371: Post-Draft Rookie Rankings

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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zachertha j J Zacherson. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachares and the editor in chief at fandel and at number five dot com in this episode three hundred and seventy one of the Late Round podcast on many shows that are part of the FanDuel podcast Network. Thanks for tuning in. I'm not a big rankings guy. I think there's a lot more to fantasy football than putting guys in a rankings list and saying here, just use this and draft. It's not a way to win in a sustainable way. But I do think from a content perspective, rankings are helpful. Even if I get annoyed by how some people consume rankings, I know that creating them and giving detail around them can be helpful to anyone who may not be looking at this stuff as much as I am. So today I'm gonna talk rankings. I'm gonna walk through my rookie rankings while explaining why I have guys ranked where I have them ranked. It's pretty straightforward, but hopefully you can walk away from this episode feeling more confident when thinking about this year's rookie class. Now before digging in. I want to let you guys know that Fandel's Sportsbook is now available in Colorado. That's pretty cool. But what's a sports book with no sports Well, it's Fandel Anything Book, Fandel's newest free game. Each day you'll pick one free prop like the Weather stocks anything. Pick it right to win five bucks in site credit. Then play again tomorrow Play Fandel Anything Book free only on Fandel's Sportsbook. Must be twenty one years or older. Max bonus of fifty dollars. Visit fandel dot com slash audio for terms gambling problem call one hundred five to two to two forty seven hundred. So instead of separating all this analysis today by player, I think it might be more helpful to talk in terms of tears. You guys can see the more laid out version of these rankings over on Number Fire where I break things down and give analysis on each player. And I still want to give analysis, but I want to talk more draft strategy on today's show to give everything more context. Now in Tier one, and this is in non superflex leagues, I've got Clyde Edwards, Hilaire and Jonathan Taylor. Joe Burrow is in this tier, in super flex leagues, and I'm totally fine with taking Burrow at the one oh one in super flex drafts if you need a quarterback. But let's talk about CEH and Jonathan Taylor. After Night one of the draft, I tweeted how I couldn't comprehend who else would be the one oh one in rookie drafts after Clyde Edwards A. Lair went to Kansas City. It was a perfect fit. He had the third best final season reception share in this class while playing on the best offense in college football last year. He's probably the best pass catching back in this class, and now he gets to play with Patrick Mahomes during his peak NFL seasons. It's hard to find a better pairing than that. But as you guys know, Jonathan Taylor was my RB one heading into the draft, and the Colts traded up to get him, And it's also a really, really good landing spot, at least in the short term. The Colts offensive line is really good, to the point where their running backs actually ranked first in the NFL and success rate last year according to number fires Expected Points model, so Taylor shouldn't have any issues running behind that line. Like I said in last week's Mailbag show, I think he's my favorite to be the best fantasy back in year one among this rookie group because of the Colts' willingness to trade up and the fact that they have an aging Philip Rivers under center. They don't just want to hold Jonathan Taylor back. There are some question marks about his pass catching, and that's a big reason why I have Ceh ahead of Taylor in these rankings. If you're in a PPR league, Ceh is your choice. If it's a standard league, I think there's at least a discussion, which is why they're in the same tier here. My tier two is just one player, and that one player is JK. Dobbins. I had Dobbins, Cech and Cam Akers in one giant tier pre draft, but Dobbins and Edwards a layer's landing spots pushed them ahead of where I had them before the draft started. The fit here in Baltimore is perfect for Dobbins. There's a great tweet from Fantasy Points dot COM's Graham Barfield that says it all. Graham tweeted last week quote, no running back in the rookie class is more accustomed to RPO reads than JK. Dobbins, a class high fifty seven percent of dobbins twenty twenty attempts were on run pass options. The Ravens easily led the NFL and RPO attempts last year with two hundred and thirty, so you get to associate your running back with a quarterback who's bound to open lanes for his running backs. Last season, Ravens backs were ninth and success rate eighth, in fantasy points scored in first and yards per carry. There's some worry about how big of a workload Dobbins will get in year one, but he has just as high of a ceiling as CEH and Jonathan Taylor. Because of this landing