Late-Round Perspectives: Kyle Yates

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Kyle Yates is a Dynasty fantasy analyst who previously spent time as a host of the Fantasy Pros podcast and a fantasy football content director at the Pro Football Network. He's a dad of three, He's a Bears fan, and he works in his church full time. These are his Late Round perspectives. It was my first interview since talking to Kendrick Bourne. Okay, Radio Row, so you got you got some you do have some big shoes to fill because he was amazing, Like one of the greatest interviews that I could have asked for.

00:00:40
Speaker 2: There were a couple of players that I interviewed on Radio Road that I was like, you are amazing, Like yeah, and you would never expect it to where Brevin Jordan. Grevin Jordan was actually like my favorite interview the entire time that I was at Radio Row.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: He was so good on camera. And then Alexander Madison.

00:00:57
Speaker 2: Alexander Madison was like the nicest human being that I think I have ever encountered. And that was that was on the heels of like him just getting absolutely verbally abused that entire.

00:01:07
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, destroyed by by everybody and how inefficient he was and how yeah, but he was he was amazing.

00:01:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the thing for me. And I said this on the show.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: It's like it's really easy to you know, lose sight of them as humans.

00:01:22
Speaker 3: And I'm not just saying that.

00:01:23
Speaker 1: To say that and like you know, to like be this like really good guy and it's like no, like like during the fantasy season, you're looking at data points for these players right like they're they're almost not human from that perspective, and it's sickening and gross and new feel gross, but it is a nice thing to kind of have that interaction and I did. We interviewed Tedoro McMillan as well, and one of the things that I that we brought up to him was like if he was hearing from fantasy people, from from like players and stuff like that. He said that he didn't hear that much this past year, which was good. And you know, like you you want rookies to enter the league and not immediately just like reject everything the fantasy football is all about.

00:02:03
Speaker 3: But like get that kind of garbage out of here.

00:02:05
Speaker 1: Like these guys are dudes, and they're they're you know a lot of them are really really gracious. Like we talked to Josh Johnson was our third one, our other one, and the dude was just like filled with unbelievable knowledge because he's been in the league for like seventeen years, you know, And he sat down with us for like ten minutes beforehand and just chatted and we talked about like his workout routine and stuff, and like that's the kind of stuff that you just don't get to, you know, see without experiencing it.

00:02:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's different too when like the players are not going to interact with you if you are interacting that way with them rightly, right like, so you're actually all you're doing is shouting into the void and shooting yourself in the foot for eventual potential opportunities to actually connect with these players who are human beings and are just out like the majority of them are just great human beings.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:02:52
Speaker 1: The one thing though, I will say is that every single player that I saw was one and a half times larger than I thought they were going to bed right like, like like walking by Derrick Henry was one of the most frightening experiences in my life. And I can't even imagine a defender trying to stop that man.

00:03:07
Speaker 2: Well, I even held open the door at Radio Roop for Jordan Love at one point, and I was like, yeah.

00:03:12
Speaker 3: You're so much larger. Yeah yeah, yeah, well that yeah.

00:03:15
Speaker 1: I got that picture with Flacco right, and like Flaco is like he's gigantic, Like I'm six one. Guys, if you see that picture online, I'm six one, Okay, I'm not like I'm six' one like two hundred, you know, one ninety five, two hundred, and Joe Flacco is towering over me.

00:03:29
Speaker 3: The dude is.

00:03:30
Speaker 2: Massive, which is then insane when you think of like guys like Darnell Washington and Dereck Henry who make like these other NFL players look small. Yeah, yeah, okay, I you could literally flick me and I would probably go flying back.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: Ten.

00:03:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: Although I did see I did see a postgame Seahawks interview with Sam Darnold and Kenneth Walker, and the interviewer asked them it was like a quick you know, when it's just like it's like a TikTok video or something.

00:03:54
Speaker 3: They were just asking a quick questions and.

00:03:56
Speaker 1: One of them was could a regular, average human complete a pass in the NFL? And they both said no, And then they said, can a regular person on ten tries gain a yard and they both said yes, surprisingly Okay, yeah, they both.

00:04:09
Speaker 2: I think there's a difference between the Seattle Seahawks offensive line at this point and like the Las Vegas Raiders offense, right, it's not all situations are equal.

00:04:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's very true.

00:04:18
Speaker 1: All right, we're going to get into that analysis first. First off, it's great to talk to you. We haven't done a show together in a minute. You know, you've kind of been all over the place with where you started in the fantasy space and what you're doing now and so on.

00:04:31
Speaker 3: Although I do have to say I did get that W in your Dynasty League this year, so yeah, I have to have to at least throw.

00:04:37
Speaker 2: That up, and that's some pretty steep competition. So I think it's a little bit different too. If you wanted to put a flag up in the background and just with the massive W like, I wouldn't blame it.

00:04:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but.

00:04:48
Speaker 1: No, it's like I said, it's been a minute, but I want to talk and introduce you to you know, this audience for those who don't know you. You know, what you're all about, where you started in the industry, what you're doing now and sort of that that journey in general.

00:05:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, you got thirty to forty minutes to just talk about the winding road that is my career in the fantasy industry. No, it's I think there will be a lot of people that are listening that recognize my name or my voice from the Fantasy pros Football podcast back in the day, and then there will be several that, you know, a large majority that don't recognize me. So the elephant in the room right away is that I did take the entire twenty twenty five season off. And all reason for that is my daughter was born in September of twenty twenty four, and she was born with an incredibly rare chromosome disorder. She spent one hundred and six of her first one hundred and sixteen days in the hospital.

00:05:41
Speaker 3: In Nick you and pick you. She has a trait gtube.

00:05:45
Speaker 2: So for my medical medically complex parents that are and dads that are listening out there, I see you, I get you, I am you.

00:05:51
Speaker 3: And so it was.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: It was at a point too where I had gone through quite a bit in the industry and was really burnt out, so add on the just unbelievable stress of literally not even knowing if my daughter was going to survive, where it was like, I need some time and I need to be able to kind of take a step back and rediscover, honestly, like a love for the game, Like it had become so much intertwined with my job that I kind of got to the point where I forgot why I actually got into this in the first place. So to go back to how I got started. In twenty nineteen, I started writing for the Fantasy Footballers. I got brought onto their writing team Kyle BORGANNIONI hired me there, and just an absolutely phenomenal organization and what they do Andy, Mike and Jason are just not human beings. So I ended up writing for them not very long, honestly, Like I handled their Dynasty coverage going into that NFL Draft and that was like writing up Daniel Jones scouting report.

00:06:45
Speaker 3: So this is going back a while now.

00:06:47
Speaker 2: And ended up writing for them for about like six to eight months, I think, if I remember correctly, And then there was and throughout that time, like got to know several people in the industry, got to get connected with some people over at Fantasy Pros, and then they put out a post that they were hiring for a full time fantasy analyst, and I remember going to my wife and saying like, I don't think I'm gonna I know I'm not going to get this job, but I want to apply. I want to make some connections. See if I can get to know some people in the industry in that way through interviews or whatever. Can't hurt to apply fast forward and over some I've seen the list of names that I got hired over, and I still do not know why I got hired for that position, especially going back and listening to my first podcast, it was like, I.

00:07:29
Speaker 3: Was absolutely hurt.

00:07:31
Speaker 2: Everyone's terrible in their first pod. Every oh my word, and it's a muscle. You got a FlexIt, you gotta grow it. But you think that you're good as a podcaster, and then you actually listen back to yourself the first couple of times that you do, and.

00:07:42
Speaker 3: You're like, I'm not good.

00:07:43
Speaker 2: So I got hired on full time in January of twenty twenty, and then March of twenty twenty, all sports are canceled and I was like, what have I done.

00:07:52
Speaker 3: I've got a young kid at home, what have I done?

