Late-Round Perspectives: John Daigle

00:00:00
Speaker 1: John Dagel is a lead season long analyst that established the Run who once worked in NBC Sports. He's an FSWA Award winner, a long distance runner, a former roommate of Evan Silva's, and while he's a better chef.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: Than I am, I've got more hair.

00:00:14
Speaker 1: These are his Late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. There's no better place to play best ball than an Underdog. There are leagues starting all the time, and you can choose whether you want to do a slow draft or a fast one when entering one of those leagues. And you don't just have to play best ball Mania to play best ball at Underdog. There's a wide variety of contests to choose from. You can even check out Underdog's other games as well, like pick them right now. You can get in on the action with a deposit offer and free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide just by signing up and depositing just had to Underdog Fantasy or download the Underdog app. When you sign up, use promo code late Round and make a deposit for a deposit offer and a free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide. That guide will then be emailed to you when it launches on July first. Again, that's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show.

00:01:19
Speaker 3: I can host if you would like to step back for a change, since you have a lot going on. Now you're becoming a best ball bro. You're having candid conversations. That's more my lane to just talk about life on fantasy football.

00:01:32
Speaker 4: But look at you, you're expanding.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: I'm trying to man.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: You know, people need their hour long plus shows in the podcast feed. You know, I've been doing the twenty minute shows for so long. It's nice to change things up a little bit.

00:01:45
Speaker 3: Never forget that I'm the one who texted you a couple of years ago asking why aren't you art? Why aren't you doing more video? And here you are now adding a plethora video, probably too much, honestly.

00:01:58
Speaker 1: Well, look, whenever I went out of my own and there are people emailing me and they're like, hey, you know that you could be on YouTube too, And I'm like, yeah, I understand that, Like I get that I can.

00:02:09
Speaker 4: Know what exists.

00:02:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can only do so much, you know, running the show on my own. But yeah, I mean now that I've got some help from my co host Rich Ryan who's helping me with becoming a.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: Best ball bro.

00:02:21
Speaker 1: He does a lot of the video editing for the YouTube channel as well. And now that I have a format like this where it's a lot more conducive for YouTube, you know, the Late Round podcast, what people don't fully fully get and grasp is it's just really difficult to sort of transfer that from being the podcast that it is and then putting it up on YouTube, especially in season, because in season, to get that show out at six am every you know, Tuesday through Friday, to get out at six am, I'm re recording things based on like what especially like because there's news that happens during the week, but especially fifteen transactions I do after or like I do on Monday for Tuesday, but then there's a Monday night game that happens, right, and so like i'd have to re record stuff and read to the video. At least with something like this, it's a lot easier to get out. And if there's some information that changes from a Thursday to Friday, which isn't usually that frequent, and I also just openly tell people that we're recording it on a Thursday to the Thursday night game might influence some things. But that's the main reason why the actual legacy Late Round podcast hasn't gone on YouTube.

00:03:29
Speaker 3: In that same way, our job confuses probably everyone in our lives so much so that I no longer even try to explain what we do. But I think the most confused everyone is all the time is based on the schedule you just said, because everyone can't even comprehend that. I literally can't attend football games, like it's not even in not that I want to, but it's not even in the realm of possibilities if I wanted to, because my job is to hard life, I know, but to sit on the couch, take notes and watch football, it's not possible. So yes, like you, from Sunday to Thursday morning, it pretty much is where I just cannot breathe at all.

00:04:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, And in season is just a different beast.

00:04:12
Speaker 1: I mean, right now, I've been going nuts just because of the draft guide, so but that's only.

00:04:16
Speaker 2: Like a brief period.

00:04:17
Speaker 1: It's like a three four week period where there's just a ton of work in June for me, and part of that is just procrastination to some degree too. But in season, like I'm always shocked Whenever I see a fellow fantasy analyst like going to games, I'm like, how are you doing that? Like what is what is your content schedule early week? Because everyone like we need to we need a sweeping change in the fantasy space. You know, I know that this happens in a lot of leagues where waivers are like Wednesday, Wednesday or Thursday as opposed to or sorry, are on Thursday as opposed to like Tuesday to Wednesday, right, And a lot of the default platforms that people use in the big platforms like an ESPN and a Yahoo, a lot of those those waivers run on Tuesday night, and so it forces us as analysts. I know that we're like pseudo complaining, right, We're not actually complaining about this being.

00:05:05
Speaker 4: Aalking the fine line?

00:05:06
Speaker 2: Yeah right, right.

00:05:07
Speaker 1: Right, I mean this is this isn't a real complaint, but it does truncate your week in a way to make sure that you got to get everything that happened that previous week essentially done on Monday and Tuesday, because people need that information for their waivers that are going to run on Tuesday, and then you know, you get that Wednesday day where people are still going to be running waivers, but you start to transition a little bit more into.

00:05:29
Speaker 2: The following week. But yeah, that's just how it goes with the weekly cycle that we run.

00:05:33
Speaker 3: You'll appreciate this quick hill story and that is that the one time a couple of years ago, I got to get away Week seventeen and as everyone knows, Week eighteen a little more brief and content, still same quality, but brief just because we have no idea who is going to play. And so I happen to be in Cincinnati visiting a friend and he had friends at ESPN who gave us tickets to a football game, and I thought, Week seven teen, prime time, I can go to this football game, like I actually have less work, more so than throughout the regular season, throughout the year.

00:06:08
Speaker 4: And that game, if you haven't picked.

00:06:10
Speaker 3: Up just yet, was the Bills at Bengals primetime football, the Damor Hambling game. And I have not been to a live football game since. I think I'm still haunted to this day.

00:06:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, you probably should just stop going to football games, if that's you correct, And going out on that game would be would be epic in a bad way, but still, like you know, a monumental, huge, moment that we can fortunately look back on and say that DeMar Hamlin's you know, okay, but that's a crazy game to be at, as you're like, because I used to go to I used to go to NFL games all the time, like, like I went growing up to tons and tons of Steelers games, you know, even I haven't been able to go to a ton here in Charlotte, only mostly like early season or like preseason games and stuff.

00:06:53
Speaker 4: Not that you want to either right now.

00:06:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like I don't really want to support Tepper either at this point, right but yeah, I mean, like it's it's it's really strange how my football viewing has really shifted, Like live football viewing has really shifted to college, which I'm not as passionate about in terms of just the sport. But I'm a big Pit fan obviously being a Pit grad, and so I was able to go to the you know, the ACC Championship when Kenny pickettad the fake slide and stuff like that. Like I'm able to at least go to some of those events. But yeah, the NFL live stuff, man, that's just that's just not part of my life anymore.

00:07:27
Speaker 3: I applaud you for hanging on to somewhat of being a fan of the Steelers because throughout the years, you know, doing this like you at a lesser spectrum for you know, over a decade now, I've just lost my passion for the Cowboys growing up. Now, I genuinely just cheer for players to get paid, like the running back the running back conversations.

00:07:48
Speaker 4: Don't care.

00:07:48
Speaker 3: I don't participay it at all. I'm just happy when someone gets paid.

00:07:51
Speaker 1: I honestly like you and I have been friends for a really long time. I think it's the first time I realized that you were a Cowboys fan. To be honest, exactly, I see real.

00:07:58
Speaker 3: Usually the accent like it makes people assume that I'm a Cowist fan and I grew up with them obviously being from the area.

00:08:04
Speaker 4: But no, not any more bad.

00:08:06
Speaker 3: There is there There is advidually a little child black joy whenever they're good, but uh new splash, they haven't been good in thirty years, so it doesn't matter.

00:08:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean look for the record.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Like back in my like late teens, I've talked about this on shows before, but like back in my like late teens, a Steeler's loss would literally ruin my week right, it was it was it was over like I was. Unfortunately, they were like pretty good throughout my childhood and into my adult life and stuff like that. You just naturally doing this for a living, you just appreciate other teams. You appreciate the game more like I love what the Ravens do. For instance, right, like if if seventeen year old JJ were to say that, he'd be you know, it'd be shocking, or if he were to hear me say that, he'd be slapping me right now, right, But like, you know, I appreciate Lamar Jackson, I appreciate John Harbaugh, I appreciate you know what that team, how that team has built itself and really sort of changed the game in a way. And so you know, it's just hard to latch onto. Maybe it's maturity too, Maybe that's part of it too. You just grow up and you don't have to like be a laundry brow anymore as much. But at the same time, I'm pretty passionate about like the Penguins, So I guess it's not just about maturity, you know, that's.

00:09:15
Speaker 4: But but immaturing.

00:09:16
Speaker 3: That's why it's also odd when people like get upset about us for doing our job and judging their team, critiquing their team, like our job would be better if every team was good, Like it would be amazing if we had thirty two Mike McDaniel offenses on the field every week, like there would be no downside of this, But instead we get Arthur Smith and some others every week instead.

00:09:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we got to dig into the actual show here and the actual you know, show sheet instead of just talking about whatever the heck we want to talk about. But I have a feeling that this is one of those shows because you and I are buddies like that, we could we might go longer than you know, a standard perspective show, but we'll see, we'll see how this this all goes down. By the way, you're the you're the second person in about a month and a half, because we had what is what does Debro refer himself to in regards to you?

