758: Pre-Draft Rookie Rankings

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Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacher rethas j Jae zacher reson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyeson in this episode seven hundred and fifty eight of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel. Thanks for tuning in. Today's episode is a straightforward one. It's a rankings episode. I'm gonna talk through my pre draft top twelve, so the first round of a single quarterback draft, and I'm gonna give reason as the why I've got guys where I have them ranked. To make things a little bit more enjoyable. I'm gonna ignore quarterbacks here and focus only on running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends, but I'll give you my pre draft quarterback rankings at the end of the show. These rankings may sound different than the ones you've gotten the Prospect Guide, and that's because a lot can change from early March until now, whether it's me just doing more analysis or a player's stock rising and him potentially going higher in the draft. But again, straightforward episode. I'll go one by one and hopefully you walk away feeling a little bit more comfortable about the higher end players in this year's class and of course, remember to check out the Late Round Prospect Guide. The post draft version of that guide are going to be in people's inboxes this weekend after the draft, and by people I mean anyone who's purchased the guide. If you get the pre draft version, you'll also get the post draft version. I've talked about it enough on here, so you get it by now. Check it out over on lateround dot com. My one on one is Bijon Robinson. I don't think this is a surprise. It hasn't changed since the beginning of the offseason. Robinson played alongside another NFL caliber running back in Rosehan Johnson, and he's still balled out. He's one of four running backs in this year's class with a best season total yards per team play rate above two point one, and of those players, he's got by far the best size at five eleven two hundred and fifteen pounds. He may not be the same type of athlete as someone like Saquon Barkley was coming out, but Robinson is the truth and at the moment he's my one oh one in all formats. Not only could you get really really good production here in year one, but chances are he's going to retain value year over year. If he goes in the top ten, Robinson will be a ninety eighth to ninety nine percentile prospect in my model. He's elite Jackson Smith and Jigba is in a tier of his own for me after Bijon Robinson. There are reasons why I think that you may be able to include one other player in this tier, and I'll get to that in a second, but let's focus on Jsn. He's got the second best top season yards per team pass attempt rate in this class, and he broke out big time as a sophomore while playing alongside two studs and Garrett Wilson and Chris Alave. Now, it's true that he ran about eighty nine percent of his routes from the slot that season, while Wilson and a Lave played on the outside, And I agree with last week's guest Matt Harmon and that Jasn probably isn't as good of a prospect as Wilson and a Lave were. He's at least got a comparable score in my model. He's not superior, and if he goes later than expected, he'll definitely look worse. With that being said, he's a very very good wide receiver prospect. If we assume that he goes in the top twenty of this year's draft, he'll join four wide receivers who check the following criteria. Their early declared so they left school early, they broke out before turning twenty years old, and they had a best season yards between pass attempt rate of three point two or better. Those four wideouts are Amari Cooper, Sammy Watkins, Odell Beckham, and CD Lamb. That's not bad company. I've said this time and time again on this show and on other shows that I've done this offseason. But if a team spends up to get JSN, they're not going to view him solely as a slot player. He may not win the same way on the outside as he will in the slot, but we've seen plenty of fantasy success from players who play a large percentage of their snaps from the slot. It's fine if he's there a whole lot, So to me, JSN is a very good bet. There's a decent chance he's the only wide receiver from this draft class who's above the ninety fifth percent high on the model, which is an arbitrary cutoff for super faitavorable outlooks. The pre Draft Prospect Guide was launched in early March, right after the Combine, and like I said, since then, things have changed a little. One change that's been made is that instead of Jordan Andison ranking ahead of Jamir Gibbs, I've now got Gibbs ahead of Addison. I'm probably a little bit less hyped about Gibbs and the average fantasy analyst, not because I think that he's gonna have a bad career, but I have a hard time with his ceiling or him becoming a consistent top six projected running back in fantasy. There's been a ton of talk about running back size this offseason because we've got some talented backs in this class who are smaller. Gibbs is the one who's most interesting to me because he's not this obvious small player. Deuce Vaughan is small, Devon ah Chin he's small. With Gibbs, you can make arguments on either side, which is why this is so fun. Now. I did research on this topic looking back to twenty eleven, and I did find correlation between running back weight and fantasy success. Running Back weight is also an input in my model. I hope that there was some association there, but I sent a newsletter blast about this one day, and I want to bring some of that data up today because I think it's important. One of the common pushbacks about Gibbs size is that we just don't have a ton of talented running backs this small in the first place. In other words, not many small backs go this early in the NFL draft, and we're expecting him to go early. We're expecting him to go maybe late round one, early round