Late-Round Perspectives: Ron Stewart

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Speaker 1: Ron Stewart is a fantasy football analyst who's done work at Player Profiler and who creates YouTube videos in his basement. His channel has sixty thousand subscribers. He's a data nerd, a diehard Jets fan, and he's everyone's favorite pizza guy. 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. Head to Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the app to do so.

00:01:04
Speaker 2: Again.

00:01:05
Speaker 1: That's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show.

00:01:10
Speaker 3: A little messy in the background. I've been talking about this on videos recently, but my whole uh my basements out of sorts right now. So the basement I refer to all the time is getting work done, is getting excavated. It's a whole big thing.

00:01:21
Speaker 1: Where have you been? Where have you been recorded? Where did you have to shift headquarters to here? But everything that was on this side of the room is now on this side of the room. The lights and all the fancy stuff that was behind me before. You can see the underdog signs like just sitting to the side now. Yeah, the sad state of affairs. But we're here. Look, I think it looks better than ninety nine percent of fantasy analysts in their in their situation. This is the first year that I upgraded the camera. You know, got got the backdrop going a little bit more, and I get comments on it now all the time, whereas before. I mean, like, I think the like the standard is just like you know, a pretty basic webcam that people just row up there and then they just start chatting with. But I think, like, you're still you're still definitely in like the ninety eighth percentile for for fantasy analysts right now.

00:02:07
Speaker 3: Man, Yeah, I'll take that. I think it's just because you know, all my stuff is is on YouTube. I try to. I know that you're you know, you started on podcasts and stuff. I still I'm bad about getting every single video into audio to then post. So yeah, my audio listeners sometimes get left behind. But yeah, I make sure at least the quality is here. But the backdrop, you know, it's it's here or there?

00:02:31
Speaker 2: What are the jurk you got?

00:02:32
Speaker 3: You got?

00:02:32
Speaker 2: Name it back there? Who's the other one?

00:02:34
Speaker 3: The other one is Martin bro Door?

00:02:36
Speaker 2: Marty bro Door?

00:02:37
Speaker 3: I like it. I like it.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: That's your that's your.

00:02:40
Speaker 1: So you're a Devil's fan, a Jets fan, and then who else are you following?

00:02:43
Speaker 2: Are you like a Mets fan?

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Speaker 3: Seaton Hall pirates, baby, Seaton Hall pirates to.

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Speaker 1: See I think you're the only Did you go to Seaton Hall or is this just a I grew up around Seaton Hall.

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Speaker 3: I grew up around Seatin Hall. They play at the same arena as the Devil's in newer So it's just like, you know, I'm there all the time anyways, and my like one of my best friends, he goes to Seaton Hall, so he just like he would just take me to all the games, like his freshman sophomore year, and then of course, you know, like COVID killed one or two of those.

00:03:14
Speaker 1: Have you Like, are you like die hard following Seton Hall are like the same way that you are Like the Jets and Devils.

00:03:20
Speaker 3: I would say this like Jets, I am out of I literally tell people like when Jets gams go on, like just don't look at my tweets please, Like that's that's top tier. That is I would die for this team and then like a small tier break to like Devil's in Seaton Hall. But like I'm I'm fairly on top of things, Like I can tell you like one of their best players like Dylan ade Wusu or something like that, Like there there's like the most obscure players. They got a recruit coming in from Ohio State, so I can go pretty you know. Shaheen Holloway played for Seaton Hall and he's the coach now and he's really cool and he was the head coach for the Saint Peter's team that went on the run. But then they poached him as like an alumni. So we're fired up. You know, we got we actually had the number one transfer poached from Seaton Hall to go to Saint John's with Rick Patino. So that's some college basketball for you there. Man, I'll make sure I'm at that game when he comes back home. I'll tell you that much.

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Speaker 2: Look like there are.

00:04:16
Speaker 1: Worse basketball programs to follow than Seaton Hall, to be fair, I mean, like, I mean, I went to Pitt.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: I'm a Pit alum. I feel like you know Pitt Pitt.

00:04:24
Speaker 1: I mean I was at Pitt when we were a one seed consistently in the NCAA turn Like I was at like peak Pitt Athletics when I was there. You know, we had like Dwan Blair and la Vane's Fields and Sam Young and it was amazing. But yeah, man, I I can't respect it. You know, you got your squad, and at least you're not like a Caroline or a Duke fan just.

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Speaker 3: Just because you know, yeah, those you know, those guys also end up being like Yankees fans Lakers fans like yeah, no, I got a cousin who went to Duke. But yeah, the nil is kind of fun now though, Like Rutgers has two five stars, which is you know, they're technically my rivals. As seeing Hall of Fame. I don't really care like anybody in Jersey, I kind of root for Yeah, but yeah, the you know, I'm not, I'm not rooting for Duke or the big guys. The nil is a fun twist these days.

00:05:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure, I do.

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Speaker 1: I do love throwing out the random tweets like when when Carolina does well or something like when's the national title? Just sending like a tweet out that says like Yankees fans are celebrating everywhere.

00:05:24
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.

00:05:26
Speaker 1: But yeah, anyway, so look, you've been doing a lot of stuff now in the fan. How long have you been doing like stuff in the fantasy space now.

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Speaker 3: I first started writing articles for Player Profiler. I was actually pulling up I was looking at the show she I was pulling up and old, like one of my first articles I ever wrote was like June of twenty twenty. So that's what like four probably like four years here coming up in terms of in terms of like just on YouTube, like about four years. But yeah, man, it's it's it's it's very It's not something that I look up and really think about, if that makes sense. Like I was kind of just looking back and like, yeah, like it's been I'm trying to find my oldest video here. Yeah, four years ago, the twenty twenty fantasy football season.

00:06:07
Speaker 1: So you and I connected pretty fairly early on, right, whenever we did what we did the show with the ship chasing guys, didn't we isn't that?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: We did each other the Dynasty Rookie kind of like roundtable that oversid, right, that's.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's right. Yeah, And so what what made you do that? What made you? Because like, not only are you doing this fantasy content, but you're also doing a lot of it on YouTube, as you've said, And you know, I come from like the last the previous generation of analysts who started, you know, I started in twenty twelve, twenty eleven, twenty twelve, and everyone was on Twitter. That's just what you did, right, And I think it's just become a thing where, you know, it's it's it's easy, like like sports commentary happens on Twitter still, you know, like there's a lot of it that's going on, and every analyst you see on television and media person is going to have a Twitter account to something degree. But we've obviously seen shifts in social over the last fifteen years of you know, you don't have to just be on Twitter to uh, you know, be able to grow an audience and be able to do this, you know, for a living or make money doing this, and so you know, I've I personally know I'm trying to at least do more and more on YouTube and stuff like that. It's not my number one priority because I have the podcast and stuff that's a little bit more important. But what made you focus on YouTube and what made you go out and start analyzing fantasy football?

00:07:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want kind of like the real origin, it's I've always been the guy like I've had. Uh. It's one of the one of my favorite parts of the off season is I'll be doing streams and I'll have like high school buddies that i haven't talked to in like a year or two, like Popfin or whatever, because I was the kid. I was the degenerate kid in the locker room. Like every every spring, I'm getting March Madness bids in. You know, we got a bract coming, like where's the five bucks? But like I'm a freshman running these same with fantasy football. You know, we got like twelve people I'm running it. I'm the mish in my home league. But I wasn't very good at first, Like my first year that I played. You know, we would play like in middle school and I remember like drafting Gronk super high, but like we wouldn't like there was no money on the line, nothing really there, but it was just fun to do. I grew up loving madd and loving football, loving the Jets obviously shout out Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan, and then really as we got older, I was like, I'm done. You know, I took if I remember the draft correctly, I took like Lamar Miller and d Hop in my first two picks. When the Texan's completely tanked. That was like the d Hop down year. In like year three or four, my team sucked and I was like, you know what, I'm never I'm never going to finish like bottom three again. So I like, you know, I was doing research, like was taking it seriously, looking at like NFL network, I was. I've told Matt Harmon I was actually, uh, I had him on a while back. I was like, dude, Like I used to watch an NFL network as like a kid, like did I would come on before football practice.

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Speaker 4: And Harvin's younger than me. Dude, yeah, really, So that was it, like because that was before like podcast. I mean there was some podcasts, of course, but like you know, like the TV was huge, so I'd watch him, you know, Fabiano everything like that, and then college happens or it really was more. I also then got into listening to podcasts, which is kind of full circle. I would listen to your stuff in high school. I know that that's not going to make you feel great. I would listen to a player profile at the time, and I actually reached out to Matt Kelly at the time. I was like, hey, I want to help out, but I was like a junior in high school. He came back with like something to do, and then I like chickened out. But then pretty much what happens is, you know, I go to college. I was supposed to go to Rutgers.