00:10:06
Speaker 3: What is the ugly John Dagele, Which that would assume that John Dagel thinks he's attractive, but that's not the case at all, So I'm not sure where he gets that from outside of the expo and everyone walking up to him because we were bald and bearded and just having the bias that he was John Dagele oddly enough. And maybe it's I don't have a single tattoo, let alone an awesome tattoo sleep like Debro does. Yeah, but I never got compared to Derek Brown one time.

00:10:34
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.

00:10:35
Speaker 1: So so Deebro brought up the the infamous carpool ride from last Expo where you, mister Dangele, you were feeling it in the car, but also you were you were probably the number one screamer at the the the ambiance in the in the mess that was going on in that car.

00:10:57
Speaker 3: For the record, I'm also the only one of the car I believe that doesn't have children, right, and so it's easier for me to.

00:11:05
Speaker 4: Nitpick the mess.

00:11:06
Speaker 3: Plus since I am especially you know, when i'm when I'm feeling myself, I am a middle a little bit of an antagonizer steal. Sure, I used to I used to be a lot worse, but it's calmed down, as you said, as you matured, as we've gotten older. But understanding your situation that you'd literally done a cross country trip previously with kids in the back as well, it just seemed like a perfect time to make fun of my friends.

00:11:26
Speaker 2: Yes, I'll do so. Yeah, that's all it was. Look you got you got to rid me a little bit for it. It was it was funny.

00:11:32
Speaker 1: But let's let's talk about you as an analyst in the space. Like you said, you've been around for a while. How would you describe yourself as an analyst? I usually whenever I asked this, it's usually like, are you more of a film bro?

00:11:43
Speaker 2: Are you more of an analytics nerd? Like?

00:11:44
Speaker 1: Which side do you land on? But I'll leave it a little bit more even open ended than that. How would you describe yourself as a fantasy football analyst?

00:11:53
Speaker 3: And you already mentioned that we have a show sheet, so that's not news to anyone.

00:11:57
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:11:58
Speaker 3: Then in the off season, the show sheets definitely work out better because the topics can go anywhere. Regular season, you catch me on a show after Wednesday, I'm prepared for anything you asked, because all my notes are done by then. But admddedly, the football even in the off season, rights itself.

00:12:13
Speaker 4: At this time of the year.

00:12:14
Speaker 3: The topics about personal life is where it gets a little tougher for me, especially as someone who is in therapy to love myself. Yeah, to find new ways to like myself. So answering a question about myself is super tough, especially as someone who doesn't accept compliments. Well, but I think I'm more of a data person. I pride myself on being able to dumb down the data. I don't have models like you. I have some models, but I also don't always say the sentence my model. But I find ways to dumb down the easier way to say it, to communicate it easier, just because I see all the numbers. I'm aware of EPA and all this stuff. I use it for I use it for DFS, I use it for everything. But still our job is to communicate that all in a way that everyone can not only understand it, but it's entertaining at the end of the day. So I think I've prided myself in being the everyday person who looks at all the stats behind the scenes, but can also go into a bar and just have a regular conversation with you.

00:13:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:13:17
Speaker 1: Look, we need good communicators in the space for sure. I think one of the big problems with like the especially like the data versus you know, film, it's doue like the whole argument and all that is really really dumb, because it's it's should be hand in hand.

00:13:30
Speaker 2: It should be a thing that.

00:13:32
Speaker 1: There is no skeleton key, yeah right, there shouldn't be this like separation. It's just a very easy way to sort of dissect the two groups, right and sort of group them up together. I think part of the problem and why like a film person might hate on a data person and vice versa, is because of communication. Is because data people will often come about things in a way where they are acting like they're on their high horse, but they don't realize that they're totally acting in that way. I'm sure I've done it in the past, and it's not intentional by any means.

00:14:00
Speaker 2: And then film people are the same.

00:14:01
Speaker 1: Way, you know, like they'll they'll make they'll throw out these like random comments of like well your box score is not going to show this and stuff like that, and you know, without necessarily fully understanding and seeing the greater picture. And so I do think that it's important to have, you know, good communicators like yourself, just within the space in general.

00:14:21
Speaker 3: And DFS and best ball I have definitely opened up those conversations a little bit, I think because although I am I am more evidence based and that's I usually get that from the data. Also, I understand probabilities within the data. And so now for best ball especially, you know, we'll talk about some players where I do I have leans, but I'll still flatten my exposure and get it everywhere because I understand that still a ten to twenty percent outcome means that how outcome could happen. And that's really I think brought us a little bit closer.

00:14:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, speaking of best Ball right now, over on Underdog, we're seeing drafts go a certain way pretty frequently, which is lots wide receivers early. I mean, if someone that has never played best Ball and has only been playing season long walked into an underdog room, they would be shocked when they see some of these wide receivers like a let's say, uh Keenan Allen, Hollywood Brown, Terry McLaurin, like that tier going ahead oftentimes of like the RB ten in drafts. Right like, we're talking guys in the art or in the wide receiver thirty five to forty range, often going ahead of top ten running backs, which is not something that we ever see in a typical season long draft. Now, with that being said, you know we're going and we are already approaching, getting very close to you know, season long draft season, if you will, and in these home league season and people drafting, you know, in their office leagues, And my question to you is, what do you think is going to be sort of the biggest difference between those two formats? And how do you think we as you know, if you're listening to this episode right now, if you've been drafting Best Ball d you're a more hardcore player, right we as more hardcore players. How can we sort of exploit that in our home leagues, in our office leagues.

00:16:09
Speaker 3: I've always labeled it underdog best Ball because if you play Best Ball anywhere else, and you shouldn't, but if you play anywhere else, you realize that it's a totally different game, as you mentioned, and honestly, to answer your question, we knew we were always going to reach this point. I wasn't sure when, but with Best Ball intensifying every year, we were always headed down the path of the Best Ball Bros Setting post NFL draft ADP and that's arguably never been more true than this season. If you look at current redraft ADP from the major host sites, ESPN, Yahoo, et cetera. Wherever you play, there are player land mines everywhere, right Saquon Barkley being I dub him as last year's Josh Jacobs for being the most obvious red flag in the first round, and there's lots of other more micro takes there. But Underdog in particular has created this game in half PPR enough where everyone is then racing, as you said, to grab four wide receivers in the first six seven rounds, and that's not going to be the case at all.

00:17:08
Speaker 4: In home leagues.

00:17:09
Speaker 3: Everyone is going to pile on the big money contract rbs like Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, the list goes on, So.

00:17:17
Speaker 4: It's going to open the door for more.

00:17:19
Speaker 3: In my opinion, immaculate running back builds like immaculate anchor and hero RB strategies. Whether it's one of the big three you start with the Christian McCaffrey, breesaw Bjhon Robinson, or if you're just waiting until the second third round turn opening your draft with just one running back to lean on between Devon A. Chan and Kybrin Williams. I don't even hate Derrick Henry honestly, just because the structure of the Ravens offense. Although we love Lamar Jackson, they keep saying they're going to pass more, it's never going to change with that type of player. We have what seven years of evance now to show that. So I think that's going to be one of the biggest changes from Best Ball to home leagues when everyone opens up. It's just going to be the fact that we are piling on wide receivers underdog, but those options of wide receivers are actually going to be much more stronger because I think we're going to get second and third round guys and even the fourth and fifth round potentially in home leagues.

00:18:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: It's gonna be one of those things where it's very like I think part of the reason why the running back dead zone exists every year is not just so much that those players, you know, those like mid to low end RB twos just naturally bus it's also from an opportunity cost standpoint, people panic, right. It's it's that when these like Bell cow backs and let's just throw Derrick Henry in there. You know, when you get those like top eight or nine guys and they dry up and there's no one else there, then people start forcing the issue because they know that they need to fulfill that lineup requirement of getting that other running back, and oftentimes they're then reaching for that player.

00:18:44
Speaker 2: Right.

00:18:44
Speaker 1: I think that there's some guys who could go in either direction this year when you get into like the low end RB one range, maybe even into the high end RB two range. But to me, there's like, you know, a guy like Ramandre Stevenson, a guy like Zamir White, Like those are players, and it would be great if you even disagreed with me later whenever we talk about some some players. But you know, those types of players seem like at surface level, seem like dead zone type running backs, and they're naturally going to get drafted higher in home leagues, where the opportunity costs then becomes a lot greater. And so I think going from Underdog to the season long leagues, it's very very important to practice patients at the running back position in particular where you know you're gonna feel this neat because you're you're so used to like Nase Harris going in round eight or nine right after doing drafts on Underdog, He's probably gonna be like a fourth round pick, once a like you know, he was like a third rounder let's say last year.

00:19:35
Speaker 2: It's probably gonna be.

00:19:35
Speaker 1: Like a fourth, maybe fifth, maybe sixth in in some leagues type pick where you're gonna feel this need that you need to get him because you're, you know, things are drying up. But I do think that maybe a more zero RB build in certain formats. Of course, you know, if it's a standard league or something like that, or you're only needing to start two wide receivers, what have you, it's a little bit different. But I do think that it's gonna force the masses to accept you know, you said anchor RB, which I think hero RB. Anchor RB is an approach that's timeless, like it's gonna work almost every single year, regardless of the environment, regardless of the market.

