying not difficult, The annoying thing is that a lot, especially now with nil and transfer rules the way they are, these players play for small schools that aren't on you know, part of databases that you would find online very easily. So they play for smaller schools. They play for a lot of different schools and and some you know, it's just very convoluted, and so when I'm researching each player, I have to see where they played, like they might have played at a D two school or or something like that, and it all gets adjusted within the model from from a team strength of schedule standpoint. But I am adding manually doing data entry, and I know someone's gonna email me and be like, hey, hey, I got.

00:28:57
Speaker 2: Someone who can do data entry for you.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, but no, I I do this because it's just my process. And I think that a competitive advantage that anyone out there who's doing prospecting work you can have is by putting in the work and putting together a database that actually has all of this stuff and these like deeper prospects and like the schools that they went to and stuff like that, because it gives you a more like robust way of looking at these prospects that that you otherwise wouldn't have.

00:29:25
Speaker 2: And so that's the hardest part.

00:29:26
Speaker 1: So my goal is by the end of you know, Friday ish, to not only finish the running back of your two profiles, but then have everything set in the database, because next week, uh, for the Late Round, for the Late Round podcast, I am going to be doing the players who performed like studs at either running back or wide receiver. I don't know which ones first, but uh, And that's all driven obviously by the model and by what I'm seeing analytically. Only way I can do that is if I have all of that data in there, So it's a it's a little you know it it I I enjoy it, you know.

00:29:59
Speaker 2: I know so that I'm.

00:30:00
Speaker 1: CEO and I'm supposed to be running this business, but like, I like getting my hands dirty.

00:30:03
Speaker 3: Man.

00:30:03
Speaker 2: I like the grind of this prospect guy.

00:30:06
Speaker 1: Every year. And then we get like a month off of kind of being able to relax a little bit. I'm doing some shows and you know, I'm not having to like, you know, be in it the way that I'm in it right now. And then obviously the draft happens and we try to turn the thing around very quickly after the draft.

00:30:19
Speaker 3: Yeah. I remember last year, base Shall Tutan was coming around around this time because you he had played at like I don't know it was it North Carolina A.

00:30:29
Speaker 2: And T or something, so I think it was North Carolina, Antia is so somewhere.

00:30:32
Speaker 3: Like that and then went to Virginia Tech and then and so you are having to to mess around with inputs. But then hey, it's like, hey, this guy kind of looks good. Yeah.

00:30:41
Speaker 1: No, I remember, Yeah, the the players who produced like Studs episode, bay Shall Tutan was was was named in that and you know that was like mid February or whatever, and uh yeah, that's why, you know, I I do kind of hate in the prospect and draft world how like analysts and people care so deeply about like being first on the player.

00:31:01
Speaker 2: It's not really about being first.

00:31:02
Speaker 1: It's just about like, in my opinion, like being right at the right time, you know, like when do we need to be on top of this, And usually it's right after the NFL Draft, whenever you know, we we we were doing our rookie drafts and stuff. But I do think that from like a pre draft reading material standpoint, we can start to become fans of players. And it's fun whenever we get to see then where these guys get drafted and see, you know, if they were drafted higher than we thought, lower than we.

00:31:28
Speaker 2: Thought the landing spot, and then we kind of.

00:31:30
Speaker 1: Get to project how well are some of our favorite guys pre draft are going to be in the NFL and such. It's it's honestly my favorite time of year. And I never thought that was gonna be the case because I started prospecting a little bit later than people would probably expect. I think it was like twenty seventeen or so. But it's just so much fun, and it's so much fun talking about this stuff.

00:31:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And again you can go to light round dot com and you can see the guides there or you can purchase it. I know a guy who really knows his Pan tone palettes. Yes, guess what I'm doing.

00:32:03
Speaker 1: Actually, there's a lot of that right now, like actually yes, no, actually yes, and trying to because with the more profiles, ninety five profiles.

00:32:13
Speaker 2: You got to code all the schools and their colors.

00:32:16
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to code it or not. It might just be manual intrigue.

00:32:21
Speaker 2: Yeah maybe.

00:32:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. All right, with that being said, it's get today's.

00:32:24
Speaker 2: Data, today's data.

00:32:30
Speaker 3: Okay, JJ, what are we looking at here?