00:09:31
Speaker 3: Then the first bill came and I was like, now I'm actually going to go to community college, thank you. So I went to community college COVID. Then hits and I'm sitting there with like all the time in the world, and I'm like, man, I kind of just wanted to revisit it. Right from like junior year in high school. I still love fantasy football. It just was never really a thing that I could do. So I started writing articles, and I think what it came down to for me was just I was writing articles and they were doing fine. I was just like, man, and I don't want to do this to discourage any writers out there, but I was like, man, I could be the greatest writer of all time, and I'm not sure how long I'd have to do this for me to ever be anybody at this point in time. Rightly, this is like twenty twenty, Like it's pretty maxed out at that point in terms of writing. Uh So, then I was like I looked up to guys like, of course, like you and everything in the podcast space, but it really did seem like YouTube was huge. I also grew up in the time of YouTube, where I don't know if you're gonna even recognize these names, but like, you know, I loved like Smash growing up, like we're talking like seven eight YouTube, you know, and like kind of like, uh, Freddie was on there. I grew up on YouTube. So yeah, Honestly, content was always something I wanted to do on camera. I when Vine first came out, I had like a couple of really dumb vines nice that I was making, and just like I've always been someone that has been on camera, just not to a real capacity. So I was just like, you know what, it's covid. I'm not going to have to face the music of however bad this you know looks, because we're all locked up inside. And I made the videos. They did okay, and kind of the funny full circle part of this is I probably would have quit. And also you'll see, like my Twitter bio is like delivering pizzas by night whatever. So I was in community college delivering pizzas. I listened to, you know, the fantasy footballer. I was listened to you some of the more mainstream stuff, you know. I was genuinely soaking up all the fantasy football content I could consume on my pizza rear routes. And then I was just like, you know what, I'll make videos. I'll do this and it's been fun. And the full circle part that I was trying to say was my first video that really did well because it's discouraging at first. Man, you go and you put these videos on YouTube. I was posting them on Reddit. I'm banned on our slash fantasy football for self promotion. I was just like, yo, check this video out. Dude, if I talked about like Joe Mixon on the Bengals, I'd put in the Bengals reddit and say, hey, guys, like I'm talking about your running back, like and it didn't help that that was very dumb by me, but I was just like trying to get any exposure I could. Yeah, but then Rob Sala I got hired by the Jets and it wasn't even a fantasy football video. I just gave my Jets takes. I was just like, all right, Rob Rob Sala was hired, and I did like a little Jets mock draft at the end, and I remember I was door dashing at the time and I like pull into like a taco bell and it was like the first video was like actual doing well, you know, I could see the numbers go up and it kind of just fueled me from there and I just kept on making videos and sticking with it, and then like, really the big crossroads is like after community college, did I go to a four year Yeah. I'm very lucky that my mom is very cool and that she's very understanding of the whole thing, and she's like, you know what, like if you want to try it for a year. You can. This is probably like pre ten thousand subscribers and it's just been making videos ever since. So yeah, it's very cool. I'm very lucky. I don't really sit back and you know take it all in or whatever, but uh.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that perspective though, is important to be able to realize that, like, oh, look I did X, Y and Z, I did all these things. You know, it's not just the end result. I think a lot of people just see the end result and they're like, Oh, you're so lucky that you're and yeah, like, you know, I'm incredibly grateful to be able to do this every day.

00:12:48
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?

00:12:48
Speaker 1: It's this game is Fantasy football is amazing and I get to talk about it and analyze it and study it and like dig into numbers, which I love for a living and support my family doing. It's amazing, right, But Like, at the same time, there's a lot that you did to to and there's a lot of you know, risks that you had to take, you know, in order to to to get to that point. I also like the point of like the writing stuff. I really really think that, you know, back when I started, it was just like you have to write columns, and then that leads to maybe you get in front of a camera, maybe you do some stuff on TV or something like that. But it was never, you know, YouTube wasn't nearly what it is today. I remember back in the day like I had this is gonna. I don't even ever shared this on a podcast before. So I remember way back in the day. It was my senior year of high school.

00:13:41
Speaker 2: I was.

00:13:42
Speaker 1: I grew up in Pittsburgh. I'm not nearly as big of a Steelers fan anymore, but I was a die hard to the way you are with the j Steelers fan. And I still love the Steelers, don't get me wrong, just not to the same degree that it was back then. And it was the year that they beat the Seahawks and the Super Bowl was my was my senior year of high school to age myself, right, and.

00:14:01
Speaker 2: I made like this is before, like people really.

00:14:04
Speaker 1: Did a lot with video and like knew how to make cool edits and stuff like that, and I put together it was like to the Pirates of the Caribbean.

00:14:12
Speaker 2: Music.

00:14:13
Speaker 1: And I put together this like really intense emotional, like slideshow type type video, right, and the video I used to do web design growing up, Like that was my like summertime job and stuff in high school. I just I, you know, again pre like word press and easier ways to create websites. And I had built my dad's business website right and his it was like kind of like a side hustle thing that he had. And I uploaded the the the Windows movie video maker video to his server and it crashed and it was my first like and that was before it literally happened, like right before YouTube, you know, like became a thing. And I always thinking to myself, like, I wonder if I had this on YouTube, because it was around the time when YouTube like kind of just started. I wonder if like my whole trajectory of my career and how I you know, like if I was more into that side of things or got more into that side of things, if things would have hit that way for YouTube. But yeah, man, like I think it's just really important. I Mean, this is kind of a long winded way of saying, like I think it's just really important to like focus in on the cool stuff that you can do and that you know that you want to do and that you're good at doing, as opposed to like forcing the issue of like you know, you got to write to me. Writing is more so to help you out to understand arguments and to understand how to break down an argument, you know, Like I think that can be beneficial, but people don't have to write these days in order to be an analyst and to be doing this stuff.

00:15:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree where it was kind of like of the past. And also I did want to add in there two of like I was always very uh like the reason I went to community college and why, like I kind of I call it chickening out of Rutgers, like I knew from high school. Like I literally like told my mom, I was like I don't really want to go to school. That's like a whole other issue of like taking on all the debt and stuff. Especially I love New Jersey, but the one thing on New Jerseys like they're not giving you any discounts. No one's giving you any discounts. I was gonna have to go to Rutgers full price. I was like lucky to get into business school, but then it's also like, hey, you have to now pay for the business school. There's no scholarship going on here. So like for me, I always I was also very entrepreneurial, like I started a uh it like just barely broke even. But I started back when like drop shipping was huge, and it was like, you know, making a website. I like, I've made this like homepage. I was like it was I don't even remember what the products were, but like it like barely broke even. But I was always trying to do that. So for me, and I do think that I want to I want to word this correct way because I think that you you probably agree, but I don't know that you want to go straight to one of the big guys and start trying to write for them as where you can just start making you know, your own IP and business and doing your own things. So for me, it was like, you know, I wrote a couple of articles. I was like, this is cool, but I kind of I want to do my own thing and build it here. But it really was luck because I can't sit here and say like this was the plan that like, you know, YouTube is this untapped market that I need to get into. But like I would say, you know, one of my bigger inspirations as well, you know Nicker Kolano kid from Jersey as well, he was somebody that was kind of getting buzz around then too. I was like, you know what I mean, I can do this in a similar way with my own twist on it, so that that's kind of just what it came down to. And I think I'm also I'm a decent writer. I think I'm a better talker and presenter if that makes sense.

00:17:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, of course, Again, like it just goes back to like and first, I do agree pretty strongly that even if you're doing things for another site, like you know I started. When I started, I just did my I had a blog of late roundqb dot com instead of late round dot com, and you know, I had some some people writing with me and it was a fun time for about a year year and a half. But you know, you get out there, you're able to own something, you're able to do something, and then you know, hopefully you get discovered somewhere else if that's your plan, and then you can get a full time job that way. But I would say to anyone out there, and literally any industry doesn't even have to be this one, is that if it's something where they're limiting you to be able to do side hustles, they're limiting you to not have and own your IP.

00:18:04
Speaker 2: Uh, try to get around that. Try try to fix that.

00:18:07
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're all doing this like like, don't just give in to whatever they want you to do, because there's a lot of upside whenever you have ownership of the things that you're actually creating. And you know that was a that was a big big thing for me and going out on my own too a couple of years or you know, three years ago. Is that, Uh, this is no shade to Fandle, no shade to Number Fire at all. They were both amazing places to work, great people. It's just this is the way that a lot of bigger companies operate is that you know, you don't have that kind of like ownership and freedom, uh, you know to do that kind of stuff. And you know, I just said to myself, it's about time that I that I need to to do this on my own and have this IP because you know, I think I can, I can do a little bit more with it. But yeah, it's it's cool to it's cool to hear that story, man, And just here I love hearing people like even the failures, you know, like you talking about like all these like random side things you did. I can't even tell you how many like random affiliate websites I would build, and like how many terrible ideas I came up with and built websites for and stuff, and like no one needs to no one needs to know that, and the stupid ideas that they were, but it is, they're all building blocks. Like as you're just like like three people visit a website and you're like, Okay, this didn't work right, onto the next thing, and then finally you find something that you're both passionate about and you can do it. I think that's where you know great content really comes from.