spot, I've just got him in Tier two because I'm more concerned of a split with him moving forward than the other two guys. Now, Tier three has four players, two running backs and two wide receivers. The two backs are DeAndre Swift and Cam Akers, and to be honest, I don't really care how you rank the two. I put Swift ahead of Acres in my rankings, but I can flip flop them pretty easily since Acres probably has more short term volume upside I've talked enough about both of those backs on this show. My comp for Swift is Miles Sanders and my comp for Acres is a more complete Marlin Mack. Both players are great now. In my head, Acres has more short term value, where as Swift with draft capital, is the better back in my model. But Acres is in the eighty eighth percent tile while Swift is ninety second, giving them good odds to hit. It's just hard to ignore the landing spot and player combinations of the other three backs in this class, the big three backs, which is why to me, Swift and Acres are in a tier below the other three. But if you want to go wide receiver here, I'm all for that as well, as long as you're taking CD Lamb or Jerry Judy. Judy Ranks is the best wide out in this class according to my Prospect model, ranking in the ninety seventh percentile of all wide receivers who were drafted or went to the combine since two thousand and six. The hit rate historically for the ninety seventh percentile or better wide receivers is very high. Ten of the twelve players in my model that rank higher than Judy and overall prospects score over the last ten years have had at least one Top twenty season in Fantasy football. A lot of them have had multiple Top twenty seasons, like Julio Jones, Damarius Thomas, obj Aj Green, and Des Bryant. I'm not overly concerned about the landing spot for Judy either. He's a great complimentary piece for Courtland Sutton, and in today's game we see flatter target distribution than we used to. It's very possible for Sutton and Judy to be sort of a Holeo and Calvin Ridley pair for years to come. If Drew Locke is good, then Judy will be even better. But Lamb is my wide receiver one now, despite being a ninety fifth percentile wide out in my model, whereas Judy's in the ninety seventh percentile. People may hate on the landing spot, but like I said on the show last week, Amari Cooper isn't a lock to be a cowboy past twenty twenty one. And guys, what if Cede Lamb is just flat out better than Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, that's most definitely in his range of out at the very least He's going to take on the role that Randall Cobb had last year in the slot that got Cobb almost fifteen percent of Dallas's targets. The short term output for Lamb is not nearly as bad as people might think playing alongside two really good wide receivers, and the long term potential is through the roof. If you have a top six pick and a single quarterback league rookie draft, you should be feeling pretty good. I'd say that's the case for the top eight or nine in superflex rookie drafts, and then you just hit wide receiver city. But I do think two wide receivers stand out to be good enough to have their own tier at picks eight to nine, and that's Jalen Riger and Justin Jefferson. Both players were my wide receiver three to four pre drafts, so there's no movement there, but they both ended up in pretty strong situations and they have the draft capital to back up the pre draft ranking. They're just below Lamb in my prospect model, but not by much. Rager had a top six stat scorer in my model within this draft class. And while people want to talk about his bad production last year ye Pro Football Focus charted him with just thirty point seven percent of his targets last year being accurate. That was the fourth lowest in college football. He's got a kick in punt return profile, and even though I think his year one opportunity might not be as good as others might think, twenty twenty one and beyond is looking really good for Jalen Reger. The Eagles have screwed up wide receiver picks in the past, but I love this one with Justin Jefferson. He had one of the highest floors in this class as a slot receiver in the NFL. He'll play that role right away with enough upside to move all over the field, but during his final collegiate season we only saw him play out wide on five snaps. According to PFF, he isn't a run first offense, but there aren't many pass catching options in Minnesota in twenty twenty. That makes Jefferson a good bet to see production right away. Basically, I don't mind getting Jalen Reger or Justin Jefferson after the previous guys in my rookie drafts. The real problem to me starts once those guys are off the board. Tier five and six are pretty similar to me. In fact, since my the rankings were published, I switched some things around and have pretty much a giant Tier five now that includes Keishaan Vaughan, Henry Ruggs, T Higgins, Denzel Mims, Michael Pittman, Brandon Ayuk, and Laviskas Channault. I've already broken down these players in my pre draft