00:07:56
Speaker 2: And went through just a lot there at Fantasy Pros over the two years that I was with them. Twenty twenty was rough for various reasons, and then twenty twenty one, going into that season, we had really found a groove. Mike Tagliaire just I mean, you can see the hat like that. He still just means so much to me, but he, he and I were getting just incredible chemistry on camera. Dan Harris was at that point too, with the three of us were just an absolutely phenomenal trio of a podcast in chemistry and stuff like that. So we uh going into the twenty twenty one season, Tags unfortunately got into the hospital with COVID, got put on event later, and then in September passed away, And so really that entire time was just that. I don't remember much of the twenty twenty one season, if I'm being honest. Yeah, there's a lot of just trying to grieve on the fly and while you're still working sixty to seventy hour weeks and in the space where you know you would check in to do a podcast and you're supposed to be podcasting with Tags and he's not there. But I remember, like in November, I was like okay, as long as Dan's still here, I think I can still deal with the constant reminders and just like you know, the yeah checking in every day and not seeing tags. And I was like, I can still because Dan had become one of my great friends at that point. And then at the end of that season, he let me know that he had an opportunity to go back into a former profession that he couldn't say no to. And totally understood that. But at that point it was like, I think I need to go. I think I need to step out and get some space, if that makes sense. And so I had the plan to launch my own company. And then a week before I'm ready to launch my company, I get a Twitter alert from a guy named JJ Zacharison saying that he's launching his own company.

00:09:41
Speaker 3: I forgot about that. We've heard of it.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, you gotta be freaking kidding me, man taking all my thunder, and now it looks like I'm just gonna copy JJ.

00:09:51
Speaker 3: And so did that for a year. It was great.

00:09:52
Speaker 2: I learned an absolute ton about running your own company and then ended up Pro Football Network as their fantasy football content director. That was a blast, had amazing team of people reporting to me and absolutely love that. But then we got into while I was at Radio Row for the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, my wife facetimed me and told me that she had a positive pregnancy test and.

00:10:17
Speaker 3: That was with my daughter.

00:10:18
Speaker 2: So that just kind of led us into a period where I was like, I need to step away, need to go back into what I was working in before. And so yeah, that's kind of where we're at right now, where it's just been this super long winding road and now I'm kind of back into just just creating dynasty content, which like, there are some people that can do redraft content and they can do it all day long and it's great.

00:10:40
Speaker 3: I found that it sucked the soul out of me.

00:10:42
Speaker 2: Like the constant talking about waiver wire pickups every single week and mentioning the same names several times throughout the year was just one that just kind of sucked the soul.

00:10:50
Speaker 3: Out of me.

00:10:51
Speaker 2: So kind of just back to doing it for the love of the game and honestly enjoying it a ton, getting into some scouting stuff and having to blast with it.

00:10:59
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the impact of of tags and and what and how that kind of shaped you as an analyst, you as a person too, of course, Uh, you know, I was. I was friends with him as well. You were tighter obviously because you were working with him and such. But uh, you know, it was hard on the the industry as a whole, obviously when when he passed, because he had this way about him, of the way that I always phrase it is that he was just so gracious to have a seat at the table more than and it's something that I try to remind myself of having the ability to speak to thousands of people and such, and having the ability to meet people, go to radio, all that kind of stuff, right, just being so grateful and thankful and that that I have those opportunities. Really, like, I think back to him frequently because of the way that he sort of approached all of this. I can't imagine the difficulty of, like you said, doing you know, he passes basically like you know, like week two or three, you know, around that time frame of the season, and then you have to not only do the show without him, but you have to put on a face of energy and excitement because that's what we do in the fantasy space, right, because this is an entertainment first kind of.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: We're creating a space for people to be able to get away from what you right, right.

00:12:14
Speaker 3: Did that have you know?

00:12:15
Speaker 1: First off, I of course want you to talk about tags because I you know, when someone passes, and someone that important passes, speaking about them allows them to live on forever.

00:12:25
Speaker 3: But also how what kind of impact did that have on you?

00:12:28
Speaker 1: Just loving this and like like loving this job and associating you know, your love for work and this thing, you know, sort of like inherently with the toughest time, we're at least one of the toughest times of your life.

00:12:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, up until that point, I actually have been pretty blessed to not encounter grief in that level of having someone that close to me pass away. And so that was one where I was on the fly literally learning how to grieve it just in general, like how and so the phrase of what people are said, like grief hits you in waves that I absolutely found to be true where there was literally one day, like a week after he had passed, that was walking to the pantry to go get something to eat, and just like it hit me out of nowhere, I'm down on the floor like weeping, right, And and that was like our relationship with Tags and I it became a big brother little brother kind of dynamic where we would send insults back and forth to one another, and the way that we were on camera was the way that we were off camera and like through our you know, slack and workspace and everything like that and texting each other outside of work and all. So that was that was truly the first time that I had to kind of like navigate that. But as far as like what he what he ended up teaching me and the impact, the lasting impact that he's had on me, man, you it was clearly evident that you could see his work ethic, Like if you followed and read Oh my word, dude, if you followed and read any of his stuff, you could tell this dude put in the absolutely the primer.

00:14:03
Speaker 3: The Primer was psychotic. True.

00:14:05
Speaker 2: I wrote the Primer in his absence, and I was like, this is psychotic. I am at sixteen thousand words for the week of writing up every single Fantasy relevant player, and I've squeezed about every single thing that I can out of this this orange.

00:14:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and shout out debro by the way for you know, continuing on that as well.

00:14:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not no easy task.

00:14:27
Speaker 2: And he would be at like thirty thousand words and the editors would be like, Mike, can you please stop? The editors are like, we need, we need to go to bed. As he's still the night before it's going to publish, he's still in there making edits. So but that was like I would get up, you know, at six fifteen or whatever, and I'd be clocking into work and I'd be ready to go, and I'd message and like, all right, I found this cool stat in tax is like I've been up for two hours? All right?

00:14:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like that's that was literally.

00:14:52
Speaker 2: Him and so that I already had like a pretty solid work ethic to begin with. And I think that's what gained his back right away from me, was that he knew that I could. I could come alongside him and actually put in some pretty solid work too. But that example has carried over not just into the fantasy industry and my work in the industry, but also just into life, Like I'm kind of holding myself up to that standard of like I'm following the example that tag a scept for work ethic.

00:15:20
Speaker 3: It's uh, you know I know that that folks.

00:15:22
Speaker 1: Not everybody got to experience tags because they got into fantasy later they didn't discover him or or you know, whatever the case may be. But it was a it was genuinely it still is a huge, huge loss to the space. And you know, I I think that, and I know that you feel grateful that you were able to do the show with him for the for the couple of years that you were there and such. And look, I will say that I am glad that you're back and you're doing the content again, and you're you know, you're you're digging into the dynasty stuff, like you said, like the the redraft stuff is like very much a grind, you know, and given your your life circumstances right now and such, I think it's great that you know you're able to do the Dynasty, which can be more free flowing and kind of just like on your own time, you know.

00:16:03
Speaker 3: Yep, exactly. So let's talk about football. Le's talk a little fantasy to do it.

00:16:07
Speaker 1: All right, So when you look back on the twenty twenty five season, let's start here both in Reland fantasy football. What's one of the biggest takeaways that you're taking from that season. Maybe you didn't even think would be the case after, you know, or before the season.

00:16:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a lot that we could kind of nitpick, right, And I mean.

00:16:26
Speaker 3: That's to be expected.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: It's a massive league with massive amount of players that we can all kind of focus in and take micro views of, like and I think there's something to dive into with like, Okay, Brian Thomas Junior, Like how how did that fall apart as much as it did?

00:16:41
Speaker 3: Like what can we analyze within that? And we'll have time to do that.

