880: Post-Draft Rookie Rankings

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the Late Podcast with your host JJ zacherathas Jay Jake Zacher Reason. What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachary sin in this episode eight hundred and eighty of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. We've had some time now to let the NFL Draft sync in. For those of you who got the Late Round Prospect Guide or for anyone on the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon, you've seen my thoughts on this class post draft. You guys heard some of those thoughts on last week's episodes too. I just haven't formally done a post draft rankings episode, which is what today's show is all about. Just like the pre draft one, I'll be going through my top twelve post draft rookie rankings, and I'll be doing it by tier. You can get the rest of these rankings and the spots that I just referenced. There weren't a ton of changes from the pre draft show to this post draft one, but there were still some and there's definitely more to add with these players based on their landing spot. We'll get to those rankings in just a second. First, I just want to remind you to check out Underdog Fantasy. Becoming a Best Ball bro is a new show that's starting in the Late Round podcast feed next week, and you'll want to be set up and ready to go on Underdog for when that happens, because Underdog's got best ball contests, pick them games and more. To get started, just head to Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the Underdog app. And when you sign up, make sure to use promo code Late Round for a deposit match offer on your first deposit. That's promo code Late Round. It's officially Best Ball Season and I can't wait to experience it all with you. Now, let's get to these rankings. Predraft I had Marvin Harrison and Malik Neighbors in the same tier. Post draft. Marvin Harrison Junior is the only player in this top tier of single quarterback rookie drafts. In Superflex, you can add Kayleb Williams into the banks. So the question would be why the change. Why were they in the same tier before but they're not? Now what we got some confirmation We all kind of thought that Arizona would go with Harrison, and then there was that possibility of Neighbors going to the Giants. But now we know those two things are true, and the spot in Arizona is one where Harrison Junior has a pretty legit year one opportunity. My projections currently have Harrison as the wide receiver seventeen, but there's plenty of upside in that projection. He could just be more efficient than where I've got him, but there's also not that much in terms of alternatives in that offense. He's got an above average quarterback situation in Kyler Murray too. The other side of this is the market. In dynasty, you always have to be cognitive player value because that's still an important part to building a dynasty roster. And it's very clear that the market is favoring Marvin Harrison Junior a decent bit higher than Theleikue Neighbors. I've been in drafts and super flex drafts where Marvin Harrison Junior is on one oh one and then all the while Malik Neighbors is going like one oh six because people are into those four quarterbacks before Neighbors. But overall, Marvin Harrison Junior is a stud I said it pre draft, I'll say it post draft. He's a cornerstone piece for your Dynasty roster this next year. Let's talk about Malik Neighbors. He's alone in this next tier. When looking at the ZAP model, which is my prospect model, Neighbors had a pretty identical score to Marvin Harrison Junior. But the ZAP model isn't looking at landing spot. Landing spots shouldn't be everything. Just for the record, we shouldn't let it solely dictate whether or not we like a player. But when we're talking about two guys with very similar prospect scorers, I'll gladly let landing spot along with market valuation, I'll let that dictate how I view a player. I do think that some might be overstating neighbors landing spot to some degree. Yes, he's walking onto a team where the quarterback situation it's a lot more unstable than what Arizona's working with. With that being said, Neighbors definitely has a high target share projection similar to Marvin Harrison Junior. There's not a whole lot of competition in New York. In fact, you could argue that competition is even worse in New York than it is in Arizona. There's no Trey McBride on the Giants. This is why these two teams took wide receivers at the top of the draft. Not only are Neighbors and Harrison Junior elite prospects, but there was a need there. But in the end, Neighbors Number one has worse market value than Marvin Harrison Junior like I just talked about. But Number two, his year one projection also isn't as strong. He's more in that wide receiver twenty five to wide receiver thirty range, which makes me believe that Harrison Junior will appreciate in value better