00:32:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the same thing that we've been doing because we're doing way too early tight end rankings. I did this for a quarterback, running back, and wide receiver, just looking at last year's expected points based on ADP for each guy and then the actual points of the difference. So like Tucker Craft was the best value if you will, which I don't agree with because obviously he didn't play the full season. This is on a points per game basis, so you got to take some of this with a grain of salt, but Tucker Craft outperformed ADP expectation by five point one PPR points per game.

00:32:59
Speaker 2: Trey mc ride next, Harold.

00:33:01
Speaker 1: Fannin Dallas Goddard, who I had a ton of Dallas Goddard this year in Best Ball, Like a lot of Dallas Goddard.

00:33:05
Speaker 2: So I was pretty happy with that.

00:33:07
Speaker 1: That was mostly because I was buying into the the Eagles passing attack, and.

00:33:12
Speaker 2: You know, at least I got got it right, right guys, right.

00:33:16
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, uh, you know, Juwan Johnson was a good pick, Kyle Pitts, Dalton Schultz was a surprise, a lot of a lot of veterans aside from from Harold Fann and on that list.

00:33:25
Speaker 2: And then when you.

00:33:26
Speaker 1: Look at the flip side, a lot of this is just the way that this formula and this curve is created. Is that when you're like a one hundred and twentieth overall pick and you just end up doing nothing, you know you're gonna look bad within this metric. You know, obviously people are drafting you or that player because of upside and.

00:33:44
Speaker 2: For for for that intrigues.

00:33:45
Speaker 1: So like Terrence Ferguson, for instance, was a pure let's just see what he does kind of pick, or you know, someone like I guess Jatavian Sanders even to a degree would be would be pretty similar to that. But you know the guys who made this list that were you know, if you draft after them in the in the late single digit rounds or into the double digit rounds, that that you definitely felt it. Mark Andrews, you know, David and Joku John new Smith before and after he got traded. Uh, you know, Isaiah likely ended up being a pretty bad but t J. Hockinson was a horrible pick. Evan Ingram was a really bad pick, and then the worst one ended up being Tyler Conkland conk Daddy. He Uh that was that was all because the Chargers stuff and him just being elevated to a point where, look, his his expectation was seven points per game, so it wasn't very high, but he was being elevated to a point in the draft where he was being drafted and obviously he wasn't even I mean, well, Disley I would imagine scored more points than him this year. And then uh, you know you had Arondez Gatston breaking out.

00:34:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, Gatson was a guy that luckily we were focused on.

00:34:45
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean Gatston too. I didn't even go on a rant. I could have gone on with the with the Prospect Guide, but Gatson's Gatson's not on this list because he didn't have an ADP.

00:34:58
Speaker 2: He wasn't he wasn't draft.

00:35:00
Speaker 1: So I don't I I because of that, you just you don't know what the expectation necessarily would be.

00:35:05
Speaker 2: Uh, but yeah, he would.

00:35:06
Speaker 1: He would be outperforming, you know, a Hunter Henry type more than likely based on that.

00:35:11
Speaker 2: All right, what's the late round main event?

00:35:17
Speaker 3: All right? JJ, these are the way too early top ten tight end rankings.

00:35:23
Speaker 2: Come on, say it, say it. You're gonna hold me to it.

00:35:26
Speaker 3: For twenty twenty six, We're gonna hold you to it. These are they might be way too early, but listen, you're on the hook for whatever happens there we go from here.

00:35:36
Speaker 2: For number one tight end is Harold Phitton. I'm just kidding. It's trami.

00:35:41
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:35:41
Speaker 1: Trey McBride's the obvious top tight end target chairs of twenty seven nine percent over the last two years.

00:35:46
Speaker 2: He hadn't here.