rankings episode. I don't want to bore you with similar information. Like I said, I think it's better to dig into strategy here and where my head's at with everything. That's probably why you guys are listening to this episode in the first place. If you're in win now mode. I don't know if T Higgins is your pick. He was drafted as the AJ Green replacement, and he actually comps fairly well to AJ Green, but it might take some time for him to hit the field consistently. I still have my concerns about Henry Ruggs and his lack of production, and I have concerns about Brandon Ayuk's late breakout as well, but I think both guys found homes that can help them. Ruggs can walk into volume with the Raiders and Ayuk is another yards after the catch monster that Kyle Shanahan can use in that offense. He'll find ways to get Ayuk the ball in space. Mims has intrigue for short term production on a jet team with a bad depth chart, and Laviskus Channault should be a good chess piece for the Jags. He continues to be a high variance pick. I've said a lot about these guys on shows in the past, so again I don't want to go too deep into each of those players. Instead, I want to spend a little more time talking about Keyshawn Vaughn here. I had him listed at seventeenth overall in my pre draft rankings, which was probably higher than most analysts, so of course I'm super amped that he landed in Tampa Bay. I don't have him higher than the big four wide receivers in the big five running backs in this class, though, I see the downside with Vaughn as a prospect. He was someone who did everything well, but not necessarily exceptionally well. He didn't wow you, per se, and he's an older prospect, which doesn't help his cause. Now. I made a poll on Twitter last week asking people where they would rank DeAndre Swift if Swift was a third rounder who was drafted by Tampa Bay. According to that poll, twenty eight percent of people would put DeAndre Swift with the Buccaneers at one and this is a third rounder DeAndre Swift. Twenty seven percent of them put him at the one oh two, twenty five percent at the one oh three, and just nineteen percent at the one oh four or later. Now, I know those numbers don't equal ninety nine percent, but there were decimals involved. Let's just take these results as fact that this is how people would rank DeAndre Swift as a third rounder for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Think about what that means. It means that it's very clear that we care a lot about running back talent and that our evaluations pre draft matter a lot as well. Draft capital is important because it not only can tell us who might get immediate opportunity, but it can also tell us what a team or what teams thought about a player. Tyler Johnson fell in this draft. He can have this awesome stat score because of his college production, but because so many teams passed on Tyler Johnson multiple times, the probability that he's gonna be great as an NFL wide receiver is pretty small. If teams passed on DeAndre Swift in the second round and the Bucks got him, were Keyshon Vaughn was drafted, we should be asking questions Just because we like DeAndre Swift going into the draft doesn't mean we shouldn't ask those questions post draft. And I'd argue the reverse is true here too, why did Van Jefferson go where he did? Or more related to this question, why did the Bucks want and get Keyshan Vaughn. If DeAndre Swift would be your one oh one or one oh two or even one oh three had he been drafted by the Bucks in the third round, then I would hope that you have key Shan Vaughn higher than the consensus rank. I would hope that the logic that you used for Swift, which is really landing spot focused in this case, would also apply for Keyshon Vaughn. And for the record, I'm not saying I agree. I actually wouldn't have Swift ahead of Ceh Taylor or Dobbins if he landed in Tampa Bay as a third rounder, And that's also why I have Vn in this tier and ranked him tenth overall. Swift would likely be my one oh four, So there'd still be a gap between Swift and Vaughn in my rankings if Swift was the Buccaneer's choice. But I think it's a good exercise to think about what we're really ranking here, because in the end we're gonna be wrong about our evaluations on players. What if DeAndre Swift isn't that good in the NFL. What if he's not as good as we all think. What if Kishan Vaughn is better than people think. The talent discrepancy there, to me, shouldn't mean the difference between being the one oh one and the two to zho one. The difference between DeAndre Swift the player and Keyshan vaugh the player, to me shouldn't mean a full round in rookie drafts, and a hell of a lot more on opportunity cost. All of that is just some of the logic and reasoning why I think Vaughn makes sense as a late first and early second round pick in rookie drafts. I liked him as a prospect, and I think that he can take on a pass catching role immediately for Tampa Bay, but he has the upside to do more on early downs as well. Now after that. Giant