two. And that's true. It's not enough to just say, hey, bigger running backs perform better than smaller ones in fantasy football, because bigger running backs are getting drafted earlier and are generally more talented. But you can normalize things, you can even things out, and I did that this offseason. I looked at all running backs drafted from pick thirty three to one hundred since twenty eleven. Case they are all Day two running backs. None of those backs were below one hundred and ninety pounds. But we've had a few guys in that one hundred ninety to one hundred ninety nine pound range, and Gibbs weighed in at one ninety nine. And we have fit teen guys who went in that area of the draft who were between two hundred and two hundred and nine. People seem to think that two hundred pounds is some cutoff that a running back should hit in order to be reliable in fantasy, but this data suggested that it's actually two hundred and ten, not two hundred. When you look at how these different groups of running backs performed across their first three years in the league, no running back has given us any significant seasons who's been one hundred and ninety to one hundred ninety nine pounds, even when drafted in round two and three. When you look at two hundred to two hundred and nine pounds, you do get more relevance. Sixty nine percent of them gave you a season with ten or more PPR points per game across their first three in the league. Fifty four percent of them gave you twelve or more points per game, and then fifteen percent of them gave you one season or more of fourteen or more PPR points per game. Here's the thing, though, when you jump up to the backs who were two hundred and ten to two hundred and nineteen pounds, you get a pretty dramatic shift. When it comes to ceiling. Like I just said, just fifteen teen percent of Day two backs who were in that two hundred to two hundred and nine pound range gave us a fourteen plus pper point per game season across their first three in the league. So fifteen percent. That jumps up to forty seven percent when you get to the two hundred and ten to two hundred nineteen pound range. Now, I'm not saying this to say that Jamir Gibbs is doomed, not even close. That's the thing with prospecting. I may say there's a red flag, which I definitely think this size thing is a red flag, but it doesn't mean the player isn't draftable. I mean, I still have Gibbs third overall here, and it's because he's still a very good prospect. He hit a reception share of at least fifteen percent in all three years of his collegiate career. The only two running backs with top one hundred draft capital a best season reception share of fifteen percent in a speed score of at least one hundred and ten since twenty eleven have been Sakuon Barkley and DeMarco Murray. Jamiir Gibbs is almost definitely going to join that list when he hears his name called this weekend. I just think we're getting a little bit too ahead of ourselves to think he's gonna command this huge share of work on the ground, or that he's automatically going to be some Austin Eckler type fantasy asset. I think gibbs more likely outcome is something like DeAndre Swift, just in terms of how he scores fantasy points, and there's definitely nothing wrong with that in the early first round of your rookie draft, especially when you layer on the fact that he's almost definitely gonna maintain value year over year. In the dynasty market, we don't really see running backs who go this early in startups lose value in year two. So if you want to play the market, Gibbs is a fine pick. People will undoubtedly take my size concerns with Gibbs to think that I don't like him. I think he's an awesome player. What I don't like is how teams deploy running backs and how they don't allow smaller running backs to be true Belkous, I hope that changes for Gibbs, but I feel more comfortable putting Jackson Smith and Jig but ahead of him because jsn's profile appears to be more bust proof ivet Jordan Addison next. Like Harmon and I talked about last week, I'm not sure Addison's gonna have this huge wide receiver one ceiling in fantasy, but he looks like a pretty reliable bet. His sophomore season at Pitt was unbelievable, and that's where the majority of his numbers are being pulled from within the prospect model, and that model has him as a potential ninety fifth percentile guy if draft capital ends up favoring him. Now, I don't think this is a Davonte Smith level prospect. Harmon mentioned that Addison's weight does show up on film more than what we saw from Devonte Smith, and Smith's Heisman season was much more impressive than anything Addison did in college. Even though Addison won the Bolitnikoff, and obviously Davonte Smith's gonna end up with better draft capital. Calvin Ridley, Johan Dotson, and t Y Hilton were Addison's top comps within the model, but Addison may not have the big playability as some of those guys. If you can find a spot like Minnesota. I think that would be ideal. He'd be a perfect compliment to a stud like Justin Jefferson. For now, I'm sticking with Quinton Johnston in this next there's one wide receiver I'm pretty intrigued by, and there's a chance that he jumped Johnston after the draft. But let's talk about Johnson's analytical profile. First. TCU wide receivers have not been friendly to us in recent memory. Josh Doxton went in the first round back in twenty sixteen. He was a bust. Jalen Reagor went in the first round back in twenty twenty, and he busted. Now there's Johnston. I do think Johnston looks better on paper than the aforementioned players. Reagor didn't look too bad, but he had just one season in college above a one point six yards per team pass attempt rate. A one point six rate is not very good, it's pretty ordinary. Meanwhile, Josh Dockson wasn't an early declare wide receiver, and he had just one season above a two point zero yards per team pass attempt rate despite playing those four seasons in college. Johnston, meanwhile, had