than elike neighbors will. Just don't go crazy discounting Neighbors. Like I said, I've been in some rookie drafts where he's fallen way too far for being an elite prospect. He should be valued highly because he is an elite guy. I just think it's safer and smarter to go with Harrison at this point, which is why there's that tier separation. I shared some thoughts on Roma Dunsay on last week's episode, and I want to reiterate some of those points today. He's in his own tier next, So I'm starting with the big three wide receivers, each in their own tier. First off, a Doonsay is a good prospect. His zapp scores in the ninety six range. That's a spot where we see very talented wide receivers. There may have been some analytical marks for a Dounza that weren't as strong when compared to Neighbors and Harrison, which is why his score is a little bit lower, but he still looks great overall. I'm still seeing people worried about a Dounzay's landing spot. I just don't agree. Like I said last week, this really is not the same thing as Jackson Smith and Jigba in his situation last year in Seattle, at least in my opinion, because a Dunsay is not the same type of player as Jackson's and Jigba is. There are plenty of reasons Jsn wasn't a winner last year in Fantasy football. He had an extremely low average up the target. He was their slot guy. A Dounza does not profile to be that kind of player, and neither Tyler Lockett or DK Metcalf really missed that much time last year. There's absolutely a possibility that Jaysn just isn't as good of a prospect as some including my model thought that he would be. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm just saying just because something didn't work out for one player doesn't mean it won't for another. Like I said last week, if anything, within the Shane Waldron offense, if anything, Keenan Allen is more so the guy who would play that JSN role. Not that I think it's a one to one thing, because I don't, but Allen's a free agent next year and we still have contingent injury upside for Romadunza in year one that didn't hit for JSN where we thought maybe he'd be a flex play, but then have that injury upside. But it can still work out for Romadunze. At the very least, you're attaching a very good wide receiver prospect to a very good quarterback prospect, and that wide receiver prospect could easily have less competition in year two. Yes, we could have said something similar about JSN, but I'll stress it again, just because one situation worked out a certain way doesn't mean the next one will. A Doonsay is talented, and we want to lean into talent first and foremost. This next tier of players is usually when rookie drafts start to look different from one draft to the next. I've got a tier of four here in Xavier Worthy, Brian Thomas, Brock Bauers, and Jonathan Brooks. And when I say tier, I mean I can see an argument for any of these guys being ranked over the other. Xavier Worthy scored really well post draft. He wasn't quite as good as Romadunesay, but he was right there. The Zap model really loves him because he has a strong breakout score and a good teammate scoer. Obviously, his draft capital wasn't that bad either, but he ended up having a low risk draft capital delta, which if you heard the Mailbag episode last week, that's a very good thing. Now, I don't think that we should say that someone is Tyreek Hill, are gonna be Tyreek Hill, But I've seen plenty of comps between Worthy and me Cole Hardman over the last week because he went to the Chiefs and he's a fast player. To me, that's where that comp stops. If you have a spectrum of Tyreek Hill to me Cole Hardman, which is a pretty wide spectrum, Xavier Worthy is much closer to Tyreek Hill than he is me Cole Hardman. Hardman failed to register a breakout score in college, Worthies was third best in this year's class. He has more nuanced to his route running, and while it really doesn't matter, he is faster, and I say it really doesn't matter because there are so many other things that just matter more. Now. Obviously, the Chiefs have been successful over the last couple of years, but their offense has still been missing that true vertical element that left with Tyreek Hill. And I'm expecting Xavier Worthy to bill that and more now. Brian Thomas is also a prospect that has a low risk tag to his profile, according to Draft Capital Delta. To put that another way, for those of you who didn't purchase the Late Round Prospect Guide or who didn't listen to last week's Mailbag episode, it essentially means that the model sees Brian Thomas as undervalued compared to his draft capital. Now, I subjectively think there's a little bit more volatility to his profile. He had just one good season in college. His other two campaigns saw him with a sub one point zero yards per team pass attempt rate. That's not very good at all. But he's a raw prospect, he's younger, and he wasn't asked to the world