00:19:26
Speaker 3: And you want to know something funny just made me think of it like my I would. It wasn't my summer job. It wasn't making quite enough money to be called a summer job. But probably the year before I started like making content and like covid and everything, I put up a listing on fiver where for like ten bucks, I would draft your fantasy football team, and I did that for probably like twenty people.

00:19:45
Speaker 1: You know.

00:19:46
Speaker 3: I had like a vip where if you pay me like fifty, I'll run the team for you. I ended up like helping some dude win his work leak or whatever. So that was like a very you know, like probably put like two hundred bucks in my pocket as like an eighteen year old, But yeah, was very fun. And you know, at that point in time, there wasn't an underdog like there's like you know, there was draft like back in the day and stuff like that, but you know, I'd be down to just hop in, you know, draft somebody's work league and just see what that's like. You know, eighteen year old's not really doing anything during the summer, so yeah, like all of those side gigs and like just trying to figure it, like just just do it, you know what I mean, like just yeah, you just sort of have to figure out what's going on. And I always refer back to man, like, I'm genuinely so thankful that for as many people watch my videos, they don't just like go to the home tab, click oldest and then see like my first ever video ever made like I am brutal on camera. It took me probably like fifty videos to actually like find my voice. And I've I've talked to Nick about it before, but and I think and I've heard this from stand up guys as well. I'm a huge Shane Gillis fan. But he's even been on recording that, like he emulated and copied Louis c K when he first started out. If you go back to my first like twenty five videos, it's it's a it's an off brand Nick or Kolano for sure, Like it is. It's it's very bad, but that's that's what it's about, you know, And he's very cool about it as well. I used to kind of I used to be a little shy around Nick thing and that he you know, like this guy's probably still my hope. Well, but he's you know, he's he has his own platform and he could really care less anyone's doing. Yeah, but you know, in your own head, you're like, man, like my first thirty five videos are pretty rough to go back and watch, but it is all just part of that process.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that's a sign that you're getting better, right, Like, I don't want anyone to go back and listen to these shows to simply around podcast episodes from like, you know, back in like twenty seventeen when I started this thing. It's it's legitimately horrible. I would do videos for number fire for like the NCAA tournaments like that, like much madness and stuff.

00:21:34
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and my.

00:21:35
Speaker 1: My cadence, my my appearance, and like the way it was it is legitimately like like high school TV class level stuff.

00:21:45
Speaker 2: Like it's just horrific.

00:21:46
Speaker 1: But that's a sign that you're getting better, you know, Like it's it's not like you're you're saying and doing anything stupid. You're just inexperienced in doing it, you know what I mean.

00:21:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a whole I think that's the other thing about video as well, as it can be so uh daunting. That's what'll say other people as well. We're kind of saying, you know, like writing school and everything. But I do think whether everything's trending is video. Like you're even seeing the biggest podcasts you know, late round trying to get trying to get stuff on YouTube. You know, even like part of my take is like trying to get like a huge presence on YouTube and all these podcasts. It's like there is this barrier to entry of like getting over the fear of being on camera. And then also I hear a lot of my buddies and it annoys It doesn't annoy me. But it's a little sad to hear when you know, you'll have a buddy who has an idea for a podcast where it's like, you know, and then at this point no one has a fresh idea for podcasts. You know, maybe like four years ago out of buddy saying like, oh, I love to get like me and a couple of buddies and we talk like basketball, but there's like, oh, but I want this mic and I want this camera and everything. When my first fifty videos as well, I think it's important noting is like I literally just put my phone on a mount and like like a little like baby mic and just like ran off of that. You can go like we you know, we talked about kind of like you know, the presentation of all this. If you if you have to start on webcam and a snowball mic, you absolutely can. Yeah.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course again that was that was not to like say if someone is doing that that it's bad. It's just more so that you can, you know, you can tell whenever there's a difference and quality of.

00:23:10
Speaker 3: Stuff like that.

00:23:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to get the reps in. Yeah, one hundred percent. I feel like everyone now there. I wonder what percent of the population has a podcast these days.

00:23:19
Speaker 3: It it's as like a history teacher who had like a history of like New Jersey podcast where he's talking about you know, like revolutionary War and what was going on in you know, the Rockaway River down in Jersey. It's like, you know, everyone everyone's got something. Yeah.

00:23:34
Speaker 1: Uh so, how how would you describe yourself then as an analyst? Like was there a aside from just passion for the game? Was there like a reason where you're like, oh, I can offer this up, I can offer this up. I'm really good at watching film, I'm really good at analyzing data. Was that part of your consideration or was it just more so, you know, I'm analyzing it this way. I'm going to present it to people, But what is that way? Like, how would you describe.

00:23:56
Speaker 3: That for me? I've always been a huge numbers guy, like I was somebody like And it's not like I didn't I didn't get into Yale. I got into Rutgers Business School, but I didn't, you know, I didn't. I didn't study very much in high school or college. But when it came to math and everything, I could just show up on the day of the test and you know, get like an A and do very well. Uh like you know, s A T s A T all that. So I'm very good with like math numbers. I love numbers like and that's what spoke to me about the Late Round podcast. And then also, uh, you know player profile back in the day when you know, like breakout age is like this new thing, and you know, like speed score, and I'm trying to think of the other stuff. You know, I think I said breakout dominator, yeah, dominator and all these things and that that was fascinating at the time, and it led to some like very pointless debates between like you know, Calvin Ridley and DJ Moore and you know, Calvin Rilely is this old breakout from BAMA and DJ Moore is like this analytics darling And that was all very fun. And you know, your zapp score model is very cool to look at as well. So that's really what uh that's really my angle is the numbers element. I'm looking at the numbers like everything to me makes sense in a spreadshet Like I have spreadsheets, I have you know, everything that I could possibly need, Like every video that I do, I'm using some sort of spreadsheet. But I will say, like I do have a bit that I sort of run with that, Like I don't watch the games. I watch the games. I love football, I watch all of it. But my issue I don't trust my eyes and I don't trust many people's eyes because if you asked me, and I think that you would agree as someone I think maybe the same conference as Pitt at the time, Like I would have told you Tavon Austin would have been a Hall of Famer man. You know what I mean. You know, I would have told you Tavon Austin would have been the best ever. I would have told you that Justin Blackman would have been the best ever. I would have told you Tim Tebow was gonna win a Super Bowl with the Broncos. So like these guys that I loved watching, you know, like guys like Charlie Ward, where they were just like monsters in college, it doesn't always pan out, Like the eye test doesn't always work out. So I don't trust it as much and I do like to lean on the numbers, but I have started recently starting to merge them. Where like I don't think Ady Mitchell is someone that popped on a lot of models when you look into you know, some teammate score stuff, but you can kind of say models. But you know, like there are certain film guys that do love you know, like I like land zeer Line is one of them. There's a bunch of guys that I kind of lean on. And then of course you know the number I'm sure you say this as well with the numbers guys you know, well draft capitals kind of film as well, so you know all of that, so so much more numbers driven. But as as I get deeper and deeper into this and we see, you know, because the other side is like I don't trust my eyes on the other side, I would have told you were Shan Bateman, you know, would have been sick by now you know he's coming up here. He's coming up here, but not to the degree that we thought on draft day. So kind of I think the more you do this and the more you get humbled by these guys you liked, the more you start to merge both.

00:26:41
Speaker 2: That's what I was about to say, is that exact word.

00:26:43
Speaker 1: I mean, like I see a lot of like fresh analysts go out on social and they are so bold with what they're saying based on the data that they're analyzing and all that kind of stuff, and I always just sit back and I'm like, you're you're gonna get humbled man like, like you're like, it's gonna happen. It comes for everybody. This game has a lot of unpredictability. There's a lot of variants involved. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's also you know, people listen to me, like when I first started this podcast, for years, like for three straight years, I was wrong about Derrick Henry and then finally I'm like, I'm done trying to say that this is he is an outlier and you're only gonna get like he's a Hall of Fame once in a generation type player. But it happened, you know, like this is this is the way that it's going down. And so it's been nice, you know, especially this year, it's been nice that I didn't fade him, and I, uh, you know, am able to enjoy what he's doing in Baltimore. But you know, you just get humbled by a certain kind of analysis and a certain process, and you adjust that process not just based on one outcome, but you're just you just open your mind to realize that there are many ways that things can go down, in many ways that these results can conform. And I do think that you know, as you realize that, you start to say, oh maybe my original process of only looking at spreadsheets and you know, looking at like, oh, no, running back with a sub ten percent target chair could possibly be a top six running back in fantasy. You just start to realize that, you know, okay, go watch the dude, go look at what he's doing, and everything changes, you know, with with with your analysis. So I think a lot of people eventually get to that point.

00:28:19
Speaker 2: Let's talk. Go ahead, what were we gonna say?

00:28:20
Speaker 3: I was just saying I wish, I wish I followed you on the Derrek Henry thing. I was not. I was drafting him in Best Ball. I was drafting him in Best Ball, you know, third round of Bestball, but middle of the second on high stakes and the homies was tough. And I will say too, I lean on other people as well. And I and I consider, you know, Evan Silva one of the more like old school running back dudes, and he he wasn't even high on the Big Dog this year. Man. So that's I'm not blaving Evan Silver. For my own analysis, I'm just saying that even even the very hardcore are b bros, they even had their concerns this year. But yeah, I wish I just you know, was on the middle of the IQ chart or on I don't want the IQ chart.

