Late-Round Perspectives: Jacob Gibbs

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Jacob Gibbs is a fantasy analyst at CBS Sports who's one of the hosts of Beyond the box Score and who puts together the Fantasy Football Today newsletter. He's got an obsession with advanced football data. He practices mindfulness as at Yogi, and he and I go further back than you probably realize. These are his Late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by Underdog. Underdog is the easiest place to play fantasy sports, and they give you a ton of different games and contests to choose from each week. If you think drafting is over because the season started, you'd be wrong. You can draft teams over there each week in literal minutes right now. If you sign up an Underdog with promo code Late Round, you not only get a deposit offer of up to one thousand dollars, but you also get access to my rest of season rankings.

00:00:54
Speaker 2: Those will be emailed to you once you sign up.

00:00:56
Speaker 1: But when you sign up, you have to use promo code Late Round, had an Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the app to do so. Again, that's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show.

00:01:10
Speaker 3: Last show we did together was last summer with Ben Gretch last summer breaking ground just phenomenal stuff, brought up all the RPO stuff with Pittman, and everybody was out on him, and then he ended up having a really good year. So yeah, let's make some more magic.

00:01:23
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:01:23
Speaker 1: I feel here's the thing though, with the Pittman stuff, especially like the art. So for those of you who missed that discussion, it was one where Gretch had talked about had done like a really quick, like high level look at RPOs and like the impact that RPOs may or may not have on fantasy football. And so I started talking to him and I had this epiphany of digging just wanting to dig into it a little bit more. I think I did an episode of Later Round podcast on it in particular, and basically found that there is a lot of data that backs up what Gretch was just generally talking about that was more of like a logic thing at the time, and the data being that teams that were heavy RPO seemed to hyper target their number one wide receiver more than a team that wouldn't be running those heavy RPOs. And I think intuitively it makes sense because what an r PO is you're either running or passing, right and you have to make a read very very fit, fast and quick, right, and so in a in a from the perspective of like Michael Pittman, that actually got me on Pittman more than where I was like off of Pittman last year totally. And then the the RPO stuff made me say, well, what if he is hyper targeted to some degree? And then I think this year though with Pittman, we're just seeing the effects of you know what a lot of people were afraid of last year of Anthony Richardson being starter for most of the year.

00:02:44
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, I think he's got a back injury, man, And it's brilliant that I've got I've got a back injury, and I would not be trying to, you know, take NFL hits like that's that's so crazy that he's even out there.

00:02:55
Speaker 1: Honestly, Yeah, that's what I Actually, I've been dealing with a lower back the last week or so, and I'm like, I don't understand how athletes like have to manage us and deal with this, Like back injuries have to be like the injury that's just most debilitating to human.

00:03:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're back in your court. That's like where everything starts with mobility, Like if your back is affected, like you're just totally thrown off.

00:03:14
Speaker 2: Like yeah, you're you're you're a big gym rat, right.

00:03:17
Speaker 4: Uh Yeah.

00:03:18
Speaker 3: Before I got started full time, I managed a fitness center.

00:03:22
Speaker 4: I'm superto yoga. I teach yoga.

00:03:23
Speaker 3: I really really enjoy that for sure, for sure, always and especially like with our job, you got to be intentional, right about moving because it's so easy to just sit here and just type a way and hardly move it all.

00:03:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: Has has has yoga influenced your mindset a lot over the last handful of yours. We should just go over your your journey in the space, because you and I go way, way, way back, and I don't think that that connection has been made by a lot of folks who are seeing you now on the Twitter streets. You know, you're tweeting data all the time and growing your following and whatnot. I don't think people realize that we have like like like the number fire days and you're working at number and doing stuff at number five. But take us back to where that was and how that started, and then I do want to hear though about like the yoga mindset and if that's like changed your perspective on what you're doing with your work.

00:04:15
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah I can.

00:04:15
Speaker 3: I think I can connect to all this because last week I went on the Couch with Sigmund Bloom and he he asks a question for the guests at the end is now related to fantasy, and his question for me was, Jacob.

00:04:27
Speaker 4: Hoow are you so calm?

00:04:29
Speaker 3: It cracked me up because like, I knowing myself, having lived with myself my whole life, like I think of myself as a total spas, like I'm I'm I think I'm composed at this point and I've like calmed myself down a loud. But that's because I come from a place of being like hyper reactive and like taking things personally, taking things too seriously, and like it's especially when you do this work, like you can't you can't exist like that. You're going to drive yourself crazy because you're you're you can't be right all the time and you definitely can't please people all the time, like you're all So if like you're worried about that as your like you're gonna go out of your mind.

00:05:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's funny, It's really funny.