as a wide receiver at LSU. The ZA model's not going to capture that latter point as well as it probably should. It's hard to not love this landing spot. Though. Jacksonville lost Calvin Ridley this offseason, and while they did add Gabe Davis, they needed a perimeter guy who could really stretch the field and consistently and maybe be a high volume target getter. That's what Thomas and his crazy athletic profile can potentially do. So while Thomas is pretty raw, the nice part with him from a fantasy perspective is that they still might force feed him more than what we'd see in a lot of other spots. With Brian Thomas, the Jags need him to develop quickly. In the end, I let the model decide for me and how I was going to rank Worthy versus Thomas within this tier. I put Worthy ahead because the model likes Worthy more. But like I said, in this tier, you can go either way. So then there's Brock Bowers. I talked about him on last week's episode a bit. My concerns have nothing to do with him as a player and he's in this tier because I do think he's generally gonna be fine. Don't get me wrong. The issue is that Michael Mayer is there, and he won't be a zero. Even if I wasn't that high on Mayor as a prospect compared to consensus last year. I'm not going to lean into that and say that he's like a bad player. He's a very capable tight end. The Raiders still have an up in the air quarterback situation too, so it's hard to envision Bowers having some monster rookie campaign, and the market may not love that. Tight Ends just don't hold value the same way an elite wide out or an elite running back would. Now, Bowers is going to hold decent enough value because of his name, and he is a very very good player and a very very good prospect. But it's highly unlikely that we see a Sam Laporte a season from brock Bauers this year. He needs some injuries to occur in order for that to happen. I think he's more of a higher end tight end two, maybe a lower end tight end one. And I said it last week, but I do have some concerns in the back of my head that a team like the Raiders with as many holes as they have them taking a semi luxury pick. It scares me. Are we sure they're going to properly deploy Bowers? He can be a slot for them immediately, Yes, but I can't lie. There's some worry that this is just a better real football thing for them than like a numbers driven thing, a statistical thing that worries me. So Bowers is in this tier, and if you want to go for him because you like building around elite tight ends, be my guest that's why he's in this tier. I'm gonna prefer the other wide receivers a little bit more, and possibly Jonathan Brooks too. So let's talk about Brooks. The more rookie drafts that I've done, the more I think these one of the more undervalued players in this class. Maybe it's because there's this overall perception that this running back class sucks. And yeah, it's not like an amazing running back group. But Brooks, given the draft capital that he received from Carolina, he's a fringe elite prospect. He's not like Bjeon Robinson or Jamier Gibbs. He didn't get the capitol to be rated that highly. But like I said last week, Brooks is in the Kenneth Walker range in terms of prospect score. In the ZAP model, their scores are nearly identical, and I would argue strongly that Brooks would have looked even better had Bjeon Robinson and Roshawn Johnson not played ahead of him in college. There's a teammate score that's helping Brooks, but he didn't get a ton of run as the team's lead back, and when he did get run, he tore his ACL. But despite all of that, he still looks really good in the model. That's why I think he might have looked even better had he been just in a different situation. Now, look, I talked about this in the pre draft process. I do have some concerns over this ACL recovery. What's that going to do to his overall dynasty value? But usually with a player this good, a player who has a prospect score in this range, that player usually holds market value pretty well. I went over to Dynasty League Football dot Com. I looked at their historical ADP. I then looked at the eight running backs over the last five years who had ZAP scores between ninety and ninety six. That's right in line with where Brooks is at. He's at ninety three point eight. I wanted to see how those players did value wise from before their rookie season to before their second season. Of those eight running backs, two of them ended up losing value within running back rankings from year one to year two. One of them was Clyde Edwards Hilaire. That was largely because he was just ranked so highly before his rookie season, but his year two rank was still actually pretty strong. The other one was Zach Sharbonet. Sharboney started off year one with a high end RB three price tag in startups, and that's more or less where he's still at. And we know that Sharboney's situation is not the same as Jonathan