Late-Round Perspectives: Ryan Heath

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Speaker 1: Ryan Heath is the lead data writer at Fantasypoints dot Com who has a background in marketing and economics. He's a New Englander who may or may not be a Patriots fan. He's an avid gamer, and being up north, he's a skier too. These are his Late Round Perspectives. You know, it's cool to see some young blood and some fresh blood in there, man. You know, I celebrated my birthday yesterday, and I'm at the age now where I don't necessarily look forward to getting another year older, you know, because it's just I feel the age now, Like I look at the number and I'm like, man, this is bizarre. And then I realize that I'm just torturing myself by having you on Late Round Perspectives today, on the opposite side of the spectrum where you're still hanging out. Man, you get to you you get to celebrate all those birthdays. You don't have to worry about getting another year older. But it's great to have you on.

00:01:05
Speaker 2: Man.

00:01:05
Speaker 1: I'm really really excited to chop it up. Like a lot of the data folks that I've had on over the last year or so, whether it's Dwayne McFarlane or whomever.

00:01:14
Speaker 2: Sometimes the show sheet that I send.

00:01:17
Speaker 1: You know, we go in a lot of different directions, so hopefully you're cool with that.

00:01:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, of course, whatever you end up wanting to talk about. But yeah, happy birthday. I do feel you on the age thing though, Like I'm twenty five right now. It's getting to the point where I'm close to like calling NFL players that are the same age as me.

00:01:37
Speaker 2: Like, okay, yeah, they're getting close, I don't know, a couple.

00:01:40
Speaker 3: More years in their primes, like it's really going to hit once I'm like twenty eight, twenty nine and start saying like, oh, well, this running back he's about to hit the age cliff just like me, apparently.

00:01:53
Speaker 2: The same age. Trust me, trust me, it only gets stranger.

00:01:56
Speaker 3: You know.

00:01:57
Speaker 1: I'm running the Prospect Guide right now, and I turned thirty Evan yesterday, and I'm writing the Prospect Guide and I'm like calling, you know, Trey Harris old for being a wide receiver prospect.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: He's twenty three.

00:02:10
Speaker 1: I mean, the dude is like, Yeah, when I was twenty three, I felt invincible, like nothing, nothing.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: Now I get the stomach.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: Flew earlier this week and over the weekend, and I'm just down for days I can't even recover normally. So yeah, man, I mean it's it's definitely a nice little wake up call. So I look, I feel you with the twenty five thing, but give me a break. You're twenty five.

00:02:34
Speaker 4: I guess it's not so bad. Yeah, I'll put definitely puts it in perspective.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right.

00:02:39
Speaker 1: Look, I like to open up with guessespecially folks, So I haven't like talked to one on one like this before. Talk to me about you and again, how you're you're doing what you're doing right now. You've been crushing it, Like I said, lots of awesome content. I love to to consume it, whether it's your tweets or some of your articles and stuff over on Fantasy Points. So talk to us about your background a little bit and what got you into fantasy football and how you now are with Fantasy Points doing the work that you're doing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:03:06
Speaker 3: So kind of how I first got into fantasy football was just having a league with a bunch of my high school buddies. Yeah, I was probably like fifteen or sixteen when I first kind of really started getting into it. And how I guess first kind of got into the fantasy content and writing and all of that was. I don't know if high school still do this, they probably should, But my senior year of high school I had to do basically a senior project. So what they would say was you have to learn a new skill or spend like a certain number of hours on something you've never done before. And my senior project was I wrote a very bad blog of doing like waiver wire picks in this would have been like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen around there. So I was like posting them to the fantasy football subreddit, had a lot of fun with it, got like decent responses. Again, guys, please don't google this. They're really bad. I don't want anyone reading that stuff. But yeah, I just I just kind of fell in love with it and it took off from there. Really. After I graduated college with like a marketing and economics degree, I was like, you know what, this stuff is fine, Like I can work like a normal kind of desk job like this and it's okay, But I really like the fantasy football stuff. Let me actually make it a priority to put time into it and start taking it seriously and see kind of how far I can bring this and eventually my work got in front of Scott Barrett and it kind of went from there, Like he really took me under his wing, made me a much much better writer than I ever was before. And yeah, over at Fantasy Points, they basically needed tent and promotion and just like breakdowns of a lot of the new stats that they were creating, like through the Fantasy Point state of suite. So yeah, it was kind of a perfect fit it. Yeah, it just worked out really well for both me and them.

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Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, first off, this is like, it's so cool to see this kind of thing happen where you know, I started at Number Fire back in twenty thirteen, and Barrett was one of the you know, maybe like one of the first twenty or so freelance writer because we had a ton of freelance writers at the time and people would come and go all that kind of stuff, and Barrett was one of the first, probably fifteen to twenty writers that we had that I'd brought on.

00:05:40
Speaker 2: It's cool to see like I was helping bear it out a little bit.

00:05:43
Speaker 1: He had talked about it on Perspectives before too, which is why I'm okay with talking about it here. But I had helped bare it a little bit, and then there was this one article that he wrote where everything just really started clicking for him and then he just like rocket shipped. But it's awesome that, like, now he's helping you out in that way. That's what's so awesome about the Space Man. You just see folks, you know, just just coming up and helping one another, and like we all are technically competitors in a way, but.

00:06:08
Speaker 2: It's not really that way at all. We're all buddies.

00:06:12
Speaker 1: And this is just like these conversations that I have in perspectives, I really want to have them as if we were sitting together and anyone could be sitting there with us and just having these conversations.

00:06:23
Speaker 2: This one's going to be nerdier than a lot of them, but you know, having.

00:06:26
Speaker 1: These conversations, I think it's important for people to see that side a little bit more. And just like the conversational pieces as opposed to like bullet item one, bullet item two and just going one by one on a list talking about different players and stuff. You know, I just I think it's important to kind of peel back that initial layer and open things up a little bit for folks to see the process side a little bit more, and I'm interested in yours a little bit. You did a great piece on twenty twenty four Fantasy Football Takeaways, and we're going to get to a lot of the stuff that's in that article because I think it just breaks down the season really well. There's a lot of stuff I want to ask you about, But first I do want to talk a little data. I kind of do this with a lot of the data analysts that hop on, but I'm not as interested in what you think people are doing right and well, you know, across the space, whether it's an analyst or whether it's the way that a fantasy manager might be consuming data and using that and acting on it. I'm more concerned with what you think people get wrong, because when we can learn a lot more from that as opposed to the other side of things. So, when you look at data in fantasy football, if there's a handful of things, one or two or just one that you think folks just generally get incorrect and get wrong and practice incorrectly, what would that one thing be.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing.