00:35:47
Speaker 1: Here's the one thing I will say, which is very funny to say, but we're probably gonna see some regression from Trey McBride in the touchdown column, like not favorable regression like we've seen in the past, where we're like, surely he's gonna score more touchdowns what he did this last year. He had nineteen end zone targets this past year, when he had fifteen the previous two seasons combined. So those are targets in the actual end zone, which are very, very favorable for conversion in scoring touchdowns. So if a guy, you know, Devanta Adams obviously would get a lot because he was you know, basically their goal line back for half the season, and those those types of targets convert, as you'd guess, at a pretty good rate. Arizona also led the NFL and passed right over expected. I talked about this with Michael Wilson on The Cell Candidates Show earlier this week, So there's gonna be some regression there as well. But look, I feel pretty good about Lafleur now being their head coach. You know, the one interesting thing is going to be how does he take what the Rams did in twenty twenty five from a heavy personnel standpoint and translate that to this Cardinals team, well, this Cardinals team is probably built for something like that because they do have Trey McBride. They actually have some other tight ends in there too that that aren't horrible. And so, uh, I think that we're going to see a pretty heavy system there and that that'll probably end up being okay for trade McBride.

00:37:10
Speaker 3: Lso says, crazy that McBride went from no touchdowns to having a projected touchdown regression.

00:37:16
Speaker 2: It's crazy. It's crazy.

00:37:17
Speaker 3: It's almost like JJ something happened last year to me.

00:37:20
Speaker 1: I mean, well, that's the other piece of this too, like we're probably not going to feel as bullish off Kyler Murray as their starter next year, which I don't know where things are going with him, and that, like the trade that has to have, I have no idea, but we'll, you know, play by year a little bit.

00:37:34
Speaker 3: And we're doing the list you got Brock Bowers.

00:37:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's there's likely going to be a rookie quarterback for them this year, and I feel okay about that. You know, historically, when you look at ADP expectation and how well positions outperform that expectation when they have rookie quarterbacks. We should worry about that a little bit more for wide receivers than tight ends.

00:37:54
Speaker 2: That's just based on how the market has reacted.

00:37:57
Speaker 1: But brock Bauers twenty four, twenty six percent targets in this first two years.

00:38:02
Speaker 2: You know, last year was a down year. Everyone's like, oh, he was terrible. You know, I do think that that one monster game he had is doing some heavy.

00:38:08
Speaker 1: Lifting, especially when you look at ADP expectation versus how he actually performed. But he only underperformed expectation by like one and a half pper points per game, just because expectation is a little bit lower for tight ends in general. But he still had a one point seven yards per out run rate. Like, that's not bad, that's not a it's not a horrible number. I'm just gonna trust Klink Kubiak here Seattle. Here's the other thing with Clink Kubiak Seattle in New Orleans. His last two stops they were bottom four and eleven personnel usage, So not a lot of three wide receiver sets in this Clint Kubiak offense. We know that he can scheme guys open, really fun run scheme that he runs that that I think Ashon gent should be fine in but that's going to open things up as well for brock Bauers to probably be okay, even if he has a rookie quarterback.

00:38:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he will have a rookie quarterback, strapping young man, Heisman Trophy winning.

00:39:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, well spoken young man, well spoken young man.

00:39:07
Speaker 3: Yes, Colston Loveland in at number three.

00:39:10
Speaker 1: Do you think this is controverty, I mean, this feels like this will probably end up being no, especially if.

00:39:14
Speaker 3: People listen to your podcasts. Yeah, so this week, I mean yeah, as far as like you, you are focused on Colston Lovelan being the guy over Tyler Warren.

00:39:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think Loveland's better period. He's two years younger, he had better peripherals than Warren for the most part, aside from some of the volume stuff. But uh, he had three games with an eighty five percent or better route share last year, and in those three games he scored twenty one point seven, twenty one point five, and twenty one point four PPR points in those in those that includes the playoffs. That's crazy, that's absurd. That's that's better than Gronk type numbers. Like it's it's insane. I'm not saying that's going to continue. But shows you the ceiling for a guy like Loveland. Uh, rookie tight ends since twenty eleven with three hundred or more routes run and a yards per route run above one point eight. So so they got enough volume to run that many routes and they had a strong yards per our run.

00:40:05
Speaker 2: You only have Loveland, Kyle Pitts, and Brock Bowers. That's it. Kyle Pitts had a great rookie season. People forget that.

00:40:11
Speaker 1: But and obviously, like we're seeing more and more from Pitts being a you know, decent tight end, that's a good place to be for Loveland. And then also we can't forget that that year two and year three tight ends are usually pretty good bets in our drafts. So Colson Loveland for me is the tight end three.