brook situation. Now it's a small sample, but I think the greater point here is that these types of players generally do hold value in dynasty. In Brooks's case, you've got Chewba Hubbard on the last year of his rookie deal, and you have a head coach and Dave Canalis who wasn't afraid to use Rashad White as a belcal last year. It may not come to fruition here in year one because of that ACL injury. But at this point I'd be surprised if he's not able to maintain good market value year over year. To me, he's the clear cut RB one in this class. He is a pretty underrated prospect. This next year is where I have the quarterbacks. This is a single quarterback episode in rankings list, But if you're curious about superflex, I've got Kayleb Williams with Marvin Harrison Junior and Jaden Daniels with Malik Neighbors. Single quarterback leagues can be a little different in that you're not nearly as worried about a quarterbacks floor, and you could argue that given the rushing upside, Jayden Daniels has just as high of a ceiling in fantasy as Kayleb Williams does. I mean here in year one, my projections have Kayleb Williams and Jayden Daniels right next to each other. Anyone selling Williams is a lock to score more points than Daniels this year. I think that's way too confident. Now. I talked enough about the quarterbacks on the show, and nothing really changed compared to the pre draft version of these rankings because we had a good idea of what was going to go down pre draft. But Daniels is in a spot with a decent environment, one that's far better than what most rookie quarterbacks have, and William's environment's even better. I think there's a chance that both of these guys break the mold of what we generally see from rookie quarterbacks. They both have a shot to be legit fantasy starters here in year one, here in twenty twenty four. Now, this next tier of players, it's one of the more interesting ones of your rookie draft, and it's the final one that I'm gonna talk about today. The market is adjusted and really likes Ladd McConkie. Next. Mconkie, according to keep Trade Cut, currently has a higher ADP than Jonathan Brooks. Now. I like mconkie just fine. He had a weird profile, but there were things to like, really good yards per route run numbers, a strong teammates score. But there are still concerns about the numbers that go into the ZAP model. This is straight from the Late Round Prospect Guide. I wrote quote. When it comes to the production metrics that go into the Zapp model Lad McConkie's not looking so hot. His top year in receiving yards per team pass attempt is only one point sixty three, the third lowest mark in the class. After getting selected in the second round by the Chargers, McConkie joins three other round two wideout since twenty eleven who had a best season yards per team pass attempt right under one point seven. Those three guys Aaron Dobson, Miko Hardman, and Van Jefferson. Now, the key difference here between mconkie and those players is that he had this crazy good per route run analytical profile. He had a strange profile overall where his yards per team pass attempt just didn't match his yards per route run numbers when those two typically do correlate, And the reason for that was because he wasn't used in the high volume capacity. He was fifth in routes run on Georgia last year. Now I get the allure with McConkie going to the Chargers. He gets justin Herbert in an offense that totally lacks alternatives, And what I love about the fit is that he instantly becomes the most versatile wide receiver on that team. He can play anywhere, So I now have him at the top of this tier. That's reflected in my most recent Dynasty rankings. But with that being said, I don't think he should be ranked ahead of Jonathan Brooks. McConkie compared to his position historically in the ZAP model isn't as impressive as Brooks compared to his and that's the difference for me. Now. Keon Coleman is next within this year, and again he's being pushed up a little bit because of this landing spot in Buffalo. I talked about Coleman on last week's Mailbag episode, so if you want a more detailed look at him, you can listen to that. I do have some concerns about Coleman's fit in this offense, because he did seem a little bit better suited for a big slot role, But the Bills are going to use him as their ex and he has some analytical concerns. Roughly three quarters of this year's wide receiver class got to a yards per team pass attempt in college in their best season of two point zero. Keon Coleman didn't. He has a barely above average breakout score as a result, when we'd ideally want that number to be higher. Now, on the plus side, he's a younger player who's in early to player, and as a sophomore at Michigan State, he had better production than Jaden Reid. So it's not like his profiles totally bad. It's just that he has comps in the model of Breshad Perriman to Kevin White all the