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Speaker 3: And this is both from like an analyst perspective and also like a consumer perspective, how like how people will read and consume content. And I think everybody kind of wants a skeleton key stat, like just one stat that tells you everything you need to know that just makes the decision for you. That doesn't exist, Like every stat is a tool in your toolbox. It can tell you something limited about a player, but it can't tell you everything about a player, right, And that seems to be some people's standard, is well, a stat is useless if it doesn't account for all of the possible context, right like yards, wear out run because it doesn't like take into account quarterback play or target competition. Like it's a useless stat. Who cares, No, it's still a useful stat. We can still use it you just as an analyst you have to account for all of the context, and as a consumer you need to understand not just like, oh, this stat is good, so the player is good, but like what is it? Or at least try to think about or see if the analyst is explaining to you, why does this matter? What is it actually telling us about this player? And how does it actually advance my argument? Yeah, I guess that's kind of a pet peeve for me. Is that people look at data like it's supposed to be a magic treck basically, but no, it's it's just it's a tool in the toolbox.

00:09:16
Speaker 4: It's a it's an piece of an argument.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent.

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Speaker 1: I think that that really rings true with projections, and that people think that projections are a system that you hit a button and all of a sudden you have your twenty twenty five projections all finished and laid out and you're good to go, when the reality is there's an insane amount of subjectivity that's involved, you know, with those with those projections. There's an insane amount of subjectivity that's involved in anything data related to a degree because you're you know, when we're telling stories and you're looking at, you know, a breakdown of some sort, you have to set certain parameters that you think are logical as opposed to you can't just look at every single player in every single instance and just you know this this data point Matt like. Like, for instance, in my prospect model, I include every running back and wide receiver that was either at the NFL Combine or who was drafted, which.

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Speaker 2: Usually they went to the NFL combine. Since twenty eleven, right, So I'm working within these parameters.

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Speaker 1: So like a guy like Austin Eckler Adam Thielen, They're not in my prospect model, right, but I'm at least working within parameters that makes sense, and I'm able to sort of construct these these stories and and look at these data points in a more actionable way because I know what these parameters are that I'm working under, you know, similar to if we're looking at something like yards per rout run, like you said, you know, I think it's important that we state what those parameters are that we're looking at, because not only that, but you know, and we can maybe I should just get to this right now, because you know, we can skip around a little bit. But you sent a tweet out earlier this week about the importance of draft capital and prospecting, and so I want to ask you about the main points there. But one of the things that you talked about in that tweet was the R squared you were looking at. And I saw some people commenting being like, I don't know what what are squared is and all this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 3: I was I'm sorry when people comment that, I'm like, oh, like I've failed here, clearly and explaining something. Yeah, that's nice I feeling on those people.

00:11:15
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:11:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, And people say that to me all the time with my podcast, where I'm like repeating things and they're like, why do you repeat things all the time. I'm like, because I want to make sure everyone is getting the information that they need to get, and I will repeat the most important information. But yeah, I mean, like, like, not everyone should know what R squared is or understand intuitively what that means. But what folks don't really realize and comprehend with something like R squared is that your sample that you're digging out of can change our squared completely, Right, Like when someone says, someone comes to me and they say, what's the R squared of your your model versus what you're measuring against? Right, So I measure against best two seasons, which is the best two seasons averaged out over a player's first three years of his career, And so i'masing that against the model's score, and I also measure that against draft capital to make sure that I want to be way better than draft capital or else.

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Speaker 2: What's the point, right, because we could just look at draft.

00:12:08
Speaker 1: Capital, just go one by one and pick these guys off right, And so they asked me, what's the R squared? Well, no matter what the answer I give you, it doesn't matter because there's no context for what that means. You know, Like I could give you an R squared that is zero point ninety five, it's ninety five percent R squared if I'm looking at the proper sample, that would help my argument, right, But my sample, like I said, is everyone since twenty eleven that was either drafted or went to the combine.

00:12:35
Speaker 2: So I do want to ask you though, with that in mind.

00:12:38
Speaker 1: You know, you did bring up our squared in that tweet and you talked about the importance of draft capital. What made you send that tweet out? And why do you think it's so important? What are some of the main points you wanted to get across.

00:12:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, just I wasn't planning to get into this, but since we're talking about our square, let's do it.

00:12:55
Speaker 2: Let's do it, man.

00:12:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, So my kind of main point with that tweet was, look, teams. NFL teams are generally pretty good at what they do in scouting players, and also they're incentivized to look like they're right right. They want players, especially running backs that they drafted highly to get a lot of production, to play a lot, Right, They're naturally going to give these players a lot of chances. So us as analysts, if our job is we want to be as correct as possible in terms of who's going to score fantasy points, then we should be using that information. If that's like our single best data point for predicting a running backs production or a wide receiver or a tight end or any player, then yeah, like I'm going to use it. I'm not going to. I think, like one thing I do pretty well is understanding what I understand and knowing what I don't know. I'm not good at looking at our running backs tape and breaking down all of triits and saying this is what's going to lead to NFL success and this is what's not right, Like full disclosure, no one should ever be taking film takes from me, as that's like anything particularly seriously compared to all the incredibly smart people in the industry that do that right. But what I can do is that I can look at the R squared of draft capital versus like any combine athletic measurable for example, and say, okay, clearly teams are taking a lot of this into their evaluation, and just knowing where the running back is drafted goes a much longer way towards telling us how many fantasy points he's likely to score in wherever you're targeting. I like to do the best of their first three seasons if we're talking about like dynasty value.

00:14:50
Speaker 4: But yeah, kind of.

00:14:51
Speaker 3: Getting into like the nerdy stuff with the R squared. My point in that tweet was the R squared for our running back draft capital, like to the best of their first three seasons of production was actually higher than the typical R squared you're going to get from our running backs fantasy points per game from year to year. Now, of course those are different samples, they're different things that we're kind of testing, right. It's year to year stability versus projecting out over three years. But just knowing that and having that comparison in our head, that should make us think, like, man, if draft capital is more predictive of production than a season of actual production, we should really care about this draft capital thing, probably, right. So that's kind of where I was hoping to push it, and I really think that the best like analysis you can do around prospects is it either needs to have always take draft capital into account, or you need to be purposefully looking for where you think the holes are in the predictiness of draft capital. So, for example, in fantasy and PPR leagues, we care a lot more about running back pass catching than an NFL team drafting or running back necessarily is going to right. We also see very consistently NFL teams just love drafting really speedy wide receivers, even if they have never shown an ability to command volume in college. We might call them like a veteran real life archetype of receiver, right, they take the top off a defense. That doesn't mean that they're going to be really useful fantasy assets, right, even if they're drafted highly. So just kind of looking for ways that draft capital because it's targeting something different. Right for NFL teams, they just want useful real life players as opposed to us in fantasy. We want our volume and our targets and.