00:05:03
Speaker 1: Like, anytime I like post any sort of remote complaint about something right, someone will inevitably respond saying you're why are you so sensitive or something like that, right, And I'm like, you have no idea how many things I don't respond to? Number one, But also like you literally cannot make.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: It in a space like this.

00:05:23
Speaker 1: If you're going to be overly sensitive, it would drive you absolutely nuts. I mean, there are definitely things that everyone has a bad day and you're gonna, you know, let something get to you more than it probably should. But it's funny that you bring that up, because I like, this is this is one of the careers where you absolutely cannot be that way. You know, like it will absolutely destroy you know, your your mentality, the way that you think, the way that you give advice and.

00:05:46
Speaker 2: All of that.

00:05:47
Speaker 4: For sure.

00:05:48
Speaker 3: Honestly, man, just being public facing it all has been crazy for me. Like I'm kind of a hermit. I would rather just not even be on social media. But I am like out here trying to you know, get the good news out, get the good word out of data and everything that I'm doing. And so there's a lot of pushback with that, and so Sigmund asked me how I'm so calm, And I think the reason I appear calm is because I do a lot of mindfulness kind of things like yoga and meditation and stuff like that to make sure that I know, like each day I'm going into this like I'm I'm in control of my own container and what I let in, Like I'm the one who chooses what I let in. None of this other feedback has anything to do with me, most likely, Like even if somebody's frustrated with me, it's most likely coming from something that's going on.

00:06:29
Speaker 4: With them, exactly right.

00:06:32
Speaker 3: And so that that, like yoga has definitely been been huge, and there's a lot more with yoga that I think is beneficial for the body, for the for the spirit, for the mind and everything. But you can also help yourself handle the tumultuous NFL season, if that's if that's necessary, if you're if you're sick in the head and you're just obsessed with it like us, that would be a good thing to help help break it up. But yeah, on the couch last week, Sigmund told me that he helped Heath Cummings get started like fifteen years go, and then Heath was actually a guest on Beyond the box Score the following day last week. That's a podcast that Dan Schneier and I started this year, and Heath is who recommended me to CBS, And so lately I've definitely been like reflecting with a lot of gratitude on those who like paved the way for me to do this work. And then I get the DM from JJ asking if I want to come on you know, perspectives, and like the first opportunity that I got to share my sickness with the world came from none other than JJ. Shoutout Number Fire. Yeah, I absolutely love my time at Number Fire. Learned a ton there and definitely shout out JJ, because like you had a ton of patients with me. I was still in college. I was still in college when I started writing for y'all, So like talk about growing pains, man, Like I felt so bad sometimes because JJ is just such a good guy and he's like he's like pouring into me, believing in me, like really trying to help me develop, and like, brother, I'm out here like partying and not sleeping and doing doing terrible work.

00:07:58
Speaker 1: Look, I mean, look, I always said to people who worked at Number five because you're not the first guest on perspectives that because I had, like you know, Barrett was on for instance, at one point he talked about like a Frank Gore article that he did where he finally like it finally clicked and he got it and that's when he realized, like, oh I could I could maybe do this. But like I always told people whenever they were writing a number fire because at the time too, we were really trying to scale our content business like a lot. I mean, this was how many years ago is this at this point?

00:08:26
Speaker 4: This was yeah, like six nine years.

00:08:29
Speaker 2: Was it that long? Okay? And so so like.

00:08:32
Speaker 1: Like we were really trying to scale the content business. It was probably around the time that we maybe had just got bought by FanDuel and or it was around that time of like the transition and stuff like that. So it was either we were trying to get purchased or we were in this phase where we wanted to prove our worth, right yeah, so sixteen yeah, so it was a little bit after the acquirement, and so it was one of those things though we're like I always told people, so number one, there was a lot of content that we were trying to get out there, and we had a lot of contract workers and stuff and freelancers that were.

00:09:04
Speaker 2: Helping us achieve those goals.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: And there was always this clashing of because I'm very much shocking a quality over quantity kind of content creator, right, And so there was always a clash of folks, you know, more on the business end wanting the quantity, which is anyone who wants again in the content business, this is what you're going to run into all the time, is that the folks who are sort of managing the business are going to want to say, get as much stuff out there as you possibly can without really caring about the limitations and capacity issues that you might have. Whereas if you're passionate about the topic that you're writing about or talking about or researching, you're going to say, no, I can only put good stuff out there, right. So there's a constant clash of that, and so I had to balance that by managing a lot of these freelancers. And obviously, you know, I was able to shout out Brandon Goadula and Jim Sanas and stuff who were able to come on full time and really help out with this and like see the VI and not you know, derail it at all. I mean, do the opposite. But it was just one of those things where like there were so many freelancers and contract writers that I had this vision of what the content should generally look like.