00:28:54
Speaker 2: I don't want to say I was high on him.

00:28:55
Speaker 3: It was more so like just league average or fine.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had him my thing because I did becoming a best Ball bro the series over the off.

00:29:03
Speaker 3: Season, you could see extreme over there.

00:29:05
Speaker 2: Yeah oh yeah, oh wow.

00:29:07
Speaker 1: But like my take during the off season or during the summer was that I had Derrick Henry over Kien Williams, which now it's like both of them are just good.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I but it made me lean into Henry more.

00:29:17
Speaker 1: But the problem is that in my best ball portfolio it's still I'm still underweight on basically most running backs. That's been the problem for me. From that perspective, My season long stuff a little bit different. Like and what's really funny, I know that we're kind of going all over the place here, but what's really funny is I built my underdog rankings for consumers, like for patrons and stuff like that.

00:29:40
Speaker 2: I built them off of my redraft rankings.

00:29:42
Speaker 1: So I had a formula that I would overlap on top of my redraft rankings that would then adjust for the insane market that was on Underdog with the wide receiver heavy stuff and all that kind of thing. And so my rankings technically skewed more running back heavy than what the market was doing on Underdog. And so I think a lot of Patrio are pleased with that. But I myself, going through the drafts and doing so many of them and talking to so many winners and good analysts with with best ball, uh, I still went to wide receiver heavy and those. So I'm I'm just crossing my fingers that I'll be around league at or you know around uh you know, uh neutral ev uh you know, from an advance rate perspective, it's not like horrific right now, but uh, you know, I'm in like that four to like I'm in that like five to seven percent range with a lot of like the Barkley's and the the the Henry's and stuff like that. And that's where you know, if you're if you're below market a little bit, it's a little bit scary.

00:30:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got they say, uh over on a overseedge channel, the four percent blanket where you can just get four percent. That's what I have on Derrick Henry and Underdog. But then it does sting like I do. I do a bunch of high stakes, Like some of my favorite content to make during the AUF season as all stream every day from August first through kickoff, which is a lot. But I also, you know, don't have a kid and wife and family that depends on so those are always super super fun, but I don't have Dereck Henry in any of those. I'm kicking myself about it, but you know, it is what it is. I was also going to say too, I know that we're gonna talk more you know, micro on this week and stuff, but it's going to be fascinating kind of how this offseason talks about the season, just through the lens of like everything that this last decade data wise has told us in terms of, you know, running back injuries, the running back age stuff, in terms of because you know, Jonathan Taylor's hurt, but Derek Henry and saquonn are balling out, and then all the wide receivers are getting hurt, and then people are gonna overreact and we're gonna we're gonna go back to twenty fifteen this offseason where we get you know, ten running backs in the first round, and it's gonna be a lot of fun.

00:31:39
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I'm really excited for it.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: I mean, I have a lot of like surface level thoughts at least of like I think that that we always, like I talk about this in my draft guide every year where there is a very clear reaction to the previous season results in the market. Every year we see it now tight end. It happened this year where tight ends were going so much later. So I'm like, hey, I'm going to lean into some of these early round tight ends. I think it's coming to fruition a little bit more than what it did to start the year, because like Trey McBride's seeing good target shaars, Travis Kelce seeing good target shares now that Rashid Rice is out.

00:32:13
Speaker 2: You know, it's just that we knew there were.

00:32:14
Speaker 1: Gonna be some bus and we're seeing that now with like a Sam Laporta, you know, Mark Andrews with some degree. I mean I know that he's come on, or like a Dalton Kincaid. We knew there were gonna be some bus. The whole point was that we're throwing darts to see if we get the guy that ends up, you know, giving you.

00:32:28
Speaker 2: That that crazy edge. But like we see it all the time.

00:32:30
Speaker 1: Where like the most obvious year was in the twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen season, right, Yeah, the DeVonta Freeman year, right where running back zero RB was awesome. That year, DeVonta Freeman was the RB one and he didn't score many points at all as the RB one. And then what happened the following year, Well, running backs fell in drafts because people were afraid to draft running backs and then the position bounce back. And I talk about that every year in the draft. Guy, I wish I would have been, you know, in hindsight, more proactive in letting people know that it was fine to draft a running back in the first couple of rounds. Like I'm a very very big proponent of hero RB, like a very very big one, right, But I think that so you know, I'm not really upset about like how my analysis approached you know, the early round running backs or anything like that. I think the biggest change for me, And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it is the dead zone stuff where I tweeted about this, I made a thread after week one, but even in the draft guide, I had talked about how the running back dead Zone this year didn't have many stereotypical running back dead Zone running backs. There were a lot of guys in the zone who had good receiving profiles, who had good you know, historical production, who who really fit a lot of the things that I care about from a trend perspective in the dead Zone. And I didn't and and I wrote it off a little bit too much, and totally write it off. But I wrote it off more than I should have, you know, And I think what I've realized through all of that, and again this goes back to the thread that I had created after week one, and you guys can go read it, but it made me realize that I don't think the dead Zone is actually a dead zone. I think it's an archetype zone. It's just that it just so happens that these clear, obvious Zemir White type profiles fall into this RB two range very frequently. I think the logic behind it of you know, people are reaching for these guys because of projected volume and not because of talent. All of that still applies, but I think it's it's one of those things where like there are going to be instances like we see this year where those types of running backs aren't littering that RB two range. And maybe maybe it's it's gonna be because we get smarter, or maybe it's just the way that the running back position kind of shakes out in that given year. You know, I think it might change a little bit, but you know, I do think there were some obvious running back dead zone running backs this year. But I do think that it really comes down to the fact that when we talk about it, I think it's just an archetype thing more than anything else.

00:34:56
Speaker 3: I think you're right. I also think a big driver, which is the funny, is the twenty seventeen draft class man, like they won't squit, you know, mixing Kamara, Aaron Jones, James Connor, all these guys. You know, what made running back this like golden era for a second is now in the back end of their careers and as we know from like Adam Harstad stuff and everything, where it's kind of a cliff where like you know, you have this percent chance of hitting zero. But if they don't, then we all of a sudden don't have these running backs screaming from round six on those like top tier type of guys's tails. It's tough, man. The way that I played it this year was I was really only interested in James Cook and Kenneth Walker as like two guys that are are younger. I was believing the coach speaks stuff. Kenneth Walker is the one thing that I'm actually very happy that I was Bowlers dying.

00:35:42
Speaker 2: I thankfully flipped at the end of July.

00:35:44
Speaker 1: Me too, thankfully, because I was the opposite in it throughout July and I had way too much Sharps. I didn't think Sharps is like a best ball pick, was really that bad, just because he at least had the handcuff upside and stuff. So like, I wasn't that upset about that. And fortunately, you know the way the schedule works for drafts and fantasy football drafting. Fortunately all of our managed stuff usually just happens in August anyway, and so I was able to adjust. But thank god I adjusted because Kenneth Walker got the role that you know a lot of people were waiting for him to.

00:36:14
Speaker 3: Get which is crazy because as spreadsheet guys, we know like he had like I think he'd like nineteen career touchdowns in his college career. Like I don't have the data in front of me, but it has to be one of like the craziest jumps from because like his comps coming out, I was like, you know, Jonathan Taylor, Nick Chubb, like he can be the special runner without the receiving upside, and now he's getting this monster receiving work. That's just crazy. So I'm always targeting those young profiles, and I do agree that I think in the past I've kind of been very default, like, Okay, I'm avoiding the dead zone. I want to draft wide receivers here, and I kind of felt true a little bit, you know, like where there's some big hits like Rashie Rice and t Higgins. But it's gonna be interesting to see how this are this landscape, you know, smooths out, because I think we're gonna see some of these guys that would be dead zone guys, be like round three four in terms of like you know, the mixing Aaron Jones ep of guys. And then are we gonna see because that was always the thing is like, yes, these profiles that running back were shaky, but like even if they weren't, the wide receiver hits here, you know, like Cooper Cup and his Monster year, and you see across the board. You know, even like back in the day, we're talking like Chris Godwin around four metcalf R two breakout around there. So that's where it gets tough for me. But wide receiver got pushed up so much that you could almost say like this pocket of like round five to six was like very nice for running backs this year, But I don't know, it's gonna be very tough, like like as you said, like you know, every year's gonna be different. It's going to react to the last year. But I think you're right that in general, I think, largely in part to best Paul, like the dead zone is going to have to be modified in terms of like defining it slash like is it just an archetype thing, because you're right, like the mirror white was very clear one and a lot of these guys usually get injured more. I mean, I guess like mixing went down, but we're seeing, you know, Aaron Jones is looking great James Connors looking fine.