00:16:44
Speaker 2: But I think the biggest thing for me as I was thinking through this was like the that I didn't think would be the case is young quarterbacks with new head coaches getting off to as hot of a start as they did, and specifically Caleb Williams and Drake May coming to mind. And I think the big factor in that is young quarterbacks, yes, and new head coaches, but paired with proven offensive minds, right like Josh McDaniels for Drake May and Ben Johnson for Caleb Williams.

00:17:15
Speaker 3: And so as we.

00:17:15
Speaker 2: Look at some of these, I mean it's there are points to you. I don't know if it's like this for you where I'm trying my head's spinning and trying to remember which offensive coordinator is with which NFL team now, like thirteen, Yeah, there's teen new offensive coordinators this next year, and how nine head coaches. So I'm like, okay, wait, hold on, I'm still trying to gain my you know, my footing to be like to analyze that and say, okay, what are the implications of all that? But I think there's something to take away with that of these younger quarterbacks that yeah, they didn't land in a great situation. And immediately my mind goes to cam Ward for next year, Like Camboard's year in twenty twenty five was not great, Like you can look at the advanced statistics and it was actually a historically bad season from an EPA standpoint, like really bad in the conversation with Josh Rosen. But you go into a new head coach this next year with Robert Sala and Brian day Ball, and we're like, Okay, maybe there's something to be said there for this young quarterback who had the talent worthy of being the number one overall pick to actually take in advance that going into his second year with a proven offensive mind, right like Brian Daball was at the top of the list with Mike McDaniel four. Okay, if he lands in this situation, man, we're gonna be excited about that for fantasy football. So that's one that I circle and look at him like that's something to focus in on as we move into future years.

00:18:33
Speaker 1: I think if you were to ask me five or six years ago, even maybe seven or eight, how I view quarterback play after their rookie season, I would say that my general vibe was definitely more black and white and more binary than it is today, where back then I'm like bad rookie season because like historically, I mean you could say the same for running backs and wider especially wide receivers.

00:18:56
Speaker 3: I mean wide receivers.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: You learn a lot about a wide receiver from like a fantasy and production standpoint based on what they do in year one, right, But my mind, you know, when you go through a lot of analysis and you do years of it and you experience a lot of different things, you know, you're you're humbled a little bit, and you also though realize sort of the the the changes in the game that you're you're viewing as well. And I think that we see that a little bit in what's going on in today's game where you know, the the offensive minds. Like this season, to me, there was no clear season in recent memory where like coaching mattered as much as it did, you know, and we even saw that with like the Super Bowl. I mean, the Seahawks were an unbelievably well coached team both on offense and defense. I mean Klint Kubiak obviously now getting the coaching job in Vegas, and then Mike McDonald was a monster in the way that he you know, coached that defense. And so I'm very much And here's another thing. One of the consistent themes which was really random but true when I walked around Radio Row and talk to different analysts this year, you know, like a week ago, was that people are relatively bullish on cam Ward that this is this is not a you know, like because my thing is I'm going into Radio Row and I'm the fantasy nerd when most people are just like real football analysts, and like I'm the one who's sort of like, you know, out of out of the circle, if you will, Whereas you know, if we're in like the fantasy football expot it's a complete opposite because everyone's just into fantasy and so I'm trying to gauge how they feel about players, and I'm you know, talking about how seeing how they kind of view the fantasy space and understandably if they're tilted over the way that some fantasy analysts speak to them on Twitter and on social media and stuff like that. And one of the things that they said pretty consistently was always this this cam Ward thing and how fantasy analysts are way too strict with the way that they're analyzing him because of what, like you said, the advanced metrics are saying.

00:20:53
Speaker 3: Because if you.

00:20:54
Speaker 1: Look historically, players don't really come back from those kinds of advanced metrics. But I think we've seen enough in recent memory of guys who look like objectively they would be in that like bottom ten percentile and then coming through and being at least reasonably good.

00:21:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to be like, hey, cam Ward is my sleeper quarterback for twenty thirty six, But it really speaks more to I'm going to be more invested in potentially some of the other receiving weapons, assuming that they do upgrade.

00:21:22
Speaker 3: Because that was part of the conversation with Kim Ward.

00:21:24
Speaker 2: It wasn't just that, like, Okay, he walked into a really bad, really good situation and he played really poorly. He was no this We knew going into the year that this was going to be a rough situation for any quarterback.

00:21:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:21:36
Speaker 2: The wide receivers that he had and the coaching, I mean, yeah, you can that thing blew up quick. So I think it's all part of it. You have to have the context to it. You have to have the context to be able to say, Okay, how did we get to those numbers and is there a way for him to rebound? So it's not necessarily that I'm like, yeah, cam Ward for sure, top twelve quarterback next year. But it's more so I'm going to be interested in taking some late round dark throws on an eli Ao Mayner or you know, one of these other guys that they bring in in free agency.

00:22:05
Speaker 1: You know, I do think I know that you're doing more dynasty focused stuff now, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Like from a dynasty standpoint, I don't really have a strong take on cam Ward. From a redraft standpoint, I guarantee you he's going to be a late round dart throw for me. Next year, you know where like where you know the quarterback is deep enough where we're going to have fifteen quarterbacks that we feel great about, and he's not going to be part of that group, but you get dable there where you know they're going to run a lot of those like RPO type stuff. That RPO type stuff you're going to get him, you know, using his legs a lot more. Obviously it's a cheat code and fantasy. And so if you do see that ascension in any way from a passing standpoint, then all of a sudden you're like, Okay, yeah, he could be a at least you know, fringe top twelve quarterback when he's being drafted, probably as like a mid to lower QB two.

00:22:49
Speaker 2: Right, and it goes to it speaks to this entire theme, and the takeaway is my late round dart throw quarterback last year was Drake May, right, because it was a very similar like, okay, well in the final rounds draft and I'm gonna wait on quarterback. Do I Joe Flacco has a pretty solid streaming matchpen week one or do I go with Drake May. I'll go with Drake May because of the rushing upside and then of course he has as phenomenal of as year as he does, and I didn't drop him the entire year, so it kind of speaks to that takeaway it could work out.

00:23:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about last year's rookie running back class, because I went into it thinking, you know, from like a prospecting standpoint, and what my model does. That model was saying that last year's rookie class looked really, really good. The interesting thing is that when we walk away from the season, a lot of people have differing opinions and views on how good that class was. So my question to you was, do you think that that rookie class underperformed, overperformed, or kind of just performed at expectation.

00:23:44
Speaker 2: I think the answer to this is yes to all of the above, right, Like, I think you can answer it that way because you look at the top of the class in Ashton genty, Marion Hampton, r J Harvey, Trevon Henderson, Like Ashton GenZ was RB seventeen in points per game amry In Hampton RB sixteen, Harvey RB twenty two, and this is in half PPR scoring format triviaon Henderson RB twenty five, and you like, okay, Quinn Shawn Judkins RB twenty three from a points per game standpoint, like, that's not really what we expected of them, Especially with rookie running backs, we expect them to hit the ground running and perform potentially into that top fifteen category. But then you look at how deep the class was and you go further down the board and you're like Cam'scat RB eleven in points per game, wood he Marks RB thirty three, Kyle Manungai RB thirty eight, and you can just keep going down the list, And I don't know if it was like this for you, where you think through the rookie running backs from this last year, like Okay gent Hampton Harvey, Okay, j Corey Krossky merrit At RB thirty seven in points per game, and the list just keeps going. It just truly just keeps going where you're like, oh yeah that, oh yeah him, Devin neil Brichhard Smith, Ollie Gordon, like baseel Tooton. It just keeps going for the amount of players that were in this rookie class, and it made me think of the timing of it was really really needed and beneficial for Fantasy because of that Elite twenty seventeen NFL Draft. Yeah, and how deep that class was. Those guys are on the tail at the tail end of their career or are already out of the league. Like that was Christian McCaffrey, Austin Eckler, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, Aaron Jones, Leonard Fournette, Alvin Kamara, James Connor, Marlon Matt Kareem Huntery, Kareem, Wayne Gallman, Chris Carson, Matt Breda, Corey Clement. Right, Like that was an insanely deep fantasy draft, and I think the depth of this past class was really really needed to bring in that next wave of players. So it's kind of an accordion effect, if that makes sense, where you're like the top of the class didn't meet expectations really or overperform, but then the back end of the class and some of those dart throw names actually dramatically overperformed, and it kind of brings them all into this really kind of just in the middle.