00:10:13
Speaker 2: I wanted you guys to have your own voices. That's not what I'm saying.

00:10:16
Speaker 1: I just mean like it has to have the number fire tone and the number fire voice, right, And so I cared deeply selfishly to get good content out from everyone. But then on top of that, you know, it's like it can be a best of both worlds things where like we're both trying to accomplish sort of the same thing at the end of the day. Right, Like that's what I've always never understood about certain editors and them being like really really strict and you know, kind of dicks to the folks that they're managing, because like, your guys are trying to achieve the exact same thing that's not going to do any good to like destroy the other person. I mean, I'm sure you have emails from me that we're scathing and rude and mean. Yeah, but yeah, man, I mean, like it's it's fun to always like look back and see the folks who like kind of emerge from that tree and you know, started to plant their own and go on and do their own thing.

00:11:11
Speaker 2: You being one of them, it's been awesome for sure.

00:11:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, Man, I think I carry the number five tone through with me and my work now, and I think that a lot of people do. And that's because it's dope like and it's all about at tension to detail, like the integrity of the work and really like not you know, just it is. It is quality of for quantity, and that is kind of rare in today's landscape. But at the same time, I do think that a lot of there are a lot of people who gravitate towards that. Even though we're in kind of the doom scroll like times right now, Like there are still a lot of people who when they're getting real deep into this and just real like sick with it, like I've said several times, like they want that they and they can tell the difference between like just surface level stuff and something that's authentic where it's like this guy's a process, he's putting a lot or guy or girl gal's putting a lot of time into what they're doing, thinking about what they're doing and making sure it all makes sense and it's not just noise.

00:11:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. I think that, Like I mean that I wouldn't say that's like the sole reason that I left and went out on my own, but it was definitely a part of just like the whole package of like, hey, I can go write a two hundred page draft guide and sell that and like get the diehards and get the folks who actually care about this stuff and the detailed stuff and get them to read what's been in my brain for a really long time, you know what I mean. Like it's there's nothing better than that for me. Like I totally agree, like there's there's still a large portion I think it can be a little bit defeating for folks who are out there trying to win in the content game, where you know they're they're they're trying stuff out and they just feel awful because you know, Twitter thread bro is you know winning this game and getting all these followers and stuff like that. You don't have to win that way. I mean, you can win that way. Props to folks who are doing that, that's the way that they want to do it. But if you're more inclined to do some of the more detailed work and some of the more research oriented work and the heavy lifting stuff you can still do that. You know, it's still there's still opportunity. There's always gonna be opportunity for that kind of thing. And that's what seems like you've really kind of shifted towards and have become most interested in with the stuff that you're doing right now.

00:13:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, learned from the best.

00:13:13
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, but you have, look, you have really started to really make a name for yourself, if you will, like in the social media space on Twitter, you know, within the fantasy football space.

00:13:25
Speaker 2: And I love to see it, you know, like I said, like Barrett, it was the same way.

00:13:29
Speaker 1: It's just great to see folks who, like I saw them at the start and now I see what they're doing now. And this is not a slight on you, but it is just night and day right where where like where you were to where you are now. It's just cool to see. I feel it makes me feel really old and like a dad. But but like at the same time, I do, I do feel it makes me feel a little special to see that kind of growth and stuff happen.

00:13:53
Speaker 2: But you've really like shown off.

00:13:56
Speaker 1: Your your your love for data and it data. And I know that you know you're working, you know, in the background, doing queries and looking at all this data. Why do you think though it's so important to do that? And what has really gravitated yourself and your brain towards that direction aside from the fact that you wrote under me to start things off for you.

00:14:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm just a guy, you know, Like I just got done doing a podcast Beyond the box Score with Jamie Eisenberg, who's like a mensch in the fantasy community. He's been doing this work for so long sid the test of time, so cool. Dear him talk about his work, and he has like a journalism background, and he like he's a real like he knows what he's doing. And I'm just some guy who likes football who grew up playing Madden and watching football and being like this is sick and like I think I could, you know, I love it so much and I feel like I could learn enough about it that I could like share that love with people and maybe they would enjoy that. And that's where it starts for me. And I think data has been the entry point. Data is kind of like what helped me learn to love football deeper and not just like be infatuated with it, but like truly love it and appreciate on a deeper level, because like when you start out, it's just like Jimmy Graham dunking on people and Damarius Thomas sorry, rest in peace, just like gliding past defenses and Reggie Bush just duking fools out of their shoes, and it's like that's what gets your attention. But that that's not like love, man, that's just like that's just like attraction. That's just like amaze man. Like data unlocks this whole world where you can learn so much more about the players. You can learn about the coaches and the moving pieces and all that's going into this, and it all comes together in a much deeper way, and before you know it, you're just deep, deep, deep into the nitty gritty of per play data and per route data and all this stuff, and that just keeps unlocking things. And now you're thinking about, on a per play basis, which teams are running more, which teams are passing more, Which which teams are using play action on a higher percentage of their plays, which teams are using pre snap motion on high percentage of the plays, and how is that affecting things, Which teams are blitzing more on defense, which teams are using more press coverage or whatever, and all this is available to you on a per play basis. It's not quite publicly available yet. Fantasy Points Data is doing a really good job of making stuff like that accessible up up until recently, it's been sort of gay kept relative to like baseball. There's so much analytics that's available for free in basketball as well, but like football has been really hard to get your hands on this stuff, even for people like me and JJ. But like, now I've got this opportunity with CPS and I've got true media, which is this awesome you brought up, like being up to query and stuff like they're so I can just find this stuff right away, right in my fingertips, and so I just like get obsessed with it and.