00:37:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it hasn't It hasn't happened. The injuries haven't happened. And I do think I do want to say that, like I'm I'm not like a zero RB bro per se, Like I implement it and I use it, and I think there's data that suggests that it's not a bad strategy in certain formats. But I do get a little bit tilted when people think that zero RB is only about injury, when it's it's not only it's about it's about the fragility of the position, and that when there is an injury at the running back position, everyone else in your league is hurting when you're not getting when you're not the one drafting that running back, where all the while the backup running back is going to have more predictable production. Who's stepping in for that player? We see it every single week, like we know that we can at least get some production from one of the Colts backs while Jonathan Taylor's out or you know, some some backup running back.

00:38:45
Speaker 2: We know that that production can come.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, we're sitting here, imagine a world where like Chris Godwin and Mike Evans were playing running back right like, that caliber of player Jalen McMillan would be going for eighty percent of people's free agent budget right now, right like instead, you know, he's like a twenty percent type in a home league of fifteen percent type pickup. Because it's the wide receiver position where there's more volatility. It's not like it's this one to one replacement thing. And so I do think that that people need to remember that is that with zero RB and a lot of these running back strategies, it's not just about them getting hurt. Which I haven't looked at the data, and I won't do it until the end of the season. Maybe one of the Twitter docs have done it in more detail or maybe you have, But I would assume that this is going to look like an outlier year, at least so far the way the first half.

00:39:40
Speaker 2: Of the season is gone.

00:39:41
Speaker 1: It's been an outlier year with earlier round wide receivers, you know, getting banged up, and then early round running backs and mid round running backs just not I mean they've they've been relatively healthy.

00:39:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's been I also, I mean, I'm a proponent of zero RB, and I will say as well, like as we touched on earlier where like, my first video that did well was a Jets Robert solivideo. My next video that actually like did very well as well was a zero RB video where I felt like on YouTube at the time, this is like, you know, twenty twenty one. Yeah, you know, you got the counselor out there saying, you know, don't go zero RB. You know, you idiots the concheepsis or whatever. So he's called me out in like zero RB video. He's like, you're doing damn zero RB. It's like, all right, whatever, I get it. Yeah, But so like it was such a frown upon thing, and then you'd have analysts doing a zero RB tutorial where they would start, you know, three wide receivers, not fill the flex spot, and then sleep walk through the dead zone to fill the running back spots. And it's like, no, do not do this. So I made that video and it was very funny. Like an the off season, like drafting these teams I had, I had a I'll do like one one or two solo main events, which is high pressure. I'm streaming it's like a few hundred people and I'm sitting there, you know, I'm debating between Brian Thomas Junior and Raheem Moster. I take Brian Thomas R. I'm like, look, you kinda go you gotta go extreme? Did it? You know? Did it take some balls to do it? When I already have Why did she receive the flex plus maybe one before taking Brian Thomas? But you got to, you know, push it to the extreme. The issue is this year is, like you said, wide receivers are getting hurt. But if you do zero RB correctly, and imagine when you talk about hero RB, there's a lot of zero RB in there as well, where you might be taking a wide receiver onto your bench before your RB two. And I do wonder how this is gonna shake out the end of it, because the wide receiver injuries are bad for those builds. But then also you you've built up the anti fragility to have like I lost a yuk on a team that I'm co managing with Jacob Sanderson, and like he wasn't even in our starting lineup last week. You know, like we're we're looking we have like Higgins and we have JSN, we have you know, Shakir. So it's like a very interesting year where if you did go zero RB you're hurting and I'm looking here. You know, this is the one that sucks. It's that there's not a single wide receiver right now averaging over twenty points per game, whereas there's five running backs right now. So that's that's what's going to like really sting. It's not so much the injuries. It's at the top end. These wide receivers aren't you know producing.

00:41:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still think we have time though for this to normalize a little bit. You know, like like I'm hoping there's not running back injuries. We don't want injury, but you know, they're inevitable, they're they're you know, like James Connor's missed time basically every year of his career. You know, stuff like that happens. And then to your point, like wide receivers like the hiring guys, even justin Jefferson to some degree, but like Cede Lamb's underperforming, you know to start the year, a'm Anda Saint Brown hasn't really been himself. You know, there's reasons for all of that, but but at the same time, it's like, do we expect it to be this bad moving forward? Like do we expect CD Lamb to average fewer than sixteen PPR points per game, probably not, you know, uh, and so I do think that that things could could really really turn around, you know, during the second half of the season. It's it's this is why you know, I like having these discussions where it's just like theory driven and just like, hey, yeah, this is kind of interesting that these things are happening. What I hate is when we're in the middle of the season and people are making declarative statements about what did and didn't happen. It's like, can we just wait till the season's over and then analyze what was smart what wasn't smart from a draft strategy perspective, and at least be like a lot about this instead of just it's been there's been seven games played, you know, like, let's chill it for just a second, because we understand that a couple of big performances can really skew some of his data.

00:43:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll be honest, that type of you know, I don't know, I'm not gonna call analysis, but kind of the uh, you know, the like rhetoric and the conversation around football is kind of due to my you know, TikTok and YouTube generation where uh yeah, something like Davis Maddick has been talking about where like you know, he's been on YouTube recently and like he's been not complaining, but just saying like there is very much like if you go live and you're doing a livestream, people are going to come in and like everything that has happened to this point is what has happened. It's one hundred percent, you know, in one and one hundred of one hundred simulations, Derek Henry goes crazy like this, and you know, Devon ah Chan gets a TUA injury and Nico Collins pulls his hamstring. Like there's so much that happens weeks weeks and then we're also, you know, only seven weeks in. I had a tweet uh ceedee lamb last week and now obviously it's not gonna be one for one because not everything's going to happen, but he was he was at less points per game than he is right now up to his bi week and then he have ages twenty eight point five points per game after his by last week. So there's there's so much left.

00:44:08
Speaker 1: And you know what's funny is that last year a huge reason why they were able to do what they did is because they became a little bit more passavy, but their schedule really opened up, and their schedules opening up again this year. It's pretty strong rest of seasons. So yeah, like let's just chill with like the again the declarative, like this is how it's been. I think that the way that you phrase that is really important too, where people are like Derrick Henry and one hundred out of one hundred times would be doing what he's doing right now. And it's like I I look at these tweets and stuff and what people are saying, and they're like, can you imagine fading Derrick Henry this year? Or you know the people who are like imagine think thing that Blake Korum was going to take work from Kyraen Williams. It's like, Okay, there's a spectrum here, guys, Like there was a possibility that some of these other outcomes could have happened. And if you're not recognizing these possibilities, you're a bad analyst, right, Like you're you're you're telling on yourself by sending these messages to people saying after the fact, imagine thinking X y Z. It's like there's there's a lot of people who are smart and logical who did think that that was a possibility. We're all just taking all these different outcomes and we're trying to associate some sort of probability to those outcomes. If one of those outcomes hits, it doesn't change the probability to one hundred percent.

00:45:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like everything is seen through that lens, when, of course, you know, there's so many things that can happen in an entire season. Then there's also the other aspect where even if you have the stone cold nuts in season, you still have to live through the gaallet of the playoffs. Like last year, Yeah, McCaffrey was so good. ESPN had a stat they dropped, which I don't I don't know that I always trust them when they dropped these stats. But I'm Aros Saint Brown and Ceedee Lamber on more championship teams than McCaffrey was last year, just because you know, the way that the schedule happened, and that shootout in the last game where you could have the you know, if Derrick Henry has the highest playoff advancement rate, you could still lose your league. Man, Like there's so much. You could also almost argue, Okay, the bye weeks are actually like a massive advantage. I'm not gonna argue that, but like, all you gotta do is sneak in just to just get in the dance, man, get in the dance. And like, there's plenty of times where the six seedle win or five seedle wins. So even if you have the weeks one through fourteen nuts, it doesn't still ensure that you're going to win at all.

00:46:16
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, all right. I want to get to some player takes because I know the people. You know, there's a lot a lot of wide receiver stuff that happened this week, so I want to talk at least touch on some of that. DeAndre Hopkins goes to Kansas City, Where does that put him for you rest of season? And how does how do you think that impacts sort of the rest of the team there.

00:46:34
Speaker 3: Man, the Hopkins ones is so tough because he's been banged up all year. I saw some tweet from like an injury analyst that it seemed like his exact recovery to one hundred percent hits like this week.

00:46:44
Speaker 2: So that's good.

