Late-Round Perspectives: Chris Allen

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Chris Allen is a fantasy analyst and content coordinator at Fantasy Life. He's also the organizer of the Cookout group. He's an engineering nerd, a dad, a runner, a dad runner, a brewer, and a fantasy football meteorologist. These are his Late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by Underdog. Underdog is the easiest place to play fantasy sports and they give you a ton of different games and contests to choose from each week. If you think drafting is over because the season started, you'd be wrong. You can draft teams over there each week in literal minutes right now. If you sign up an Underdog with promo code Late Round, you not only get a deposit offer of up to one thousand dollars, but you also get access to my rest of season rankings. Those will be emailed to you once you sign up. But when you sign up, you have to use promo code Late Round. Had to underdog Fantasy dot Com or download the app to do so. Again, that's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show. I actually I went for a run today and I was like, man, that's fun that I'm running and I'm gonna be talking to Chris later today.

00:01:15
Speaker 2: Man, I'm jealous because I don't have as much time to be physically active during the football season because I burned the candle on both ends. Have the full time job and then doing this the times for me to get out and run around and actually just I don't be a be an adult for a little while. Those those come few and farm between. So I'm super jealous. But good for you. Man. Honestly, I know that Leoni has come down and done a couple of races with you. I would love to get down and do that at some point in the future. Man.

00:01:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've been I've been dealing with some low back pain as as all of us deal with as we age. Right like this, it's like the it's like for me, it's like the the butt to the lower back stuff.

00:01:55
Speaker 3: Going on right now, you know with when when I'm that's what I got too.

00:01:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's awful, It's awful, and so like even today I had to stop at one point. I hate There's nothing more demoralizing than going for like a zone two type run, like it wasn't even like a you know, like a hard run and having to stop because you know, I'm like feeling this pain going on. I'm like, I'm not gonna push it, because why would I push it. This is not there's absolutely zero reason to push this right now, right I'm not even training for anything, you.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: Know, exactly exactly, And what is up with all this stretching stuff. I remember like twenty years ago, not having to worry about any of that stuff. I would just Oh, I just want to go to the gym, or I want to work out, Let's just go and then just start pumping iron, or I'll just go and run for three miles or whatever the case may be. Now it's been so much more about getting my body ready before I even start doing physical activity, just things I didn't consider. But that's that's the part of getting old.

00:02:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've I've never felt older in my life than like the last like year or so. Like I threw out my back last year for the first time in my life. Whenever I picked up my son, like I literally just picked them up, and then I'm like, I can't walk right now, Like this is this is what's going on? And I think back to like I remember I was like I got I got into running, like I didn't really run that much in like high school, and stuff like that. And then I got into running in college. And it's not like I've been like a very very like hardcore runner.

00:03:13
Speaker 3: Even since then.

00:03:14
Speaker 1: I've been kind of off and on, but I've tried to stay pretty consistent, you know, over the last couple of years. But I remember I did my first ever five k. I was like twenty years old, right and I went and I was running at like a six thirty pace at the time, because I was twenty years old. And I went and I ran this thing and I was under twenty one minutes for the five k, and I didn't I did. I literally just got there and ran, didn't stretch, did nothing, felt felt fine afterwards, like I missed those days of just being able to do that. So anyone listening right now that's in your twenties cherished the time. Cherish yes, definitely, because my goodness, it is it is uh it changes. And then I know the people listening who are in their forties and fifties and even older, they're like these this this young and saying this stuff when he's you know, not even like it's it's only gonna get worse.

00:04:04
Speaker 3: I know it's only gonna get worse. Anyway, man, I'm really pumped to have you on.

00:04:09
Speaker 1: I like to start this off with every guest by just kind of getting a rundown of start to finish of like what got you into fantasy football? Where you stopped, you know, along the way, where you're at now, all that good stuff.

00:04:23
Speaker 3: So give us the story, man.

00:04:25
Speaker 2: The start is actually folks like yourself. Back in the twenty eleven twenty twelve time frame, I was working with a crew over at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. It's where I work at, and I got invited to my very first fantasy football league. So that was roughly like twelve years ago. So for folks that are out there that are like, oh my gosh, Chris Allen, this analyst, are like, he must have been doing this forever. Nope, It's only been just a shade over a decade that I've really gotten into fantasy football. But in my first draft, first league, I was made the commissioner for the league. Absolutely awful. I just remember my very like my first round pick. I think it was ray Rice. It was my first pick. After that, I don't remember anything. I did so terrible, and I did so bad to the point where I was like why is this so bad? Like why am I performing so terribly in this league? And once you draft your first roster and you really catch the bug of fantasy football, I started just diving into as much content as possible I found. I think the first place that I went to was ESPN because that was the more popular site at the time. Found some guy by the name of Matthew Berry that was putting out podcasts and talking about different strategies and all of that. But then afterwards I started hearing other analysts named across some of the podcasts I was listening to. I found the NFL Network podcast, Found You, Found Sigmund and Blue like all of these other guys, And that was really what enamored me with the industry as a whole, because you hear so many different perspectives, You hear so many different stories and personalities, and at least for me personally, I really started to jibe with a lot of the way that people took in content or the way that they process the game. For folks who don't know, I'm an engineer, been an engineer for the past like twentyth or so years. At different stops along the way, like from an industry standpoint from academia to industry now as a civil servant, but being able to use data to understand this game that we play or this thing that we talk about on a daily basis was so illuminating for me that I was like, Man, I feel like I could do this. I feel like I have the technical background or the understanding of what these folks are talking about that I could be able to contribute. But I just didn't know how. And one of the folks that at least helped encourage me to start writing and putting my name out there was Matt Harmon. I was actually in a fan league, so talking with the guys over at NFL Network. They were doing it. If you listen to the show, you get into this league with them, and I was in a league with both him and at Franciscovic and I had the idea based off for writing about weather based off of a game. It was in the twenty seventeen time frame. I think it was Week seven, Week eight. It was the Ravens going up against Washington, and I think that was around the same time that Deshaun Jackson was still one of the players that she wanted to target, and in that game, specifically, he was supposed to go up against Ravens cornerback Sheris Wright, and everybody was wanting to target him. They knew he was a poor corner. Deshaun Jackson being Deshaun Jackson was supposed to smoke him, and so on and so forth goes out. They play the game, and I believe d Jacks only had something on lines of like four for thirty five for sixty something along those lines, serviceable wide receiver two to three depending on your league settings, but didn't have the boom game that we expected. And I remember listening to The Football Guy's podcast and listening to Sigmund Bloom, one of the goats of the industry, but right afterwards, I think he made just an off handed comment of well, it was windy in the stadium, and so that was probably why we didn't see a lot of Deshaun Jackson at least didn't get the production out of them. And that was the first aha or like epiphany type of moment where I looked at it, I was like, well, couldn't we study that? Isn't there a way that we could collect data to say whether or not high winds or those like the elements impact the game, and so, like I said earlier, just based off of my technical no how started pulling data, scraping scraping weather sites and looking at performance based off of what the weather was supposed to be and how we would approach the game, and just threw together an article averaging some stuff here and there, showing the highs and lows and differences between players that you might want to, you might want to target, might not want to, and then just put it out there. I mean, it wasn't writing for any website. It was just something that I thought would be kind of a niche niche area to do, like to provide some added value to the end. I mean, especially talking with Matt Harmon, because that was more or less the infancy days of reception perception, and it was like, okay, how can I sound different? And of course I look different than a lot of the other fantasy analysts out there, but what is my added value? I'd just be another voice out there talking about tight ends and my rankings and sleepers and busts and all this other stuff. But I thought, at least with this it would allow me my own sort of avenue to say, like this is the thing I'm really going to dive into now. Of course, along the way I've really gotten into the weeds of course of trying to figure out how best to better contextualize weather stuff With my background. I'm a modeling simulation so like done a bunch of finite element analysis like in my like throughout grad school and really trying to like model things from a computational dynamic standpoint. I've actually modeled like stadiums and looked at like weather patterns going across it to see, like I've really gotten into weeds about a lot of this stuff. Yeah, I probably am on an FBI watch list because I've looked at how like stadiums are built and all of that. I've tried to google down to like what's the size, and like how that like the asmith of how stuff is angled. But that's but that That was my entry way into it. But after I got a sense of how to structure articles, how to apply my own voice to things, it really started to blossom from from there. And the number of stops along the way, I've been at four for four actually, I legitimately remember I was thinking about this last night. I remember I was driving up to a Dynasty startup draft up in Columbus, and I remember walking up to a couple of my friends and being like, hey, hey, guys, don't don't say anything, but I applied to number five and I got the job I got, and everybody started. Everybody started freaking out. They're like, oh, man, you could be working number five. So I've been so blessed to work at so many different websites so far in my time contributing over it established the run. I mean, I mean so many good so many good places. I've been able to football guys of course, like working with Sigmund Bloom and the rest of the foot over there. But now finding a home at at Fantasy Life has has really been like the my my ultimate goal because working across a number of sites has been great. They don't get me wrong, like seeing your name, Like I still get text messages now from friends and family whenever my name pops up on the Yahoo app because when they post the articles on all the day, Chris Allen like says, blah blah blah blah. I'm like, let's still really cool. But being able to find a home at at Fantasy Life has has really been my goal to be able to consolidate all of my work, but also being able to work around just so many good analysts, from Ian Harts and Dwayne McFarlane to like talking with Pete Overzet and pretty much everybody else that that works there. So I don't want to say this is like the final chapter of my career here in the industry, but at least for right now, knowing where I belong and knowing I'll also have a place when it's within the industry has really been like my goal since I started, and so it's fun to finally get there.