00:16:44
Speaker 4: It's all data.

00:16:46
Speaker 3: Like, man, I don't understand exactly why, but I feel like we've got people get out of shape about data. It almost feels like this is obviously a dramatic way to say it, but almost feels like there's like trauma around data where like people they they're presented with it, they see it, and I think it's just because people use it in a misleading way. A lot or people people attribute meaning to data when that's not necessary at all. Data doesn't it doesn't really mean anything. It only describes something. It's only like it just exists. It's not here to prove anything wrong or right. We can use it that way if we want, but like it's just it's just a tool.

00:17:28
Speaker 4: And so like we I.

00:17:28
Speaker 3: Wish that we didn't have to be intimidated by it or grossed out by it or whatever, because it feels like so many people just like don't if it comes up there, there's like a block. And really it's like data isn't even specific for football at all. Like data is all around us. We're all collecting data all the time, whether we're aware of it or not, Like we use data to make decisions. It's it's data is all the fun and surprising details that you learn about someone to like piece together parts of their personality, you know, And it doesn't even have to that metaphor doesn't have to be like a person. That could be anything like an idea or a new place or a story or whatever. Like it's the it's the little details you learn that resonate with you. But those details are our surface level, Like it's just a description, you know, does that?

00:18:17
Speaker 4: Does that click?

00:18:17
Speaker 2: It's just yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: I think though, that the other point to this in terms of like the pushback that folks will get when even just referencing. Like, for instance, I'll do my my my data dump every week on Twitter and then you know, I'm blue Sky now too, and I'll throw out all, like, you know, fifty different stats that are pretty high level, just target share stuff and like rout participation stuff because people you know, obviously care about usage and fantasy football.

00:18:44
Speaker 2: It's the number one thing that we should care about.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: And there are times where I get responses from people that are basically yelling at me for something that is completely and utterly objective, Like there's not even a take attached to any of these tweets, right, And you know, this has been happening for literally since I started doing all of this, and fortunately I think it happens less and less because people are more and more okay with data in football.

00:19:12
Speaker 2: But it rocks the establishment.

00:19:13
Speaker 1: Like that's what this comes down to, Like like this isn't this isn't me trying to be like, oh, we're edgy and cool because we use data.

00:19:21
Speaker 2: This is me saying that football is a.

00:19:24
Speaker 1: Game that inherently, uh you know, has not been super super like like intellectual on a on a from a data perspective, right like like from that, it's very intellectual from a like a leadership perspective, and from even like a an x's and o's strategicy perspective, like incredible, like the smartest some of the smartest people in sports have been like football coaches and quarterbacks. And so that's not what I'm saying, like people can still be smart. I'm just saying from a data perspective. And the sole reason for that is because we don't have the one to one a to be the connections that a game like baseball does or even a game like basketball does, where we are dealing with eleven human beings playing against eleven human beings. And this is where like the discussion of like momentum comes into play, where people, you know, data people will say momentum is not real, but then all the athletes will come out and they'll say, oh, momentum is real. And I think that anyone you know, who's played sports before. And this is again that goes back to like, oh, you've never played football before, you've never played a sport before, or you've never you know, you're just sitting in front of your computer.

00:20:31
Speaker 2: You have no idea what you're talking about.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: I actually think the momentum individually is one hundred percent of thing, because we've all been in a flow state before, you know, like like we've all been in situations where things are just clicking and we could we hit on everything and we're crushing it. Whether it's with your work, whether it's with a run that you're on, whether you're at the gym lifting, whatever it is.

00:20:52
Speaker 2: You can get playing video games, you can get in.

00:20:55
Speaker 1: A flow state where your brain is sort of in that like next level play.