Tier five Tier six includes three players each playing three different positions. You've got Joe Burrow here, who would be the top pick in a super flex format or one of the top picks now speak. I'm usually drafting quarterbacks based on need in single quarterback rookie drafts. I love Burrow and I think he's gonna be great, But the ranking of Burrow here has just as much to do with need as it does value. The wide receiver in this tier is Brian Edwards. I wouldn't be shocked if Edwards over the next few seasons. I wouldn't be shocked if he ends up taking over as the highest volume pass catcher for that Raiders offense. He's easily the guy who profiles to be the possession receiver on that team the most right now. He had an elite breakout age, though his college production was never unbelievable, but the breakout age was elite and he was consistently productive for South Carolina. At six three, two hundred and twelve pounds, he's the best, bigger bodied, long term solution that the Raiders currently have, So even though he's outside that big wide receiver tier, he's my favorite mid to late second round pick that you can find, and at running back in Tier six, I have Zach Moss. I do think that we're looking at more of a David Montgomery type prospect with Moss, but he should be able to lock into that Frank Gord role in Buffalo right away, so he'll have the early down upside given Gore saw about forty eight percent of Buffalo's running back rushes last year, and he should see some goal line work. Gore had eleven goal line attemps last season, Devin Singletary had two, and again, guys, what if our player evaluation is just wrong? Keep in mind in the range of outcomes for Moss is that he's really good and the Bills can't keep him off the field. One of his statistical comps was Kareem Hunt. Now. I like Singletary a lot, and given the way that they used them last year, he's gonna be their satellite back plus moving forward. But Moss at least has that ambiguous upside and potential. Tier seven starts with Tua, but again, drafting Tua should depend on need. I won't get into much detail there because he's a quarterback and we know quarterbacks have less value in fantasy football. This tier, though, consists of a lot of secondary running backs. We're probably walking into some sort of split backfield in year one. The main reason I have Moss ahead of these guys is because of draft capital opportun and where he ended up in my model, which wasn't bad. But it's not unlikely that we see one, two, or maybe three of these guys jump Moss in upcoming years. Now, let's start with aj Dillon. Dylan got some chatter on last week's Mailbag episode, and I sort of defended him for not being a totally worthless pass catcher. I doubt he's used heavily as a receiver in the NFL, and the comparison I made from a workload perspective is sort of an early career Derrick Henry Light. I won't lie. My model doesn't mind AJ Dillon given he has that second round draft capital he ranked in the eighty first percentile. It does give Keyshawn Vaughan the edge despite going later in the draft, but it's hard to ignore what the Packers spent to get Dylan and what they're aiming to do moving forward. The thing is, though I don't think Dylan is a must get running back in this tier. There are three other running backs that I'm pretty intrigued by. Anthony McFarland is one of them. The Steelers didn't get a running back on Day two, which is good for James Connor's potential in twenty twenty, but he's a free agent next year and they took McFarland, who's a great complimentary piece to Connor, but they took him in the fourth McFarlane has speed. He ran a four four four forty at the combine, and while people may make the comment that he's undersized, his BMI is actually higher than Cam Akers and JK. Dobbins. He's short, but he's not skinny. He shared a backfield in college with Javon Leak, who went undrafted to the Giants, but McFarlane was the more productive back of the two in college, and he was used more as a receiver. That's what you like to see from a production standpoint, that he was able to beat out an NFL caliber player in college, and it explained some of his lower production metrics. So I like McFarlane a lot. I liked him a lot heading into the draft. I think he has a chance to be sort of a deeper league flex play in year one, but the upside is there for year two, for when James Connor might not be a Pittsburgh Steeler. And then another fourth round running back in this draft that I'm into is Joshua Kelly. I've mentioned that he's pretty much going to be the Melvin Gordon replacement, or the guy who's going to step in and play that role. Anthony Lynn said as much as well. But on the roster, you've got Austin Eckler, who's great, but he hasn't been someone who's seen a huge early down workload. And then you have Justin Jackson, who I also like a lot, but he's undersized. Josh Kelly is not. He's two hundred and twelve pounds and he's a physical downhill runner. I don't love running backs who have their pass catching