a yards per team pass attempt rate of one point seven to eight and one point nine to seven over his first two seasons in college, and those were two seasons where he didn't stay fully healthy. He missed time. Had he been healthy, he likely would have been over that two mark in all three collegiate seasons. That's impressive. I do think there are plenty of concerns here, though. He's a physically gifted wide receiver who doesn't always know how to use that physicality. According to PFF data, he ranked in about the twenty seventh percentile last year in contested catch rate. That's why he's got such a wide range of comps. For me. On one end, you've got t Higgins, we would obviously love that kind of outcome. On the other, it's pershad paraman. So if you're drafting Johnston to me, you should understand that he's a riskier bet than some of the other wide receivers in this range, but the reward is there. Zay Flowers has really grown on me. I wouldn't be shocked if he jumps Johnston in my post draft rankings like I just talked about, but I've got him here at number six pre draft. Flowers doesn't really check a ton of the analytical boxes that we want wide outs to check. He's not an early declare wide receiver. He doesn't have amazing age adjusted production. He's just good not rate. But he hit a two point two five yards per team pass attempt rate in each of his last three seasons at Boston College, and my numbers show that he's the only Power five wide out in this class to have done that. That's definitely a plus, as is the fact that he's a smaller wide out who played a lot in the outside in college. According to Pro Football Focus, Flowers had slot rates of thirty three percent and twenty six percent over his last two seasons. So even if teams want to throw him in the slot in the NFL, we have some evidence that he can work on the outside, which is a piece of where all those Antonio browncomps are coming from. I also subjectively like the fact that he seems to be taking things seriously. He balked up big time before the combine. Maybe that means absolutely nothing, but at least it doesn't make us question things like we're doing right now with Kaishan Bouti. So Flowers is a big riser for me, even if it's not totally reflected in my rankings. I've said it before, but Josh Downs looks so much like Elijah Moore in my prospect model. It's crazy. Moore was a better prospect overall, and I don't think that should scare anyone away from Downs. We still don't know what Moore's career is going to look like, and he obviously saw a huge boost after year one. But Downs is the single best season yards per team pass attempt rate in this class, and he should be able to play the slot right away. The hope is that, just like Elijah Moore, he's able to do more than that. He's able to play the perimeter a little bit. During his three years in college, Downs ran eighty three, ninety five and eighty seven percent of his routes from the slot. That's according to PFF. Elijah Moore was at eighty ninety eight to ninety nine percent. They're both early declares, both had crazy top season production, and both could go in a similar part of the draft. We saw Moore look great on the outside on the perimeter in year one. There's a chance that Down surprises us and does the same, But at the very least he could end up being one of the most productive slot players in this class, next to Zach Charboney. He's someone who could very easily after the draft. But pre draft I always played a little bit more conservatively with running backs, especially with this class where draft capital projections are just all over the place. I've been pretty pro Sharboney this offseason though. He's got the standard build of a bellcout running back, coming in at two hundred and fourteen pounds, and he has a receiving profile that we just don't always get from bigger body backs. In fact, and this is in the Prospect guy, but if Sharbonay goes in round two, he'll join four running back since twenty eleven with a best season reception share above twelve percent while weighing in at two hundred and ten plus pounds. Those four running backs are Le'Veon Bell, Joe Mixon, DeAndre Swift, and Daniel Thomas. That's not a bad group. And even if you extend that filter to the third round, you get Kareem Hunt, Alvin Kamara, David Johnson, Charles Simms, DeMarco Murray, Zach Moss, Keishan Von Antonio Gibson, and Rashad White. I know there were some busts in there, but for the third round, that's a pretty incredible group to be part of. He may not be as exciting of a player as Jim Gibbs, but he can get it done, similar to someone like James Connor. Sharbonnay has bell cow potential in the NFL. I've got Jalen Hyatt at number nine, and I don't know how I feel about it. He has one good collegiate season and that's always frightening. He had fewer than three hundred receiving yards in both twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, but this past year, Hyatt caught sixty seven passes for two hundred and sixty seven yards and fifteen scores. That resulted in the yards per team pass attempt rate of three. He hadn't even hit one within that metric across his first two seasons. This is why my model saw Jamison Williams as a comp for Hyatt. You do nothing for two years and then bam, you get this monster season. The difference is that Jamison Williams was competing with legitimate studs at Ohio State. There's been decent competition at Tennessee, but not like what Williams was seeing. Another big question mark with Hyatt is that he's probably going to be asked to stretch the field in the outside in the NFL. But in twenty twenty two he played eighty seven percent of his snow from the slot, and that was the year that he blew up. He had a very limited route tree in that Tennessee offense. Teams are hypothetically falling in love with his speed and his big playability because that's there and that's reasonable. You need that in the NFL. But that doesn't mean that he's a