00:40:28
Speaker 3: Okay, this might be a little bit surprising to people.

00:40:33
Speaker 2: Harold Fannin, Yeah, I was going back.

00:40:36
Speaker 1: I mean, I think people can probably predict who the tight end four or tight end five would be. If Harold Fannon is my four, yeah, but I was thinking about the situation. I mean, let's just uncover five because I think it'll be easier. Number five is Tyler Warren. Just so people you know, are aware.

00:40:50
Speaker 2: But the way I see it is Tyler Warren. I think.

00:40:55
Speaker 1: I think comparing and contrasting this is the way that we should go and talking about it. I think that Tyler Warren has a lot of anchoring bias going on with him, whereas Harold Finnon might have some recency bias.

00:41:05
Speaker 2: But you like to see that.

00:41:07
Speaker 1: Kind of trajectory anyway with a rookie player, rookie tight end, wide receiver, what have you.

00:41:12
Speaker 2: But like with Tyler Warren from week eight onward last year he averaged eight point eight PPR points per game.

00:41:18
Speaker 1: He only got to a double digit PPR point performance once from week eight onward. Now you can sit there and say, oh, the quarterback was hurt. You know, things changing that offense. He's playing with a geriatric at quarterback. I get all that, But that just tells you that he's a he's very he can be very influenced by situation, and we don't know exactly what that situation is going to look like for Indianapolis entering twenty twenty six, right, Harold Fannon is also an up in the air situation, but no more.

00:41:49
Speaker 2: David and Joku more than likely.

00:41:50
Speaker 1: As we already talked about, Todd Mounkin historically has been pretty tight end friendly and because of Harold Fannin's versatility, which, by the way, you can argue this same thing for Tyler Warren, but in my opinion, Harold Fannon was just like a like a more versatile piece to the Browns offense with less competition in that offense right now as of right now, But if you look at Harold Fannon among two hundred plus route run rookie tight end since twenty eleven, the players who have reached a target on twenty four percent of their routes run, which is what Harold Fannon did. He had a better targets prout run rate than Tyler Warren did. Brock Bauers, Jordan Reid, and Harold Fannin.

00:42:26
Speaker 2: That's it. Jordan Reid was a monster fantasy asset. The only reason why Jordan Reid isn't.

00:42:32
Speaker 1: Talked about the same way that like I don't want to say Gronk and Kelsey because they're obviously in a tier above, but kind of that next tier down, like even like a Mark Andrews type. When Mark Andrews would spike is because he was hurt all the time. He would just get hurt constantly, and so and if you look at that and you change it from twenty four percent route run rate to a twenty three percent for targets prout run for Harold Fannon, you had Evan Ingram and Sam Laporta, two guys that we feel pretty good about in fantasy for the most part. I know, Evan getting older and he didn't have a great season, but there's a lot of filtering and a lot of comps that look very good. For Harold fannin he had a thirty one percent target share from week twelve through week sixteen, then he got hurt. But look if Harold Fannon is running like an eighty percent route share next year, and they're gonna obviously be versatile with him. I love him in fantasy. I think there's a lot of upside there. There's a lot of potential there. And then you know, you could argue similar things for Tyler Warren, but I'm just worried about how that trajectory kind of went. He's an older prospect than Harold Fannon is I said this on the show. I mean, the more I've talked about it. I think that you could easily put Harold Fannon above Tyler Warren in Dynasty right now. Like sounds crazy, but I just if you look at this objectively, I think it does make some sense. And so like, I don't think that that Tyler Warren's bad by any means.

00:43:51
Speaker 2: I still haven't tight end five.

00:43:52
Speaker 1: I just think that his rookie season is being inflated a little bit by the market right now.

00:43:58
Speaker 3: Okay, number six, depending on where you were last year with him, might invite you know, like Yay, he's back, or I can't believe I lost him. And that's Tucker Craft.

00:44:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he was a.

00:44:13
Speaker 1: Late round fantasy football staple for the discord and for listeners and all that stuff. Tucker Craft was he was pacing to have a really, really big season. I talked about that with the expected you know, ADP expectation and how he outperformed that. This ranking assumes he's mostly healthy next year. I think that probably see a little bit of a slow start, but there's beatable competition in Green Bay. Still no true alpha there, right I think Christian Watson played really well, but I wouldn't call him, you know, an alpha from like a target getter standpoint, Yet he had a nineteen percent target share two point three to three yards per route run for Tucker Craft last year.