00:12:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: I mean it's something that I think people kind of take for granted at times, like when you just have that spot. You know, I was at number five for a really long time and FanDuel and stuff, and I was just able. It's nice to just have that as a home. And now obviously doing the lay around fantasy football thing, it's just nice to like have that standard goal, that that thing that you're working on that everyone else is working on as well, with the same team, and not getting things mixed up because you're doing this for this site and this for this site and all that kind of stuff. I think what you brought up though this is more for like aspiring analysts and stuff. Is the point of differentiation that you're talking about you as you sort of entered the space, and you're like, okay, I've seen that folks like Harmon right now is working on reception perception. There's clearly like you need a thing to sort of like get yourself you know, embedded and inserted into the conversation a little bit easier or more easily, right, and then once you kind of establish yourself. I would tell people all the time whenever they would send in samples and stuff to fire and they'd like have a rankings list with some commentary. I was like, like, my thought, I didn't I wasn't this rude to them whenever I would respond. But my thought was like, no one knows who you are right now, so they don't care about your rankings. You know, like like you have to establish yourself as here. Here's years and years of you know, like statistical backing and analysis that I've done that has proven to work, and a process it's proven to work, and now you know that that's all going into my rankings. But if it's a random like if I were to meet someone on the street, who says, hey, here's a rankings list that I put together. I'm like, okay, Like that doesn't I don't know anything about what your process is and how you really analyze this game.

00:13:38
Speaker 3: You know that's not That's not gonna do it for me at the end of the day.

00:13:41
Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking about just the image comes to mind of you know how. I don't know if it's the same way now, but back in the day of people moving out to LA or something along those lines, with the dreams of becoming making it big in the movie industry, and they walk around with scripts just in front of directors faces. I'm always leading about that, but like here, have you seen my rankings? See this? And just like I don't know who you are, I don't know how you came up with any of this stuff like this is not compelling. But I would say to your point though, and I've seen this posted by. His name is Jeff Bell. He works over at the Football Guy's an awesome guy and actually he lives like just up the road in Columbus from me. But he's put the point out there that when you make content, you should not be making content for other analysts. You should be making that content either for yourself or for the for the larger community. Of course, it's cool, like if you get the famed Evan Silva bump, if he happens to catch your stuff from repost it, and it's awesome if it's awesome to see folks like yourself or Harmon or whomever retweet the things that you're putting out. But really your goal as a as a content creator or as an analyst should you should be doing the things that you're passionate about, and then the followers will come along the way. Because when I was tweeting about about weather effects and when I was putting out some of my work early, that's when people like that's when people start to interact with you, because you're putting your thoughts out there. If you're just putting your rankings out there and just saying, all right, well, here's it's week twelve. Here are my running back rankings, without really any sort of avenue for people to interact with your work, then it's just like, all right, well, I'm gona take a look at your rankings, and then when I'm going to go look at John Paulson's rankings, or I'm gonna look at John Dagel's rankings, or I'm going to look at all this other stuff, Like what is about the thing that you're doing that allows you to separate that also invites the level of discussion that gets people a chance to know who you are past your content, Because if you're not doing that, then you really are just going to be another voice that's out there. You're going to be another one of those people that's out there on Twitter putting your stuff out there, but really not getting the level of notoriety that you would want. So if you are an aspiring content creator you do want to try and find your footing in this industry, again, think about what it is that you want out of doing it, right, like, instead of like the money and the fame and all that, because I'll tell you, like not.

00:15:56
Speaker 3: A lot of either of those two there.

00:15:58
Speaker 2: But still, I mean, if you do want to try and do this and you're passionate about it, like that should show in the work that you're putting out.

00:16:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, man, I get stopped everywhere I go, you know, because of the because of the Late Round podcast, you know. Yeah, No, I mean, like here here's the truth too, with like ranking stuff. Is that like if you're putting together rankings and like that's your baseline of content.

00:16:18
Speaker 3: My it's quite literally my least.

00:16:20
Speaker 1: Favorite thing to do is put together rankings, like like of all content pieces, the thing I want to do least. And I'm sorry to the patrons out there who you know, are are you know, digging into my rankings.

00:16:30
Speaker 3: And stuff at each week?

00:16:30
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, yeah, yeah, I still do them because I know that that they're important and there's a place for them. But you know, there's just not that much nuance that goes into that kind of thing, and there's a lot of group think with them, and there's just a lot of you know, and it's just it's honestly just insanely boring to do. Like when you're ranking, especially like Dynasty rankings, you're ranking two hundred guys and then it's like all right, like once you get into like the one hundredths overall player, even that soon that quickly you're split. I mean, it's just it's just not it's just not as like entertaining as like sitting down I know, I'm preaching the choir with you, but sitting down and like digging into the data doing a study and discovering things that haven't been discovered yet.

00:17:12
Speaker 3: Like that, to me is why we do this is because it's so freaking fun to do that.

00:17:18
Speaker 1: Now, another thing that you've helped create and and and bring forth in the fantasy space. You know, you mentioned earlier that you look different compared to other fantasy analysts, especially probably at that time. Uh, is the Cookout? Can you just talk about the Cookout a little bit and and what it's about. You know, I've learned about it over the last few years, and I just think it's an amazing, amazing thing that you're doing. And I think that the more people that we can, you know, reach out to and speak of the organization too, the better. So let everyone know what the Cookout's all about.