00:20:11
Speaker 2: Zero RB.

00:20:11
Speaker 1: You could argue that too to some degree. I just think that there are years and situations and leagues where it's just a lot.

00:20:18
Speaker 2: Easier to go zero RB.

00:20:19
Speaker 1: And I think people, you know, the general consensus is what I'm talking to here. It's not even necessarily the people listening to this right now, but I'm talking about you know, your neighbor who just starts looking at Fantasy Football staff in August that neighbor might end up being a little bit more accepting of zero RB because of these dynamics that we're talking about going from best ball to redraft or to season long, because I think naturally there's going to be some stuff from these best ball leagues that start to seep into and transfer over into season long a little bit more.

00:20:49
Speaker 4: You mentioned in biggest backfields.

00:20:51
Speaker 3: That's a huge one because not only do a lot of these backfields have new coaching changes as well that we can target, we're also deciding with new coaches who's going to be the red zone back or the guy using inside the ten yard line. It's like Austin Eckler, how he was egregiously used under Anthony Lynn for so long. You need that touchdown equity to really uncork your ceiling, and so those are the kind of guys we are looking for. I'm glad you mentioned We'll talk about Demir Whit. Don't worry, I got some takes on him later. But I'm glad you mentioned Remandre because I feel like I haven't gotten to draft an Toto Gibson since his rookie years. He's always been overpriced based on how Ron Rivera's treated him, but it seems like a really good bounce back situation for him. Again, given an ambiguous backfield and the fact that Ramandre hasn't been a workhorse himself and he's now in that dead zone range.

00:21:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about some ambiguous backfields really quick, because I think that, like you said, like I'm sort of saying here, these backfields, number one, these are where a lot of the league winning running backs will stem from, at least in the middle rounds. You know, my draft guy's coming out on July first, I've done the research on the running back position.

00:21:54
Speaker 2: I've done all my game theory research.

00:21:55
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm just writing up sort of my players at target avoid that kind of stuff. But one of the most glaring things, it's been a very glaring thing for years, is that in the middle rounds ambigieous backfield. So I'm talking about players who you know, middle round running backs, which I define as RB twenty five to RB forty two. Those middle round running backs wo either have a teammate in the middle rounds with them, or a teammate that's being drafted a little bit ahead of them in the RB two range right, non ambient like where there's no ambiguity would be when there is a clear cut RB one, so top twelve running back on a team. You know, we saw that for years and years and years in Cleveland with Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt and people people are gonna say, well, Kareem Hunt wasn't that bad, Yeah, but he was never a league winning running back. It never happened, and largely because Nick Chubb was the RB one in that team. And so we see decreased hit rates for these middle round running backs who do have RB ones in their team. And then we also see a decreased hit rate among RB these middle round running backs whose teammate RB two is then getting drafted later. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that when you're in the middle rounds be or the RB one. Say a remind Andre Stevenson, say, as Zamir White and your RB two is being drafted a lot later, what does that tell you about that situation? It's probably not that great, right, if Zamir or White were on a you know, we're projected to get a very big workload in a good offense, in a good situation where we felt good about his talent, he'd be drafted a little bit earlier. So that's why these ambiguous backfields are so so important, and I want to start with one that I'm very intrigued by. I had some discussions with Mike Leoni earlier this offseason a little bit about the Tennessee backfield, just in a text, because I know that ETR, you guys work together on your rankings to sort of have some of the best rankings that you could possibly find out there, and I knew that ETR was higher on Pollard, So I was picking Leoni's brain a little bit about it because I think that Spears Impollard are kind of interchangeable, and so I want to see where you're at. We're seeing Spears inch closer and closer to Pollard and Best Ball drafts. They're about a round apart now. They were more like two to three rounds apart earlier, you know, maybe even like a month ago. But I'm curious, are you firmly on team Pollard, firmly on team Spears, or are you just getting the guy who falls out of the two.

00:24:09
Speaker 4: I'm literally getting both.

00:24:10
Speaker 3: Let me step back and say that I'm still on a quest to get our slack conversations onto content somehow, because there are there are a lot of arguments that happened behind the scenes, even on social media.

00:24:21
Speaker 4: Now there's a meme going around where Leoni.

00:24:24
Speaker 3: Says, it's not that simple, Dagel, and that's kind of the answer to everything when we're yelling at each other, is it's not that simple, Dagel. But for me, this is a this is a big one where we were hiring our rankings between the two. As you said, they're inch and closer. But the good thing is, since we unveiled Tears for the first time ever at established the run, I had a big hand in those. I wrote everything for those, just because that's how I draft across sites. With the Tears, that allows me to fudget a little bit and then put Pollard and Spears in the same tier, thus saying, I think one or the other could easily outscore the other. And that's where I'm at right now. Spears, in particular, the six highest target share among all running backs last year. Pollard quietly had the same uses in Travis Etn, but no one would know since he wasn't scoring touchdowns like Etn, who was just falling into the end zone. So at least we know although he was efficient, Pollard was still getting the workload. And that's kind of what we're asking ourselves. Again, going back to what I mentioned earlier, is which one is going to get the touchdown equity usage?

00:25:20
Speaker 4: And I think it just could come and go.

00:25:22
Speaker 3: Honestly, especially for this offense that I'm definitely taking shots on given what Brian Callahan has told us throughout the offseason. The most guaranteed money sunk into a single wide receiver in free agency, drafted a left tackle to protect Will Levis's blind side at number seven overall, Tony Pollard, like everyone forgets. Although Josh Jacobs Henry Barkley got the big contracts, the first and second running backs on the open market to sign immediately once tampering was open was DeAndre Swift and Tony Pollard. Like they were targeted I believe for their past catching specialties. So I admittedly like don't have a lean Pollard's target share as well. I mentioned Spears's earlier. Pollard's has increased every season in the league. I think they're just both good at what they do. The hits are probably going to come and go. Which is much tougher for season long. I understand, but honestly I consider them interchangeable and one of the same like you.

00:26:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting too.

00:26:15
Speaker 1: A lot of the market trends that I'm looking at for these middle round backs suggests that second year backs are better than most other subgroups, and backs that are past their fifth year in the league are typically worse bets than backs who were in their.

00:26:30
Speaker 2: First five years in the league.

00:26:31
Speaker 1: Right, And you also want pass catchers, and technically Taj Spears looked a little bit better from like a volume standpoint as a pass catcher last year than Pollard did, Right, So there's so many things that one that make me lean Pollard, Like I think if you were to pick one of those two guys that could hypothetically capture the backfield, would you probably say it's Pollard of the two that would like become a true Bellcalen league Because personally, I never thought that Spears coming out as a prospect, And you can read the Prospect Guide from last year to see my notes about Spears. I never thought that Spears was gonna be a true Bell Coow back. I thought he was gonna be a really good compliment in the league, right, And then when you look at Pollard, he was kind of that for years with Zeke, but we at least know, you know, based on last year, a little bit before that, the year before that, we've at least seen it a little bit with Pollard, and he's a little bit bulkier than Spears would be. So I do think that hypothetically Pollard probably has more of that bell cow upside than Spears does. But to me, I just I don't see a player in this backfield necessarily emerging based on talent. I see a player emerging, probably more so based on injury. Would you agree with that?

00:27:43
Speaker 4: Agree?

00:27:44
Speaker 3: And if I had to pick one, it would be Pollard, not only because he's two hundred ten pounds, so I would think that maybe the coach leans on his size, right, But also I like, I like drafting players that have shown ceiling without the ceiling opportunity. And as you hinted on, there is one year removed from being the RB nine in points per game behind Ezeko Elliott. He only averaged thirteen and a half touches per game two years ago and was still a top twelve running back. Those are the kind of guys I like, just in case they do get the lid ticking off and finally allowed to run free.

00:28:15
Speaker 4: So I'm willing.

00:28:16
Speaker 3: I'm definitely willing to bet again on Pollard. But if Spears were the one to emerge therey, it wouldn't be shocking at all.

00:28:22
Speaker 1: Right, It's so weird because every argument we make for Pollard, it's like, Okay, well, we could say the similar things about Spears, you know what I mean, Like the efficiency, the speed that he showed last year. There's a lot of those like favorable things. That's why this is so difficult to me and why I've generally just gone with the cheaper guy. But even still, I talked about this, I'm becoming a best ball bro where when I'm in drafts and i want that Tennessee Jacksonville Week seventeen correlation, for instance, I'm often just like getting Pollard because he's getting drafted ahead of Spears, right, and I don't want to risk not being able to get either of them. So I'm just like, Okay, sure I'll get some Pollard. So my exposure, despite the fact that I like Spears more as a value, my exposure between the two guys is actually pretty even right now.

00:29:03
Speaker 3: I feel kind of bad because I faded Spears and rookie drafts last year too, just because I assumed he didn't have longevity in the league playing on one knee. But then he came out and as a rookie and he was the same guy. He wasn't too lame, where he was just a yards after carry machine, slipping through tackles whenever they gave him touches. So I like Spears a lot, but again, yeah, it's it wouldn't be shocking if either one emerges.

00:29:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about Cincinnati.