00:25:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that makes a ton of sense.

00:25:52
Speaker 1: The other thing, like you mentioned that twenty seventeen class, which was always the comparison you know that folks were making, and I, in my opinion, when you look at it objectively, like starting the season, beginning of the season, you know, before the season, I thought that there were players like this class matched up well with that one in terms of just like sheer, talent and ability. And I did that even looking at it objectively through the models lens. But then on top of that, like there are players from that twenty seventeen class, Like it felt like this was the year where it finally collapsed. You know, you had you just named all the players, but Alvin Kamara finally looks like he fell off right, Like it's probably over for him.

00:26:32
Speaker 3: You have Joe Mixon who didn't even play.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm assuming retirement is coming for him just based on what happened there. James Connor, you know, gets banged up and who knows what's going to happen, you know, with his career in the future. So you get these injuries. And then on top of that, you already had guys who are already kind of done, you know, like a Dalvin Cook type CMC is still cooking. But even he had long year. Yeah, and then he didn't even have that that efficient of a season. He was a beast, but he didn't have that efficient of a season, and so yeah, it's sort of like a changing of the guard, like we have this new running back class. I look at it, and I would agree that the ceiling outcomes were not there. We didn't get I mean, maybe we could have seen Cam Skataboo end up.

00:27:11
Speaker 3: As a low end RB one, high end RB two.

00:27:13
Speaker 1: Maybe I know that my rest season rankings had him around there right before he got hurt. But you know, we can't just assume that would have gone down near the rest of the season. Yeah, Ashon gent inefficient in a bad situation, quench On Judkins inefficient in a bad situation, and then like took a little bit for Travon Henderson to get going, et cetera, et cetera. But again, you mentioned that depth the Day three guys. I don't think people realize how rare it is to have multiple I'm talking like three or four Day three running backs being as relevant as they were in a single season like that.

00:27:45
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, everyone everyone's going to go into this year being like, oh, I can get I can get running back in my third or fourth round of my Dynasty rookie draft.

00:27:51
Speaker 3: No, you can't, you can't.

00:27:52
Speaker 1: You usually get like one of those guys a year, and we had from like a usable peace standpoint. I mean what he marks wasn't like a beast, but he was at least usable in fantasy. And Kyle Mnungai wasn't a beast, but he was a usable in fantasy. And and you had Jacory Krossky merrit at times, you know, down the stretch whenever you get that backguone to himself. And then there's still players in this class, like a Bashall Tutan who didn't get that opportunity, you know, was banged up a little bit. You know, I have some concerns that I actually need to to send an amendment to a.

00:28:21
Speaker 3: Take that I had earlier last month.

00:28:23
Speaker 1: But regardless of all that, like he still might have an opportunity next year if they don't you know, re sign and keep Traves etn. So there's just a lot of that going on where like some of these guys who didn't break out, you I could still do something. And so that that's to me why I would agree totally that there's a lot deeper of a class than what folks might totally just realize because they're looking at more of those.

00:28:46
Speaker 3: Like high end outcomes overall.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's again going back to the twenty seventeen NFL draft, like those are chairs that are going to be opened up, right if they aren't already opened up, And Eckler was that situation for Washington with Jakori Krossky Maria stepping in.

00:29:00
Speaker 3: So like those these.

00:29:02
Speaker 2: Players that, especially given the fact that this twenty twenty six NFL Draft does not have as deep of a running back group, then there is a chance for Baseil Tutin to actually make an impact next year, assuming that Etn leaves in free agency, because like, well, you're not going to find a top tier replacement for him in the NFL draft this year, so might as well go with tutan who we saw some flashes from this past year.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the record, and I'll I'll just tease this slash. I think I'm gonna end up sending a newsletter blast out about it. But my Tutin take last month was that I thought he was a buy candidate and I only you know, I only called out like nine ish by candidates on the show. And the more that I've done because I'm doing year two profiles for the Prospect Guide right now, the more I've dug into it the thing, the more I think, Okay, it's fine to buy him, but I should have called him out specifically on the show, you know, Like I think I would lean more by than sell, But a lean is not necessarily what I want to call out on a show like that. And there's some reasons for that that I you know, dig into it and whatnot.

00:29:59
Speaker 3: But you know, I just think he's.

00:30:00
Speaker 1: A volatile asset, or more volatile than I than I initially, you know thought whenever I made that take.

00:30:07
Speaker 3: With that class.

00:30:09
Speaker 1: One of the weird things that I did a Cell candidate show earlier this week, and on that show, I talked about a lot of Year two players, specifically in this running back classes. We're talking about running backs Travon Henderson and RJ.

00:30:22
Speaker 3: Harvey. Now, I don't think they're bad players.

00:30:25
Speaker 1: This is all a price related thing, and I was I was getting those prices from keep trade cut whenever I made those those takes, those stances. Am I an idiot for calling them out as potential cell candidates?

00:30:36
Speaker 3: Right now?

00:30:37
Speaker 2: The conversation with Dynasty always has to take into the greater context and an understanding that it's all relative, right, Like you can say a player is a cell like Trevon Henderson, you can say he's a cell, but if you're going to get the RB thirty five in return, it's like, okay, well, no, he's not a sell right, Like you're you're trying to take advantage. And I did listen to that podcast I heard you. I think think you mentioned James Cook is the name that was like Henderson? Yeah, yeah, Henderson being ranked above James Cook doesn't make sense to you. And that's the same way for me. I've got Henderson at RB eight in Dynasty right now and then James Cook at RB six. So if there is an opportunity to sell someone like Trevon Henderson for James Cook, then yes, I would do that because the rankings actually dictate that and spell that out clearly for me. But if you're going to just say, like there are some Dynasty cells where you're like, I want to get out now before the bottom completely falls out, yes, and I don't think I don't think that's the case.

00:31:34
Speaker 3: What are these either of these players?

00:31:37
Speaker 2: Right, Henderson the bottom's not going to fall out on him, and RGI Harvey r J Harvey, the Botmom's not going to fall out on him. Either I think he's going to have this role. But I think for Henderson the comp that I keep coming back to from a usage standpoint and potentially the path is Jamior Gibbs. Right, you remember the first two years for Gibbs, if I'm remembering correctly, the first two years for Gibbs were like, Okay, he's in this split backfield. He's not truly taking that next step that we think he can be and can handle a larger workload because that's the role that the offense had for him and they wanted to keep him in a lighter touch count. And he's still being very very effective for Fantasy, but he's not going to truly ascend because there is another.

00:32:17
Speaker 3: Member of this backfield in David Montgomery.

00:32:20
Speaker 2: And so for Henderson, I think is a very similar conversation with Ramandra Stevenson and how well he performed down the stretch last year. I think we're not going to get Henderson stepping into a larger role, even though he may well be deserving of it. There is an argument to be made with the one two punch that they have in New England and this offense taking another step next year where Stevenson's under contract, he's not going anywhere, So I think Henderson, we're going to have to wait a year before we then see potentially a larger step forward.

00:32:52
Speaker 3: So that means that he's.

00:32:53
Speaker 2: Still a valuable top ten dynasty running back right because of his age and because of the talent level. But I don't think we can put him up into the top five for Harvey really quickly.