00:17:54
Speaker 2: Right, The Cookout is a group of minority content creators. And actually, let me take that back, or I guess redefine it because it's not just content creators. It's minorities that are working in the sports media industry. So it's essentially across all sports, all sorts of types of positions that you would have. So of course it's you see a lot more of the people that are forward facing, so folks like myself, whether it's Marcus Grant, whether it's mister Ray Garvin, I mean, any of the folks that you would typically see on social media promoting their work on a day to day basis. But of course there are a number of jobs that even I'm learning about that are available in the industry that might be able to that could be serviced by somebody that has a that is a minority that I just honestly I didn't know about it. Working at Fantasy Life has really opened my eyes to the different levels of I guess rigor that goes into a lot of these shows. I know for yourself, I mean I cannot do the things that you do in terms of being able to create a concise podcast in terms inside of fifteen to twenty minutes, because I can ramble on about a singular topic for about pretty much all that's fifteen to twenty minutes. But for working at Fancy Like, we have a number of producers who've got people working on social media to put out stuff. I mean all of those bits and pieces that as a singular content creator you don't really take into account, But those are all things and skill sets that other people outside of the norm have, and so when we put together the Cookout group, it was really just to say or just to allow people the platform to say that, yeah, I'm here, I'm out here, I'm trying to promote my work or at least be a part of this industry. And it's really not about the it's not about your the level of experience. It's about trying to foster that level of communication between other minorities that are in the industry, want to be a part of it and really want to try and make their way in the space. And so we use it as a resource group to not only say hey, I mean, let's band together and let's start to give each other or give each other some of the institutional knowledge we've been able to pick up over have many years. I mean what MG has been in the in the in this field for what fifteen is year something along those lines, if not longer. James Co, same same thing, myself, Ray Garvin, Tip Major, Troy King, Lakwan Jones. All of the people I've been so far that I've listed have been in the game for at least like five, ten, fifteen years. But it's not just building up the institutional knowledge base, but it's how can we now address the training aspect of it. How can we start to build up our individual skill sets. So if at jj zacher reason were to come along and say, hey, I'm looking for a co host to maybe work with me over the next season and say and really start to like up my game. From a podcast standpoint, could we have somebody that would address that skill set. Or if somebody were looking for research to be able to put together their own podcasts, so maybe something working behind the scenes. Same thing. But it's not just for the so for the cookout group in general, it's not just about you know, just banding together and trying to get jobs, but also being able to build people up. So once those opportunities arise, we have not just the network of connections to put people in those positions to win, but they also have the fundamental skill set in order to address some of the problems or at least address some of the skill sets needed by a number of companies within the industry.

00:21:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: Look, I mean it's awesome, and I think that from from my perspective and from other people's perspectives, you know, saying this on late round perspectives. We need all of these different types of perspectives from people who are coming from all walks of life, and we haven't always had that in the fantasy football space, you know, I think it's important to highlight that and to you know, let people know that there are a lot of great, great analysts and even to your point, folks that aren't necessarily front facing and in front of a camera who can help out, you know, with within the space and are very very capable.

00:21:52
Speaker 3: So I at least want to give you know, that a shout.

00:21:55
Speaker 1: You know, it's been something that you know, I've I've tried to be involved with over the last hand. You know, if you guys go to the Fantasy Football Expo, you know there's there's a lot of great, great conversation around this then and then you obviously, you know, being this organizer of it, it was a great time to at least bring it up and let people know that it exists, you know who or who are listening to this show.

00:22:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think moving forward, one of the things that I do want to try and do is make sure that folks within the industry like have a have a knowledge or like understanding of who we are and what we do. And then of course working with folks like yourself in order to shed more of a light on it. I mean, that's that's really the goal, and just getting the word out there so that we're bringing in more people, other folks that are new to the industry have a way to get in contact with us. And then of course the ultimate goal is, like you like to your point, is to be able to continue to get more and more folks like out there into the industry and picking up whether for facing jobs or jobs behind the scene, but regardless, it's about building up that skill set and that's what we're about.

00:22:54
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. All right, man, let's get into some fantasy football takes. We got we got by the way, this week sucks. Oh my god, this this week suck. I'm looking at some of my teams. I'm in the scott Fish Bowl playoffs. Humble Bragg of course.

00:23:07
Speaker 2: I'm in two.

00:23:07
Speaker 3: I man, there we go, there we go, there we.

00:23:09
Speaker 1: Go, and literally my whole team is on by like I have a Bengal stack, I have a Falcon stack. Like I'm just completely I am, I am literal. So we're recording this before Thursday night Football as usual. I my two quarterbacks in the Super Flex League. This week, my my I have four quarterbacks on my team are sorry, now five because I added Tommy DeVito, who's one of my quarterbacks this week. My other's Jamis, who's going tonight in what should be a terrible what So, people are gonna listen to this tomorrow and you will know how how good or bad off to a start I am based on you know, Jamis's performance, which I am not optimistic about Jamis against Pittsburgh. But we'll see what happens. But yeah, man, it's a it's a very very rough week. But let's talk instead of the week, let's talk about the season. My My first question, I want to ask you what has been the most you know, we're eleven weeks in, this is week twelve. What's been the most surprising thing to you about this fantasy football season.

00:24:04
Speaker 2: I would say the most surprising thing is the running back play out of some of the guys that either we had left not necessarily left for dead because they were all higher ADP picks, but for players that we had some concerns about and didn't know how they were going to shake out, or for even guys that we thought would have high end production but they got there in different ways. And the four examples that come to mind are Sakwon Barkley, Joe Mixon, Derrick Henry, and Devon A. Chan. And so now with h Chan specifically, the bet that we were making over the offseason was that his rushing efficiency that he flashed in his twenty twenty three season would be a larger part of the equation for twenty twenty four. Everybody remembers the game where the Dolphins dropped seventy points on the Broncos. It was an excellent show, but of course afterwards it was like a Chan got hurt where he most getting the twenty plus touchdowns, And so with him having a healthy offseason, we expected him to take a larger part of the workload and then move on from there. But it hasn't really been that way from a rushing standpoint. The rushing efficiency that just hasn't been there for him, but he's been able to make up for it as a receiver. Now, if you read one of the prospect guides that's out there in the industry right now, somebody on this podcast noted that Devon A Chan, who had a sixteen point four percent reception share coming out of college. This was in his range of outcomes. This was obviously a potential for him. But because we look at the Dolphins offenses being led by Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddell, having a chan potentially be the team's wide receiver two to be how we want to categorize him, that just wasn't in a lot of people's thought process. So it's one of those like you got the right result, but you got there in a different way, or you got there in a way that you didn't expect it to almost the same way. Like Joe Mixon, a lot of folks were making the bet that Okay, well we're gon We're gonna take this bet that c J. Stroud just one of the best rookie quarterbacks as we've seen. Of course he beat Joe Burrow, because I'm still not bitter about that at all, but he beat Joe Burrow. He's better than Joe Burrow. He's going to be one of the better pocket passers. And this is going to be this high efficiency passing game from from the Texans, and so Joe Mixon taking over the lion's share of that backfield caring the mail for one of the better better offenses in the league. We've got Nico Cohns, We've got Stefan Diggs, Tank Dell in his second year. I mean, it's going to be great. And that was the bet that we were making. Lo and behold what tankdlle gets shot over the offseason. Stefan Diggs tears his ACL midway through the season and the passing game crumbles around him to the point where we've had at least some concerns about c. J. Stroud as a passer. Completion percentage of expectation has taken a dip, passing success rate has taken a dip. But Lo and Behold, Joe Mixon has been the force behind the Houston, behind the behind Houston's offense throughout the entire of the season. Like his the revenge tour for Joe Mixon from a from a rushing efficiency standpoint was not something that anybody expected, especially people that are Bengals fans are looking at his production over the past couple of seasons. It's like those guys. And of course when you mix in Derrick Henry at his age going to the Ravens doing what he's done, having what a top three workload, I mean, all time, top three workload and putting up the production he has Saquon Barkley butt hurtling over people, like to the point where they had to put him into the Madden Game, just as do you see that like they put that thing. Yeah, So I mean those types of things where right now we can look back at it in hindsight and be like, oh, yeah, these are all things that we would like the production should have been there for them, but just how they got there and what they've been able to do with their opportunities. It's really has been one of the things that stood out to me so far during the twenty twenty four season.