ceilings capped, which is the main reason I give McFarlane a slight edge over Kelly. Eckler is going to catch passes for the Chargers, but I do think Kelly will be the primary goal line back for the Chargers potentially right away. I think he was a great pick for the Gordon replacement. Now I think McFarlane and Kelly are pretty safe bets without crazy, crazy high ceilings. If you're looking for ceiling in this tier and you don't care that much about the floor, then your man is Antonio Gibson. He's another guy that I talked about on last week's Mailbag show. But Gibson is a freak. He had a ninety nine percentile speed scorer, and his efficiency numbers at Memphis were out of control. You guys. He averaged nineteen point three yards per reception and eleven point two yards per tenth last year. But that was thirty eight receptions in just thirty three attempts. Why didn't Memphis use him more? Sometimes that happens. Teams don't use players as much as we'd like, even though those players are really good. But we also know that college production does correlate and translate to the NFL at both running back and wide receiver. That's why Gibson is a high risk, high reward bet and rookie drafts. I don't really mind the Washington depth chart at running back, both in the short and long term. Geist hasn't stayed healthy and they wouldn't have taken Gibson at the top of the third round if they had zero plan for him, Gibson has a chance to just be better. I mean, Gibson has a chance to be one of the best running backs in this class. If we're being honest, we just don't know enough about what type of workload he can handle and what happens when he sees a ton of volume. But that's the beauty of this class. There's so much talent that the opportunity costing getting Antonio Gibson is not very high. So if you're in a position where you don't need an immediate piece for your dynasty team, Gibson's a perfect pick, and there's still a chance to he sees a decent year one role. I only mean this from the perspective that Gibson has a low floor because of all the question marks surrounding his profile. Now I've got three guys in Tier eight. In like Tier six, they all play different positions, justin Herbert is the quarterback here, and to reiterate for the third time, it's more of a need based thing. If you go with Herbert analytically, he looks like the obvious third best quarterback in this class. Tua and Burrow both look stronger. But the situation that Herbert's falling into isn't the worst one, and he's still not a bad prospect. So if you need a quarterback, this is where I would consider Herbert. Darrnton Evans is the running back in this tier. I'm really really intrigued by this landing spot. I think a lot of people will shut him down as anything relevant because Derreck Henry is in Tennessee and that's who drafted Darrnton Evans. But Evans is a speedster who ran a four to four to one forty. He makes for a perfect change of pace back to Derrick Henry. And if you recall back in February, I talked about Henry's workload regressing moving forward and into the twenty twenty season. Since twenty eleven, we've had thirty five instances where a running back carried the ball two hundred and eighty or more times in a season. That's an arbitrary number, but it's still far fewer than Henry's three hundred and three from last year. Thirty of those thirty five running backs have relevant next season data, and of those thirty, only one player, Marshawn Lynch, was able to increase his attempt number the following year. Now, why is that? Part of it is just natural regression. Teams may not be leading as much and they may not be able to just hand the ball off like they want to. Part of it is probably injury related to But what we know is that a ton of volume one year doesn't mean that that player will match that volume the next year. In other words, Darrenton Evans could have some sort of role in this offense as a rookie. And what happens if Dereck Henry is out of Tennessee after twenty twenty he's playing on the franchise tag. What if he doesn't actually get a contract all of a sudden, Evans is in a really good spot. Now, the wide receiver in this tier is Chase Claypool. I really wanted Claypool to land on a team where they'd use him as a tight end because he had that potential then to make sort of an Evan Ingram type impact. But the Steelers have said that they want to play him on the outside, which I'm not a huge fan of. He just seems like someone who tests a lot better than he plays. And don't get me wrong, his athletic testing was awesome, but when you watch Claypool, he doesn't look like a wide out who's going to consistently win and create separation in the NFL. I'm just not a big fan of Claypool the wide receiver, and neither is my model really. Despite his draft capital, he ranked in the seventy ninth percentile, which was nothing special for a second round pick, and it's a fringe percentile ranking for hits. In my model, I like to see eightieth percentile wide receivers at least, but I'm open