00:44:48
Speaker 2: That number has increased.

00:44:49
Speaker 1: Both of them have the target share and the Archs pro out run every year so far in his career during his three years. And then the other thing that we can't lose sight of is that Matt Lafleor's offenses have been top half in the league in touchdowns per game. I think they've actually been like top ten in all but one or all but two of his seasons that he's been head coaching Green Bay. So there's like this stability there for an offensive environment standpoint. And typically, you know, when we're looking at these tight ends more in the middle rounds, we do want to target the more obvious, better offenses. It's more that we don't want to target the bad offenses. But you know, probability wise target the good offenses and there's a higher chance that you don't get a bad offense with your tight end.

00:45:26
Speaker 3: Okay, we're seven, got Sam Laporta.

00:45:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was looking more into Laporta.

00:45:32
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot, you know, he wasn't like amazing in fantasy he had like eleven point eight PPR points per game nineteen percent.

00:45:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's playing better though, when.

00:45:40
Speaker 1: He was having a decent season from like a real football and efficiency standpoint, he had his best yards per rout run season of his career this past year. Then he went down, you know, like everything was better than twenty twenty four. Laporta obviously he had his rookie year where he really broke out and it was nice because you know, we were drafting him late. But uh, you know, I thought Laporta had no K season. It's a good environment in general for tight ends. You know, there's a new offensive coordinator, but the Lions have had, you know, one of the best offenses in the league with with Dan Campbell and obviously Petsing being there. He's coming from a team that hyper targeted Trey McBride. Not not that I think that that's the way we should look at this, but it at least makes you feel a little bit better about Like it's not like a coordinator that's never deployed and used his tight ends before.

00:46:25
Speaker 2: So I think Laporta is in a decent spot. I'll be honest.

00:46:28
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, depending on where his ADP lands. I don't know if he's gonna be like a target of mine, but you know, we're once you get past like Warren and if Kraft is healthy, you start to get into some more questionable territory with these tight ends.

00:46:41
Speaker 3: Okay, speaking of questionable territory, Dalton Kincaid.

00:46:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this will surprise people too, because I would imagine he's gonna be a little bit later from an ADP standpoint. Yeah, he played reportedly played twenty twenty five with a torn PCL, which seems very painful and not easy to do. But and I think that kind of explains, like like he's never been like a full time, full time tight end, but he had a fifty one percent route share this past year when it was sixty three percent the year before. It's weird because, like I thought that he was a little bit overrated at times last year because he was doing some unsustainable things. But now I look at how people are talking about him, They're like, oh, he's a bus he's terrible. There might be a little bit of that that post type, you know, stuff going on with with Dalton Kincaid. Last year he had a two point seven to nine yards PERU run rate. Anything over two is great. He was a two point seventy nine, only the sixth time that a tight end since twenty eleven had two hundred and more routes run and at two point seven yards per out run rate.

00:47:43
Speaker 2: George Kittle has three of those because he's a freak.

00:47:46
Speaker 1: Okay, and then uh Andrews, I said, Andres, But Andrews has won and Gronk has won.

00:47:53
Speaker 2: I mean that's it.

00:47:53
Speaker 1: It's those guys in Dalton Kincaid, which is crazy likely a good offensive environment, like I talked about earlier, that's important. I could argue that k Kate could be over San Laporta I or even Tucker Craft if he's not totally healthy as the season you know, gets closer. But like, I'm just trying to imagine a world where like Dalton Kinkaid is a seventy to seventy five percent route share player and he could be a beast in fantasy football given what they have around him in that offense.

00:48:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, this guy people should be sending donations to if he helped them get to their playoffs and championship.

00:48:33
Speaker 1: Kyle Pitts, Yes, by the way, I have I see that that mules and Chat says putting fannin and didn't know.

00:48:41
Speaker 3: I didn't know if you're.

00:48:42
Speaker 1: Go, yeah, I mean, I mean I don't think. I like, again, it's it's February, but it's literally injury related. If if Tucker Craft were one hundred percent, I would probably put Tucker Craft over those guys. But I also think I think Harold Fannon is really good and so you know, I think you un at least make the argument there. But yeah, yeah, I mean, like that's why I said after Craft you get into more questionable territory.