00:27:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:27:48
Speaker 1: I love the way that you frame that because I think that like a common theme throughout what you just said is how we and this is something I talked about with Jacob Gibbs last week on the show and how he from a metrics standpoint, like largely doesn't care about And I've look, I've talked about this for like years where people will say, you know, last year it was fade Rashad White because he was a horrible rookie season. He had a horrible rookie season. On the ground, he's really inefficient and you know, it's like you, I don't really care about how good or bad a running back performs on the ground from an efficiency standpoint unless it is truly horrific, right like, just like absolutely obviously you're not any good at this game if you have an additional skill set of some sort and you're showing that inefficiency and their skill set. I'm not even saying just like as a receiver, right like for Rashad White, that's why he was able to find the field last year and why you know he was able to be in RB one or whatever he finished last year in fantasy football. But like Joe Mixon for instance, like mixing to your point, horrible efficiency numbers over the final I mean basically like realistically throughout his time in Cincinnati, he had pretty bad efficiency like no matter how you you sort of frame it. But I do think that there's just this like, no, like from a fantasy analyst perspective, we don't talk enough about the ability to just handle a big workload and how coaches just love that, right like Naji Harris being a great example of this, who again plays tonight, but Naji Harris, he's the one a in that backfield for sure at this point, Like we know that because Jalen Warren's been healthy now and everyone number one, he's been better right this year than even you know, last year he was okay, but the year before that it was really really bad. But you know, just one of those things where like with running backs in particular, we have to put our brains in the coach's brains, if you will, Like we have to think about how the coaches are are thinking because they're dictating volume one hundred percent. Like how they deploy backfield is what matters the most. Like we can say I really love this guy, and we can hope. You know, I always go back to, like Aaron Jones when he was in green when he was a rookie for Green Bay and or at least a younger player for Green Bay, and they had some inefficiency ahead of him, And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, play Aaron Jones.

00:30:04
Speaker 3: Play Aaron Jones. He's good, I really like.

00:30:06
Speaker 1: And sometimes you get that emerging talent that just kind of takes over and is able to overcome because of strictly talent. Right, I think we're starting to see that a little bit with Chase Brown, Right with Chase Brown versus Zack Moss. You're sitting there and you're like, Zack Moss is better in passport. It's like, okay, well, Chase Brown is better everywhere else, so we might as well just try to get on the ball a little bit more, right, And so I think that like the way we look at running backs might really shift after this year. Like I've tried to be this way, you know, throughout my time, especially the last handful of years, because I've just looked at data and have seen that, you know, running back efficiency just is so volatile. Now, did I expect von A Chan to be one of the least efficient runners in the league after literally breaking a record last year yards per carry? No, Like, we don't have to like project that to happen, but we can project regression, right, we can project some of those things to go on. Let me ask a follow up to this. There's been a lot of chatter about age in the running back position, and a lot of the guys you just mentioned are you know, quote older running backs that we typically would avoid. Now there's been a narrative, especially this week because you know, Joe Mixon had a monster game. You know, Derek Henry's done his thing all year. Saquon Barkley's done his thing all year. There's been a lot of chatter, at least that I've seen on social media this week saying people faded these guys and they were older, and now look what they're doing, they're burning all like all the people who faded. My response to that, and you can, like, I'd love to hear your reaction, but my response to that is that age was maybe a part of that evaluation. But to me, to me, like people were off of Saquon not because he was older, but they were worried about what Jalen Hurts might do at the goal line, or people were off on Joe Mixon for the things that you just mentioned about the Texans offense and more than likely being a little bit more pass heavy than actually what happened, Or people were off of Derrick Henry. Maybe that was age related to some degree. But you know, but like, I don't think it's just an age thing. I think we need to have a little bit more nuanced here. Do you agree with that, oh, one hundred percent.

00:32:15
Speaker 2: I mean, context has to be applied in every situation, and for this just summarily saying because they were older and they work on a perform Well, I think it's a little bit reductive because if you were to tell me that an older running back is going to go to any team but get all of the touches, I'd be like, Okay, well, now I'm interested. I'm but now tell me more. Is it now going to be in a situation where the quarterback is likely going to get most of the carries, wants to get inside the five and the up to the like the one yard line, especially for Saquon Barkley. Okay, well, now I'm a little bit less interested. And also, does the same running back have a history of having a few injuries here and there that's going to have multiple games, which has been a part of Saquon Barkley's history or the past two to three years. Okay, well, I guess I'm a little bit less interested now, So I wouldn't say that age is the only factor. And you mentioned Joe Mixon's rushing inefficiencies throughout his time in Cincinnati, But now you're going to tell me he's going to go to a team that we're expecting to be a bit more pass happy or past friendly and most of the offensive production is going to be based off of the quarterbacks shoulder and his ability to pass downfield versus Joe Mixon's rushing. All right, So then I'm a little bit less interested in that as well. So it's not just the fact that those guys were older. It was the situations that we're going into that didn't lend itself to running back rushing production. And I say running back rushing production because of course, with Jalen Hurts being there, of course the ground game was going to be there. But how much did we really expect Sequon Barkley to be a part of it? So I guess I'm an age. Yes, definitely plays a part of it. But it's not just that. It's about the situations that they were finding themselves. And that's why, again, it's so surprising to see them produce so well, just given the way that the seasons shaken out for pretty much all of them.

00:33:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's okay to say that like we were Like I remember there, I did a mail bag like right before the season started, and I remember talking about Saquon and his goal line work, and I mentioned that DeAndre Swift last year was actually he got a lot of volume at the goal line, like like his And looking back in hindsight, I wish I was pretty much at market with Saquon.

00:34:18
Speaker 3: I wish I would have taken that.

00:34:21
Speaker 1: And run with it, right and just said, like like, in hindsight, of course, I wish I was higher on Saquon Barkley, you know than I actually was. But yeah, I mean I I just think that dumbing it down to simply age, especially when the market didn't like fade these dudes, you know, like especially in in like more like home leagues and stuff. I guarantee you Sequon and Derek Henry were like one two turn type picks, you know, pretty consistently.

00:34:45
Speaker 2: So yeah, it'd be one thing if if we as a fantasy football community said that we're out on these guys because of age, and then the cost reflected that, right, because of all, like three of those guys were round six, seven, eight, nine picks, and then this happened. Okay, sure we can point the finger at all of us and say, you guys said that it was going to they were too old and they can't do it, and we're not going to play these guys. But they were all early round picks all of them, So there had to have been some sense of optimism or at least the context or the common sense applied to, well, if these things break right, they have the ability to be your top twelve running back side of the season. That was still clearly based off of their ADPs. That was still a part of the analysis, but it was just take into account that, yes, they're older, Yes they have had this potential injury history of like for Barkley specifically, or these things that might not lend itself to them winding up in the top twelve at the end of the season, but at least given their price, the upside for all of them was definitely baked into how we were looking at them throughout draft season.