to being wrong. My scouting isn't flawless by any means. That's why I'm still cool with you taking him at the end of the second round or the beginning of the third round of rookie drafts if he's there. Now. This final tier of players that I'm going to talk about today, tier nine, I only brought up three of them in my rankings article over on Number Fire. I had Antonio Gandy Golden, then kJ Hammler, and then Devin DuVernay to close up my top thirty. I think Gandy Golden has a shot to see a lot of work right away. He's the size that Washington kind of needs in that passing attack. His production profile was predictably really good since he went to a small school, but it was also really good, which is necessary from that type of program. Now. I worry about kJ Hamler's size a little bit because he's only one hundred and seventy six pounds, but we know that he has speed. He's likely just as faster, about as fast as Henry Ruggs. But Hamler, to me profiles is a better real life football player than a fantasy one because of that size speed combo. He may open things up more for Courtland Sutton and Jerry Judy than be a standalone fantasy value out of the slot for Denver. I like Devin DuVernay's landing spot, and I wouldn't fault anyone for drafting him earlier than where I ranked him. The Ravens can use him immediately in the slot and get the speed that they want in that offense. He ran a four to three nine forty and he's so huge bump in production last year when he started to play in the slot more for Texas. I think he's a great, great fit for Baltimore, But like any receiver in Baltimore, we have to be somewhat worried about passing volume. So those were my players in my top thirty, but in my last tier, if I had written about one more player, it would be Van Jefferson, and I want to end today's show talking about him because I think that he, as an example, can wrap up my fantasy football philosophy pretty well. Jefferson's production and analytical profile sucks. I mean, that's just honesty. It's terrible. He's got a late breakout age, he's got crap college production. Everything that I've talked about on this show over the last couple of months that matter for wide receiver prospects, Van Jefferson does not have. But then he goes and he gets drafted in the second round of the NFL Draft to the Rams with Denzel Mims still on the board. The fantasy community didn't love Jefferson heading into the draft because the fantasy community is largely numbers based. Say what you want about analysts or people not paying enough attention to numbers, this community as a whole absolutely favors number based analysis more than teams and scouts do, and it makes sense as to why fantasy football is a game about numbers we're worried about numbers. How a player impacts the rest of his team matters very little to us if it means that player is not seeing production, so we can model for that, and we can aim to target specific players who fit a certain mold. It makes sense for us to be super numbers based. But here's the key takeaway that I try to talk about as much as I possibly can on this show because it's the single most important thing to winning in fantasy football. Fantasy football is just as much about the market as it is player evaluation. With player evaluation, you're not automatically right. You're wrong almost just as much as you're right when it comes to fringe players. So the other input that you should be paying attention to is the market Guys are getting drafted, and I mean you should be heavily paying attention to the market. If you really like a guy but everyone else also really likes that guy, then you're not really gaining that much of an advantage by drafting that player, since you know that you can also be wrong. And then the opposite is true too. If you really dislike a player and everyone else really dislikes that player, completely fading that player doesn't necessarily help you out, especially when that player was a second round wide receiver draft selection and one of the best wide receiver classes of the last decade. I don't need to like Van Jefferson the player to draft Van Jefferson because variance is a thing. I'm going to be wrong and there's at least one significant input, which is draft capital, that favors Van Jefferson. So while the fantasy community is rightfully down on the player given his analytical profile, I'm also recognizing and trying to take advantage of the fact that the fantasy community is also analytically driven. There's at least some bias there, and that's why Jefferson went from I'm never gonna draft this guy to holy crap, I can get a second round pick in the late third and sometimes early fourth round of rookie drafts. That's why Van Jefferson matters. I'm playing the market, not just player evaluation. That's gonna do it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you've yet subscribed to the Late Round podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks everyone, I'll have a rewind episode for you on Wednesday, so i'll talk to you then