00:29:28
Speaker 1: I think Cincinnati's arguably even more intriguing because you have an offense that looks like it's I mean, I think that we would bet that Cincinnati's offense is gonna be better than Tennessee's this year. Joe Mixon's no longer there, obviously, Mixing's gobbled up a lot of that backfield, and then you have two running backs that are relatively questionable. You have second year Chase Brown, who was a Day three pick. You have Zach Moss, who's had kind of an up and down journey throughout his NFL career, started out last year pretty strong and did not as strong, but he had a good year and some what are you doing with his backfield?

00:30:01
Speaker 3: I typically lean on buckets of players and these types of ambiguous situations, and I don't think an undersized Day three back like Chase Brown is really in the bucket I'm going to be chasing considering his ADP is relatively the same as Zach Moss. Like at least we know Moss last year, as you hinted at gaining his coach's trust, was a workhorse back and averaging twenty carries and three and a half targets and the six starts he made for Jonavan Taylor, it was a tale of two seasons where only Christian maccaffery was more explosive and his first and as a starter, Taylor gets injured again, Moss comes back on the field, he turns into Buffalo Zach Moss. Either way, they did treat him as the main guy there. And so those are the players I typically lean on, not the Day three guys who I think are interchangeable. So while Brown is explosive, I do have a stronger lean towards Moss in the situation.

00:30:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like Moss probably has more upside. Again, like this to me seems like the upside back who could take over and be bell cow of the two is not. It's not like Tennessee, where I think it's not very obvious, which one hypothetically could. I think in this situation, you have the bigger body back, you have the better I mean, Zach Moss was a better prospect slash, not a bad prospect coming out, but better prospect than Chase Brown. I don't mind throwing darts at Chase Brown like I've gotten Chase Brown plenty, because I do think this is more of a best ball stance. I do think that in best ball, you know, you could see a situation where Zach Moss is out for a game or two, Chase Brown's the bell cow just in that like short period of time, and he can be fine in that scenario. But I do think, from like a season long perspective, predictability and guys that you feel comfortable throwing into your lineup every week, and who who's going to return some sort of point value for you, it feels like Moss is probably that guy.

00:31:46
Speaker 2: Now I want to throw this at you.

00:31:48
Speaker 1: I saw a tweet from Pat Thorman today which actually is a pretty It was just a joke that he was saying was it was along the lines of the Bengals backfield getting muddied when Samaj p Ryan joins it after he's cut by Denver. Now, it doesn't have to be specific, and this is just all obviously speculation of you know, the Broncos backfield being hefty with tons and tons of running backs, Samaj p Ryan as a cut candidate, and obviously pe Ryan has a history in Cincinnati getting work in Cincinnati.

00:32:21
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be pe Ryan.

00:32:22
Speaker 1: But do you have any fear that as teams cut players and things are happening over the summer, that some player could step in and actually do more in this backfield? Because again, I feel better about the talent itself in Tennessee with Tony Pollard and Taj Spears than I do the talent in Cincinnati with Zach Moss and Chase Brown, and that brings a lot of fragility. Is there any fear that something like that could happen, whether it's p Ryan or not.

00:32:48
Speaker 4: There is a little bit of.

00:32:49
Speaker 3: Fear, but I'm admittedly not targeting that situation as one with fear, and I do draft a little bit so much Ryan just in case he is cut. We're all trying to find the guy who's cut and ends up in That's really the key here, since we don't think Dadill and Ezekiel Elliott will be the only two by week one in that backfield. But right now, I'm not targeting Zach Moss as if someone's coming in to take his job. I'm just assuming it's going to be only Chase Brown just because we've seen these situations like last year, whenever it was Jamier Gibbs and David Montgomery, everyone drafted Gibbs higher, which's correct, but only because they assumed. They kept on saying, well what if Montgomery gets injured? But it works both ways. Even when Gibbs was out last year, Montgomery was the only workhorse. So it could be the same thing here with this situation. Also for p Ryan. Again, it couldn't be the Bengals, it could also be anywhere else. So yeah, I'm not I haven't honestly thought about it. This is what best ball does. By the way, as you're coming up the best Ball, bro, you start thinking four levels deep into this stuff that you wouldn't even touch in season long leagues.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, look, I thought that Thorman tweet was pretty smart though, and I was, honestly, I had five seconds of immen's fear looking at my exposure of Chase Brown and Zack Moss, thinking, man, a guy like pe Ryan who can kind of do it all, you know, like he's been a pass catcher and an efficient pass catcher at times, he's just a solid back. A guy like p Ryan could hypothetically step in and not necessarily have like amazing standalone value, but definitely hurt the other guys in that offense. And it's not like we feel amazingly great about the depth on that team Slash the actual you know, starters and those two runningacks.

00:34:24
Speaker 2: We're talking about him Masson Brown.

00:34:25
Speaker 1: So at least a thought for people to think about is don't forget that a backfield not many, you know, it's not gonna be like an astounding number of backfields, but what we feel right now in June can very easily be flipped and changed. And I love the connections that Thorman made with that tweet and going to Cincinnati, so I had to at least bring it up because we're talking about it now. Speaking of p Rin his team, Denver a hot topic right now is Javonte Williams. It feels like the fantasy community has been talking about him a lot recently, at least from what I've seen on my timeline. How are you handling that Broncos backfield? Because you have Javonte Williams, you know you've got You've got Julim McLoughlin, you have Audric Estimated stepping up, you have Watson now stepping in and being in a UDFA for them. I mean, they have a lot of running backs there and none of them are like overly expensive in drafts right now. So are you attacking Javonte? Are you talking attacking Jalil? Are you ignoring them because they have a rookie quarterback? What are you doing with that backfield?

00:35:23
Speaker 3: I've been targeting Jalil McLoughlin above all, but also because I'm a sucker for late round pass catching running backs, just because they have multiple outs to get there as we're atacking them on as our RB fours and five. Javante is an interesting subject because he is on the final year of his contract. He wasn't part of Sean Payton's regime that drafted him, so he could be overlooked. Also, it seems for whatever it's worth. In June, seems like Peyton has found himself another pet project and Blake Watson, undrafted free agent at running back two Audric Esteemi has averaged a five percent target share his last two years of Notre Dame. So he's not going to be guy who steps in, we don't think and earns that pass catching role. So I still take McLoughlin understanding that most likely he's not going to be a workhorse. That's not what I'm really going for here. I'm looking for ten to fifteen touches right in that range. If that maybe some injury a spot starts for him. But I still love McLoughlin, if only because maybe I'd love to get your take on this, because I'm not sure if it's if it was the offense or Jalil's talent. I think it could be a little bit of both. But like everyone now knows, like you can walk in any room, you can walk in any bar. Everyone will tell you Sean Payton's offense led the league and running back.

00:36:33
Speaker 4: Target rate, we're all away.

00:36:34
Speaker 3: But mcgofflin, though, actually like led his position of any running back with at least ten targets.

00:36:39
Speaker 4: There are a lot of them.

00:36:40
Speaker 3: He led his position and target per out run rate twenty seven percent, so it's a lot. Maybe that was his specific pass catching role, maybe because he was really good, Like he's the poor man's Austin Eckler, where he's just slippery anytime you get him the ball. So I like his talent, I like his role within the offense and thinking it could expand where do you stand on it?

00:36:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm with you.

00:37:00
Speaker 1: I think McLoughlin's been a nice get sort of all off season, you know, in these best Ball drafts, and I think his dynasty price has been attractive as well. I mean, he he was, you know in some of my dynasty leagues that don't have any sort of transactions in season, and so you just kind of wait until rookie drafts happened. And so any out of nowhere player like McLaughlin was last year is then in that rookie draft poll. And he was in some of them because no one was picking him up at the beginning of last year, right we were waiting to see sort of what that would look like, and so I was able to even get him in rookie drafts this year because of that, and he was going way later than I ever expected him to go in those drafts. But regardless, I mean, I I think that what's interesting is Estimate to me is sort of the the insurance for Javonte, which is, you know, this is last year was contract. As you noted, you know, Estimate not a pass catcher, was never a pass catcher, a Notre Dame, didn't have a good profile there, but definitely a bigger body guy. He's younger too. There's some stuff to like with Estimate's overall pro file, but I think he's sort of the the one to one with Javonte, if you will. I think Javonte is a better pass catcher. But you know, if you were to say this is the arc type, I think that would be Estimated Javante, and then Blake Watson would be that to Jelil McLaughlin.

00:38:13
Speaker 2: Now, the question is does.

00:38:15
Speaker 1: Denver hold four running backs and keep four running backs on that roster when it's all said and done.

00:38:20
Speaker 2: I think that they might.

00:38:21
Speaker 1: Honestly, I really like if they like Watson enough, I wouldn't be shocked if they keep four. But you know, game time happens, they're probably dressing three, and in my opinion, Watson would be sort of the odd man out in that scenario as a UDFA as long as you like what you see in Jeeli McLoughlin. And if that's the case, McLaughlin as an arctype has less competition in that backfield than the other two guys do because the other two guys are sort of that same early down kind of archtype. So at the end of the day, I think that we're looking at probably a split backfield. But my question to you though, is also, you know, going back to what we were talking about with like Tennessee and Cincinnati, of all of these players, would you agree that if there's a player that just ends up emerging, it's Javonte Williams. Like, if there's a player who is just a bell cow like the league winning player, it would be Javonte and not someone like Julil McLoughlin.