00:35:46
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And it's not like we failed to recognize that there was a ceiling for these guys. That's the thing that like, I get kind of irritated about whenever we do whenever we like start having these conversations on social or what have you, like, we're only looking at one outcome that happened, right, We're only looking at what actually went down, when there are many other things that could hypothetically go down, And if you ignore those things, and I think that you're putting yourself in trouble in the future. And I think this leads to my next question, which based on what we've seen this year, is there anything that you think you'll be able to take advantage of in next year's draft? You know, based on how guys are performing, based on the general sentiment around fantasy football, and you know how people are kind of viewing these positions.

00:36:32
Speaker 2: So at least I'll switch positions here because instead of looking at the running back position, the way I was thinking about this one was look at how mad everybody is about the tight end position this year, especially the folks that invested in the early round tight ends. Of course, some of them over time. I mean, we're going into week twelve, almost like three months into the season, and we've seen at least an uptick and work from Trey McBride. Hasn't scored a rush or a receiving touchdown yet, at least it has gotten into the box as a as a as a runner. But Travis Kelcey has popped up for a few games, George Killerwheny's healthy, has been okay. Kyle Pitts has popped up for a game here too, but still it's large. Like, by and large, if you invest in early round tight end, you're probably kind of upset with the return. And so at least I'm looking at that, at the fragility of the position and trying to rethink how I'm going to look at things from a year to year basis, And like a couple of situations really had me thinking about this. It's the one for the Detroit Lions and then also for the Ravens. Now we can look at how Sam Laporta and Mark Andrews have done. Sam laporter has had the one year, but we have at least a couple of seasons from Mark Andrews and their targets were out around their air yard. Share any advanced metric that would highlight how good they've been when targeted, and that's why a lot of folks wanted to push them up into the early rounds. I completely understand that. However, if we look at what the teams were trying to tell us in terms of what they wanted to see out of their passing game as a whole, and I would contextualize or at least apply this context to a lot of the players that were going to at least try and target for next year. I can see why, and this is obviously with the gift of hindsight, how things have gone the way they have. So for Sam Laporta, Jamison Williams, and the team drafted him like with the with the high round pick that they wanted to, the hope would be that coming off the injury and then also the gambling suspension, he would turn into the wide receiver two that he has so far this season and even with the end game or in season suspension, what was it two weeks ago, Jamison Williams walked right bank, right back into a twenty percent target share. He has functioned as the wide receiver too that the Lions wanted to it wanted him to be. So I can see why Sam Laporta hasn't been used as much, and the team told us as much when they drafted Jamison Williams. They wanted somebody to go alongside of Aman Ross, Saint Barron, and so then the same thing for Mark Andrews. We've seen this shift of this evolution and how Zay Flowers has been used. He hasn't been this shorter type of like shorter at type of receiver as he was in his rookie season, seeing more intermediate targets for safe flowers, more targets across the middle of the field, and those explosives that he's been able to create with Lamar Jackson. That's also with the addition of or at least the emergence of Isaiah likely down the back end of last season, we knew that the Ravens wanted to have a more diversified passing game while still wanting to feature Lamar Jackson. Of course Derrek Henry in the running game. So it's like with those two specifically, it's like what are the what is the team trying to tell us as like what they want their passing game to be. I mean, we all look at Travis Kelcey and his uses with Pastion Mahomes as like the gold standard, Like once you find your receiving tight end that has this high end target share, those are the guys that you want to go after. And from a history standpoint, that makes sense because at least last year as a proxy, it was like the of the top six tight ends last year, five of those six had target shares at or above twenty percent. And so if you were just copying paste like those stats the d of this year. That's how you saw Sam Laportam, Mark Andrews, Trade McBride, all of those guys being in at the top end of ADP at least for the tight end position. But now I'm trying to like fast forward this to twenty twenty five, and I'm thinking through for a guy like Trade McBride, will we be having this exact same conversation about the disappointment with Trade McBride if Marvin Harrison Junior develops into the wide receiver that we want. So those are the kinds of things that I'm thinking about. Is that I can see why Dalton Kinkaid isn't as much of a factor in the Bills offense because they wanted Kean Coleman to get involved, They wanted Khalil shake Here to get involved a bit more. And so like thinking about how not just the tight end usage, but the context of the usage within their offense as a whole. Those are the things that I want to try and apply to twenty twenty five and moving forward versus just saying this guy gets a high number of targets, this is the way that we used last year, and just summarily saying that the way that they used last year is definitely, without a doubt, unequivocally going to be the way that they're going to be used in the year's movie.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that, Like, and I mentioned this on the mail bag last week that I did because someone had asked about like tight ends being such a disappointment in an abomination and stuff, and you know, like, while I agree and and some I think that there still needs to be a recognition that, you know, Number one, we had this like anchoring bias based on it because it was real, real bad after like week two, like real real bad, right, Like like they had like eight total tight end touchdowns across the league after the first two weeks of the season. It was horrific, Like we had never seen anything like that. And so but if you look at it, like every single player, every single tight end that was drafted this year, had some sort of warted right, like some sort of like question mark, like Sam Laporta, in my opinion, I had talked about that that this on the show, like he had some regression coming at least from like a touchdown perspective, and oh yeah, you know, I think his usage.

00:41:55
Speaker 3: Is pretty surprising.

00:41:56
Speaker 1: Still you know, I think that your point about about JMO and stuff is definitely valid, but you know it's used to just still surprising based on how we felt to start the season with che Porta, right, And then you know, you look at like Trey McBride, Okay, we don't have a massive sample on him, or you look at Travis kelce where you're like, okay, he's getting older, and I like, I almost feel like we're assuming that these guys were drafted in the first two rounds, like we typically have seen these elite tight ends get drafted. But to me, those wartz brought their ADP down at least to like semi respectable levels, like to round four and into round five and stuff like that. And like I look at it, and I'm like, I haven't looked like I haven't looked at like how well they're exceeding ADP expectation. I haven't plugged into a little formula that I have or anything like that yet. But like Travis kelcey, now that Rashid Rice has been out, has been you know, aside from last week, has been good, right, He's been a good asset.

00:42:47
Speaker 3: Or Trey McBride has been great.

00:42:49
Speaker 1: And imagine if he was scoring touchdowns, I mean he would he would be having a monster season. George Kittle, who was top six from an ADP perspective according to Fantasy pros, is having the best season of his career, like from a fantasy perspective. And then you know, Kyle Pitts's has you know, as you mentioned, kind of probably we would consider him a bust more of a bust than a hit.

00:43:09
Speaker 3: Dalton Kincaid definite bust.

00:43:11
Speaker 1: Right.

00:43:12
Speaker 3: But to me, when I look at like the lan.

00:43:15
Speaker 1: Take a step back and look at the landscape, do like, has it really gone away that we didn't totally expect, like in totality, like when we if we really think because like like Trey McBride, Travis.

00:43:28
Speaker 3: Kelcey, uh, who else.

00:43:31
Speaker 1: George Kittle, Right, those guys have been have been relatively okay if you have them in your starting lineup in PPR formats, they've been relatively okay. Maybe they're not matching like a round one, round two tight end by ADP historically, but they've been like okay enough. And then obviously brock Bowers is the massive hit at the position that you got sort of a low end tight end one range and David and Joku's been really good. Post Amari Cooper again, he's playing tonight. I always at to have to say that and if something happens, but like, like late round tight ends haven't really come to fruition aside from Kate Totten this year, you know, Like, and I just wonder, like, do you think that adp at tight end next year? To me, it might just look the exact same as it did this year. Like I'm sitting talking like we get some third round, maybe one third rounder, you know, maybe brock Bowers, like a second rounder or something, but we get like yeah, but then we get like, you know, maybe a McBride and at the end of round three, and then you know, maybe Kittle goes in four or into five and Kelsey's up there where Kittle is and stuff. And to me, like, that's basically the market telling us that they're not expecting, aside from a brock Bowers, to really be that elite. And so we're gonna have hits and we're gonna have misses as opposed to if they are a first round pick and they busts. That's bad, that's really bad because the opportunity cost is so high. So I'm I do wonder, like, do you think that there's a possibility that next season people are just gonna be so far out on elite tight ends based on perception and based on the fact that, like historically we've seen elite quote unquote elite tight ends hit at a really really good rate. But they were also drafted in rounds one and two right when we're talking like Grunk and Kelsey and sometimes Andrews. But last year, in twenty twenty four, I'm speaking from a twenty twenty five perspective. Last year, you know, some of them hit, some of them didn't. And then I think though that because the expectation was so high based on what we've seen historically, even with the decreased ADP in twenty twenty four, I almost feel like people are just gonna be like, nah, I'm just gonna I'm gonna stream, give me Tucker Craft late, I'm good to go. Do you think that that's a possibility.