00:16:50
Speaker 2: All of that.

00:16:51
Speaker 3: So yeah, just kind of looking for ways that draft capital doesn't get the whole picture, I think, is how a lot of analysis should be aimed.

00:17:00
Speaker 4: Right now.

00:17:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that answer, And you know, to anyone who is kind of lost about the R squared stuff. Quite simply, you can just think of our squared of how much of this explains this essentially, And so you know, in our square of one means it explains it perfectly, and our score of zero means that it doesn't.

00:17:19
Speaker 2: Explain it at all.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: And in football, you know, in your day to day like like office job, you're gonna find, especially if you're in like some sort of manufacturing job or an engineering job of some sort of like supply chain type, you need to be very very accurate.

00:17:34
Speaker 2: You need to be very very efficient, and I mean you.

00:17:37
Speaker 1: You ideally would be with football, but it's just impossible.

00:17:40
Speaker 2: So you know, you're our squared.

00:17:41
Speaker 1: If you're working with like R squared in an office space, they're going to be point nine to five, you know, ninety five percent or higher. Whereas with football, when we get a metric, you know, again this all depends on the sample that we're looking at. But like we're we're fist pumping, fist pumping whenever we get forty point foward to point five type R square, like that's a really really big deal when it comes to like a metric of some sort.

00:18:05
Speaker 2: Again, that's all.

00:18:07
Speaker 1: That's all shifted and changes based on your sample, like I was saying earlier, Like, for instance, my model will get less predictive when I take out all of the undrafted players, and that's because all of the undrafted players are mostly just bad in fantasy football. When they're in the sample. That increases my R squared because the model is becoming more predictive because it's saying, hey, you went undrafted, I know you're probably not going.

00:18:30
Speaker 2: To be very good. You know.

00:18:31
Speaker 1: Jalen Coker's aside, it's an important thing to grasp, like that sample sized thing, but quite simply, it's just how much of this explains this? And I love what you're saying about draft capital though, because to me it seems almost just arrogant and ignorant in a way to ignore draft capital if if you're doing that with especially if you're doing data analysis and ignoring it when we're thinking about it from the perspective of how can we create something that's going to be really actionable for not just the people reading but for ourselves, right like we want to, Like I started building a prospect model because I want to be better at understanding prospects and drafting and rookie drafts and stuff right, and so I'm asking myself, how can I be better at doing that? Well, ninety nine percent of rookie drafts, if not more, are going to happen after the NFL Draft is over. But now there's a ton of great resources out there, like NFL Mock Draft database, where you know, you can look at projected draft capital and input that. And my experience is all anecdotal, but my experience with that has has been it's you know, you're going to get like the random Troy Franklin's last year where people thought he was going to be a second rounder and he goes in the fourth round. You're going to get that happening at times. But generally speaking, it's pretty on point. And I would also argue this is another thing. I actually want to throw this your way and see what your thoughts are. This is a completely subjective, like there's no right answer to this, but part of me thinks that, and I haven't tested because the data isn't as robust, But like part of me thinks that, use it an NFL mock draft database, you know, more of the herd mentality angle of draft capital. Using that might be more predictive than draft capital itself because draft capital itself uses only one team's input at the end of the day. Right, good example of this is Andy Isabella. No one expected Andy or two to two out well, either one of those guys. Those guys go in the second round. No one really expected that to happen.

00:20:25
Speaker 2: For the most part. And so but it was one team that said, hey, we want to get our guy. We're going to reach, you know, quote unquote reach.

00:20:31
Speaker 1: But I say reach because there were hundreds, if not thousands of analysts and probably lots and lots of teams that didn't have that same grade on that player. And so part of me wonders, genuinely if anyone out there wants to research this and get back to because I would love to just use that data in seat a draft capital, But you know, would an NFL mock draft database or any of these other resources. Would that draft capital maybe even be more predictive than draft capital itself because of that.

00:20:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's super interesting to think about.

00:21:01
Speaker 3: There's definitely like a sort of a wisdom of the crowds element to that, where, yeah, you're right, if the pre draft, like draft capital expectation is just capturing more of people's opinions and takes and expectations.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: Then yeah, maybe that is better.

00:21:21
Speaker 3: I guess it's the same reason that like Howie Roseman has built a juggernaut of a team just drafting off like the consensus board. Yeah, that makes Twitter love him every draft. Right, it's a similar idea. So yeah, I'd be really interested in that. I wouldn't be that surprised if it was similarly or more predictive.

00:21:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I again, I have to to really stress that, Like I use NFL man Draft like when you guys get the Prospect Guide on March tenth, by the way, it's a pre order now, but when the when the prospect guy goes out and you see a guy score in that guide, the pre draft guide, because then I updated the day that the draft ends. When you see that score, that's based on NFL Mock Draft database scores at that moment. So things will shift from March into April and stuff like that. And genuinely, genuinely, this is what I want to stress. The scores don't change that dramatically from pre draft to post draft, aside from the Troy Franklin examples. And so I do wonder though if like those examples are ones that screw the model at the end of the day. I mean, it looks like the Troy Franklin one look to be proper and correct, but you know there's other And obviously the and Isabella example had the opposite effect because he went higher to two out.

00:22:36
Speaker 2: Well, they both went higher than anticipated.

00:22:38
Speaker 1: So I think it's something interesting if anyone out there wants to dig into that or has that data available. I don't have like a database of all of that information. I think it'd be a really interesting thing.

00:22:48
Speaker 2: To check out.

00:22:50
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by Underdog. I know the fantasy football season is over, but is it right now? Over on Underdog, you can join tons of best ball drafts for the twenty two twenty five season, and if you know that you have an edge with prospecting and free agency, you can really dominate these early contests.

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00:23:13
Speaker 1: That'll get you a nice deposit offer of up to one thousand dollars in site credit. That's promo code late Round. Now back to the show, because I do want to talk about your amazing piece on the twenty twenty four Fantasy Football Takeaways because I did an episode on the running Back Renaissance.

00:23:32
Speaker 2: I called it to start the off season.