00:39:14
Speaker 3: Yes, which is why I still tack them on as an RB two if I start with one of the first couple of rounds. But relative to the field, and maybe just because of McLoughlin, I will I know for a fact I'm going to close in Week one.

00:39:26
Speaker 4: Underweight compared to the field on Javonte.

00:39:28
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I mean I think it's fair because I do think that, you know, we want these ambiguous backfields. This actually isn't as ambiguous because these guys are going later and again to reiterate what I said earlier. That signals to us that maybe the situation itself might not be as good. But I do think when you look at at Javonte and the Denver situation Denver, you know, Sean Payton in the way that he's deployed running backs in the past, it's usually not a bell cow scenario. It's usually a tandem in some way. Even if you want to look at Alvin Kamara with him in New Orleans, Kamara has always had somewhat of a split backfield, you know, while he's been in New Orleans, he's just been the pass catcher, which is a lot more valuable. And then look at you know, the teams that Peyton had with like Ah Pierre Thomas and such and Darren Sproules and all those names from like the the late you know, two thousand or the early twenty ten's range and the what do you call it, the late O O's the late the late.

00:40:23
Speaker 4: It's isn't it the Aughts?

00:40:25
Speaker 2: Is that what they call it?

00:40:26
Speaker 1: I thought it's the Aughts. Someone's gonna fact check us and hit us up in the comments for that.

00:40:30
Speaker 4: Please do. But I think it's the Aughts.

00:40:31
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, though, Yeah, yeah, whatever, like the timeframe of like six to twenty ten, like around man, whenever Peyton first got to it's called.

00:40:40
Speaker 2: Yeah right right, but.

00:40:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like he's always had split backfields to some degree. I don't know if this is the backfield where a guy would emerge, whereas, like in Cincinnati, I feel like a guy could emerge because we have evidence of that team giving a lot of work to Joe Mixon historically, whereas we just don't have that with Sean Payton as much.

00:41:01
Speaker 3: It's also the way we frame it because I feel like everyone is still looking for their seventeen game starter when like when I talk about Jelil mcglofflin, I'm talking.

00:41:11
Speaker 4: About a fourteenth round pass catching back.

00:41:14
Speaker 3: I'm legitimately I want two to four spot starts at a couple of hits. That's yeah, I get that. I feel like I'm so comfortable with that because yeah, that's not the game, but the fantasy football game is pockets. Like, unless you're Christian McCaffrey, we just need you in pockets and we're trying to find those pockets.

00:41:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's okay even in season long with a McLoughlin, with a McLoughlin type player who you get as an RB four, he's sitting on your bench. Maybe you have an injury a week in a you know, a week or two in or something like that, and you just need a semi high floor PPR back, it's okay to throw him in your RB two spot, like you're not Like, I do get a little bit irritated, and this is kind of a tangent. I do get a little bit irritated when fantasy analysts are like, and I've been guilty of it at times too, but they're like, what's that guy really doing for your team? You know what, what's Jaelil McLoughlin really going to bring to the table in your lineup? Because you know his spie, you know the most PPR points per game that he's gonna like his a realistic seventeen game PPR points per game rate for Jeelo McLoughlin is probably like.

00:42:12
Speaker 2: Twelve to fourteen max.

00:42:14
Speaker 1: Like realistically, like if we're being genuine about it. But number one, I think that there are instances where we could see those spiked weeks where he could break it. Why why can't he break a big run or break a big pass that he catches and just take it eighty yards of the house and all of a sudden, Okay, he's a top fifteen running back, top ten running back that week only because of that one play. But also, you know, from a predictability standpoint, when you're actually managing your roster week in and week out, having a high floor option that could still break one of those big plays, to me is okay when you're getting him in the freaking fourteenth.

00:42:50
Speaker 3: Round, especially because that's when we're trying to find the ceiling players. The opposite end of that spectrum that I still think is fine for pockets that is falling in homely Gadp at least right now is James Connor. Where I'm out looking for a seventeen game starter. But I can absolutely plug James Connor in a running back who had five consecutive top five finishes before he got injured last year, I can be high on him and Trey Benson.

00:43:14
Speaker 4: I'm okay with both of them.

00:43:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about Pittsburgh real quick, and then we're going to move on some other positions. But Pittsburgh, Arthur Smith there, Russell Wilson looking like the probable starter at least week one. I think there's been a lot of hope with Justin Fields more than anything else by the fantasy community that he ends up starting and playing a lot. I haven't really bought into that. I think Russ actually works decently well within this offense, or could hypothetically work in this offense, not to be like a fantasy stud but to at least be a competent quarterback for Arthur Smith and what the Steelers want to do, which is run the ball a lot, a lot of play action, a lot of down the field passes. But with that running the ball a lot, we're going to see two things happen. We're gonna see a lot of running back touches on the ground, but we also have a history of potentially seeing a lot of targets going to these two guys, Jalen Warren and Najie Harris. Is there a player of the two that you strongly prefer or is this more so sort of how you're viewing Tennessee.

00:44:10
Speaker 2: Maybe I should ask you, is this a.

00:44:11
Speaker 1: Cincinnati situation for you where you're favoring Zach Moss or is this a Tennessee situation for you where you could really go either way?

00:44:19
Speaker 4: I thought that would be more in on Jalen Warren.

00:44:23
Speaker 3: But honestly, again going back to flattening my exposures in best Ball and season long, I think there will be a wide margin probably two or three rounds between Nause and Jalen Warren. But in best of all, right now they literally go back to back. You have your pick on the clock every single time, and so I'm just differentiating between the two. We know Arthur Smith is going to come in and give RB touches, and that's for an offense that already combined for over five hundred RB touches between Nause and Jalen Warren last year. But even on the limited game, Warren's role did expand posts by But even like on his limited touches, he was awesome twelfth and success rate among every running to have at least one hundred carries. I still think Nause you will get as we talked about earlier, that touched in equity the inside the ten role just for being the bigger back with the higher draft capital.

00:45:10
Speaker 4: But I still want.

00:45:11
Speaker 3: Pieces of Boath since Warren is so explosive. So I don't lean either way. I think I want to come out slightly more overweight on Warren, but I do admittedly still take Nausey as by RB two at times.

00:45:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised from my because I think what you said is completely correct, and I just did a mock draft right before we started working.

00:45:29
Speaker 3: So boring though to say, because I know everyone wants like the hot take and it's like, I don't know, man, I take both literally, I take both.

00:45:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, But I think what you said about the difference in sort of circling back to what we talked about at the start of the show, the difference between Best Ball and season long. I just did a mock draft before we started recording this, and I got Jalen Warren, I think, like two or three rounds after where Naji Harris was drafted right, and you're not gonna see that gap nearly as great in on Underdog. In these Best Ball drafts, you'll see Jalen Warren go ahead of nause at times right, And my exposure as a result has actually been greater with on the Nausey side so far than the Warren side because the gap is just non existent over there on underdog, Whereas I think my exposure will be a lot stronger in season long and manage leagues with Jalen Warren, who I do think probably has a little bit better pass catching upside than Harris does because of the lower cost. Right, if he's gonna go two or three rounds later than Naji Harris, and you know, maybe I would prefer Harris sixty percent of the time.

00:46:30
Speaker 2: You know, it's not that dramatic.

00:46:32
Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna get Warren at the decreased price in season long and maybe just Lean Nausey. And when I say lean, I'm probably at like twelve percent exposure to ten percent exposure. You know, it's not like a dramatic difference. But I do think that could be the way that you are, Jen, I'm a true best ball bro. Noting that your twelve percent exposures.

00:46:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I look at it. I definitely peat my exposures probably once every couple of days.

00:46:55
Speaker 3: It is fun, though, like you and I doing this and there are several others who write for home leagues as well as like higher stakes, but I love I think our off season, which there is no off season anymore, but I think the season now is segmented proportionally throughout the year because like, by the time I get tired of talking about exposures and like ambiguous backbuilds and player takes, then the wild West of home leagues comes in. Yeah, and it's just a totally different scene out there. It's a Cormett McCarthy post apocalyptic world where yes, like Zamir White's a third fourth round pick, and it just writes itself basically from all the work we've done before. But that is a huge difference, as noting the home league from the best ball stuff.

00:47:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll tell you what I And maybe this is a teaser slash way to promote my draft guide a little bit. But even looking at like Fantasy pros rankings right now, which are season long base is not best ball based, I find myself disagreeing with a lot and I don't feel that way most seasons. Maybe it's because I've been best ball throwing it harder this year than in previous seasons, and so I'm really in tune with ADP and where guys generally go. But I do feel like this could be one of those years where I'm just disagreeing with other analysts or you know, other advice that people are hearing, you know, more than what I typically do, which is really fun and should make more entertaining content. But I do wonder how much of that is being influenced by what's going on in Best Ball and how that's gonna then transfer over to season long.

00:48:29
Speaker 3: Well come drawing the ETR SLEC where I keep yelling, get levitin the Jets won't win ten and a half games they got, we got all the fights you won over there there you go.