00:45:39
Speaker 2: Here, Yeah, Well, I think it's a I think it's possible that people will still approach whatever priors folks had or whatever their strategic approach to drafting tight ends were. This year, I think it's still gonna hold true for the next year. I think if people went into this season saying I want to find one of the elite tight ends, and they'll just look at us as the like us being like the family Fantasy Analyst community to say, well, tell me who were the top six from this season, and then I'll just make my draft strategy around grabbing one of those guys, and then everybody else is gonna be like, well, I can still find a Kate Ott and at the back end of my draft, or I'm still gonna be looking for the middle the tight end middle class, like I'll be still drafting David and Joku or Hunter Henry, or I'll try and find the next year's like no Offense even though he hasn't really done much of anything, but all all of those guys, and I'm just gonna be I'll be listening to uh, I'll be listening to the Late Round podcast and then just complaining about whatever whatever suggestion Denny told me to pick up that wound up completely trashing my line up the next week, and I'll just blame Denny like after afterwards. And That's probably what's going to happen, because to your point, if there were more late round tight ends that were producing or consistently producing at the same level as you're, uh do Travis Kelcey's or any of those guys.

00:46:59
Speaker 3: Then I think the.

00:47:00
Speaker 2: Whole market with then ship and then get flipped on its head. But unless you can tell me that you're going to be able to identify the late round tight end for next year, that's going to turn out like Kate Otten, who again let's add in some contexts that needed to supremely high end wide receivers die on the field in order to get to where he's at, and also in an offense that wound up having one of the higher password over expectations that's dropped down in the past couple of weeks. But like, that's what needed to happen or to get Kate Otten to where he's at. So just say like, hey, I'm just gonna draft next year's Kate out and well, cool, you tell me where that's at and then we'll tell nobody else. Yes, okay, but still I would say that's that's the thing that I would push back on, just saying, well, I'm not going to draft high end tight ends and then I'll just wait for the late round the late round sleeper that is going to give me, give me the edge over everybody else, because that's just not the case. I did a study for the Fantasy Life magazine over this year looking at tight end sleepers and at least for the top six tight ends in the past, and this is like four to five years. I mean, you need like about an average like your your target share being around like somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent, having a high end targets per route run and route share and running getting out there and running routes. I mean, target share alone has a point six to our square to fans to PPR points. That's over the last four seasons of data. So if you're not earning targets, none of the stuff even matters. So at least so taking hits or taking swings on guys that at least earning targets, that's typically the way that you're gonna find one of those guys that's gonna wind up in the top six of tight ends. Just for this season, especially at the start of it, we didn't get that. But I think for most of those guys, again, we're probably gonna be having the same conversation or that same group of tight ends are going to be the ones that are going to have that high end ADP for twenty twenty five, and where it's gonna have to again contextualize the situations and see who the best out of that bunch is really going to be.

00:48:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is what I think happened this year, right, Like I feel like like you know, like I remember writing in my draft guide that one of the one the predictive things that I found for top six tight ends was if they had a previous yards per rou run rate that was above a certain threshold. I think it was like one and a half or something like that. And the tight ends that were in the top six historically there weren't There weren't many, but even a top twelve, the tight ends who had low yards pro out run rates the previous season did not hit at a very good rate at all the next season, and two of the tight ends that I called out were Dalon Kincaid and Kyle pitts Now. I understand that it was scary at the time, but it was one of the things that made me not go overboard and drafting them this year was because there are some predictive signs like that that should scare you a little bit now, you know, were they in unique circumstances and stuff. Yeah, of course, you know, Kyle Pits had the quarterback upgrade. Dal Kincaid was a rookie and very rarely do we see second year guys at tight end, you know, get that kind of of draft capital in terms of ADP. But you know, there are some things, like I said, there were warts and all of these players, and it's just funny that I feel like the consensus sentiment is we sucked at tight end this year, but we didn't.

00:50:01
Speaker 3: We didn't like like look at the late round tight ends. We were right. The late round tight ends have not been good. Like you know, we gotten John.

00:50:07
Speaker 1: News Smith and we've gotten Will Disley, but you know, I understand that, but they're likely not going to be matching the guys who we did draft earlier who did end up hitting, which is maybe like a fifty percent rate or something like that all things considered. So you know, I think especially if you remove brock Bauers from the equation, like brock Bowers one hundred percent, Like you know, he probably went late in some home league drafts and stuff like that. He was a massive hit. He was the best value at tight end by far this year. It's not even close, right, sure, But like I don't want to, you know, I don't think that we can just use like a generational talent and be like that's the way that we need a draft moving forward, because we're not going to see a Brock Bowers every year. We're not gonna see that kind of ADP happened from him every year, you know. So No, I think we were actually, like I don't know, maybe this sounds crazy. I just don't think that we were that bad with tight ends this year versus how people talk about it.

00:50:58
Speaker 2: No, and for Brock specifically, Like, yes, you can look at the collegiate production for Bowers, look at how he tested, like from an athleticism standpoint, and say, oh yeah, no, duh, he should have been the hit that we expected him to be. But look at his runout of course earlier in the season. Of course the target share was going to be there. But no DeVante Adams, no real like wide receiver two. To note of Jacoby Myers is still a serviceable wide receiver one by volume only, but now this has been like he's now part of an offense sets essentially, and also he got drafted to a team that also had an early round tight end drafted the year prior, like he had like immediate target competition walking into the season, And of course folks in hindsight can point to him be like, well, he was the best talent on the offense, so it completely makes sense that he have all these targets. But still you didn't know that walking in. If you were to say that this is a tight end that got drafted by the fricking Raiders and also has at least at least one, if not two, potential high end targeters in front of him, you'd be concerned. There's a reason why he was being drafted. And also he's a rookie, so like there was jitimate concern as to how things were going to shake out from in Week one and his rookie season. And now he's also another guy let's see if the Raiders want to start adding in more wide receiver talent in twenty twenty five, and let's have the same conversation that we're having about him. He could be the next Sam Laporta.

00:52:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, Bauers is literally breaking like reception rookie reception records, and so you know, I think we at least need you know, I was basically at market.

00:52:25
Speaker 3: This isn't like a like a cope at all.

00:52:27
Speaker 1: This is just like a let's just be realistic that he's had a great runout like you said, lose DeVante Adams gets hyper targeted and he's good and so all that com mine really really helps him out. Let's get into some just regular player takes. First one on the fifteen Transaction Show this week, I called Calvin Ridley a bye, Am I an idiot?