00:33:03
Speaker 3: Harvey is there.

00:33:04
Speaker 2: We've seen that there are NFL offensive coordinators and NFL head coaches that they have their offensive scheme and then they and they believe so firmly in that scheme that then they are going to go out and find the players that fill the roles that make that scheme go. And so for Sean Payton with r J. Harvey, I think the role that he has is what we saw this past year, which was one hundred and forty six brush attempts and fifty eight targets for R J. Harvey, and that didn't change much. When JK. Dobbins went down. You saw other running backs step in versus the majority of the workload going to the Harvey. So I don't see I mean, let me know if you think differently, but I don't see that role massively increasing this next year. I think in free agency, I think they could go out and get a Tyler Aljeer to fill if they don't want to bring Dobbins back because of the injury history. But I think they could very well bring Dobbins back. I just don't see Sean Payton going like, you know what, I'm going to change everything that I've done over the how long and be like Harvey at two hundred and five pounds or whatever he is is worthy of being a workhorse twenty plus touch, you know, a game type of player that's just not a conversation the path I see play out.

00:34:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:34:13
Speaker 1: I mean so first off with the Henderson stuff, I also see with Hendrick because I I think I have Henderson a like RB eight and Dynasty even though he's like RB seven and that it's like why would you call him out as a cell? Well, first off, I think it's a little provocative and interesting content to do it right, So, like I wanted to talk through that. That's not me doing clickbait stuff. That's me saying like, hey, I think that, like this is the way our mind should be thinking about Dynasty. That even the players that we think are good we can still trade away if we think that this is an opportunity to do so based on what the market is saying. It's also there's just wide receivers that around there that I would just way rather.

00:34:48
Speaker 3: Prefer than than Henderson in that instance. And so that's that's playing a big role.

00:34:53
Speaker 1: But like the running back rankings in general, like if you go and you sit down and do Dynasty rankings, running back just drops off like after like RB four, You're just like.

00:35:00
Speaker 3: That's the point that I was just about to bring up. I could throw many many players into this spot. The RJ.

00:35:05
Speaker 1: Harvey stuff, I think is a little bit more clear cut in terms of where I see his overall talent profile, you know, versus a Henderson, because I thought Henderson was a better prospect.

00:35:15
Speaker 3: Obviously he got a little bit better draft capital.

00:35:18
Speaker 1: The landing spot was doing a little bit more of the heavy lifting for RJ.

00:35:21
Speaker 3: Harvey.

00:35:22
Speaker 1: And there's also I think I personally think there's a phenomenon that goes on where like and I'm guilty of it too. You know, maybe I'm even guilty of that to a degree with like a bas Shall Tuton, where a player that you like going into a draft, gets drafted by maybe higher than you expected, or to a team that looks good on paper that they can get that immediate opportunity, and it's it's sort of natural human nature to want to.

00:35:47
Speaker 3: Double count that for that player, right. And there was an RJ.

00:35:51
Speaker 1: Harvey hive for sure during the draft process last year where people really really liked him. And I liked him too enough, Like I thought that he was a pretty good prop But the stuff that I look at analytically, you know, like he was older.

00:36:05
Speaker 3: He's already twenty five.

00:36:06
Speaker 1: Years old, Like like that's like the Ray Davis stuff, Like Ray Davis who was coming out old too, and like he had a really robust profile.

00:36:13
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, he also did because he was playing for a while.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: R J.

00:36:16
Speaker 3: Harvey had injuries and he you know, was what have you.

00:36:19
Speaker 1: But I didn't think that his production profile overall was like so robust and can't miss. I didn't think it was a bad prospect. He had a really good burst, really good speed score and we saw that like we've seen that, you know in the NFL now that he can generate some of those bigger plays. You know, his twenty plus yard run rate was over two percent this past year, which is above average for you know, a rookie running back.

00:36:39
Speaker 3: But I just go back to we love Sean Payton's.

00:36:42
Speaker 1: Offenses for the fact that they will target the running back through the air, which is why I think Harvey probably will have some role as your notice. But the fact that we didn't see enough from him on the ground as a runner makes me believe like he was third worst in yards overexpected PERRUH rushing yarbs were expected per rush this past year according Next Gen Stats. The fact that we didn't see that makes me believe that I don't know if he's going to be like a two hundred plus attempt rusher consistently, and if he doesn't, you know, he can be like a one seventy kind of guy with like a twelve percent target shair and he can be viable in fantasy. But there are people out there who likely see a legit like RB.

00:37:21
Speaker 3: One ceiling with R J. Harvey, and I'm just not there right now.

00:37:25
Speaker 2: I would agree, and I think the conversation to potentially have him higher up in Dynasty rankings would be if we didn't get the JK. Dobbins injury, and that just kind of continued and it was like, Okay, well we still don't know if Harvey gets the full workload, what could that be, but we we do. We have that piece of the puzzle and his fantasy analysts. We're constantly looking for how can we take the pieces of the puzzle to put them together, and we're going to get the picture wrong sometimes, but we want to try to get as many pieces of the puzzles as we can, and one of those with Harvey was the fact that we did have a clear path for him to step into the RB one workload, the clear RB one workload, and Sean Payton still chose not to do that.

00:38:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it's it's important to look at those splits, you know, don't don't overstate them, but they're obviously they're there to help guide us. The year two model has three elite producers, so I have a new category this year called Legendary Performer.

00:38:16
Speaker 3: None of them are in that.

00:38:17
Speaker 1: There's not many that are historically, but the elite producers are guys who you know, you have a fairly good shot of giving us a wide receiver one season over the next three years. So that's Tedoro McMillan, No surprise there a Mecca Buca and Luther Burden is the other one. Now, part of the Luther Burden thing is anchoring to how much the model loved him as a prospect.

00:38:36
Speaker 3: Like his scorer, his NAP score was.

00:38:38
Speaker 1: Just as good as t Max and Abuka's last year, which is wild because he was the second round pick. My question to you is, how are you ranking those three in Dynasty right now? And are there of those three do any of them make you nervous?

00:38:51
Speaker 2: Okay, So McMillan is wide receiver ten in my Dynasty rankings right now. He's wide receiver twelve in Fantasy Pros's ECR, so the expert consensus ranking, So not super big difference. He's in a tier. If you wanted to move him down, that's fine. Ag Buka wide receiver eleven in my rankings in Dynasty, Wide receiver sixteen in ECR. So that's one where I'm a little bit more bullish on Egbuka, And I think the missing piece to the puzzle there is that he did have a hamstring injury in week six. Yeah, and then that was the point where we saw the drop off. So I'm I'm kind of banking on that like we can't see what we saw from the first five weeks of EGBUCA and especially have the missing component of or the potential component of Mike Evans leaving in free agency or retiring and then that being really his offense and Chris Godwins to then not be a little bit more bullish. But if you ask me which one makes me the most nervous, then that would be that ranking because of what we saw down the stretch. And then Burden, I've got a wide receiver nineteen in my rankings and he's wide receiver twenty six in ECR, which just blows my mind.

00:39:51
Speaker 3: Like, I'm very I'm the top twenty two.

00:39:53
Speaker 2: I'm very bullish on Luther Burden moving forward, especially if we get the DJ More trade that's being rumored, which I think I think there's a very good chance that that happens. So the main part for that specifically is this offense doesn't have really anyone who can stretch the field, like anyone who has the ability to threaten deep and open things up, which is why like if we get that man, Colson Lovelin could potentially take another step this next year and opening things up underneath to be able to take some of those safeties back and deeper in cover too. So like Luthor Burden was the field stretching option, but he was doing that out of the slot and because of his deep speed. But if we move on, if the Bears move on from DJ Moore and they bring in I'm just thrown out a namelets a known fields but like Darius Slayton, like they bring in that type of architect where it's literally like, hey, buddy, you're out there running cardio and you're not going to take a ton of targets from us, then we could see Luther Burton just absolutely go nuclear this next year because all of the supporting statistics are there to signal that Luthor Burden is just going to be a lead.