way to Courtland Sutton. There's some variants there and we should at least recognize that variance. Now, I have two more guys in this tier that I want to talk about, and it kind of feels like one of them is becoming a little bit controversial. If you look at ADP right now, Ricky Pearsall is getting selected well after lad Maconkie and generally after Keyon Coleman. There's a more distinct tear drop when you're in superflex leagues. I would imagine some of you have seen Pearsaw go well after those two wide receivers in that format. I think he belongs in this tier, though Piersall had the best score in the ZAP model of these three wide receivers. And yeah, that's draft capital related to some degree, but the draft capital wasn't all that different from one guy to the next tier. Piersaw just had a really well round profile when you factor in what he was able to do on the ground, and that fit with Kyle Shanahan, in my opinion, is awesome. He's gonna find creative ways to get pier Saw the ball now. Clearly the reason Piersaw isn't getting selected around these guys like Coleman and mconkey is because of the landing spot. The immediate return for Piersaw could be rough. Deebo Samuel and Brandon Ayuk are both still there. Projection wise, he doesn't look nearly as good as live mconkie and Key on Coleman today at least, and I stress today because Ayuk's a free agent next year and there's an out with Deebo's contract after this season. A question that I posed on my discord last week was where would we be drafting Peersaw if one of those two players was out? And the answer for many was ahead of both mconkie and Coleman. And I think that's the point to stress here. There's still time for some movement in San Francisco. One of those wide receivers could still be traded, but I don't think they may the Pearsaw move if their plan was just stick it out with both Deebo Samuel and Brandon Ayuk if they wanted to keep them long term. We know this system is great, and we know Pearsaw is a pretty good prospect. So while I totally understand going with Mconkie or going with Coleman and drafting them over Pearsow for that immediate return, totally get that, and the market values on their side too. I just think that Pearsaw belongs in this tier and you can make that choice for yourself. And speaking of the market value thing, you could argue that Pearsaw does have a shot to lose value from year one to year two. But number one, there's contingent injury upside that Maconkie and Coleman don't have. Number two, I think that the forty nine ers do move on from one of those whine outs. Let's say after the twenty twenty four season, the market's gonna then rebound with Ricky Pearsall, even if Pearsaw has a relatively unproductive year one. That's why I'm keeping Pearsol in this tier. And then finally there's Trey Benson I've actually gotten a decent bit of Benson in my rookie draft so far, but I'm definitely not overly high on him. I actually was pretty critical about Benson the player before the draft. He just missed on some easy thresholds that I typically want running backs to hit, like certain breakout scores and a reception chair above ten percent. But he also got off to a slow start in college because of injury. And at the very least, Trey Benson has a really nice size, speed profile, and look, this Cardinals offense has a chance to be pretty good with their addition of Marvin Harrison Junior and then Kyler Murray being healthy. Benson's gonna split a backfield here in year one with James Connor. But James Connor is about to be thirty. We can't assume health in any backfield, let alone a thirty year old running back, and more importantly, James Connor is a free agent next year. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if Benson's a target of mine in an ambiguous backfield for redraft purposes this year. Like I said, there are concerns with his analytical profile, but he's still graded out as easily the RB two in this class in the ZAP model, and this landing spot overall pretty good for Trey Benson. So if you're someone who likes to draft a little bit more for need, or maybe you need a running back just in general, you can go with Trey Benson in this tier as well. Now, like I said, you can get my rankings over on the Late Round Fantasy Football Patreon or in the Late Round Prospect Guide. Just check out Lateround dot com to find both of those things, and those include Superflex as well. But this episode, what you just heard, it was just a nice little primer for how I'm attacking things and how I generally am viewing this class. That's it for today's show, though, thanks to all of you for listening. If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcast can be found, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter at Late Round QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'll have a Late Round Perspective's episode for you later this week. I'll talk to you then