00:52:48
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't say. I wouldn't say you're you're an idiot. Although earlier today Will Levis was having a press conference and folks were asking if his if he thinks he's improved as a passer, and did you see his response? He said he's not passing with his left hand or performing chess passes, so he thinks he's improving. I was like, so, if you're calling his wide receiver, want to buy? And that's what his quarterback is saying that there might be some concern, I have some concern for you, but I would say, yes, Calvin Ridley is I would consider him a buy. Let's put aside the craziness that's going on with the Titans passing game. But we'll look at his upcoming schedule. So got Houston Washington two's two games against Jacksonville Cincinnati in Indianapolis. None of those defenses or secondaries are secondaries that you want to avoid from a fantasy standpoint using our DVP tool over at Fantasy Life, all of them are above the in the top half of the league in fantasy points allowed to the wide receiver position. So at least that sets up Calvin Ridley for good matchups throughout the fantasy playoffs. But also with DeAndre Hopkins out, he switched from an eighteen percent target share that was in the earlier parts of the season to twenty six over the past like four games. And I think also it's not just the volume but the types of targets he's been getting. His catchfuble target rate has jumped up, his average up, the target has gone down a bit, so less volatile targets. I mean it's still around like fifteen yards, which I mean it makes things still a bit tougher, but at least seeing that type of usage lends itself a bit more too. All Right, He's the wide receiver one, not just because he gets most of the volume and really his next best target or the next best target for will Levis is Nick Westbrookakine. But still if he's getting most of the targets, most of the air yards and being used in a more efficient manner, slightly more efficient manner, and he has the defensive matchups. Calling Calvien Ridley a bye, I think makes some sense to me.

00:54:44
Speaker 3: That's good to hear.

00:54:44
Speaker 1: That's good to hear because I there was at one point earlier in the season where I said, I think the Titans offense is like their passing attack is kind of a bye right now. This is probably like week six or something like that, And it bit me for sure because they did not, you know, narrator, they did not get much better.

00:55:01
Speaker 3: As a passing attack.

00:55:02
Speaker 1: But I do think that things have come together for Ridley, you know, post DeAndre Hopkins, and you brought up some really good points with some of those those data points, Deebo Samuel, what's going on there?

00:55:14
Speaker 3: Should we be concerned?

00:55:16
Speaker 2: I mean I would be concerned, But this is one of those where I just think about it, like one he had the calf entry like earlier on in the in the season that had him sideline, but two what was it just a few weeks ago he had to be hospitalized because he had fluid in his lungs. I don't know about any of you folks like listening to this show, or I don't know about you JJ if I even have the sniffles, it's it's hard for me to even set my fantasy football lineup, let alone get out there and run. Could like completely just go completely out for however many snaps that he plays on a particular game. But I would say the on the flip side of that same argument, it's not like we've seen less of debo his like his route rate has still been above seventy percent, and actually it's been going up over the past three weeks, like since they before the buy and like shortly thereafter he's out there getting his cardio in. I would say, though, that his largest problem is this emergence of Jwan Jennings. I mean Jawan Jennings. He missed what two weeks with the hip injury, immediately came back and that was in week ten with CMC back in the lineup, and had like what a thirty plus percent target share. I mean, which is insane. I mean, given the fact that we came into this season thinking Jennings was going to be essentially the team's wide receiver three and so we were talking earlier about good runouts for tight ends and any of the running backs, but like this, this runout for Jennings, I mean, no Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle has been in now in the lineup. Same thing with Deebo Samuel, but of course Jennings has dealt with his own ailments. But to see him have what one of the better wide receiver outings of not this season, but in the past three or four years, that forty six point a performance that he did back in like Week three, I mean, that was crazy. But now to see him follow that up with consistent usage of being like above twenty five percent of the team's targets actually giving Deebo a run from his money in terms of opportunities from Brock party. I think that's the larger concern for Deebo Sammy moving forward. And it's good to see like seven, six and seven targets for Deebo Samuel overs past three games, still getting the opportunities in the offense, but with Jennings playing as well as he has been so far, and not just from the week three, Week four thing, but over the past few weeks since coming back. I mean, that's a larger concern I have for Deebo on top of the fact that brock Party has a shoulder injury which has kept him out of practice at least for today so far.

00:57:30
Speaker 1: So I love having my prospect guy now because I can literally see how I viewed a player like as he was drafted, right like when he came out, Like this is objectively how I feel about this guy. But I didn't always have that right. I've only been doing that for three years now. And so I went back on Twitter and I looked at when I had talked about Juwan Jennings, and it was hilarious because I found a tweet that I had responded. Hayden Wings had sent a tweet out that said, who are your favorite wide receiver sleepers.

00:57:57
Speaker 3: In this class?

00:57:57
Speaker 1: And I named four of them. One of them was because he made a list and one of the guys on that was not on the list was Michael Pittman. So I said, Michael Pittman was one, which is great, Like I got that right, and then Juwan Jennings was actually another one that I had mentioned in that tweet. And then I had two other ones. One was Brian Edwards, who has been a complete bust, and then the last one. The last one was Omar Bayless, who.

00:58:20
Speaker 3: I don't even know who that I know I sent the tweet.

00:58:22
Speaker 1: I put the tweet in our discord and everyone's like, you just made up that guy, Like there's no.

00:58:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's no way that's a real person. Yeah, but yeah, I was.

00:58:33
Speaker 1: I remember, like, you know, I I I thought that Juwan Jennings had some juice. I didn't think that he was gonna be two and a half yards per route run kind of juice. You know, Like he's been absolutely destroying this year. But it's been it's been good to see. All right, let me ask you about bo Nicks. Do you think that he is just like a plug and play dude, now that you're just gonna play no matter what, don't care about the matchup moving forward? Then a follow up to that, this is kind of dynasty maybe just like real football related, but do you think that we should be viewing Bonnicks higher than Caleb Williams.

00:59:04
Speaker 2: Oo higher than Caleb Williams. All right, I answer the first question first, and I'll get to the second. One plug and play starter for the rest of the season. Yes, regardless of the matchups so far, like outside of the early parts of this season, Bix has performed as like at least in the top sixteen category. Because surprisingly enough, for as much hype as he has received, I think bo Nix has only had four top twelve finishes so far this year. Uh. And that's even with like the rushing and stuff included that so relative to his peers, I think he's played well enough that we should consider I'm a plug and play type of starter, and that's primarily because of the rushing, the short a dodd and like this passing efficiency is still something to consider. And that's why again when I talk about Kayleb Williams, I'll have a few more notes about that, but especially this week going up against the Raiders, and Raiders don't generate a bunch of pressure as it is, but still, I mean, right now, like Bonnix, I think he has like he's top ten and scram rate like win win under duress. And he's also one of four quarterbacks in the league so far with double digit rushing first downs, like if pressured and that's it's just Bonicks, it's Jayden Daniels, it's Rock Purdy, and it's Jalen Hurts. I mean, so those so if he's up there with those guys from a rushing standpoint, I mean, he should be something that you somebody that you should want to have in your lineup for the remainder this season. I think the problem that I had, and I was trying to think about this, like why wasn't I really, like, uh like more into bon Nicks like during draft season. I think it was because of that passing, the passing acumen, or this lack of skill set compared to the other quarterbacks in this class. I mean, think about Drake May when we knew he was going to get the the have the rushing portion with him coming out of UNC, but it was going to be like he would be more of the like the upside would be that the ceiling case would be there for May as a passer coming from that air raid system in North Carolina if he let the ball loose to any of the guys that we were interested in, whether it was Jalen poll taekwon even though like he got kicked out javomp. I mean, any of the pass catchers were interested in that would allow me to enable his ceiling. Same thing with jayd and Daniels, and of course the same thing with Caleb Williams. That wasn't the case for bon Nicks. He had one of the lower passing a dots compared to the rest of his classmates. And also thinking about it from a draft standpoint, so much of the things that we want to do from a draft strategy is correlate our rosters. So if you draft the quarterback, you want to get the wide receiver that would go with him, or even the tight end j j. You tell me which wide receiver do you really want to draft or pick up and start with. With bon Nicks, I mean, outside of Courtland Sutton, it's just been this mix of Little Jordan Humphrey, Troy Franklin, Devon Vley, Lucas Kroll, Adam Troutman, Dayton's finest. But like that's I mean, it's just been a mix of all these guys. So without having like a standard set of just like or even a condensed set of pass catchers, trying to figure out who to play bon Nicks with has probably been the reason I've been out on him so far. But still, if you you get the rushing production, you get at least functional passing production out of bon Knicks, and his upcoming matchups at least are enough such that like he should be in consideration for the rest of the playoffs. But compared to Kayleab Williams, that's where that's tough for me for folks that are in the dynasty streets because at least seeing Caleb Williams limit negative plays, let the ball loose, and really start to connect with Roma Dunes a downfield, seeing a bit at least some production out of DJ Moore, we at least got those two guys because I'm assuming Keenan Allen is not going to be in the long term picture for Chicago, So if we're at least seeing him take that step forward in terms of limiting negative plays is what twelve thirteen percent scramble rate just this past week I think was second highest for him for the entire season. So if we're seeing him start to create out a structure, hit some plays downfield, connecting with what we assume is going to wind up being his wide receiver one in a duneesay like over the course of his career, I would still give the edge to Caleb Williams from a Dynasty stand but I can understand after three, like a three month sample for bon Nicks, why at least we should be having a conversation about which one you'd want to roster for Dynasty.