00:49:04
Speaker 2: With that being said, I do think tight end and we saw this.

00:49:06
Speaker 1: A little bit last year, a little bit deeper, and that's that's the go to phrase every year in fantasy. You know, tight ends a little bit deeper this year. But I actually do believe that this year tight end. You know, it's fairly strong. But because there's a lot of young, up and coming guys, because last year's draft class was really good.

00:49:21
Speaker 2: So Kyle Pitts free agent. We don't know where he's going to be.

00:49:24
Speaker 1: We can't talk about that team context, but guys, he's only twenty five. He's like a year and a half younger or older rather than Tyler Warren. He's had a target share at er above twenty percent and three of four NFL seasons second most efficient season for him. Last year he had a career high five touchdowns. I still think there's some room for growth for him. He's never had six end zone targets in a single season. So maybe he goes to a place where it's a higher powered offense. You know, they get him, you know, if Atlanta does indeed get rid of them.

00:49:53
Speaker 2: But you said there's rumors that they could they could tag him.

00:49:56
Speaker 1: But regardless, like if he goes somewhere that you know, can can use him for his skill set, which is being a pretty good pass catcher and use him more in the red zone, I could see him, you know, being a decent fantasy asset next year.

00:50:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the thing. We don't know what's gonna happen. And you mentioned some of the younger guys and last year being a deep class. Another guy's name, at least one guy's name to keep in mind is Kenyon Sadik, the tight end of Oregon. Every mock draft has him going in the first round.

00:50:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you.

00:50:29
Speaker 3: Know, so that that will change things. He might land on. I've seen Broncos, Eagles, forty nine Ers. You know, whatever team he lands on.

00:50:39
Speaker 2: It's gonna it's gonna be interesting.

00:50:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, speaking of rookie former rookie tight ends, Ronde Gadsden number ten.

00:50:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I look, Gatston didn't have I know that he kind of dropped off towards the end of last year, but that also kind of aligned with just the Chargers offense dropping off towards.

00:50:56
Speaker 2: The end of last year.

00:50:57
Speaker 1: He's one of twenty nine rookie tight end since twenty eleven to have three hundred US routes run. That just tells you that he like was used immediately, was a receiver immediately, and that's a signal for talent. Of those twenty nine wideouts, the average a dot was seven point seven, average at the target was seven point seven. Gadson was down the field more he was at nine point four because he has the receiver skill the wide receiver skill set. Of those twenty nine, Gatson was one of ten with a one point five or greater yards perrout run rate. Six of those players have either hit or they look like they're gonna hit in a pretty decent way Mike McDaniel now offensive coordinator. You know, early on when he was in Miami, they didn't deploy their their tight ends much at all. But I you know, we've seen him when he has the right personnel use those tight ends, as we saw with John new Smith. Though Gatson is not a John new Smith type tight end. That's not They're not the same kind of player. John new Smith is much more of that, like, uh, John new Smith is more like Harold Fan and then he would be not I don't think he's as good, but then he would be Aronde Gatson. Gatson's more of that, Like you know, I don't want to go this far, but like Darren Waller, archetype type type player, like a Terrence Ferguson.

00:52:04
Speaker 2: Is as well. But I'm betting on the talent profile here for Rohnde Gatston. I think that he's a good tight end. I think this offense.

00:52:11
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys are gonna get sick of me by August talking up the Chargers offense because I'm going to be in I'm going to be drafting Justin Herbert, I'm going to be drafting the wide receivers. I'm gonna be drafting Marion Hampton. I am in on this Chargers offense. I know that it's not contrarian. I just think it's smart because that offensive line is gonna be a lot better as long as they're healthy this year versus last year.

00:52:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Pete Tripp said, is likely number ten Mark Andrew's just signed an extension there for three more.

00:52:40
Speaker 2: Likely is likely as a free agent right now.

00:52:44
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't. I actually haven't looked at like who the tight end free agents are going into next season.

00:52:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean likely likely is is uh Like Jig could be.