00:40:55
Speaker 3: Crazy yards per hour run rate for him this past year.

00:40:58
Speaker 1: Crazy people got a little angry at me on Twitter for because I sent tweets out and I would update it. You know, if his yards per out run compared to other rookie yards per out run with a threshold of you know, minimum threshold of you know, two hundred.

00:41:12
Speaker 3: Routes or what have you.

00:41:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I will say, like there is something to the fact that like he didn't have a full time role like a Pukuna Kua did.

00:41:19
Speaker 3: No but no one's no one's looking at him the way that we looked at Pa after the rookie season.

00:41:23
Speaker 1: You know, like it's to just say that he was incredibly efficient when he was on the field per route run and if you do look at players that had you know, like one hundred to three hundred routes run more in that range, and you look at the players who had you know, really high yards per out run rates, you have some misses in there for sure, but you have some hits also, Like there's you know, like Chris Godwin types are in there. You know he was over that, that Tue Mark or I think Randall Cobb, like there's there's there's good players in there too. So it's not just like, oh, this is only a volume related thing.

00:41:53
Speaker 3: It's not that.

00:41:54
Speaker 1: I mean Luther Burden balled out and and to me also, you know, there's there's a lot of us.

00:42:01
Speaker 3: There's the concrete nature of what his ZAP score looked like.

00:42:04
Speaker 1: For me, you know, entering the league, that makes me feel more bullish too, because this isn't something that just came out of nowhere, like he was a really good prospect coming out, and I think that teams had maybe a little hard time projecting him because he had a weird role in college. You know, maybe they didn't like his character as much, whatever the case may be. But I think that he found the exact spot he needed to find, especially with the the insane head coach that they have there in Ben Johnson. So I think the the connection there and the matching and the pairing makes a lot of sense. You mentioned Abuka. I wrote up his year two profile, and I was looking for players in history who started as hot as he did, right, because he had over twenty PPR points per game, like after the first five weeks of the season, and then from there he had like eight point.

00:42:53
Speaker 3: Three PPR points per game.

00:42:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I tried to find players who dropped off that significantly.

00:42:58
Speaker 3: There's none, you can say, there's I started laughing because I was like, there's no, you can't find one.

00:43:03
Speaker 1: The only player that like is kind of close to the problem is that he started just so hot but he still stayed hot. Was like Nikua. Nikua dropped by I don't know the exact number is, but he dropped by a relatively decent amount from like week five, Week five to seven through the rest of the year, it's still over like sixteen points per game. And right now, Calvin Ridley is another one. Maybe you could look at him and say he dropped off a little bit, but at the same time, we're talking about players that are good at the game and good in fantasy. So the drop off to me isn't necessarily it's more just like the just a weirdness. You know, if it would have gone in reverse, we would be looking at an Amen Rossain Brown type production situation where everyone would be insanely bullish. Right now, he'd be top he'd be top five, Yeah, right, right, if it would have gone in the reverse. So yeah, I'm i'm, I'm I'm about at market with Abuka and then and then t Mac. You know, as you as you mentioned, I think that he's just like a safe bet at this point of being t Mac actually had there was a really crazy thing that I'd I looked at. I've been looking at first down share, so that the percentage of first downs that the receiver had in his offense team max is at thirty two point four percent. That's the fourth highest mark of all wide receivers. In the year two model in the history that goes back to twenty eleven. The other three that are ahead of them Malik Neighbors, Odell Beckham, and Pukinakua. So there's a lot of like when you remove the situation a little bit from Teterero McMillan, there are his numbers are amazing.

00:44:28
Speaker 3: I mean his his rookie season really was special.

00:44:30
Speaker 2: It was really Yeah, it's the talent conversation for McMillan versus the situation.

00:44:35
Speaker 3: Yes, right, let's talk about Matthew Golden. You're nervous about Golden, right, we have to Yeah, right, right, I definitely am.

00:44:45
Speaker 2: I think it's all again it goes back to what we talked about with Henderson.

00:44:48
Speaker 3: It's like it's all relative.

00:44:50
Speaker 2: This is you're not going to find many dynasty analysts or fantasy analysts that are like, yeah, Matthew Golden's still a top twenty wide receiver in Dynasty rank He's he's a wide receiver four and my rankings and wide receiver forty eight in ECR. So I'm actually higher than ECR on Matthew Golden that I want no part of him. I think the missing part is it's not necessarily only about like the talent level, but it's it's the offense and it's just how many mouths there are to feed in here? And this has been the conversation for how long now, where you've got Tuckerkraft and Luke Muskrave, then you've got Romeo Dobbs and Christian Watson and it just keeps going. And then the players out of the backfield, it's like, how clear of a path is there for this player to truly ascend? And that was kind of like why I didn't love Matthew Golden landing with green Bay last year, even though the draft capital was there and the tape was good. It's like, Okay, well, how he's got to dominate the target share? And I just don't see that happening because, again, the offensive structure and the role says we are the scheme says we need to find the players that fit these roles, and you've got Romeo Dobbs who feels a very very valuable role in that offense. Can Golden step into that next year, maybe, but that's not going to be a twenty percent plus target share.

00:46:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:46:04
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things with Golden too, where like, I try my best to not just look at the individual season or the six or seven games for these for these players where something good or bad might have happened, I want to see what that looked like leading up to That's why I have journey comparables, where it looks at a player's zapp score and then their year two score and finds players historically that shared a similar journeyism. So they look the same as prospects entering the league, and then they look the same exiting year one, right, so it's a larger sample.

00:46:32
Speaker 3: It's like a story about this player.

00:46:34
Speaker 1: And if a player is bad and bad again, then they're probably not that good, you know.

00:46:39
Speaker 3: Or if a player is good and.

00:46:40
Speaker 1: Then bad, and then you're like, well, you know, you can at least tell the story a little bit. With Matthew Golden, like the model had some really real concerns with him and his year two comparables right now, his journey comps are justin Hunter, kJ Hammler and ADENI Mitchell at this point, and so it's it's.

00:46:55
Speaker 3: Not looking great for Matthew Golden.

00:46:58
Speaker 1: And I also think, and didynasty I think to myself when I'm about to make a move is this guy gonna burn me?

00:47:04
Speaker 3: You know?

00:47:04
Speaker 1: Is this really gonna Could I see Matthew Golden being a wide receiver two in fantasy in over the next three years, Maybe I think that a more likely seiling outcomes, like a wide receiver three type. But even if he is that wide receiver too, you're probably not going to feel so so burned in that instance, you know, And so it's a lot easier to kind of kind of move on. Yeah, Well, the tough part is, like, who are you selling Matthew gold at this point?

00:47:26
Speaker 3: You need to find the truther in your lig right and good luck.

00:47:30
Speaker 2: Like I at this point, you're kind of just holding like you're really just riding the wave for spending a late first round pick on him or early second round pick last year when you could have gone some different directions. You're at this point in Dynasty, and it's the same way Travis Hunter. In my opinion, it's like you're just kind of riding the wave because otherwise you are just completely taking that pick and lighting it on fire by selling it away.

00:47:52
Speaker 1: What about Colston Loveland versus Tyler Warren, I'm assuming based on what you said about Burden and Loveland, you're on the Loveland side, but is it strongly on the Loveland side.