00:46:45
Speaker 3: Everything we've had to this point is pretty I don't want to call it meaningless, but you know, in the Tennessee offense, you can't really take anything seriously. I did my rest of the season rankings yesterday. I landed at wide receiver thirty two. You know, it's like a wide receiver three knows. Some people gonna get over the because I do get it. You know, it's mouthwater DeAndre Hopkins, you know, borderline Hall of Fame receiver linking up with Mahomes. But this, this Chiefs offense, they're just not interested in like being the greatest show on turf anymore. They just want to play defense. They want to run the ball. Hopkins is old. I think there's I think that there's upside. There's there's a very wide range of outcomes where Hopkins comes in and they they you know, alter him to like this slot role and he's like this big slot kind of like late career Larry Fitzgerald and he eats in a Rashie Rice role and it's like a top twenty four guy, or he's just another guy in this receiver room. Of like Kelsey's not even really getting home right now, even with the Rashie Rice injuries. So I have a hard time. I think it's a very wide spectrum, and then sadly, I don't think it's great for Worthy. Like I loved Worthy coming out, I drafted a lot of Worthy. I was psyched after week one. He guess the eight targets last week only turned it into like nineteen yards you had the overthrow. I don't know. The hope was that Worthy could be more of a complete receiver right when he was coming out, that he wouldn't just you know, just run on wind sprints all day. And I'm not gonna call it him getting banished to that, but it seems like that's a little bit of it. I imagine they're bringing Hopkins to uh if he's not gonna be in the slot, like imagine we'll have a lot of Kelsey in the slot. We'll at least have Hopkins taking on a lot of the press man to kind of free up Worthy off the line a little bit, just because I don't know, there's like the viral tweet where he gets like, you know, pushed into the next dimension off the line. Yeah, like just absolutely brutal. So I don't know, I don't want to get too like I'm just done, I said this week that I think Mahomes might be droppable in fantasy football. Like if you're in a ten man five bench league, dude, like you could drop Mahomes. Man, it's I mean, it's been currible. Yeah, he's hurting teams because you didn't have the balls last week to start Drake May over him. You know, Yeah, this is Mahomes. I can't so I don't want to get I don't want to get my heart broken. So I had him as like a mid wide receiver three and we'll see where it goes.

00:48:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where I think I was at, like wide receiver thirty. So I'm in I'm in a similar similar bow with them. The one thing that I am kind of excited about with Hopkins is from a from a from a Hopkins talent perspective. I think a lot of people look at what he did last year and they're like, oh, this dude's washed. You know, he's he's he's old now, you know, we don't want to have anything.

00:49:08
Speaker 2: To do with him.

00:49:09
Speaker 1: His yards per out, like his per route run numbers were strong last year at two point zero nine yards per route run rate, which is incredibly good. And I you know, some of the I had him as a target in my draft got until the injury happened, right, Yeah, And a lot of that had to do with the fact that there was a trend when you look at middle round wide receivers sort of in that like like wide receiver three, wide receiver four range, and when they're older and they have the previous season efficiency that he had, they actually hit at a really good rate.

00:49:37
Speaker 2: Now, obviously he's been hurt.

00:49:38
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is if you look at Tennessee right now and you look at what the wide receivers have done on a per route run basis, So obviously hopkins cumulative numbers don't look that great because as you noted, he's been hurt. He's only running like half of the team's a rout on like half of the team's dropbacks and stuff like that. But his yards per route run I think it was one point six y four right now. Tyler Boyd is in second on that team one point zero four.

00:50:01
Speaker 2: I mean, like.

00:50:02
Speaker 1: Hopkins has been by far the best wide receiver in Tennessee. Now, granted, I know that Tyler Boyd is over the hill at this point, He's just a slot guy. Calvin Ridley's Calvin Ridley. But I mean it's still Calvin Ridley. Like it's not like it's it's some random you know, it's not like we're talking Justin Watson here or something, and so like it's it's no, no, no shade to to Watson.

00:50:22
Speaker 3: There was.

00:50:22
Speaker 2: That was a cheap shot on Justin Watson. But yeah, I mean, like.

00:50:26
Speaker 1: I I'm I'm optimistic that someone can form there. I think he'll probably play more X is my guess, just because he can and they already have Kelsey kind of in that that that short middle of the field intermediate area. They can at least, you know, use Hopkins on the outside on the perimeter and then let Worthy on the other side stretch the field a bit. But yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't think like a wide receiver one season is happening or something like that. Like I'm not I'm not getting that high, but I am. I am caustiously optimistic that he's still a good enough player. Now I mentioned Calvin Ridley. Do you think that Ridley is now back on your radar or are you just like, screw the Titans, this is done.

00:51:07
Speaker 3: Man. I had my and I was actually with you where I had my one of my bigger takets. I was like pedaling on Twitter and like July, I'm looking at here, was like I was taking Hopkins over Ridley, even though underdog ADP had them flipped. I didn't think that really was going to come in and all of a sudden, unseat Hopkins and the injury happens. It's like, Okay, have your way, Ridley. Even though one of my you know, I have a soft spot for Ridley. One of my first articles was like, why Ridley's going to be this year's year three breakout like Chris Goblin was last year and that was the year he smashed. But if you like, if you objectively look at his numbers, I tweeted this out. This was July. In four and a half season. I know they had the weird gambling thing. All he has to really show for in four and a half years is two one thousand yard seasons, one wide receiver, one finish, one wide receiver, two finish, only one year over two yards per out run. If you look at his entire career, Ridley, and like, I get I get that some of this is getting pushed down by you know, the Titans, I'm not even really gonna like Trevor Lawrence is a capable quarterback. Like his career yards per run is one point seven to seven. He only has one season over two yards per out run and that was his third year. Yeah, I just have a hard time saying that he is like some difference maker, you know. So like for me, he's like in the wide receiver like forties, and I think any volume he gets without Hopkins, I think the efficiency's just gonna be brutal. So I'm not crazy uh interested, I guess. Yeah.

00:52:22
Speaker 1: The interesting thing too is that like, like Brian Thomas is more or less playing the Calvin Ridley role. Yeah, in the Jags offense, and he's thriving, and so I understand, like Brian Thomas is clearly a very talented player, not trying to take anything, but like that's what we thought Ridley would be. Like Ridley's expected fantasy This is why we look at things like expected fantasy points per game, because it was like a wide receiver ten to fourteen depending on your source last year, right, Like he was in a good position to score fantasy points. He just wasn't. And even now we like, I get it. You watch the film, and you see a lot of inefficiency, see some horrible passes. He has a low catchable target rate, like a very low catchable target rate. I understand all of that, But good wide receivers still do more than what Calvin Ridley's been doing.

00:53:07
Speaker 3: You know.

00:53:08
Speaker 1: The only thing that I can really latch onto is now, like you said, probably we'll see like a pretty consistent twenty five percent target share in the offense at this point and the schedule opens up. The schedule is very very good for Tennessee versus what they've faced to start the year. But yeah, man, it's it's hard to like really get excited about a guy who's just constantly disappointed over the last you know, since he came back from that suspension. So I'm mostly in agreement there.

00:53:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking now as the season rankings, I have him wide receiver fifty five.

00:53:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like, and it's it's not a crazy I think I might be in like the forty, like high forties or something like that. Like, it's not a crazy stance to have when you especially when you like lay it out because people always come to me and they're like, why are you so low on Calvin Ridley. I'll be like, Okay, where should I rank him?

00:53:52
Speaker 3: Then?

00:53:53
Speaker 2: You know, like who who am I putting him over?

00:53:54
Speaker 1: There's a lot of good wide receivers out there who have that like upside, like a like let me ask you this, like Lad McConkie or Calvin Ridley rest of season.

00:54:02
Speaker 3: Oh, Lad McConkie by a lot Man.

00:54:03
Speaker 1: Yeah good, Yeah, I think that Lad looks great too, and so like that's a that's a dilemma that you know, people are probably like they'll.

00:54:13
Speaker 3: See that Mario Douglas Man to Mario Douglas, Sure he looks.

00:54:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can. You can easily make that kind.

00:54:19
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pull up mine right now, just that I can see where I would how about uh, what about like Darnell Mooney or Calvin Ridley.

00:54:27
Speaker 3: N Mooney Donald, here's one here, here's a fun one.

00:54:30
Speaker 1: Here's a fun one. Ricky Piersall or Calvin Ridley.

00:54:34
Speaker 3: Give me the mystery box. I'm going I don't want to go for the mystery I.

00:54:38
Speaker 2: I've been so let let's talk about that.

00:54:40
Speaker 1: Actually, let's talk about Piercel because we now have Ayuk and Deebo's now banged up.

00:54:46
Speaker 2: Diebo Mico this weekend.

00:54:47
Speaker 1: We don't know at the time of this recording, uh, but I yuk obviously done for I was kind of surprised that I got piersall in the number of leagues that I got Piersall in because I wasn't I didn't think I was overly aggressive. I was going and like, depending on my team, twenty to forty percent fob depending on you know, how deep the league was and stuff like that. I I probably got him on like half of my rosters now, and I was kind of surprised that people weren't more aggressive. Do you think I was wrong in being aggressive or uh, do you think that there could be something there?

00:55:18
Speaker 3: I think you're spot on. And I think it also speaks kind of volumes like did uh before I did did the ZAP score love for Ki Pearsol? I would say probably not a ton really.

00:55:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.

00:55:28
Speaker 1: It was more so so the one thing that it does like is the versatility, right, So he had a lot of like rushing type Yeah, yeah, rushing production stuff like that in his profile that did bump him up, I think objectively because it was what was that tier was him like Xavier Lagette, Jalen Polkin Keon Coleman, right, like that was kind of the in the same I know that that that like him and Laguette went in the first round, but it was all fairly similar draft capital. Overall, he scored the best out of all.