00:52:55
Speaker 3: Chig could be if they don't pick up his fifth fifth year option. Likely is likely out is where we're at with But I'm looking at some of the like the pre draft rankings right now, and it's just a lot of those guys in that same area. Goddard, Ferguson, Strange Hunter, Henry Juan Johnson, A J. Barner, You know, uh now kind of in that mid to late round tight end. Like you said, it is.

00:53:20
Speaker 1: Deeper, it's deeper, It's deeper. But yeah, I mean the big the big free agent is Kyle Pitts. But then you know, likely, uh is someone that that teams are going to likely be looking at you know, David and Joku. Dallas Goddard I think is a free agent right now, so we'll see.

00:53:39
Speaker 3: All right, Well that will do it for that. How do you feel about the tight end position in general heading into next year.

00:53:46
Speaker 2: I think it's deep. I think it's it's pretty good, and a lot of it is.

00:53:49
Speaker 1: I remember last year when I was looking at the tight end profiles and messaging you and being like, this is a pretty good class, Like this is a fairly deep class with a lot of you know, with the top your two.

00:53:59
Speaker 3: Players on the top ten.

00:54:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that, And this is what happens, like we're we see it with quarterback too, with that class from two years ago, and where you just get two or three guys at these onesie positions and then all of a sudden, you know, it elevates the rest of the position because you know, you only need twelve in a given leak ten and a ten team league, and so eventually it's gonna be no reason to pay up because there's ten really really good guys. I still think, you know, right now, train McBride should dominate or you know, Bower should be good, and I like Fannin and whatnot. But I think it's a solid as solid as tight end has been over the last five to ten years.

00:54:36
Speaker 3: Agreed all right, time to say goodbye JJ again lateround dot com to sign up for the newsletter and to purchase the Prospect Guide. We have twenty seven tight end profiles. We didn't used to do any tight end profiles before this year, so this is the first year we've done like full tight end profiles. We just had like you know, rankings and notes. This year, they're twenty seven tight ends. They're gonna be invited to the combine. Yeah, so good luck Brandon Godoula a lot of work.

00:55:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, Godula is gonna be gonna be running with the profiles, and then you know, he might help a little bit with the wide receivers and stuff too, because once I I mean, man, when I'm doing because there's forty seven wideouts, once I get to like the guys who I know aren't going to be drafted, it's just I mean, if you guys look at previous draft guides and go read some of the blurbs for those guys, I'm trying to throw as many like jokes in there as I possibly can.

00:55:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like too. You know when they have a zapp score of like two point five, you know, you know something like that.

00:55:42
Speaker 2: Sometimes they work out. I mean, Tes Johnson was something. You know this this past year he turned into saw.

00:55:47
Speaker 3: He was in the year. He's in the year two.

00:55:49
Speaker 1: It's good enough to be in the year too, right up. Yeah, yeah, So good for test Man. He proved me wrong.

00:55:55
Speaker 3: It's coming at the very end, but hey he got there. All right.

00:55:58
Speaker 1: Final thoughts, J No Man, I am just excited about all this prospect stuff.

00:56:03
Speaker 2: I'm excited to kind of be back in a routine.

00:56:05
Speaker 1: You know, I had a great time in San Francisco, as I said, but you know, it's nice to be back in mom's basement.

00:56:11
Speaker 3: It's comfortable. The basement's comfortable. Uh. And just as a reminder, we also have our Patreon our membership. You can go to Late Round dot com sign up for that and we'll still be chatting in there. Lots of Dynasty chat, off season chat this time of year. And I'm sure some people wanted to know, Hey, Kitchen, how did you do in that Late Round contest that was put together as far as drafting players for each round? Yes, I won my pod and finished top five, so you be right. Yeah, there's a shout out to be Rad for putting it together. So for you, Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna not gonna say a thing until I've got payment in hand, but yeah, it's.

00:56:50
Speaker 2: Yea be Rad be ragging a ghost everybody.

00:56:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, hopefully not, but shout out to everyone who's been on with us on today's show. If you are uh listening on demand, if you're listening or you're watching on demand and listening on the podcast, reminder, just interact with us. If you're not live, you can so interact by leaving comments and letting you letting us know what you liked, what you didn't like, or any comments that you have. So I appreciate you all and we'll talk to you next time here on the Late Round Fantasy Football Show