00:48:03
Speaker 2: There's a very big gap in rankings. Honestly, No, it's just kidding. It's Loveland at Titan three and Dynasty and Warren at tight end four, So there's not a big gap. Yere. I think, what again in fantasy and you know this, like we have a strong sense of recency bias, so whatever just most recently happened is going to affect the way that we view a player. So again we talked about it with like, if Egbuka had gone the other way, then we would have him in wideer sea like top five and Dynasty rankings. Now he's wide receiver sixteen. Loveland very very strong end of the year. We saw him on the national stage in the playoffs. Warren had a really solid start to the year and then things kind of you know, flickered out from there. So that I don't want to overreact to that. These are both very very solid Dynasty assets moving forward. It was a phenomenal class and both should be in the top five.

00:48:52
Speaker 1: What about like, do you think that there's a case to be made that Harold Fandon should be ranked ahead of Tyler Warren talent level.

00:48:58
Speaker 2: I think it's in the conversation, but the situations not Like you tell me, I can have Daniel Jones.

00:49:06
Speaker 3: Which again sounds crazy to even be saying the sentence.

00:49:08
Speaker 2: Out loud, but like Daniel Jones as the quarterback attached to Tyler Warren or Deshaun Watson or Shador Sanders, Like, yeah, I'll go with I'll go with Daniel Jones in that situation. So, yeah, could that change in twenty twenty seven if they, you know, massively upgrade the position.

00:49:25
Speaker 3: Sure, but I just don't I don't see that happening anytime soon.

00:49:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully, I mean hopefully Dimes is good, you know, and that that Achilles is not right.

00:49:32
Speaker 2: Right, there's it's not like it's a super clean situation to come back from. But yeah, I would still go Daniel Jones over to Shahn Watsons.

00:49:38
Speaker 1: I've been, I've been, I've been toying with the idea, like like there's some there's some part of me that might end up having Fannin ahead of Warren from a dynasty perspective, because I think like both players are interesting because they're both really versatile in the way that they they're like their alignment and stuff, right, Like Colston Lovelin is more of the traditional athletic freak who can who can? Uh, you know, the Travis Kelsey type things and have like higher A dot looks, you know, like he his A dot was like four yards higher than Tyler Warren's last year, you know. Yes, so he can get down the field more, he can create those big plays and that's gonna be I mean, he's gonna be phenomenal in fantasy moving forward. The Tyler Warren and Harold Fannon stuff, there is more of that alignment of like I mean, Fannin's lined up in the backfield frequently and Tyler Warren you'll see that too, And then you get those like lower ad dot look those cheaper looks, and we saw that with Harold Fannon down the stretch. We're het a thirty one percent target sher over the final five games.

00:50:31
Speaker 3: Of his season because he did get hurt.

00:50:33
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, like part of me is like trying to think through that situation and being like, what is the true delta here?

00:50:40
Speaker 3: And should I be buying into that delta so much?

00:50:44
Speaker 1: When again, Tyler Warren's an older prospect, you know, like he is a couple years older than these guys, and so that's that's at least like going through my head right now, is just to what I considering.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: I think it's fair, right, Like Colson Loveland, you need a quarterback like Kayleb Williams to truly unlock him with the role that he occupies in the offense versus it really doesn't matter who's throwing the ball to Harold Channon or Tyler Warren because they're two yards away from the line of scrimmage or three yards behind the line of scrimmage. Like, if you're playing NFL quarterback, you should be able to get the ball into their hands and let them create off the catch, which which they're both so good at.

00:51:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, there is some some stuff up in the air too, because we don't know exactly what fans deployment's going to look like and such with Todd Munkin there. I mean, I'm bullish because Munkin's been pretty tight unfriendly in the past, but yeah, I mean there's there's a lot of stuff going on there.

00:51:27
Speaker 3: I have months to think about this.

00:51:28
Speaker 1: Two quick questions because I haven't even talked prospects yet on this feed. In this feed and on this show, you've done a little bit of prospecting work. I finally have it all in the database, and I'm starting to dig in, and I do know you know the top guys and what the.

00:51:43
Speaker 3: Models saying about the top guys. So I'm curious.

00:51:44
Speaker 1: So we have this like big three, a wide receiver of Jordan Tyson, McKay Lemon, and Carnel Tait. Yep, how do you rank these guys and what do you see out of those three players.

00:51:53
Speaker 2: Carnal Tate wide receiver out Ohio State, six foot three, one hundred and ninety five pounds, like has this size to be a true prototypical X receiver at the next level, but also is not just like a contested catch kind of like he can do it, but he has incredible speed, acceleration, moveability, can make some just crazy catches outside of his frame. Just a very very natural receiver. So his projection to the next level is actually pretty easy, and I think he's going to get very very.

00:52:21
Speaker 3: High draft capital.

00:52:23
Speaker 2: Jordan Tyson six foot two hundred pounds Off the top of my head, at least what he's listed.

00:52:28
Speaker 3: We'll see what he comes in at.

00:52:29
Speaker 2: The combine, but I think his role he has alignment versatility. He can go anywhere on the field and play and make an impact. Again, a very natural receiver can make some big plays. I would really love to see him utilized heavily out of the slot. With his ability for quick twitch at his size is actually pretty special.

00:52:48
Speaker 3: That stood out to me on tape.

00:52:49
Speaker 2: And I'm at the point right now in my prospect evaluation where I'm going through and doing film evaluation and then I'll go into a stage of advanced statistics to be able to kind of look back and say, Okay, did what I see on tape? Did that get validated with those stats or do I need to go back and take another look. And then injury history in NFL combine testing and all that. Makai Lemon wide receiver out of USC is just pure electricity. Man. This guy his top end speed, He's going to run in the four threes of the combine. His ability to threaten deep is just insane. But he also has the ability to move into the slot and be a refined route runner out of the slot as well and create separation very very easily. So he's someone where I worry a little bit about the deployment and what he could be. He's got a land with the right NFL offensive coordinator because teams could look at his deep threat ability and say, we need that for our offense, and buddy, you're going to run go routes and post routes all game long. And that could very, very limit what he could do from a fantasy standpoint. But if he lands with the right offense, like how Mike McDaniel utilized Tyreek Hill free releases, getting him in motion, you know, pre snap and letting him run like that is the ideal deployment for Makay Lemon.

00:54:02
Speaker 3: So I would put Taate then Tyson than Lemon.

00:54:05
Speaker 2: But those are all guys that if you want to put them into one tier, and I think there's another name that belongs in that tier based on my film study right now. But if you want to put all those guys into one tier and shuffle them around.

00:54:15
Speaker 3: I don't have any issue with that. Who's the fourth that you would throw in that tier?

00:54:19
Speaker 2: Based on film study right now, Casey conception On from Texas A and m yep guys insane. His separation ability is I absolutely love it. Like the Notre Dame game, I just watched This All twenty two just the other day on Notre Dame and that's Teach tape Man and his It's so frustrating because his quarterback play. There are so many times in that game where you're like, he could have had two hundred to three hundred yards in his quarterback. He's wide open routinely the entire game, and his quarterback just could not make the throw to be able to put it on him or anywhere near him in fact. So he's one that I'm watching pretty closely and I'm going to be high than consensus on him for sure.

00:55:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:55:02
Speaker 1: That so, although the Big three the model likes a lot, they're all in the elite produce well two of them are in the Elite producer category. This is a spoiler alert for people. The first time I'm even saying this out loud to anyone outside of David Kitchen and Brandon Godula who work for Late Round Fantasy Football. Jordan Tyson is a is right now today. There's stuff that can change. Listed as a legendary performer. His his age adjusted production profile is out of this world, Like.

00:55:28
Speaker 3: It's crazy because his stats from this past year are not.