00:23:34
Speaker 1: That running Back Renaissance episode all stemmed from the idea that we had an insane year this season from RB twos. At the end of the day, why do you think that was That's how that you saw the same thing in the data that RB twos were were just beastly in twenty twenty four. And then I think, again, we want to look at this and not just describe what happened, but think about what could happen in the future. So why do you think that that happened with RB twos this year? And and is that something that we should consider in twenty twenty five happening again?

00:24:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, So first I want to say that I listened to that episode kind of as I was working on this piece, and any time I do that, JJ and you give like a take like that, I'm, oh, my god, Like I was going to get to that by myself maybe or maybe I wouldn't, but now I'm like, I feel like I'm just coming to the same conclusion as JJ and copying JJ. But anyway, So that was kind of my thought process as I was building this, and I just wanted to share. But yeah, I ultimately I did come to a pretty similar conclusion as you did that I think a lot of people in the industry have made at least some pretty interesting arguments about the league as a whole kind of changing, heavier personnel being more involved in offenses. But mostly at the macro level, efficiency rushing efficiency was not that different in twenty twenty four than we've seen over the past few years. Running Backs were being used at the goal line about eleven percent more, just an eleven percent bump in goal line attempts from.

00:25:12
Speaker 4: The previous few years.

00:25:14
Speaker 3: The conversion rates, though, fell a bit. Like I kind of tried to dig into a lot of the different macro stuff of like it is running back just actually better from like an on field football perspective right now, and I couldn't really find anything to support that. So Yeah, the clearly like the biggest factor to me then, after failing to find anything else compelling, was Yeah, I think just the health of the position and the injury rates is really what is mostly behind what we saw.

00:25:46
Speaker 4: So among the.

00:25:47
Speaker 3: Top thirty running backs by preseason ADP sixty three percent of them played at least fifteen games, and that tied a ten year high. If we compare that to the wide receivers position, it was only fifty percent of wide receivers drafted as top thirty receivers that made it to fifteen games, and that was a ten year low. So really having those two things happen at the same time, I think really pushes up people's perception of the running backs. And also it's not just the perception, it is the reality that running back, especially RB twos, were a lot more productive and a lot deeper than we've ever really seen in recent history. But yeah, it's pretty easy I think to explain that in terms of, yeah, all of the good running backs in the league that are clear Week one starters, most of them stayed healthy. Just the talent at the position overall was just a lot better than it is during a typical year. Also kind of helping with that is we have this twenty seventeen running back draft class man that it is still hanging around and also kind of inflating the talent and the depth of the position. Right, Like I was giving lots of takes a year or so ago from now, that like, oh man, we're all of these running backs from twenty seventeen, they're in year eight. This is like your Alvin Kamaraz, your Christian McCaffrey's Joe Mixon.

00:27:18
Speaker 2: So many.

00:27:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, Aaron Jones, that entire draft class was insane, And not only were they elite and insane at the beginning of the careers, but most of them are still around and still maintaining these leadback workloads in the year twenty twenty four. And because of that, we just have more talent than we typically would. That draft class made up four of the top twenty fantasy running backs this year. That the twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three classes had four running backs each in there. No other single year had more than two. And if you kind of throw them in with like Derrick Henry plus Sakwon Barkley right before and after them, a lot of the talent in the league is just thematically older right now than we've seen at different points over the last decade or so. So yes, I think that's part of the reason why we have so much depth, because we still have that special draft class hanging around, but like it's going to go away at some point. Right, Father Time is undefeated, So I think it's important to think about Yeah, right now the depth seems really good, but it will not always necessarily be that way.

00:28:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: Look, I mean, at the end of the day, what you're speaking to when we talk about these RB twos having the seasons that they had, number one, you know, you talk about just them being talented, them being good, right, but then on top of that, there's been this the lack of injuries, which means when there's a lack of injury, that means that that player who's talented is likely going to see more of a backfield chair. And when he's seeing more of a backfield chair, he's going to score more fantasy points when you get an injury. You know, we always talk about replaceability at running back and how you know, zero RB is a little bit more feasible than as you're wide receiver approach, because when wide receivers get injured, the guys who are stepping in or not automatically just you know, when Rashie Rice went down, they didn't just have some wide receivers step in and get Rashie Rice's workload, because it's a more talent driven position, whereas at running back.

00:29:14
Speaker 2: We it's more predictable.

00:29:16
Speaker 1: We know which guys are going to see that work because there's only one running back on the field at once. And also, you know, especially the between the tackles stuff and running the ball, that side of things is a little bit more replaceable than the receiving aspect of football. And so when there's a lack of injury, that means you don't have those guys stepping in and you know, getting work. But even the guys stepping in, they're not going to see you know, if Josh Jacobs went down, never was a backup in Green Bay going to see the exact same role that Josh Jacobs at. The idea is that maybe they could get eighty percent of where Josh Jacobs was or something like that. Not I mean, maybe Jacobs is a bad example, but it's that idea that a backup running back won't get as many points as the starter would, but he can still give you a serviceable number of points that you don't need to invest in the position. That's where that whole idea of zero RB comes into play. And obviously that didn't happen much last year because there weren't many injuries so a lot of the fantasy points were going to very very few players, which then increases the RB two poll. But you're talking about the twenty seventeen class. I looked at my model, I would say that this twenty twenty four class or twenty twenty five class rather definitely not the twenty twenty four class. This twenty twenty five class at running back looks like the top two or three one since twenty eleven. I mean, it looks really really good on paper. And the question I have for you is that you know, obviously there's an influx and talent that's coming in. I think intuitively someone hearing that would say, oh, that means that RB twos are going to continue being great.

00:30:45
Speaker 2: But there's the counter argument to.

00:30:47
Speaker 1: That that a lot of these really really good talented running backs could land in backfields that are in some of the aged running back backfields, the mixings of the world whomever. Not to say that the Texans are going to go that route, but you know, one of these running backs and Aaron Jones, who's now a free like, what's going to happen with him in twenty twenty five when we.

00:31:06
Speaker 2: Do have this great draft class?

00:31:08
Speaker 1: So do you think that's a reason to be concerned about the RB twos sustaining what they did last year. Do you think it's kind of a moot point or do you think that because the talent is there, we're actually going to be able to sustain the RB two stuff.

00:31:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very interesting to think about, and I agree it can kind of go a few different ways. So yeah, definitely, the old guys could be the ones who kind of absorb all of this talent coming in that can create committees, and it could just be an instant crash of like fantasy production no longer being concentrated into all of these like clear starters, these clear workhorses, right, Or I mean the old guys could hang around for another year or two, a bunch of these new younger guys could come into their own backfields, and we could have an even bigger explosion of running back fantasy production.