00:21:00
Speaker 2: Now. I don't know how contagious flow state is, right, but I do think that you know, your surroundings enable you and help you to get into that flow state. And so if you have eleven people on offense and four or five of them are in that flow state all at once, that to me is what momentum would be. Right.

00:21:18
Speaker 1: It's not that the entire offense and all, because if the quarterback's not and then he throws an interception on the next play. That's where the data comes out and says momentum is not real because everyone screams momentum whenever a team scores seventeen unanswered, and then that same quarterback then and goes and throws an interception.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: So how is momentum real?

00:21:35
Speaker 1: Well, it could still be real with every other players that's functioning in that offense or even on the defense.

00:21:41
Speaker 2: It's just that one player is the one who made that mistake.

00:21:43
Speaker 1: And so what I'm getting at is I think that part of like the dissonance and what you're talking about with data here is that people reject it because there are there's just such a gray area involved, right, Like, there's everything that I've ever written about and talked about, aside from fading Zamir White this year now, Uh, every everything that I've written about has been a gray area, has had a gray area conclusion because nothing is for certainide again aside from Zamir White not being a good draftic this.

00:22:17
Speaker 4: Of course, yeah, of course.

00:22:18
Speaker 1: Uh, but like like nothing is for certain, we can say we can assign probabilities to those things, like go back to the Zamir White thing, did I like Zamir White entering the season? No, Did I recognize there was a possibility that White could return value and maybe even be a high end RB two this year?

00:22:33
Speaker 2: Yes, of course. We're we're we're taking all these different inputs.

00:22:36
Speaker 1: And recognizing that, you know, it's like the folks theory about the universe and how there's so many different uh uh, different realities, and that you know, me moving my right hand here in another reality, I didn't move my right hand and another reality. You know, all these different things are unfolding. There's a reality where Zamir White was a higher end RB two. It's just that we're associating these probabilities to these outcome and then we're weighing those things what we see as appropriately, and then we're saying this is this is what I think is going to happen. And part of the problem that I see, at least with data, is that, like you're saying, it's a descriptive thing, and we're trying to create we are, at the end of the day, trying to create narratives around what the data is saying. And the issue though, is when people are very declarative with those narratives and the way that they talk about them, and they assume that anything that they're discovering is factual when things that you're seeing aren't factual.

00:23:33
Speaker 2: You know, it goes both ways.

00:23:34
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, but I think that it's important for two data folks to hop on and critique our side of things, because one of the things that drives me nuts more than anything is you're wrong. I'm right because yards per route run says this, you know, like we got to get over that, you know.

00:23:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay.

00:23:52
Speaker 3: I started to just kind of like meander around a metaphor, and I think I've like I can fully place it now, so truly, like I do think the metaphor I'm going to give is like you're falling in love with someone and you have all this data that you're collecting, and some of it might be alarming. And I think I can speak to this personally as somebody who comes from the background of like not really trusting people and like having walls up all the time and being very like judgmental in how I view things, like thinking like I have this this conception of like what reality is, and if this doesn't fit into it, or if I've seen something similar like this before I start to make assumptions. Yeah, that's so limiting, And that's kind of what happens with data is a lot A lot is like what if you could instead approach it with curiosity rather than judgment, you would learn a lot. It would it would totally like widen your scope of possibilities. And so like you there are eleven men on the field and all of this data that we have for football is very complex because of that, and so like that to me, like the metaphor would be like you might have seen behavior like this before with this person, but you don't the why at all. You only know the what, and so like when you learn the why, it's like, wow, this person had this crazy thing happened in their life that led them to be this way, and so now they're very scared or they're very whatever, and that it manifests itself and how they act. And the assumption that I made was totally wrong. It was just based off of my own experiences, which could never have perceived their perception because I had never experienced anything similar. And then like taking it back to data, like that's a really that's a really dramatic, cheesy, like real life way to like talk about football data. But it's like you there are like every offense is different, every team and player is different, and so like a yard prout run rate for Jalen Waddle is completely different than a yard prout run rate for a player who plays in an offense with three receivers on the field all the time, and the offense doesn't like Jane Reid. Jane Reid plays with let's say out there with Christian Watson and Romeo Dobbs. Those guys aren't necessarily big target earners. And then the other point that's important to know is that when there are three receivers on the field, per route data is significantly lower than when there are two receivers on the field when there is one receiver on the field, because there's there's less target competition if you're competing with a fullback for a target as opposed to a wide receiver, if you're competing with a tight end or a running back as opposed to a wide receiver, like that's a big difference. And so that's born out where it's I think like a thirty or forty percent difference between two receivers and three receivers per out data, and so like you look if if you just like saw you know, the Tyree kills, the yard per out run rate is way higher than justin Jefferson's that's another great example of plays toines of three receiver sets. You would you might be inclined to say that's stupid, like this stat is pointless. And then if you just never give it a second thought just because you think you know what's right, and like then you aren't able to use that stat to identify Nico Collins as a breakout or pooka nokup is the arp pro out run rates were great in college and maybe you wouldn't be I mean that that's nobody was doing that. But like Josh Down's amazing per route data. You know, like you just you would just right off that stat entirely, and like you're just if you're if you're resistant to the data, you are just creating a box, a cage for yourself. And it's totally you don't have to do that. Like the data doesn't have to be intimidating or challenging or anything. It could just it could be inviting. It's it's literally just a description of what's happened. You have agency over how you view it and use it. If you see someone misusing it, that doesn't have to affect you in any way. You don't have to get mad about it or anything. You don't have to assume that the stat is wrong. You can assume the person's wrong if you have to assume anything. I don't know, like or you could just leave it not think about it again.