00:55:56
Speaker 2: Of those guys, uh you know.

00:55:57
Speaker 1: I but all of those guys also had some some some red marks to their to their analytical profile. But I think he was like an eighty nine or something like that in the ZA model, which is not horrible, it's not like fantastic, but he at least had some of those those versatile attributes. One of his comps was actually like Jayden Reid for Pearsaw. That was more of like an objective model comp. I'm not saying that he's gonna be like that, but that's what kind of got me excited about the fit, was that if you're gonna have that kind of player, you won an offensive coordinator that comes from this tree in like a Kyle Shanahan or like what we've seen in Green Bay with like Jayden Reid so far this year. That's what's gotten me excited. I think a lot of people just see Pearsaw as like a one to one IUK replacement, but I think they can get pretty creative with them.

00:56:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm also very optimistic. I will say I think like the one of the bigger discussion points for more like home leagues was like Juwan Jennings or Ricky Piersall. I would say Jwan Jennings just so we've seen it before and whatever. But yeah, I'm with you that I'm very optimistic. I was just looking through I have him on six teams now. I actually was a little smart, you know, after he got activated. I just I just like put in a couple of one dollar bids on the Sunday roll through on FPC, so I have him on like three of like six or seven FFPC teams. I have a lot of them too. And it really is it's less that like I don't really think I have much of him in Dynasty. It's less of like a I think this player is very good taken more of just like first round wide receiver mystery box. You know, he has the runway to routes and then we also have seen you know, like you said with Jayden Reid where last year. I want to say, in terms of TOM twenty four wide receivers from weeks like ten on it's like Jayden Reid, it was a Flowers, it was I know, like Addison was in the mix. Of course he had Puka Rashi Rice. So Ricky Piersol has the opperat like, we're gonna start to see, of course we have Brian Thomas at the top, we have you know, of course neighbors at the top, but we're gonna see a couple of these guys start to scream up there as we get into the weeks that matter, and I think Piersall could be that guy.

00:57:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm totally agreement.

00:57:49
Speaker 1: Like this is one of those things what we were talking about before, where in the moment you're you're placing bets on upside and range of outcomes, and then after the fact, someone's gonna say, you know, if Ricky Pierce All fails, they're gonna say, oh, it was so dumb that we did that, because look at this result. It's like, I get that, but there aren't many opportunities where you can get a first round relatively decent wide receiving prospect. Yes, he has some some red flags of his profile, older prospect, his production profile really wasn't that robust, But again, you know, if you look at what a lot of people who watch more film than us, they were very impressed by his route I mean they they considered him the best route runner in the class A lot of people did. And then also the versatility of that production. There were some things that you could like about his profile, Like I thought that he was a superior prospect to like a lagette, like I said, you know, Jalen Polk. I thought he was better than Alad McConkie was another one in that group where you know, you can make the argument either way, but I actually liked him more just as a player than mconkey, which in hindsight probably might be wrong. But I think that he's at least like he was kind of in that conversation of you know that a player who could you know, be if you got the opportunity. You're one producer and so I don't know, man, I'm I'm I'm intrigued by what we could see out of San Francisco.

00:59:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too. And I think I think Oldene would have been like, you know, year five breakout, like I'm good, you know, year five breakout, first round pick, Like I'm all good there, but you know, guy who hasn' hit a thousand receiving yards one time in college. But like you said, like I love, I am a sucker for the like that's why not this was not the selling point on brock Bowers. But brock Bowers had like thirteen carriers for like two hundred yards and five touchdowns at Georgia, as like he could play running back if he wanted to. Ricky Piersoll's college production twenty one carries twohundred fifty three yards five touchdowns on the ground, like especially in a Shanahan offense, anyone that's just explosive with the ball in their hands. And like you said, you know, when Matt Harmons has to rave about this guy and guys that I trust in the film circles like and he gets first round draft capital, I'm fine, you know, putting my spreadsheets down, you know and saying okay, I'll open actually drafts a lot of him in an underdog and like you said, with the the whole you know, the season can only happen one way. I'll go to my grave. Jalen Polk was a was a fine underdog pick man. Second round pick you could get in the you know, twelfth thirteenth round. Yeah, sometimes that second round pick ends up being someone like Jaden Reed or sometimes ends up being you know in Jalen Polk and he's brutal and point four yards per out run. But you know, when you can take on that upside for like a twelfth round ticket price, like you do them, you can take on that upside for a twenty percent fab bit you do that. So, yeah, that's just kind of where I'm at.

01:00:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, same, since we're talking about it, do you have a lean with the Buccaneers and how that might play out? Are you approaching it in a pretty similar way where it's like, oh, you have a mystery box rookie wide receiver. Who I mean, I thought McMillan looked pretty good as a prospect all things consider, especially when you kind of layer on teammate scorer and kind of look at the context of where he got his production, how he got his production, all that kind of stuff. Are you one that leaned that way more than like the Sterling Shepherd Trey Palmer direction.

01:01:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say by a lot. And it's it really is just because like, and this might be just a little bit too simple minded, but very rarely you're gonna see Gouy like Sterling Shepherd win leagues, you know, like it would floor me if like what eighth ninth year Sterling Shepherd off of like two major knee injuries and achilles, right, is like you can.

01:01:20
Speaker 1: See like yeah, yeah, like you could see a median outcome. Yeah, favor Sterling Shepherd, but the high end outcome would be bizarre, right, And.

01:01:28
Speaker 3: I imagine both of both you and me have our team's built in a way where even if Sterling Shepherd hits, he'll never really make my lineup in a redraft league. So yeah, I do prefer McMillan. It's a little bit tough with McMillan because now we have and this is an interesting part about yards per out run is that he is running routes versus Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, So that has to take into acount to some degree. Because I'm sitting here staring. One of my favorite things I do during the season is I do the Rookie Receiver Report, where I just kind of track yards per out run, targets, per out run, first downs, pro out run in PFF grade every single week. And mc y isn't popping at all. But again, like I think he has a decent excuse built in. Then he gets banged up, he comes back, but you're right, like he's a fun prospect in that he's not going to pop off the page in like normal production stats, but like per game, per route, he looks pretty damn good next to Roman Dunez And like you'll you'll hear guys like Gretche that he was like the second best receiver even though he gets drafted after Polk, and to me he was more interesting. Its kind of like this discount JSN type of guy where he's like the slot receiver who has some juice to him and can do his things. So I'm very much into him. The only scary part is that we have you know, X amount of routes in his sample and he's at like a point six four yards per out run and everything. But again trying to give us some of the benefit of the doubt. And then also we saw after Evans got hurt how much they featured McMillan. He gets like eight targets, he gets like a manufactured carry like soon that they like him. My only concern is I just I wish that they would fold on this, making my outside receiver thing, and it just put him in the slot because it seems that they're pretty set on Shepherd in the slot with McMillan on the outside, which is a little bit problematic because I don't know, he's like playing out a position a little bit.

01:03:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he played ninety percent of his routes and ran ninety percent of his routes from the slot in college, and they've been using him on the in the slot on like twenty three percent of them so far this year. So I think that's a big concern, Like they they I hope that what we see because when they made the pick, I was a little bit confused because they were talking about using Godwin more in the slot and McMillan to me profiled as almost like a pure slot guy, right, like he one of his comps for me was actually Amen ros Saint Brown because and again I know that I'm like talking about these like like Jayden Reid for Pearcel. Just so happens that these two wide receivers had one really interesting comp and those were the interesting comps. But the thing, like, I hope that similar to ARSB, they're able to throw McMillan both inside out you know, like like they rotate Shepard to the outs because Sterling Shepherd even like he started his career as a slot guy, but he's actually played on the outside pretty freequently over the last like five years of his career when he's been healthy. So I'm hoping that they at least get a little creative there. I'm intrigued though by by McMillan, would you let me ask you this on the on the spot would you be taking McMillan or Piersoll, Like which one did you put more FOB towards this week?

01:04:19
Speaker 3: Pierce all for me, just because of offensive environment. And then like also draft Capital, where I think it's close like I had them like I'll do a waiver Wire article where I'd like have fab recommendations really the same amount, but I just had him just a step ahead just because of the offense, the scoring. And then also I guess like the pedigree. And then also more of the mystery Box, where again I think that there's some factors slot stuff teammates, but we already have this sample of a pretty bad yards per out run. I don't mind betting on the mystery box, but we also I don't know, I don't know how much, like a bullet wound, like we don't know how much that's still affecting castall, which I think is like kind of worth you know, mentioning as well, like yeah, but he got shot. Yeah he literally got shot, lifted till the tail, you know, wearing his rolex onto the ambulance. Very just just one of those stories in the NFL. Men. But yeah, I'm just into with piersol Uh. It is tough, you know, Shanahan. Shanahan is so hit or missed with these guys where it's like this is a Shanahan guy. Of course he's on a UK, it's on debo. They're looking at like you know, Dante Petes and you're looking at you know, Joe Williams, and sometimes you put the stamp on guys who aren't all that great. But I'm optimistic there's there's smart people out there that liked him a lot coming out, So I'm optimistic. The forty nine ers also back against the wall, like they they aren't the Chiefs where they can like they have this you know, ground and pound play defense, like they need to get after it and they need to win games right now. So I am I am excited and also like Jennings is still like dealing with this injury as well. So we could see another week where Piersoll leads a team in rounds, leads a team in targets and everything, and at least they're still you know, there's the window dressing of the run game to worry about, and there's the tight end kittle to worry about, where if the bucks passing him is just simply Jalen McMillan's stilling Shepherd and Trey Palmer, they're kind of in trouble. I know, you know, the running game has been better recently, but they might stack the box. You know, dare the receivers to beat your corners. So again, I think they're both fine, fine waiver ads, but yeah, I'll take I'll take pearsaw I've been.