00:32:02
Speaker 4: Right.

00:32:03
Speaker 3: I can't sit here and tell you that with any confidence here in late February, but I do think it's important to think about just, yeah, like the different ways that that can go. I always want to be whenever I'm doing any sort of data analysis, I want to be thinking about behind it what's driving this most of the time is just the overall talent profile of the running backs in the league or whatever the players in the league. Right, that's ultimately what's driving Oh, there are all of these split backfields, or there are RB twos were amazing this year, or whatever it is. I guess, like one thing I will say is I talk about this with my Dynasty Points co host Jacob Sanderson a.

00:32:44
Speaker 4: Lot, who you've had on here.

00:32:45
Speaker 3: I think right now, in the NFL, there are certain teams that really value the running back position a lot, and then certain teams that don't really value it at all. So like a good example here is last year. It nobody would have looked at the Packers after they signed Josh Jacobs and expected that they would be one of the teams to draft a running back on Day two, right, Like you wouldn't just pick them out as the team that would do it, or like Blake Korum the Rams spending a Day two pick on a guy that they ultimately aren't even going to play. Right, Some of these teams just really value the running back position and want to have a lot of depth and want to have a lot of good players at it, and other teams don't. Like it's been it was years that people have been saying, well that the Cowboys are going to draft a running back. The Cowboys are going to draft a running back, and it's Rico Doubtle that stumbles into a workload there in twenty twenty four. Right, So when you have all these teams that really value it and a lot of teams that don't, the running back talent eventually in the league makes probably makes its way to the teams that do value it, and you go into the twenty twenty five draft. If the teams on average that have good running backs value running backs the most, they're probably going to be the ones that are drafting the running backs, right, especially if the Yeah, if the gulf is so wide between teams that do and don't value it that some teams just will never take a running back before Day three, then yeah, it could be kind of what you're saying of maybe a lot of these really elite prospects just end up behind a clear incumbent starter that is not going to be easy to push aside in year one.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, it's gonna I think it's almost inevitable that we'll get at least like one of these top five six running backs or so going to a team that where they get Sharbonnade right where where they go to a team that has a Kenneth Walker type or someone who's like maybe not s tier, like maybe not the the absolute best, you know in the league. Like I'd be pretty surprised if Atlanta goes really heavy, you know, to get to get a running back. But you know, if you're thinking about like the next year down of running back, I think that there are teams that could go that route, and that's going to ruin someone that's either going to ruin the incumbent or it's.

00:35:05
Speaker 2: Going to ruin the guy that they the prospect that we love, right.

00:35:10
Speaker 1: And it's unfortunate, but that's just kind of the I mean, when you have enough talent to go around, that's just how things kind of break at times. One of the I mean, this isn't really related to anything that we're going to be talking about, but one of the things that I think in Dynasty that you can win from a market perspective is typically just going against the grain with what the market is assuming at the running back position with the team.

00:35:31
Speaker 2: Right, So, like I go back to a handful of years ago.

00:35:35
Speaker 1: I remember talking about Atlanta when they didn't draft a running back, didn't do anything at the position when Mike Davis was their starter. Now I didn't like Mike Davis that year, but if you had Mike Davis and you spent literally nothing to get him right before the draft, you at least got that addition and value pre and post draft, and then you could flip them and then you could do something.

00:35:55
Speaker 2: You know, you're gaining value. That's the name of the game.

00:35:57
Speaker 1: It's not about getting production in the off season, because that's impossible.

00:36:00
Speaker 2: We're looking just for value gains, and.

00:36:02
Speaker 1: I think a way to do that is by looking at the market and saying, where are their backfields that people are kind of assuming, you know, another player is going to take over and be a pretty big asset in that backfield. I mean, you could maybe see an example off the top of my head being like Jalen Warren in Pittsburgh where people are just making the assumption that they're going to spend you know, do the Naji Harris thing again, and you spend a first rounder on a back you know, I know, Ashton Genty was just mocked to them.

00:36:31
Speaker 2: By Jeremiah earlier this.

00:36:33
Speaker 1: Week, that's all very possible, Like this is just playing probability from the perspective that you know, chances are with Warren, the Steelers are probably to get let's just say, like a mid to late day two pick, maybe even an early day three pick if it because the class is so deep and Jalen Warren's a capable pass catcher who can still be valuable in a split backfield, right, so to me, like he's one of those guys that might be a little bit safe with this class coming in, But of course if they go out and get Ash and Genty, then he screwed. But you're just playing the probability game a little bit form that perspective, do you do you tend to do that with your teams, with your dynasty rosters where you're kind of looking at backfields and saying like like, you know, you look at like Jacksonville right now, where you know Liam Cohen stepping in. You know, he obviously did what he did with Bucky Irving last year he was giving I saw you you actually send a tweet about this, I think today talking about how he just gave the explosive back more work which is what we want these coaches to to do. But now you get Travis Dtn and Tank Bigsby. You know, out of those two, I don't know which one is necessarily the most explosive on the ground, but I think that Etn's been the more cable pass catcher. But is that a team that is realistically going to go after a running back? Maybe because etns contract's coming up, but maybe they don't.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: And if they don't, like they're.

00:37:45
Speaker 1: A team that is at least a candidate to not go after a high end running back, and therefore those running backs would be safer like from a value perspective. Do you think about that kind of stuff whenever you're managing your rosters.

00:37:58
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Yeah.

00:37:59
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm glad you brought up the Jaguars as the example, because, yeah, that's that's been on my sort of mind today. We do this thing in Dynasty where like, through the first half of twenty twenty four, the prices on Tank Bigsby were insane. People were saying, you have to go out and get Tank Bigsby. Oh my god, he's so explosive, like he's the next running back breakout here. Now you fast forward to now and it's like, Okay, yeah, Bigsby's rushing metrics on the ground mostly blew out Travis Etns last year. You can say that he was playing hurt for a lot of the season. You can say that Bigsby has never shown an ability to be a pass catcher in the NFL. He had like two games above a twenty percent route share or something like that, just even with Etn being out. So yeah, obvious obvious concerns outside of well, they could both just get replaced by running back in the draft. But yeah, I think now we're sitting here and just because the draft is like right in front of us, I think everybody is quick to write off like the tang Bigsby's where it's like, well, no, guys, that was like the whole thesis is maybe an explosive player is going to take over a backfield. Now you can make that bet at a lower cost. You can get him for like a late second or an early third. People want to be selling these running backs right now, So yeah, I.

00:39:22
Speaker 4: Mean why not.