flawless prospect, not even close. There's a lot of projecting that has to happen with Jalen Hyatt, but at least he has a good top season yards per team pass attempt right, and he is an early declare too. The model doesn't absolutely love him, but it doesn't hate him either. So pre draft, I think this ten spot is where things get tough in single quarterback leagues. I could argue pretty easily that the quarterbacks should be considered here, even in single quarterback formats, but hopefully we get more clarity after the draft is over. I'm gonna go with Marvin Mims in this spot though I really like Mims. But like I talked about on the Wide Receiver episode last week, it feels like everyone loves Mims, so he's gonna be pricier than anticipated in your rookie draft. He's got a pretty good analytical profile, though his size could be better, but that's not that big of a deal. He's an early declarer who broke out before turning nineteen. If he ends up going day two, which seems very likely, the hit rates for players with that elite of a breakout age with that draft capital and a best season yards between pass attempt above two point five is very very good. Now, with that being said, his production was never super elite. He had a great final year with a two point six to six yards per team pass attempt rate, but that number was below one point eight during his first two years in college. So he broke out early. But it's not like he had some JSN like sophomore season, and he wasn't playing in the most competitive conference either. If Mims doesn't get a ton of hype in your specific league, he's going to be a great draft pick. Back on episode seven hundred and fifty one, I did a study on investing in rookie tight ends. If you want the TLDR, you probably shouldn't use a first round pick on a tight end in your rookie draft, and I'd argue that you should stay away from them largely in the second round two because of how they appreciate from year one to year two. Once round three hits, it's a lot more reasonable. You're throwing darts at running back and wide receiver there more so than you do in the first two rounds. So hit rates are just horrible all over the place. What that means is that I'll likely not have a ton of Michael Mayer and my Dynasty squads unless something crazy happens in the draft. But here we are before the draft, and there's so much up in the air. One thing that seems pretty consistent, though, is that Mayor is going to get good draft capital and he's a great tight end prospect. I don't think that he's like a George Kittle or a Mark Andrews type. Both of those guys had better speed scores than Mayor had. Am I yet to be published tight end model like those guys more entering the league because of that athleticism, But he looks a lot like a zach Ertz type player or a Jason Witten, a very solid all around tight end who's got a very real chance to be a high end tight end one in fantasy football, and he could be an elite one when he has those spike seasons. From a volume perspective, this is a really good tight end class. I know everyone's saying it, but this new tight end model that I'm working with really really loves this class. It's the best one that we've seen since at least twenty fifteen, which is where the model dates back to. You could definitely make an argument for a couple of other guys in this top tight end spot, but I'll worry about shifting guys around more post draft. Mayer is the safest bet right now, and once we get more clarity with running backs, he'll likely fall down my rankings post draft. Just an FYI. Now, I could go with another one of those tight ends with this last spot that I'm going to talk about today, but I'm going to talk Tank Bigsby here. I'm officially rolling with Bigsby as my RB four pre draft, largely because of Sean Tucker's medicals, but my prospect model really likes Bigsby. He's got an eighty fifth percentile score pre draft with a positive draft capital delta, and that's because he's a two hundred and ten pound running back who had a best season reception share in college of nearly nineteen percent. The combination of two hundred and ten pounds in a fifteen plus percent reception share has yielded a lot of great hits historically, and one of those is de Marco Murray, the player that Bigsby comp two best within the model. I think there's a little bit of worry about his athleticism, and he also wasn't uber efficient in college, but overall the profile looks really strong. So that's the top twelve to recap. It's Bjean Robinson, Jackson Smith and Jigba, Jamiir Gibbs, Jordan Addison, Quentin Johnston, Zay Flowers, Josh Downs, Zach Sharbonay, Jalen Hyatt, Marvin Mims, Michael Meyer, and then Tank Bigsby. As I said, I'd likely have quarterbacks in their pre draft, and I do think that your quarterback approach pre draft should look a little bit different in super flex leagues versus single quarterback once and Super Flex you tend to want safety or care about safety more than single quarterback leagues, which is why in a one quarterback league, I think that Anthony Richardson makes plenty of sense. He makes some sense in super Flex two, but if you want to play it safe for Bryce Young seems to be the pick. With this CJ. Stroud stuff going on, we don't know for sure that Anthony Richardson is going to be this like top five or top ten pick. There's a lot of risk there in Superflex. The opportunity costs in a single quarterback league is much much, much smaller. So I may have it Young Richardson and Stroud and Superflex and then Richardson young Stroud in one quarterback leagues, and then I'll react to it all after the draft is over. That's it for today's show, though thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and for it to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. I'm going to be doing the mailback episode a day early this week because of the draft, so get your mailbag questions in asap. Otherwise, thanks for listening everyone, I'll talk to you then.