00:48:37
Speaker 1: Let's move on to quarterback really quick, because right now in drafts, what I'm noticing is, you know, you get these like elite rushers and these elite mobile guys that you can get early ish you know, I shouldn't say early is in like first couple of rounds, but like you know, in Best Ball, it's like round late three, the into round six, and then you know, you get a pocket of a pocket of pocket passers, maybe Kyler Murray aside, and then you get to these late round quarterbacks where there doesn't seem to be you know, maybe we could throw Jayden Daniels in here, but definitely not an underdog because he goes earlier in an underdog. But you know, you can shout out Jaden Daniels.

00:49:15
Speaker 2: It's fine.

00:49:15
Speaker 1: But there just doesn't seem to be an obvious go to late round quarterback this season, whereas it feels like we've had some in the past and almost every single year, but this year it seems like the markets is really really efficient at quarterback. So my question is, are there any late round quarterbacks this year that you're sort of buying into more than the market is that.

00:49:39
Speaker 4: I'm buying into. Probably not, but that I'm drafting. Sure, there are a couple.

00:49:44
Speaker 3: The obvious one is Will Levice, just for all the reasons I mentioned taking a shot on an offense I believe will be literally an entirely different universe than what they've been with Derrick Henry under Brown, Brian ka Callahan now, so I think it's worth taking that chance. And then the other one that I think people are somewhat catching on too. But there's a real chance bow Knicks as a seventeen game starter. I don't know what kind of upside, if any, the Broncos offense has, honestly, but I learned my lesson from Justin Herbert not to over evaluate quarterbacks coming in, especially ones like Nix and Herbert who were above average athletes who were forced to engineer their offense. And bow Knicks, I believe that's why he had the third most screen passes of last year. It was because he was just engineering the Oregon Ducks offense. Not only that, but Jackson Powers Johnson, their starting center, got drafted on Night one. Beyond that, they didn't have another player Bucky Irving, Troy Franklin. They didn't have another player going till round three or day three. So I assume that Nix is the reason why the Oregon offense was so potent. Given that he could again start seventeen games, all he has to do is beat out Jared Stidham. I do like bow Knicks. I don't know about two QB builds. That may be two fragile for me, but absolutely in three quarterback builds start with Jamar Chase, rounded out with some late Broncos like Troy Franklin and Nick to get the week's seventeen correlation I've been doing that quite a bit.

00:51:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have any love for well, I have a two parter. Any love for Drake May number one? But number two? Is there any fear with both the May and the JJ McCarthy situations with Sam Darnold, Jacoby Brissett and those quarterbacks, you know, stealing a lot of the you know, playing ten games this year, playing at least the front half of the season, and those two quarterbacks.

00:51:28
Speaker 2: That not getting that much love. Is there a lean that you.

00:51:31
Speaker 1: Would go in a certain way of how many games those rookie quarterbacks would play? And then number two, as sort of like an addition to that, are you attacking or approaching and drafting either of those two rookie quarterbacks.

00:51:45
Speaker 3: I'm always attacking late round rushing quarterbacks, which you've pretty much built your brand on. And Drake May nine point four rushing points per game as a two year starter with the tar Heels, so of course I'm tacking them on. But when he and JJ McCarthy start our entirely different conversations, I've tried to parse the Patriots schedule and there's honestly no open window. Like for Will Levis, it was so obvious when they were going to transition from the buy for the Titans, but for the Patriots, they have an early first month game in London where they come back, but it's not even a long week afterwards, since teams get to pick when they play next after So I just don't know when they would transition to May. And I would bet everything that it's Jacoby Brissett who starts week one, So I'm giving Brissett like a month, month and a half bumper before we see May. Having said that, I still don't mind as a rushing quarterback taking him late jaj GiB McCarthy, not as a player as a prospect, but in fantasy as a rookie, I'm a little more bearshan, just because I don't think we'll get the rushing up side. Not only that, I don't know what the offense entails in Minnesota. Like you and I, a couple others do a lot of team regression work. I can't even do player takes until I do team regression stuff right. And that's that's always when everyone comes out the gate hot and starts yelling, It's like, how did you even get there yet? I need to I need to figure out the projections first, but for Minnesota, they were they they eighty percent of their touchdowns came through the air last year, and the last twenty teams to score eighty percent of their touchdowns through the air over the last decade, only one of them replicated that production. So we just don't think they're going to be as potent through the air either, despite having you know, a first round player and Justin Jefferson. So I'm a little more bearish on vikings offense than I think.

00:53:31
Speaker 4: A lot of people are.

00:53:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that call out a lot tight end is kind of similar to quarterback, where we have this pocket of let's not call him elite. We had a whole discussion about this on becoming a Best ball bro. Hayden Wings talked about it this past week on Twitter about calling them elite or not elite and him saying that they're not really elite because they're not going in like the first couple of rounds.

00:53:51
Speaker 2: But regardless, you have this pocket of really good tight ends.

00:53:54
Speaker 1: You know, Travis Kelsey, Trade McBride, Mark Andrews, Sam Laportam if you want to throw Cad and Kyle Pitts in there, and then you know, or even George Kittle, and then you get kind of these like stable you know, Jake Ferguson, Evan Ingram types where they're probably gonna see at least a lot of volume, and then you get into like Brock Bauers, who at least has the upside, and then it's just no man's land.

00:54:16
Speaker 2: I mean it is.

00:54:17
Speaker 1: It is rough out there at tight end more so I feel like than previous seasons. So my question to you, are there any late round tight ends that you're into again?

00:54:28
Speaker 4: In two is one thing? Drafting is another.

00:54:30
Speaker 3: A quick side note for home league difference again, Kyle Pits is gonna be a guy where your league is tired of they're.

00:54:36
Speaker 4: Just done with it.

00:54:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like this is the time of the year, like finally we can get back on Pits because everything is following along the Zach Robinson blueprint. We know they're gonna run a heavy dose of three wide sets and pass the ball more. Every every player is going along Bijon Robinson, Drake London. Kyle Pitts is not. Kyle Pits is now being left for dead. Like it's the tight end eight or nine in some cases. So it's a great year to get back on Pitts. I'm very exc for that, but for late round, for me, it's always about finding guys who are going to run routes and ideally their athletes with with all the opportunity no competition. Last year that got me on Hunter Henry, who faded, but again in pockets, Hunter Henry delivered tight in one overall weeks.

00:55:16
Speaker 4: He was a Spike week guy.

00:55:18
Speaker 3: Same for Kate Aughten, who was being left for dead last round and we just assumed he had no competition unless you considered Coo Keift an NFL player. But for this year, I think those guys could be wrong. But I think those guys are Noah Fant, who, like Antonio Gibson, Antonio Gibson's younger than Ramandri Stevenson. Fan has just been to the league so long we forget he's only twenty six years old, hyper athlete with Kolbe Parkinson and Will Disley on other teams now.

00:55:43
Speaker 4: So I like Noahfense.

00:55:45
Speaker 3: And then also I don't mean to continue betting on the Titans, but they go so late that going back to athletes, I know chic Okonquo has been the tight end twenty six and tight end twenty seven. The peripherals don't even look good honestly either the last two seasons. But I don't think he has competition. It's entirely different past first offense. So I don't mind betting on Chig either.

00:56:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like those two calls. I also want to shout out I want to shout out John Who.

00:56:10
Speaker 1: Smith too, who I think is interesting just given the fact that you know, there's not that much else going on there, and I think that you know, a guy like McDaniel being able to scheme out a Yak tight end like him could be could be pretty intriguing in that.

00:56:22
Speaker 3: John Who and Goddard are the ones I'm having a hard time parsing, just because their offenses are so condensed right. Also, Goddard was always banged up last year. John Who hasn't proven it over a full season, but it does seem like given his athleticism underneath, and John New's case, like I do think he can take away like even eight to ten percent is a lot from that offense, and it probably impacts Waldle more than anything.

00:56:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not to say that Waddle and Tyreek aren't Yak players, They absolutely are. I mean Tyreek especially is, but they also can get very very vertical and we've seen that at times a little bit, I guess with John Whuo, but I think that if you think of them of what they can do schematically, stretching the field with their wide outs, doing a lot of crazy things in the backfield with the speed that they have, and letting John Hu get some cheap targets and you know, get a have a have a lower aid dot, but do a lot with that aid dot. I think it's very very possible. Especially you know, there were even times last year where like Durham Smythe was running a ton of routes, he just wasn't being targeted that frequently. You know, we could say it's because Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle are on the team, but we could also say because it's Durham Smythe. You know, it's like like John new Smith isn't like that bad of a tight end like he's He's he's definitely a capable guy.

00:57:31
Speaker 2: So he's one. I just want to throw that out there.

00:57:33
Speaker 3: I think he's one of you only NW the amount of times I took men priced Durham smithe DFS or in Redraft leagues. When you're tidy gets injured, you're running to the.

00:57:43
Speaker 4: Waiver war to pick one up Sunday morning. How many times I laid that egg with Durham Smith. It was so frustrating.

00:57:49
Speaker 2: We talked about Durham Smith probably six times last year on Living the Stream. I mean it.