00:39:23
Speaker 3: It is an obvious risk, But yeah, that's something that you can make a profit on and turn around and sell after the draft if it works out. But kind of to that point, I try not to run my dynasty teams quite in that way because while yes, I think you absolutely can kind of profit by dealing in information in the offseason like that, especially if you're really plugged in like we are, it's something I have a hard time recommending other people do because, for one, most leagues are not Most dynasty leagues are not as active as we se to think, or as the leagues that we as analysts will play in, right, I think most people are in one or two dynasty leagues kind of maybe with like a bunch of their friends, probably not a lot of activity happening like right before the draft. Things usually will will flare up around like rookie draft season, but you don't always have the liquidity to move off of a player at like a small profit if you don't like the player as a long term bet. Right, So, I just think it's important to like make that clear that that while that strategy can work, like, you have to understand your league and your capabilities as a manager. Are you going to be that active enough and able to get those types of deals done to even take advantage of it in practice?

00:40:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's not day day trading for the majority of people, you know, like you can't just like get an asset, flip them immediately, keep flipping go.

00:40:54
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of it is hypothetical talk.

00:40:56
Speaker 1: And that's what I love about your content is that, and I try to do the same with mine, is that we can say what we.

00:41:02
Speaker 2: Want and make these hypotheticals.

00:41:04
Speaker 1: And you know, like the Mike Davis one was an actual thing because I felt strongly about it, but just saying that there will.

00:41:12
Speaker 2: Be backfields that that aren't interrupted.

00:41:16
Speaker 1: And that will sustain value and gain value after the draft, because it's being baked in right now that someone's gonna be added to it. I do think that it's important to at least dive into that a little bit more. And probably if you're in a league like you said, that isn't as interactive to get a running back that would or to find a backfield, and to find the backfield probably a little bit more difficult than one that you can just constantly be flipping and trying to gain value.

00:41:42
Speaker 2: That's a really good point to add. Let's move on to wide receivers.

00:41:45
Speaker 1: I haven't done an episode on wide outs, plan on doing it, probably once the prospect guides out. I just wanted to really get the running back one out there, because I think that running backs had probably the most interesting season of any of the big four positions in fantasy this past year.

00:41:59
Speaker 2: But with wider did they seem to produce differently this year that you.

00:42:02
Speaker 1: Found and what do you think that means for higher end wide outs in twenty twenty five.

00:42:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I like in my key takeaway as article, I really like to dig into kind of value over replacement, right, And just my way of calculating that is how many fantasy points per game are you providing over like the baseline player at your position. So with wide receivers, I will just go like through wide receiver twenty right, Like, let's say that's the baseline. This year there was only really one high end, elite wide receiver that is giving you a lot of fantasy points over that baseline. It was Jamar Chase right nine point one fantasy points per game over the replacement. Right. But looking back to the last couple of years, in twenty twenty two, there were six wide receivers that were giving you over a five fantasy point per game advantage over the baseline.

00:42:58
Speaker 4: Right.

00:43:00
Speaker 3: Twenty three, there were five receivers, right, So, and I will say those two years were two of the better wide receiver years that we'd had.

00:43:08
Speaker 4: In the last decade and change.

00:43:10
Speaker 3: But again going back to like the talent discussion we were having, we had just had some really good wide receiver draft classes over the last five years, especially just kind of in general, so that that made sense to some extent. It came crashing down this year. And I think again, just like at the running back position, a lot of the story can kind of be told by just injury rates year to year. Right So I already said that it was a decade worst result in terms of wide receivers staying healthy. But we just saw pretty much exactly the same thing happened with the quarterback position in twenty twenty three, and then going into twenty twenty four. Right in twenty twenty three, only fifty three percent of top fifteen to be got to fifteen games played, and we were having kind of a similar conversation of like, oh wow, the quarterback position just in general kind of sucked in twenty twenty three, and we were sitting here saying, well, what does this mean for the early round and late round quarterback strategies and everything. But as it turned out in twenty twenty four, everything just kind of went back to normal for them. Right. Eighty percent of top fifteen qbs this year made it to fifteen games, and nobody was complaining about quarterback production and fantasy this year, right.

00:44:31
Speaker 1: Say, yeah, let's they drafted a lot of Dak Prescott and their best ball drafts.

00:44:34
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, Yeah, and yeah that might have been me as well. But yeah, there were plenty, plenty of high end producers, plenty of late round guys, but it was quarterbacks staying healthy that kind of just made us forget about that immediately, right, So, I, yeah, just zooming out at the receiver position, I kind of want to be in the same mindset of what we saw last year was very much like on the low end of outcomes for the receiver position as a whole. I mean, among like the top twenty, these are the guys that missed at least five games. It was Pukinakua, t Higgins, Nico Collins, both the Eagles receivers, and Stefan Diggs. Obviously, you had Rashi Rice and Chris Godwin both scoring at top three rates at the position. Before they had season ending injuries very early. So just with like a kind of a turnaround in injury fortunes, it's really easy to see how we could have had four or five or six guys really providing that elite production on a week to week basis at the receiver position. So yeah, I don't think I want to. I think it's really important in fantasy to not just chase last year's macro results. Like I feel like every offseason we kind of have like the zero RB versus like the robust STARB or hero RB debate, and very often it people's justifications kind of come down to, well, this worked last year, but like what worked two years ago, what worked five years ago? Like every year is like its own special snowflake. Like I don't want to just be over indexing to the most recent outcome. Yeah, because again it all just ties in with the randomness of injury rates, the differing talent profiles at each position. Yeah, I think it people kind of become very reactive, and I try not to do that.

00:46:30
Speaker 1: I also think that that people overstate the differences of like trends from one year to the next in terms of like what a draft looks like right, like like you're gonna see you know, like this past year we saw more wide receivers getting drafted early than running backs, like like.

00:46:45
Speaker 2: More than we saw the previous year, more than the previous year.

00:46:48
Speaker 1: But oftentimes when we look at that analysis, we say, well, back in twenty twelve, this is what it looked like. It's like okay, but it's not. We're not going from twenty twelve to now. We're going from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four and then twenty twenty four to twenty four twenty five. And when you're reacting based on that, the changes really aren't that dramatic. They're not nearly as big as people are like, oh, last year we had to go robust RB.

00:47:10
Speaker 2: This year we go we go zero RB. It's like you.