00:55:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, elite, it'll it'll look at So I think it's the year after his because he what is his sophomore year where he was was banged up and didn't like play and didn't didn't accumulate anything. It's it's similar to what we saw with like a Luther Burden. It's what we've seen with like a Jackson Smith and Jigba. We've seen this in the past with players where their junior season they have unbelievable because because breakout scores, what drives the production stuff within the model and breakout score is as a schedule and age adjusted yards per team pass attempt metric that I created and as a player scales up in yards per team pass attempt, if he's doing that, especially at a really reasonable age, he's gonna look better in breakout score. So hypothetically, like a senior could have a really good season and if that's the one season where like he could still have an okay enough breakout score because it was that big of a season. Now, fortunately it didn't like Xavier le Get that much, even though that happened with him, So like, it's not weighing that too too much. But yeah, his age aj justin production because of that season and because I mean, the whole body work still isn't bad even outside of that season, but it just looks really really good in the spreadsheets right now.

00:56:42
Speaker 3: But like I said, I'm in the very very beginning stages.

00:56:44
Speaker 1: I'm trying to finish up the year two models or Year two profiles for the Prospect Guide. But I would be shocked if Jordan Tyson is not the models wide receiver one. I know that that injury history and such is one of the big question marks with him, so we're gonna have to take that with a grain assault.

00:57:00
Speaker 2: But the model really really likes Tyson. The film backs up man, he's a really good prospect.

00:57:05
Speaker 1: And then the last, the the other one at running back, Jeremiah Love. He's getting a lot of love, if you will, as the obvious top back in this class.

00:57:13
Speaker 3: Do you see that?

00:57:13
Speaker 1: And then like, how do you see him stacking up against other elite backs that we've seen recently? And then are there any other backs that you really like from this class that you've looked at? Yeah, so he's Jeremiah Love running back out of Notre Dame. He's six foot, two hundred and fourteen pounds, so brings a ton of size to the position. It doesn't necessarily play the way that you would.

00:57:33
Speaker 2: Think a six foot two hundred and fourteen pound running back would play, Like you would think that that is just an absolute hammer coming downhill. He certainly can lower his shoulders and drive through contact and has that ability. But his best skill set, he's one of the best receiving backs that I've scouted. Like his ability as a receiver and just his natural receiving ability is absolutely insane.

00:57:56
Speaker 3: Like I actually think.

00:57:57
Speaker 2: There's a world if we could go back to when he first came into college, where if a coach had told him I actually want you to go and be a wide receiver, that he could have been an absolutely spectacular and phenomenal one there.

00:58:10
Speaker 3: He's a good running back.

00:58:11
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong, I do not think that he should be in the conversation of being billed as this next elite running back. He's the clear running back one in this class, because this class is not great outside of him. But when I'm doing these exercises, I want to kind of put it and I'm happy that you phrased it this way, like I had actually done the exercise of if I want to look back over the last three years to kind of put it into context for people, like where would he go in conjunction with these other running backs, Like over the past few draft classes, we've had Ashton genty and this is as a prospect, right, this is not knowing what we know now. So Ashton Genty in the twenty twenty five class, Marrionhampton, Trebion Henderson, then in twenty twenty four you go back to Jonathan Brooks. Feels like an absolute lifetime ago that he came out of college. Then Bjeon Robinson, Jamier Gibbs, and Zach Sharboney in twenty twenty three. So if I were to go through and Jeremiah Love as a prospect within those players, Bijon Robinson's the clear number one for me, Ashton Gents would have been right behind him. Then I'd go to Jamir Gibbs as a prospect, Amaran Hampton, and then I would put Jeremiah Love above Trayvon Henderson, Zach Sharboney and Jonathan Brooks. So if that kind of makes sense to put him into I don't think that he's a slam dunk one oh one selection. He's ranked lower from me than Carnel Tate, Jordan Tyson and Mackay Lemon and Casey conception on right now from a film standpoint, I know that that will not be industry consensus, but that's kind of the way that I see them right now.

00:59:38
Speaker 3: So it loves a good running back.

00:59:40
Speaker 2: He's a good prospect, but there's a potential that he's miscast based on the type of skill set that he has versus the body type that he has.

00:59:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, so while you were saying that, you know, I was obviously listening, but I was pulling up the model on a separate screen because I was curious where if I so, right now, I have him assumed at like top like TENNISH overall pick draft capital that it's just based on the NFL mock draft database. But if I look back the last three years, the players with higher scores than him, Jamiir Gibbs, Ashon Gent, Bijon Robinson, Amari and Hampton, those four guys, yeah, all all look better than him. And then you know, right below likes he's in the elite producer category, still looks good. But a guy like Bijon, Jamiir Gibbs, and Ashon Gent were legendary performer category, and he's you know, he's just seemingly not quite there. It doesn't mean that he's bad, but I have seen sort of like that, you know, stance that he is. He is that that good. I can't wait to watch more of them and see what he's all about. But that's where things are at for me right now. Yep, all right, last question before I let you go. I always ask for a hot take in season when I do perspectives. But we're now out of the season, So give me a hot take for this NFL offseason. It could be draft related, it could be free agency related, it could be even twenty twenty six related, like season, Why whatever you want, just give me a hot take.

01:00:57
Speaker 3: I can't wait for this to blow up in my face. Let's go.

01:01:00
Speaker 2: So Tyler Algier will be a weekly starter in fantasy football in twenty twenty six.

01:01:03
Speaker 3: Oh, I like that.

01:01:04
Speaker 2: I think him going into free agency, I think he's going to be one of the players that gets a little bit more money than we were expecting. We saw obviously really good things from him early on in his career. Then you get Bijon coming into town, and he obviously takes a back seat, but he fills a very, very valuable role for an NFL offense and I think for him to land in I mentioned it earlier on in the show, but like Denver to be the thunder to Rgie Harvey's lightning there or even Chicago if they wanted to upgrade over Kyle Manungai, which I don't think he was good, but don't get me wrong, but his draft capital I think won't prohibit them from taking a look at someone like Algier to be alongside Deander Swift this next year. Like, there's a ton of situations where I could see Algier landing in where he could be the RB one in that backfield pretty quickly. So he is someone that is a buy for me right now in Dynasty because I don't think the majority of people even.

01:02:00
Speaker 3: Know that he's actually hitting free agency.

01:02:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if it's a weaker draft class, then then teams are gonna know that going in, you know, and and go after that running back.

01:02:08
Speaker 3: Man.

01:02:08
Speaker 1: This was great, It was great to catch up with you. It was great to hear your fantasy takes again. Let every know what you're working on, where they can find you all that good stuff.

01:02:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

01:02:16
Speaker 2: So like I said at the beginning, like I'm doing this for the love of the game. This is not because I'm trying to support my family or anything like that. So I'm all my contents free and it's really just kind of as I have the ability to do it.

01:02:27
Speaker 3: So YouTube channel is Kylie Yates.

01:02:29
Speaker 2: Dynasty Fantasy Football, so make sure to go and look that up and then over on Twitter at Kya y NFL. No, I've got a free sub stack as well at Kya y NFL. You're gonna find me on any social media platform. Just search Kyle y NFL and I'll come up there.

01:02:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I also want to shout out you. You document a lot of the stuff that you're doing with your daughter and it's it's it's great to see it's from from one dad to another.

01:02:52
Speaker 3: I just love seeing the dad content out there.

01:02:55
Speaker 1: And uh, you know you you really playing the role well you know her, So it's really really awesome to see that content as well.

01:03:03
Speaker 3: I appreciate them.

01:03:03
Speaker 2: Man.

01:03:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course you can find all my stuff over on lateround dot com. Make sure you're following me on social Twitter, Blue Sky at late Round QB.

01:03:12
Speaker 3: Hope you guys like another Perspective episode.

01:03:14
Speaker 1: This is the first Perspectives episodes since the end of the season, so we'll be doing these every other week on Fridays.

01:03:19
Speaker 3: I don't even know who the next guest is.

01:03:21
Speaker 1: Actually, actually I do know who the next guest is, but we'll see what happens this offseason with the Perspective show. But every other Friday we'll get Perspectives, and then in between that you will get the Mailbag episode. But otherwise everyone as usual.

01:03:33
Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in.