00:57:53
Speaker 4: Was the player of the year.

00:57:56
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

00:57:58
Speaker 1: All right, before I let you go, let's talk about two players that you're targeting this year.

00:58:02
Speaker 2: Could be guys. We talked about already, two players that you're avoiding this year.

00:58:07
Speaker 3: Let's start with the positives. I guess let's going on a bad note. No one ever does that. So Patrick Mahomes, I know it sounds crazy because everyone knows who he is, but I think we finally have a chance to buy Applestock low because Mahomes and my opinions do for regression following a career low touchdown rate, a career low seventeen and a half Fantasy points per gay and previously he had an average less than twenty Kansas City's lowest rate of touchdown drives since he's been under center since twenty seventeen.

00:58:34
Speaker 4: And it was also the.

00:58:35
Speaker 3: First time and Andy Reid offense passed for fewer than thirty touchdowns since Alex Smith was under center. It just you couple all of that with Lugerius Sneed's absence, Like Sneid is the reason why they were legitimately a top three offense when he was on the field. I think we could get some more shootouts and I think we get regression through the air. So it's a good time to buy low on Patrick Mahomes ahead of c J. Sherald Anthony Richardson if he goes ahead of Lamar Jackson. I don't do it all the time, but I totally get it, especially if you're talking about underdog, where all you need to do is draft Travis Kelce and you box out everyone else because Marky Sprown and Xavier Worthy go a couple rounds late enough to whur Mahomes will fall two or three rounds just because everyone is so infatuated and rightfully so infatuated with stacking over there. So I love bouncing back with like mahomes onslaughts right now. I'm also in on Devon a chan because a lot of like my reason for Josh.

00:59:28
Speaker 4: Jacobs, who I'll talk about in a second, but I.

00:59:31
Speaker 3: Don't draft Josh Jacobs, because if you're making the contractual argument for a running back a workhorse, you can just wait and then you can get a Joe Mixon or someone else in that range.

00:59:41
Speaker 4: We talked about some others along the way.

00:59:43
Speaker 3: Devon a Chan is kind of like waiting on Jamier Gibbs, like not using the number twelve overall and Gibbs and just waiting till the second third round turn for a player who breaks the game of fantasy football, like a Chan only played nine games and he finished with twenty three carries of ten plus yards. James Cook, for reference, finished second to Christian McCaffrey on the entire year with thirty three carries of ten yards, just ten more. So a Chan regardless if he gets more work or not, and I'm not sure if he does, I believe he will. I'm not sure he's already shown he wins your leagues at his current role. And again, I target guys later on who perhaps can grow into a larger role, but have already shown the ceiling. So those are my two positives. I'm the host now, any thoughts.

01:00:25
Speaker 2: I agree the A Chan thing.

01:00:28
Speaker 1: When I first built projections in April, I looked at Achan, I'm like, oh, man, he looks like RB sixteen or something like that, right in projections like he didn't look as strong. And then I started to buy into him more and more. And then I had a conversation with Pat Crane about him, and it really made me.

01:00:45
Speaker 2: Realize how obvious of a pick he is.

01:00:48
Speaker 1: Where you know, the downside is he probably has a similar role as last year, and we saw what he did in that role. The upside is what if he he sees more work and if he sees now, look, he's gonna regress from an efficiency standpoint more than likely. You know, I don't think that we should expect him to have by far the best yards per carry rate of any one hundred plus carry back once again, but I do think that you have to buy into that upside. People are afraid of, you know, the downside of workload. But I just have a hard time even with the Jalen Wright pick. To me, the Jalen Right pick was hey Raheem Mostert is thirty two years old and he's been often injured, as Devon a Chan was last year, So we need a little bit of insurance slash. I think jalen Wright is more of a Raheem Mostert type as opposed to what they want to do with Devon a Chan, Right, Like, I think jalen Wright is a bigger threat. This is why the market is doing what it's doing with Mostart over an underdog, is because the market understands that jalen Wright more than likely is going to dig more into most Art's role than a Chan's role versus what Moster did last year.

01:01:58
Speaker 2: Right, So I like that call of h quite a bit.

01:02:01
Speaker 3: When everyone mentions the regression for eight Shan, that's when I usually follow up with saying, what about the regression for most rt since that was the most points per game for a running back age thirty one or older since Tiki Barber in two thousand and six, Like, it literally just doesn't happen. Ever, So why would I ever bet on that?

01:02:18
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean he played like eight touchdowns over expected last year, So.

01:02:21
Speaker 1: I mean touchdowns is ninth season, yeah right right, I mean it's just hard to bet on that kind of archetype. And then with Mahomes, last year is the first time that like they had by far their lowest touchdown total as an offense, and to simply say like, oh, this is the way it's going to be for the Chiefs moving forward. I think it's just silly because it's the greatest quarterback talent that we've arguably ever seen. And they add Xavier Worthy, they add Hollywood Brown, you know, hopefully Rashid Rice just from a football standpoint, he's able to play, you know, a decent number of games. Even if he doesn't, they're gonna be able to stretch the field a little bit more. And they've even talked about that already. Like I think Mahomes were just going to see the standard Mahome season, the bounce back if you will, And like you said, if you want to take him over a Lamar in certain builds, I think it's it's logical and reasonable.

01:03:09
Speaker 3: Mahomes in the last three seasons has outscored in points per game Jalen Hurts, Josh and Allen and Lamar Jackson. At some time he's the greatest quarterback of all time. He's already showed without the rushing floor, he still gets it done. Like my big stands this year will be I don't know if c J. Stroud has that in his bag where c J. Stroud is being drafted. He has to win MVP to pay that off, and he can. He's amazing, But like c. J. Stroud's my QB six and that's frowned upon heavily because everyone's taking him over Mahomes And I think that's a pretty ingregious call.

01:03:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about your avoids. Yeah, for two negatives, Josh Jacobs, let's start there. I think it's a pretty easy one because RB eighteen in points per game last year, But we saw it coming from a mile away as a first round pick and home leagues an incorrect one given that the four other backs before him over the last decade to have at least three hundred ninety touches, they just weird on their bones the next time they play. None of them, Leveon bel Christian McCaffrey, none of them reached three hundred and fifteen touches, same as Josh Jacobs, and everyone's just assuming, now, two years removed from the injury, he'll be fine, he'll be good to go.

01:04:13
Speaker 3: But that one stand alone year, it was his only season so far through five that he's finished as a top twelve running back in per week production, like that was an anomaly season if that's the case.

01:04:24
Speaker 4: Not only that, but it's just.

01:04:26
Speaker 3: The fact that given Green Bay was already coming out of training camp, like, I'm not sure he's the work course anyhow, they showed us last year they don't mind sprinkling in other guys. Perhaps Marshawn Lloyd is that player this year. So I'm pretty low on Josh Jacobs given where he's going.

01:04:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that call with you.

01:04:47
Speaker 1: I've been talking about this with Jacob's all off season, basically when he signed with Green Bay, where I just don't understand the markets a layer and love for him. Matt Lafleur has a history of split backfields dating back to his time in Tennessee with Derrick Henry and Dion Lewis. Now I've heard the rebuttal to that saying that this was before Derrick Henry became Derrick Henry, which is totally fair. But even when Derrick Henry finally sort of broke out and started to play well during the second half of that season where he was splitting the backfield with Dion Lewis, it took Tennessee like a month and a half to finally give Derrick Henry that backfield during the final week, final three weeks of the season, like that during the Fantasy playoffs when he really went off. You know, we've seen it with Aaron Jones and Jamal Williams, Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon. I don't and we've seen it. We heard it from Matt Lafleur himself that he once split backfields. He doesn't want to give a guide everything. And so that's why they spent a Day two pick, in my opinion, on Marshon Lloyd, because this is the way that they operate their offense. Despite the fact that they had already gotten AJ Dillon back on that roster, they still spent that pick to get Marshon Lloyd. So I found it interesting that people are still drafting Jacobs where they're drafting him like the Jacobs versus even in the same tier, the guys who sort of get drafted around him, like the Jacobs versus Pacheco versus Rashad White and Joe Mixon and such. To your point earlier, you know, Jacob's his cost has fallen on underdog over the last month, but you know he was going at like the three four turn pretty frequently when you could get a Joe Mixon type in the sixth and it's like, what's the difference between these two players? Like legitimately, like why are we so much more? Is it the offense? Because I don't think it's the offense, right, Like you could easily argue that Houston's offense is gonna be better than you probably should better than Green Bay's this year or Pachecko in Kansas City. That's that's an offense that I probably like more than Green Bays as well. Like, I can't really pinpoint the argument for Jacobs aside from I think he's going to be the bell cow, which is fine, but I just don't think that's enough, you know.

01:06:54
Speaker 4: I mean how many times that let us down the right path?

01:06:56
Speaker 3: Uh?

01:06:57
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe one time?

01:06:58
Speaker 3: Ever, Also, to your point on Derrick Henry, that career hiding touches season the average five point four yards per carrey, he hasn't come close to five yards per carrey since. Like the study of running backs to have three inn or niney plus touches over the last ten years, they have averaged collectively minus zero point six so over half a yard less on yards per touch, Like they basically just lose their efficiency again because I think they go the path of Le'Veon Bell, DeMarco Murray where it just ends their lives.