00:27:39
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:27:39
Speaker 3: I just it's it's crazy to me because data can be so useful and the fact that, like for me, it really did give me. It was an entry point to learning more and more about the game. So I want to shout out Nay Ties. It does incredible work for Yahoo Fantasy these Days Football three oh one podcast he does with Matt Harmon You Matt as a friend of the show of course, just so so cool that those two are making content together. Nate Tice is who kind of unlocked this deeper level of love for football for me. So, like I said that data is kind of like getting to know people the service level information, nay Tice got me where I'm really instead of like just the service level, I'm going deeper. I'm like watching, like really really watching, and I think we can kind of draw this metaphor back to the person where it's like instead of just assuming something about them based on the data, you actually sit down, shut up and listen to them and watch them and I observe them, and like that's how you actually get deep with someone or with something. That's how you actually learn to like love something in a deep way, is like really observe it and like listen, like listen listen to what listen to what people like Nate say, but also like listen to what coaches say. Dude, have you have you noticed how much Jim Harbaugh loves Justin Herbert.

00:28:55
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Oh so you see the clip of him catching a pass from him the other day, Yeah, and like he dropped it and he's like, oh, I gotta get in like like he's like like it's it's fascinating to me to see, Like this is why, like I've been a Mike Tomlin truther for forever, because you know, I'm from Pittsburgh and I have a ton of friends still from there that live there and that I grew up with. That Every year over the last you know, five to seven years, they'll get on Facebook after a Steeler game when they lose and they will just rip Mike Tomlin, like they will just say, I don't think people realize how good of a leader.

00:29:30
Speaker 2: And motivator Mike Tomlin is.

00:29:31
Speaker 1: Like it is, it's it's now, We're we're we're obviously seeing it this year to a decent degree with with how he handled the quarterback situation and how well they're just generally playing now. But like like it's crazy, how like that kind of like attitude and like like the your your your mood adjustment if you will, uh, can really shift in your mentality, can just shift. Everything can shift, Like like look look at what's going on in Washington right now, Like Dan Quinn can changed the culture of that team and there now and by the way, we're recording this before the Thursday night game, I should throw that caveat out there. You know, it completely changes the culture of that team. And I the more that I've done this, it's almost like a that one parabola meme that's out there, you know where like like once you get like really nerdy and really data driven about this, like you think that you have all the answers and stuff, but really at the end of the day, you then sort of realize you don't have the answers, and you go back to you know, you could you could use that meme to think about like, you know, leadership is everything in football, and then looking at all this data and then at the end realizing leadership is everything in football, right, Like just going back to that very basic concept. But I think that's what like I've realized a lot over the years is that. And you can see it all the time when folks like first get into the fantasy space, they really start to like like gain a following and listeners and stuff like that. And if they're especially if they're data driven people, but even if they're not data driven people, it's just easy to say data driven because most us in the fantasy space are going to be more data driven because it's a data it's a numbers driven game.

00:31:04
Speaker 2: But so frequently, and I see it all the time the first year where they're where they they have a big following, and you know, they're they're really excited, understandably excited about that because they have people that are listening to their takes. They are so unbelievably bold with the way.