01:06:06
Speaker 1: I also threw a ton of darts at Jacob Cowing too. I should pound that out there. Yeah, I'm only because he man, I'm gonna sound like.

01:06:13
Speaker 3: My funniest spreadsheet guy.

01:06:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah he is.

01:06:16
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sound like my prospect model is only giving favorable comps. But I promise if you look at the prospect guide, you will not only see if you will see the weirdest names that you forgot existed when you look at some of these comps. But one of like, if there was a Tank Dell in this class, to me, it was Jacob Cowing. So I do think that there's at least and again, this is a an offense San Francisco and I coach and Kyle Shanahan that I don't think would be afraid to use the lower draft capital player if that's where the talent is leaning, and that's where things are leaning. So I also, like, I you know, I'm in some deeper leagues fourteen teamers stuff like that, or just twelve teamers with with relatively deep benches. I got Cowing in just as many of my leagues as Pearsaw, just to say, look, we don't know how things are gonna shake out.

01:07:02
Speaker 2: We don't know exactly what this is gonna look like.

01:07:03
Speaker 1: Cowing only ran like eight routes last week, but you know, Jennings banged up. Like you said, what if there's a scenario where Jennings doesn't go this weekend and Cowing really shows up, Or what if there's a scenario where Cowing just plays well because he gets ten to fifteen routes in a game and just balls out, you know, during that timeframe, just slowly, you know, gets.

01:07:23
Speaker 2: More and more of a of a of a workload.

01:07:26
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm not expecting that much, but I do think he's at least an interesting name to throw out there.

01:07:30
Speaker 3: I agree, honestly, a little bit of fomo that I didn't think of that, But he like he made He made like one play where he looked really good. I have heard and I and I don't want to preface this by the saying it's not pouring cold waters. I think that now they're down so many weapons they can't afford to have this essentially what I heard, I don't know if it was on the broadcast or just somebody else that is more film oriented, pretty much saying that like the forty nin ers like the receivers to be big to run block downfield, which makes sense, Yeah, Colling smaller. But if they run into this game this week with no Jennings and Cowing's the only making plays, he's gonna be on the field. And he's also, like you said, you know, a good spreadsheet guy like my my model has spit out a better grade for Cowing than McMillan, who we're talking about here as well. Like he like the spreadsheets are gonna love him. He's a He was a fun prospect where he would have probably gone higher. He had like a weird transfer thing that you know, kind of threw him off. And you know, whether playing inside the slot outside the slot like he he had a very weird quree where you can look a like inside the slot outside the slot Hyatt low wad out like he played everywhere inside out something sometimes to his detriment as well to his profile. But yeah, he's a fun name to shout, and I did want to I wanted to ask because I I went into last night on FPC Leagues with zero intention of bidding for this player, and then Jacob Sanderson got in my ear and now all of a sudden, I have like three or four shares of Cedric Tillman. Is there any is there any Eddie love for Cedric Tillman. You know, Jamis Winston's gonna be playing quarterback. He was a fun guy coming out of Tennessee. He's not like the stretchet aren't gonna love him, but he's like, you know, size speed. He had some like weird injury stuff he did when they were on the field together. He actually I think that he probably outproduced Jalen Hyatt or like a better yards per out run. So yeah, I've been I've been cedric.

01:09:01
Speaker 1: My only hesitation with Tilman is that he was atrocious last year. Yeah, on a per route basis. That's that's really my my fear. But you look at what they've got, Like I talked about this on fifteen Transactions this week. It's like Jerry Judy, I think has proven to us that he's just not a stud. Elijah Moore has been a disappointment since since his rookie year. Sorry you to your Jets fandom. And I mean sure, like I think that Tilman's fine to at least throw the dart at. I mean, he's a big body that is kind of a one to one replacement of what Amari can do kind of in that offense, but probably not as I mean, I wouldn't assume nearly as good. I didn't mind him as a prospect. I didn't like him.

01:09:41
Speaker 2: I thought it was just fine where he was drafted.

01:09:43
Speaker 1: I thought Jalen Hyatt was more interesting as a prospect, but he had that really weird slot profile.

01:09:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.

01:09:52
Speaker 1: They're just really really hard to prospect. I think even for guys who are only who aren't doing it through production numbers and the stuff that we're looking at. I mean, it's still a difficult team to look at because we don't know how much of this is like just totally manufactured or how much of it is actually the guy winning. And then unfortunately, like a guy like Hyatt, you go and he goes the NFL and he doesn't have a slot role because they have their slot merchant and Wandel Robinson there in New York. So yeah, I mean I think Tilman's fine. I would prefer the other guys we've been talking about, but I think that, yeah, I think that, like and I'd prefer Tillman probably over Cowing, you know, I think that there's a more immediate role there. But yeah, I threw some darts his way this week.

01:10:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I threw a couple at him, like pretty much like the backup bid. But man, I was just looking now like not a single Browns receiver had over one yards per out run on the entire season, Like jamis is gonna be fun. I'm very excited for it.

01:10:45
Speaker 2: I hope man I hope. I hope it'd be great.

01:10:48
Speaker 3: All right.

01:10:48
Speaker 2: I got one more question before I let you go.

01:10:51
Speaker 1: I know we had other stuff that we're gonna talk about today, but I liked where the discussion went. That's usually how these perspectives episodes go. Give me your favorite buy in Fantasy foot right now.

01:11:01
Speaker 3: Man, this one's tough. I wrote a couple down. I think I'll put as number one. Deebo. Samuel is probably the number one, and I know it's obvious, but I do wonder, especially like if he doesn't play this week with the pneumonia stuff, if there is a by window. There was a Duy McFarland tweet I saw that I thought was pretty good in terms of debo where he has like a in games without Ayuk he just balls Out's pretty much what it is. Where yeah, he had like a thirty eight yard targets per out run thirty eight percent when Iyuke's not on the field, and I just want pieces of this offense. Like we said, I do think that these guys are gonna be, you know, coming from behind or maybe not coming from behind, but like they need to win games. There's no messing around, all right. I found he has a four point eight eight yards per out run on the field without Ayuke since twenty twenty one, So that's a pretty decent sample. Forty one percent of the air yards, thirty eight percent of the target, so like and on top of that, we have the McCaffrey injury, so he's getting carries on top of it, like Deebo. When we talk about who can kind of save the wide receiver position right now, it is Deebo. I know that he's more of a luxury by like you're not gonna be able to like buy debot for chips. But I think, especially if there's an owner out there who's like maybe two and five, and if Deebo can't go this week, or if it's like he has pneumonia and he can't play snaps and he's not really trusted in a starting lineup this week, go go tap him on the shoulder and go see what we can get for him.

01:12:17
Speaker 1: People might not realize this, but when we were drafting throughout the summer on underdog Deebo, at one point when the rumors were really strong about IU leaving, Diebo was a one two turn pick, like pretty consistently like he was going in Garrel Wilson range. You know, so that gives you an idea of sort of what that upside looks like, you know, for debo without IU Care. So I like that call out a lot. All right, man, it's been been a pleasure, love love chopping it up with you. Every time we get to I'll let everyone know where they can find you, what you're working on, all that good stuff.

01:12:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, happy to be on cool full circle moment of someone that listened to the show, you know while I was delivering pizzas for a while for sure. But yeah. You can follow me at ron Stewart Underscore on Twitter. You can follow me Ron Stewart on YouTube just Ron Stewart and I put out weekly content. I got like tell Nison's learn while break down the entire Sunday. I have my waiver Wire video, some trade targets, some sneaky starts where I kind of look into like just the most disgusting starts of all time and tell you know, if you're if you're down bad, these are guys that you can put in your lineup. So that's really what I got going on all on YouTube, Ron Stewart follow me there sad it for the off season, like Dynasy's gonna be fun. Everything is out in front of us. So yeah, Ron, start on YouTube and I appreciate you having me on of course.

01:13:34
Speaker 1: Man, of course, you guys can follow my stuff over on lateround dot com, Twitter at LATEROUNDQB, make sure you subscribed to the YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash at late round FF.

01:13:46
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. Everyone greatly appreciated. As always, I got to end it this way though. Thanks for tuning in

01:14:00
Speaker 4: PA to the PAS