01:07:29
Speaker 2: Right, right, do you have one more?

01:07:30
Speaker 3: Avoid the final one, which I think is gonna be It's it's not so bad for best ball, even though I never take him, but for home leagues, we're gonna have to get the message out there that if you took Alexander Madison the sixth round last year, then you need to know Zamir White is right here wearing his Alexander Madison t shirt.

01:07:50
Speaker 2: On a team with Alexander Madison.

01:07:52
Speaker 3: Oddly enough, that's the best at best ball. Because I'm taking Alexander Madison the eighteenth round. It's like, yo, whatever, the sixth round last year. Now he's in the same position that ty Chandler was in yeah last season. But but in short, for Zamir White going in the in home leagues, he's going to go in the fourth to sixth round, and it's just not a bucket of player we want to target. Max out at one hundred and sixty nine touches across three seasons at Georgia, He's only earned one hundred and thirty six total touches through two NFL seasons. And more importantly, in that five game stretcher, he was the bell cow over the last month of the season that everyone is drafting him four highly now he ran just seventeen more routes than a Mirabdula still on the team, still the third down back. Alexander Madison also there. As you mentioned, with seven million guaranteed, I believe it was. So. Samir White's just going to be one of the easiest fades in home leagues.

01:08:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been fading him too. Obviously, anything is possible, But I do think I do think. Yeah, I mean you're not you know, we talked about the probability side es.

01:08:48
Speaker 4: I also just get into character.

01:08:49
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm never going to take this player ever, no matter who is available, even in the sameer White only league.

01:08:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've taken I've done like I've done a lot of drafts on underdog three, you know, three hundred and four hundred drafts and underdog. I think I've taken him time. So if he's a league winner, then I'm screwed. But I do think that this is the process, This is the logical thing to do when you are drafting a player that's based on projected.

01:09:11
Speaker 2: Volume, and you can't lean on talent with that player.

01:09:14
Speaker 1: Look, if you believe Zamir White is a really really good running back, then sure draft him. You know, like, if you think that he's a potential stud as a players, as a talent, sure go after him. But I think there's a lot of evidence suggesting that that might not be the case. And at the very least, if you think that he's an early down back, which I do think is fine, I don't know if he has the pass catching jobs because every destination since college, because he played with James Cook a little bit Georgia. Hopefully I'm not recalling that properly, but you know, he plays college, is not the pass catcher there. Then he goes to the Raiders, where obviously Josh Jacobs was there, but even last year down the stretch, his target share per game rate was still under ten percent, and you need that ten essentially unless you're Derek freaking Henry to be a very viable RB one option.

01:10:06
Speaker 2: And this is an area of the draft.

01:10:07
Speaker 1: This is not Julie McLoughlin fourteenth round where it's okay if McLoughlin's like a low end RB two or a high end RB three and you're you're you're profiting off of it if you're drafting an RB two or a low end RB two, even you want RB one upside. I just don't know if the RB one upside is there for Zamir White, which.

01:10:25
Speaker 3: Is also why it's a It's a round or two earlier, and we didn't even really touch on it. I know you've you've probably talked about it, written about it, but I am on the whiplash. I'm I'm back on the return of elite quarterback just because the way the trends happened last year, it didn't seem like it was proper to draft quarterbacks chasing historical results in the second round. But now those those league winning guys have fallen to the fourth and fifth round, Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen. And if that's the case, we're talking about like fringe territory where someone like Samir White, t Higgins, George Pickens, Travis etn Are going And like, if that's the case, why, why what I ever take anyone like that over Jalener Hurts and Josh Allen.

01:11:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like that's a season long choice. You're going to have to make this year. Are you gonna get I mean maybe the at the very least, you're probably gonna have to make the decision with the elite tight ends, right that the higher end tight ends because people love quarterbacks in season long league, So maybe we'll see a Josh Allen in a lot of leagues going like the early second or something like that. But the tight end situation, those tight ends are going later than the upper part of the tight end position is going later than we've seen basically over the last decade. Like we just we haven't seen this much ambiguity at tight end. So your opportunity cost. It's the other thing with the running back dead zone this year is number one.

01:11:42
Speaker 2: Like I said in the.

01:11:43
Speaker 1: Late Round podcast episode, that dead zone exists in every draft. It's just the opportunity cost equation that changes. Right the mid to low end RB twos. They exist in every draft. It's just that it's easier to take those guys on when their eighth round picks as opposed to third round picks. Right, But now when they are third to fifth round picks. That opportunity cost isn't just the wide receivers that you're drafting there, which has typically been the case. Now you get like really good quarterbacks and really good tight ends that actually do matter when they haven't mattered as much historically, right because in the past it was all right, we're waiting on quarterback, or we're getting an elite tight end, or we're just waiting on tight end. Right, So quarterback wasn't even part of our discussion in the early rounds. You know, in that even in that round four, round five range tight end you really shouldn't have been worrying about them either, because Rob Gronkowski and Travis Kelce were going in the first and second round uh and then, and even Mark Andrews in the second uh and then and then it was really just the wide receivers that you were worried about in the running back dead zone from an opportunity cost standpoint. Now it's quarterback, tight end, and wider. It's all three of the positions that really matter. It's just another reason why if these guys really do rise and go in that area of the draft in your season long leagues, which I think we both expect, it's just another reason why they're really they're they're bad bets.

01:12:59
Speaker 3: It's reminiscent of just two years ago, whenever, never forget, Jalen Hurtz was being drafted right next to Chase Edmonds and people were actually a baby. What one breaks the game of fantasy football? The other maybe a top ten option.

01:13:14
Speaker 4: Maybe I don't know.

01:13:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's so true.

01:13:18
Speaker 3: Just remember everyone drafts last year's results the first step in any research.

01:13:22
Speaker 4: Everyone drafts last year.

01:13:23
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a very very common theme throughout this year's draft guide about the market being reactive, and we're seeing that happen a lot at the tight end position in particular this year at the top, which I think is going to be really interesting. And we're also seeing it with wide receivers and running backs a bit where you could make the argument that you want to zig one other zag with wide receivers. The differences the running back position kind of sucks just in general, Like there's not like if there were if there were like twelve running backs that I felt really really good about, right, I only feel really really good about maybe three or four of them, right, because you get and I'll throw it even like h and in there saying I feel really good about him at cost at least, right, whereas Jonathan Taylor, you can make the argument of the mobile quarterback maybe not as much touchd on equity and not as much receiving work. Same exact argument against Saquon Barkley, Kyen Williams. You get Blake Koram and you might see a decreased workload there. Derek Henry's older. Like, you go down the list and there are red flags for every single I wish that wasn't the case, because if that wasn't the case, it would be a very easy year to zig while other zag and start rb RB. But the problem is we just don't have many running backs that you feel that confident about.

01:14:35
Speaker 3: And even in my eighth Chan or kyn rb RB start in the first three rounds with like a first round running back. Even then, like you just said, I'll tell you like the downside of Kyrine Chan, it's pretty simple, but I'll still do it just because like once Dereck Henry's off the board, my brain literally shuts off. I do not click the RB tab at all until we get to like ty Chandler. It's like, Okay, now I'm gonna start tacking on these guys who may have a ceiling.

01:15:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

01:15:01
Speaker 1: Daegel Man it was great chatting with you as usual. Let everyone know where they can find you, what you're working on, all that good stuff.

01:15:08
Speaker 3: Established a run dot com you may have heard of it. Just had a phone call with Evan Silva that you also may have heard of, and we just decided, like how we're going to begin rolling out the draft kit package for everyone, splitting team previews, positional tears, expanding his top one fifty this year plus a lot more So excited to get working on that in the coming weeks than by July that'll be rolling out for everyone.

01:15:31
Speaker 1: And I will actually be having another ETR member on becoming a best ball Burrow next week in mister Mike Leoni.

01:15:39
Speaker 2: So that I'll be sorry.

01:15:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know two of my pals though, I mean, I love all everyone at ETR, but two of my pals back to back shows. I was talking to my wife about this yesterday. I'm like, it's hilarious that my job is to sit on a podcast and talk to my friends. Like, at the end of the day, that's what's what we're doing. We're just talking about girl with Buddy.

01:15:58
Speaker 3: The girlfriends, family and family, extended family from Louisiana or visiting here in Chicago, and I tell them I have a show, and they're like, should we leave the house, Like do we need to be quiet? I was like, I don't like you don't understand what I do, which, to be fair, I don't understand. I don't know how we're getting paid for this. I don't know how this is a job. So I am very lucky. Thanks to everyone listening and just remind Leoni that sometimes it is that simple.

01:16:21
Speaker 2: Okay, I will I will do that. I will do that as usual.

01:16:24
Speaker 1: You can pre order the Draft Guide over on lateround dot com and make sure you sign up over on Underdog promo code Late Round. If you don't want to buy the Draft Guide and you haven't signed up on Underdog, make a deposit use promo code late Round. You will get a free Draft Guide email to your email inbox on July first when that launches, so check that out Underdog Fantasy dot Com promo code Late Round. Otherwise, everyone, thank you for tuning in

01:17:00
Speaker 3: F