00:31:20
Speaker 1: That they speak about players, right, and then they get humbled, right, yeah, and then the very next year they're they're kind of they're they're sitting back a little bit more right that this is this is what happens. It's because not only do you realize how much how much gray area there is, but you start to realize that the stuff that you're looking at does not include all of the answers to your to your problems and your questions. And I think that's what we're really getting to, is that, like you know, yards per route run stand alone, not even adjusting, it's a good metric, Like it is a it is a fine metric. It's part of my models that I use, like it is a it is a good metric. Do I think that you are and I'll reference it all the time, right, But do I think that I can solely judge a player's level like Jackson Smith and Jigba perfect example. Do I think that jas ends you know, now he's at like one point five eight or something because of that the last game he had? But do I think that his yards per out run is indicative of how good and talented of a player he is? No, Because there's other inputs that I'm looking at, Like I still care about the kind of prospect he was. I care about the what my eyes are seeing. I care about what's happened in the in the small sample, limited sample that we've had where he hasn't had one of d DK metcalf or Tyler Lockett, Like I care about all of these other factors. It's just that when we dumb things down to only yards per out run, that can get you in trouble. When you use yards per out run in conjunction with other things, that's when you can start to really paint a picture and tell a better story.

00:32:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're just scratching the surface.

00:32:43
Speaker 3: Like And that's that's why I brought up nay is because, like you do, you do start to get a deeper appreciation and like understanding of like how all the movie pieces affect each other, and you do start to get more curious about like what's really going on in terms of watching it on the field and listening to the coaches and all that shout out coach speak.

00:33:01
Speaker 4: Index is so good.

00:33:02
Speaker 3: They're the ones that have really like put me on on the Harbos stuff, Like just look at the difference between Quentin Johnson last year and this year. Obviously it's yere one year too, But also I think it really makes a difference. There's a coach who repeatedly states his belief in him, and of course there's been this is not a fantasy take for QJ. There's been some like he's probably been the luckiest received in the NFL.

00:33:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's probably.

00:33:19
Speaker 3: Scoring on busted coverages and everything, but like also he is catching them and scoring and he has made some plays that he just wasn't making last year. I really do think that makes a difference. And that's like the next level to like really falling in love with And I think data as it pertains to the data, I think data can be the key to unlocking that deeper love for football where you start getting just more curious about all of these things. And maybe that's even from getting frustrated with data or whatever, you know, where maybe data leads you to an incorrect conclusion and if you're willing to then like challenge what your process was, challenge your assumptions, to dig back into that, you find that, like you didn't have this other piece of information, like here's here's some data for you, JJ, I'm five foot nine. That's a stat you maybe think based off that that like I played basketball like five pot nine, like probably not doing anything around the rim, right, just like a little little guy.

00:34:10
Speaker 4: Here's another stat. I this is all all.

00:34:13
Speaker 3: This was just a setup for me to brag I had a thirty seven and a half inch vertical Oh look at that. So what if you just have that stat though, and not the first one. You're like that guy's probably a rim protector or something. And it's like no, like the two stats work together, and one without the other doesn't tell you anything. Yeah, and like that, I don't know. Like you you start to follow the trail and like learn more and more, even if it is like your process was wrong, your process was wrong. You start to unlock things and get more and more curious about how it all works together, and like, yeah, I just go go go check out and the Tyson's work if you don't, because he's he's there's there's few people who I enjoy listening talk about football more than him because it's beyond debt for sure.

00:34:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he loves it.

00:34:55
Speaker 1: You can tell he loves He's very enthusiastic when he's when he's talking about it, it's it's it's great. You know the point that you made about sort of these metrics, like working in conjunction and not looking at things stand alone, I think is very very appropriate when it comes to prospecting work. You know, like I fine tune my my prospect model every single off season because I part of it is because I'm just a nerd and I just love doing it and like digging into data that I might have not had before, thinking of different ways to manipulate the very basic data that we have for college football because it's not nearly as good as what we get with the NFL. But a really good example of that is I've always told people if you want like a very basic way to analytically solve the running back position, obviously.

00:35:40
Speaker 2: Look at like draft capital. That's that's the number one thing.

00:35:43
Speaker 1: But I'm saying like, like more so like a you know, a later round pick who might be able to to do something and make noise that we wouldn't otherwise expect to. Like like there's like two things, I mean maybe three if you want to, just say, like athleticism and like straight line speed and just like adjusted forty right, so speed score. But aside from that, it's literally is the guy big and did he catch a lot? Of balls in college, like he is he a big running back who showed off as a receiver. Now, now that alone as a descriptor doesn't really make that much sense. But really, what it tells you when you really think about like the narrative that you can draw from that, what it tells you is that he's a probably a pretty agile player to be able to do more than just see work on the ground. And then usually the signal for receiving work in college is that his team is trying to get him the ball in a lot of different ways. I say it all the time. A good receiver in college doesn't mean that he's going to be a good receiver in the NFL, but it means that he could be a good player in the NFL because he was getting work in a lot of different ways, very very similar to we see pretty good correlation between like wide receivers who had decent rushing production. That was one of the reasons why my model liked Ricky Piersoll more than other like numbers driven models did is because he got a lot of work done on the ground, and he did stuff as a returner, and like that kind of additional stuff doesn't get a lot of love usually, but it's it's a signal that the team itself is trying to use him in that way. And those little signals are sort of what we're talking about here. It's the intent, it's the you know, the reason as to why players are doing what they're doing. You know, it starts at the coaching level, it starts at the team level to see how they're really deploying these guys and what they're what they're intending to do with them at the end of the day.