01:03:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:03:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not as big of a quarterback evaluator as I am running back and wide receiver and such. You know, I know I'm modeled none of that. It's difficult. But with bo Nicks that I think, you know, it's just it's gonna be. I just feel like it's gonna be one of those situations that's very similar to how everyone viewed Brock Party where not to say that he's gonna be Brock, because I think Brock Purty is like legit, legit good, like very very good. Right.

01:03:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:03:35
Speaker 1: I don't know if we can necessarily just get like assume that that's the outcome for bon Nicks. But what I do think is gonna happen is people have a hard time not separating a scheme and environment with the quarterback. And I think everyone kind of knew intuitively, like bo Nicks going with Sean Payton and merging that talent that skill set did make sense, and we're already seeing that right now. You mentioned like his not I mean, wasn't last week like three and a half or something like that. It was very very low and he's just letting his receivers do his thing. But that's kind of what we've seen out of the Peyton offense historically.

01:04:10
Speaker 2: This is like career Drew Brees.

01:04:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Like there's there's nothing there's nothing wrong with someone doing the right things within the structure that he's given, right and and that's when I'm trying not to ding bo Nicks four. But I do think that to your point, like Caleb William still to me has the ceiling of the two. But you know, I think it's at least at least a conversation where I don't think at all it was like to me like Drake May might end up being the QB one of this, like he's been really really good, but I think it's Jane Daniels Drake May, and then you start to get into this this conversation of these two guys. But yeah, I mean it's a it's definitely an interesting conversation at least to have.

01:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially for Drake May. Let's see in twenty twenty five where this is the part that becomes even tougher for me as a Bengals fan. Let's see after Cincinnati lets T Higgins walk. There already been links to the Patriots going to going to New England. So if he has at least a budding wide receiver prospect in Jalen Polk, we'll see, like Hunter Henry is always a solid tight end to have, like at you et your side, and then if you get a wide receiver one in T for next season, I would already assume that May's adp for like for redraft purpose is going to be fairly high. After this season they had somebody like T we're probably gonna have to be paying early round prices for him in twenty twenty five.

01:05:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he and they have the Mario Douglas out of the slot, who's a great slot yeah, you know, like yeah, he's like he's like a diet Josh Downs basically, like.

01:05:36
Speaker 3: More or less, Yeah, he's like the the I mean, that's who Drake May played with in college.

01:05:40
Speaker 1: It's been sort of like the connection that I've made with with Douglas, we just aren't seeing like monster games out of him yet because I don't think the offense is just capable of that.

01:05:47
Speaker 2: But that offensive line I think needs a lot of rework. And I think was it Jacoby Brissette was on pace to at least beat out Sam house sack rate at one point from last season with the number of hits he was taking. So they make some changes there, invest in the wide receiver position. I mean, they get a guy like t in the building. I mean it's just like wheels.

01:06:05
Speaker 3: Up for Yeah, they can get that true one.

01:06:09
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna ask you one more question before we head out here, because we are you know, we're talking a lot because you know we're we're buddies, so it's easy to just go back and forth for a while. Are there any like lower key players right now who you think have a chance to be league winners down the stretch?

01:06:27
Speaker 2: Low key guys that at least have a chance to get hot down the stretch. I don't know about low key, but I would say the one guy that I'm looking forward to seeing how things shake out for him is Bucky Irving running back for the for the Buccaneers, I know that Todd Bowles has come out and said they want to at least try and ride the hot hands, so without like fully endorsing him, at least giving the room or giving the edge to Irving throughout the remainder of the season. And we've seen so far him start to work in ahead of Rashad White as the lead ball carrier, but at least White has still been able to maintain his role as the pass catcher. I was actually kind of surprised to see Sean Tucker not really get involved after seeing him come up with a couple of games early in the year. But if now the Bucks backfield is going to condense to White and Irving for the foreseeable future, we know Irving is the more efficient rusher. We know he's the more explosive runner out of the two. From a down to down play to play basis, Irving should be the guy we hope to see, or like we should see a bit more of, And if he gets even a little bit more of that passing game, I mean, he should be the guy that I'm really interested to see how things shake out from down the stretch. And they got some pretty good matchups to at least I can lend itself to Russian production.

01:07:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable matchups for them. He was a bye for me this week on fifteen transactions, so I'm in lockstep.

01:07:41
Speaker 3: It's a great, great call out, Chris.

01:07:44
Speaker 1: This was amazing. I always love chopping it up with you. Let everyone know where they can find you and what you're working on all that good stuff.

01:07:50
Speaker 2: You can find me on social media at Chris Allen FFWX, same name over on X and also Blue Sky, and then most of my work is over at Fantasy Line if I do the wide Receiver Quarnerbacks matchup column, so most of the written work is there. But also do multiple shows throughout the week Mondays and Wednesdays do shows with Ian Hardt's Dayne MacFarland and Paul Charchian, and of course the Last Minute Sunday's Sunday Morning Starts sit show with Matthew Friedman. But I also do a column each week over at Yahoo just talking about some of the top storylines. So between Fantasy Life, Yahoo, the Fantasy Life YouTube channel, you can check all of my workout at those three spots I've been.

01:08:27
Speaker 1: I just realized how many Fantasy Life folks, I brought on the show over the last like month and a half because I had I had, I had Dwayne on in like early October. I think it was I had Charts on a couple of weeks ago and yeah, yeah, yeah, and now you But it's it's cool though, because you guys all bring a really different flavor to you know, like church. Now we're able to talk Gillotine a lot, of course, and yeah, you know, Dwayne is going to be the like Dwayne and I just ended up just talking about literally just some of the data stuff that he's worked on and whatnot the entire time, which I guess you and I probably could have done the exact same thing, given your your your nerdiness with all this stuff too.

01:09:02
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah, but uh yeah, it's just it's cool that you guys.

01:09:05
Speaker 1: You guys really bring a lot of different viewpoints to the table, which is cool, and it's uh, you know, credit to what's being built over there at Fantasy Life as usual. You guys to find me over on Lateround dot com and on Twitter and on blue Sky at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. Oh wait, I gotta say thanks for tuning in.