00:47:12
Speaker 1: Probably don't have to make that that big, that drastic of a change year over year, which is why I I mean, in my opinion, all the research I've ever done has pointed especially like a full PPR you know, flex league with three wide receiver starts like to me, a hero RB approach generally is what the data screams at me when you look at multiple multiple seasons, like across you know, like you're saying, instead of just looking at this like micro what happened last year, when you look at the last five, seven, eight, nine years, you know that that's what screams to me is like the optimal approach that is at least safe, right, Like you're not going to necessarily completely screw up your team if you go with more of that approach with that kind of format. And then you kind of adjustin tweak based on the format, based on what market trends or gener really saying, and but again it just goes back to what you're kind of saying. It's like, let's not overreact the way that we overreact. I think that oftentimes you're better off like finding uh, you know, the the you know, I don't want to say going down the route of let's just pick the right guys, because I think that strategy is still unbelievably important fantasy football. But I think finding tools and strategies to get to that conclusion of getting the right players based on market trends, based on talent profiles, all that and all this stuff that we can analyze, like that's becoming just as important and it is just as important as you know, understanding that that strategic side, it's it's everything, right, So I know that I'm rambling a little bit, but I just I do think that what you're saying is very correct in that people tend to really overstate and overrate what happened strategically the previous season and then almost having to do a one to eighty from that into the into the following year. I think people live in like the Twitter narratives, I guess more so, yeah they do, and like the actual like the actual ADPs and the results, because it can't be the case, right, even if zero RB is like the most popular thing that we're talking about on the internet going into the twenty twenty four season, it's not possible that every team is a zero RB team, right, especially when.

00:49:23
Speaker 2: You look at ADP.

00:49:23
Speaker 3: It's definitely not happening, you know, Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, So it's not like going into twenty twenty five. Yeah, we should be doing our analysis based on the market prices of twenty twenty five, not based on well, like the zero RB or like the wide receiver people were wrong last year. Like I think that's like the Yeah, I try to stay like very grounded in what's actually what's like in front of me, rather than well, these people are this thought was wrong before, or this thought was right before, and like pattern matching.

00:49:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I don't like I think that there's like if you were to choose one of two paths, which is, do what what people are saying they did the previous year, or be the contrarian and go the complete option. Probably be the contrarian from a strategic perspective, it is probably the better choice in terms of being optimal in that season. But my point, I think your point too, is you don't need to go so far in the one direction and then all of a sudden just like completely change.

00:50:23
Speaker 2: Your way of drafting every year.

00:50:25
Speaker 1: Like like I said, I mean, if you have a pretty consistent way of of deal doing like basically, and this is a good segue to get into quarterbacks, you know, quarterback. One thing that I noticed in twenty nineteen after Lamar Jackson did what he did was that people were catching on. People were understanding that mobile quarterbacks were important. And I saw it in the ADP data and it was very obvious that the late round quarterback strategy was becoming more of like could it become a middle round quarterback or could it be what's it going to look like? That was I wasn't saying like this is exactly how it's going to go down. It was more so I wrote an article like questioning the late round quarterback strategy because people were valuing the right things finally at the quarterback position. I think I think Lamar Jackson really brought that to the forefront. So I questioned to you, after looking at twenty twenty four data and saying what we just said about being reactive to the previous season, what do you think is going to happen moving forward? And should people start adopting more of an early round quarterback strategy than they have in the past.

00:51:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I mean I'll say this to start out, Yeah, the early round quarterback strategy over the last few years, not just one year, but a sample of the last three or so years has been very, very successful, just objectively, right. So, one metric I really like to track is the rate of a player making it into the ESPN playoffs, like in ESPN leagues. Right, Because ESBN publishes this data every year, I just think it's really useful to be able to look and say, oh, okay, Jamar Chase was on seventy two percent of ESPN playoff rosters this year. That that's really good. You really he was a very plus ev pick, right.

00:52:09
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a data set that's showing you, at least how people interact with their teams, not just this static number that we're analyzing and saying, oh, he was this many points better than this guy exactly.

00:52:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it just brings exactly, it brings in like the reality of were they helping people make the playoffs or win fantasy leagues? Right? So in this key Takeaways article every year, I just kind of designate and this was originally a Scott Barrett thing I should get. I need to give Scott more credit for a lot of things that I say. So this is originally is a Scott Barrett invention. I believe over a fifty five percent rate of making the ESPN playoffs is just designated as like a league winning player.

00:52:52
Speaker 4: Right, that's just like the.

00:52:53
Speaker 3: Cutoff that we pick all five of the league winning quarterbacks by that method. The past two seasons were drafted inside the first four rounds. It was Josh Allen both tiers, Jalen Hurts both years, and Lamar Jackson. Right, And it's very interesting because kind of right in that period of time, we were talking about maybe we need to start questioning the late round quarterback strategy, and we saw the adp shifting, we saw the results shift in terms of which strategy is winning people leagues and getting to them to the playoffs. Right, from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one, there were no league winning quarterbacks drafted inside the first four rounds. There have been seven since twenty twenty two, over the last three years. And yeah, as you said, it's because people and the market have correctly recognized that these hyper mobile, dual threat qbs are not only much more predictable in their fantasy scoring, but also that they, yeah, they're pricing in that upside a little bit better. And even at those elevateds, we've seen the Josh Allens and the Lamar Jackson's deliver those really high like league winning playoff rates. Right, So, yeah, I think you should be open to adopting an early round quarterback strategy if we flip over the page into twenty twenty five and those Allen's and Jackson's are again available in your round threes, your round fours because yeah, we've seen these guys for multiple years deliver massively plus.

00:54:28
Speaker 4: Ev seasons at that cost.

00:54:30
Speaker 3: So yeah, I would be happy to just start doing that. It's like it's always going to be dependent on the talent at other positions right in that give and year. There's always an opportunity costs that we have to understand. But yeah, if you said Ryan, like you have to you have to point to a player that is most likely to make like your your league winner status next year.

00:54:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, if I have to.

00:54:58
Speaker 3: Pick an individual, one probably first going to be looking at those hypermobile quarterbacks. Maybe you're not winning as big as if you're instead drafting a running back in the third round that goes on to be a huge league winner and makes it on like seventy percent of playoff rosters. But I just in terms of predictability, I think we have a few years at this point that, Yeah, drafting these quarterbacks fairly early is a good thing in fantasy football.

00:55:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:55:26
Speaker 1: One thing that I've stressed too in the draft guide over the last couple of years is, you know, going back to the we can still look at these like multi year trends to say, yeah, hero RB is probably an optimal choice if you want to play it safe, right, if you want to have like a general guideline instead of like really like like, let's say that you completely forget to do any research for twenty twenty five right before your draft. Okay, just go zero RB. And then the other thing that I would say, or just sorry, a hero RB, not zero RV. And then the other thing I would say is in a typical twelve team league, when you get into the middle of round three, that's tip again typically when you start to see the dropoff at running back, when you start to see the drop off.

00:56:07
Speaker 2: At wide receiver a little bit.

00:56:08
Speaker 1: It's basically when you get into RB two and are in wide receiver two range right generally speaking, and you know there's a slightly bigger drop off at running back. That's the opportunity cost side that you're talking about, where that's easily where you can slot in some of these elite quarterbacks and feel fine about it because you're getting that upside in that edge at quarterback while also not sacrificing the massive downside that you would be getting if you do for goo the chance to have a true league winning player at running back. So yeah, I mean, look, people think, like even to this day, they're like, oh my gosh, you're talking about early round I've been talking about early round quarterbacks.

00:56:42
Speaker 2: For like six years.

00:56:43
Speaker 1: Guys like, this is not it's not a new I just kept the Moniker just for for for the fun of it. But early round quarterbacking, when you have guys like Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, these these dual threat players, it's it's a very very viable thing, if not an optimal thing at this but we are still going to be in positions to draft late round quarterbacks. You know, we kind of had one this year in Jaden Daniels, if you want to consider him a late round quarterback. But we also had some pocket passers that ended up doing well. And we're gonna have a turnover and pocket passer production every year where one or two of these late round pocket passers will have somewhat of an outlier season and touchdown rate.

00:57:20
Speaker 2: They will become usable in fantasy as a result of that. But you wrote about something really really interesting.

00:57:25
Speaker 1: About late round quarterbacks in your right up, and I want you to talk about that a little bit.

00:57:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely.

00:57:31
Speaker 3: So it used to be the case where yeah, late round quarterback, easy draft the guy that runs and log out.

00:57:38
Speaker 4: Right, that used to be something you could just do.

00:57:41
Speaker 2: Yeah in the middle still if you can do it, then do it. But it just can't happen.

00:57:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, If there's a Jade and Daniels there available outside of the top one hundred, yeah, you should probably be drafting a lot of Jade and Daniels. Yeah absolutely. Would would not say that that's a bad idea. But because the market has kindind of pushed up a lot of these viable, hyper mobile quarterbacks into the earlier in middle rounds, yeah, we're kind of left to pick through all of the pocket passers.

00:58:10
Speaker 4: And as you said, just one.

00:58:13
Speaker 3: Of the biggest factors in a fantasy relevant season out of a pocket passer is okay, who's going to have a really high touchdown.

00:58:22
Speaker 4: Right this year?

00:58:22
Speaker 3: That's kind of unfortunately what it comes down to, right, and that is harder to predict, But there are like some patterns that we can see, especially over the last few years. So dropping down to a forty five percent ESPN playoff rate, so still like a very good selection and not maybe not quite single handedly winning your league, but still still pretty damn good. If we just look at the quarterbacks from the last four years that fit that at least a forty five percent ESPN playoff rate. You've got two hyper mobile guys, You've got Jaye and Daniels, and you have Justin Fields in twenty twenty two two.

00:59:00
Speaker 4: But the rest of the list CJ.

00:59:03
Speaker 3: Stroud, Matt Stafford twenty twenty one, Baker Mayfield this year, Rock perty in twenty twenty three, Tua in twenty twenty two. The very clear, like connective tissue between all of these guys is the type of system that they're in and their play caller. Right, every single one of those guys that I just listed off had a play caller from the Kyle shanahan or Sean McVay coaching tree. I just collectively refer to it as the mcshanahan tree. A mcshanahan play caller is what you want. And if we look at the just the top twelve quarterbacks from twenty twenty four by Fantasy points per dropback, which is one of the more predictive stats we have of the QB position, it's literally the four hypermobile guys, Lamar Allen Hurts and Jadeen Daniels, Ben Johnson's quarterback, and then seven pocket passers in these mcshanahan systems, Like you've just had Sam Darne putting up an insane year, which is funny compared to the thoughts of Sam Donald heading into the season. Right, So if these play callers that we can clearly identify are the ones that have an edge on what the league is doing defensively right now, and seemingly the only ones that have an edge there, why are we not just drafting all of the cheapest pocket passers that are in those systems? Like, just going into twenty twenty five, I think Trevor Lawrence is like going to be left for dead. He gets Liam Cohne, who just put together that season out of Baker Mayfield. Right, JJ McCarthy is probably going to be drafted later than Sam Darnold finished last year. Why can Kevin O'Connell not just even if you don't think JJ McCarthy is an amazing prospect or whatever, why would he fail in this Kevin O'Connell system that we have seen Sam Donald be amazing, We've seen Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullins put up startable quarterback like QB one fantasy number in this So yeah, that's like a really I think when I'm looking at later around quarterbacks in twenty twenty five, that's going to be the first thing I'm thinking about is which system are they in? And are they in the system that has generated all of the most productive fantasy pocket passers in the last few years.

01:01:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. I love it.

01:01:22
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot of actionable information that you just threw at folks.

01:01:25
Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome stuff. It was great chatting with you.

01:01:28
Speaker 3: Ryan.

01:01:28
Speaker 2: Let everyone know where they can find you and what you've been working on.

01:01:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can find me on x at Ryan Jay Underscore Heath and then all of my written work is over at fantasypoints dot com right now working on an article kind of breaking down both draft capital and combine metrics and how those kind of interact and what we can do to maybe try to beat the NFL in terms of what are better ways to look at some of these metrics for fantasy football, just kind of updating all of our athleticism models at Fantasy Points. It's going to be a really cool article that will be dropping a few days before the Combine. So definitely go check that out if you're interested.

01:02:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, highly, highly recommended by me. As always, guys, check out Lateround dot com. Make sure you are pre ordering that prospect Guide. It will go up by five dollars. The price will on March tenth when it launches.

01:02:28
Speaker 2: Now.

01:02:29
Speaker 1: Usually I end the show by saying thanks for tuning in, But earlier this week in Pittsburgh, one of the Penguins broadcasters Folks may or may not know who he is, Mike Lang, passed away.

01:02:40
Speaker 2: He was seventy six years old.

01:02:42
Speaker 1: He had a profound impact on my life just from a even just from a nostalgic perspective, right because he was just in my ears growing up in Pittsburgh forever. And he's the one who's got all of these one liners that so many people outside of Pittsburgh have probably heard in their lifetime. But at the end of every Pittsburgh Penguin's home win, he would say the same phrase, and that was ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has just left the building.