00:37:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the why.

00:37:30
Speaker 3: That's what it keeps coming back to, like, and that's why, Like data isn't the why, but it gets you to it. And that's so just if you can approach it with curiosity, like you just start learning more and more and next thing you know, you are creating and back testing intricate fantasy football models.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:37:45
Speaker 3: I listened to the episode with Dane mcfark last night and it was so so fun like so funny, like you guys are both just like complete nerds, complete menches like of men just doing loves work and.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: Very nerdy episode.

00:37:57
Speaker 1: Well probably probably the nerdy, probably the nerdiest episode of Perspectives that I've been so good. We went from and we're doing it kind of here too, but we went from like having like a ten to eleven question show sheet to literally talking about two things the entire time.

00:38:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, dude.

00:38:12
Speaker 3: His his process on how to handle fab free Agent Bucks was like so fun.

00:38:16
Speaker 2: Really good. Yeah, I love it.

00:38:17
Speaker 3: If you guys are curious about that, to haven't listen to that? Give that one to listen to that, that'll be a good grounding episode, like to compliment this one. I feel like I have a tendency to get people's heads in the clouds and be like this is so cool, this is so cool. But like I hope people realize how valuable you and Duyanne are, Like y'all, I'm not I'm not just saying that like to to you know, suck up to you. Like I feel like you guys are doing smarter and like higher tegority research than is being done in so many workforces. And that's so silly because we're talking about fantasy football so.

00:38:46
Speaker 1: Worthless, Like we're just trust me, dude, I've had so many existential crises in my life of like I just I just spend this much time researching something that literally does not matter at all.

00:38:59
Speaker 2: Like I mean, it's sure, it's the entertainment, it's the escapism.

00:39:01
Speaker 1: I know people are gonna hit me up and be like, don't think like that, don't act like that. But at the end of the day, like it's not that important. But I will say, and I'm sure you've gotten this too. One of the most like thrilling feelings that you could possibly you know, like family aside, like birth of your child and getting married all that kind of stuff.

00:39:19
Speaker 2: One of like the best day to day feelings that you could feel.

00:39:23
Speaker 1: Is when you discover something like through research. It doesn't I don't think it has to do with fantasy football. I think it's just the discovery aspect, right rica, Yeah, yeah, exactly. You have that moment and then you get to share it with everyone, Like there's there is nothing that gets me more hype than when you know, I have an episode of Late Round podcast that I did a research, some research on some very specific topic that people haven't really thought about before, and I publish it and.

00:39:50
Speaker 2: People were like, I never thought about the game this way, right like that that that is.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: An unbel That is literally what drives me to do this every day is because it's it's just fun, Like it's fun to do that.

00:40:00
Speaker 3: It is fun, and that that's got to be the approach that we take with data. I feel like is like just have fun with it. It's like way, way, way less serious about data, especially as Brittain's the football and fantasy football like it's not serious at all.

00:40:13
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well, Harol, let me ask you this because I think that this plays into what we've been talking about. Do you think we've gotten to a point in the fantasy football space where there's just an oversaturation of data, Like there's just way too many numbers. People are trying to solve something that is not solvable the way they think it's solvable, and it's gotten a little out of hand. I mean, I know that people are probably sick of hearing me talk about the ZAP model and they're like, can you just talk about football and stop referencing this stupidly named.

00:40:44
Speaker 2: Model and get to the point.

00:40:46
Speaker 1: So like, like I understand there's frustration, Like do you think that they're we've gotten to a point of oversaturation or what do you think the problem is with that whole idea? Like, like do you think there's an issue with they are just being too many numbers out there and not enough like people being concise with those numbers.

00:41:09
Speaker 4: I don't think there is a problem.

00:41:12
Speaker 3: I think that if the I just don't like problem, it just rubs me the wrong way to think about it that way, Like it it just it is what it is. It's going to exist this way. Like I'll just say so, I'm really glad you asked this question because it's one that I posted to multiple guests on Beyond the box Score, the podcast that I started, and like no one has been brave enough to just say yes. I wonder if it is because like I'm one of the prime of vendors of taking stats too far. Maybe people that want to say it, I don't know. I don't know, but like I'll say it, yes, the fantasy football that I trained has long since derailed. We are way off the rails, totally, totally, Like not a question. But the reason I say it's not a problem is like that is going to happen either way, and it's personally up to like you, what are your goals? Like what do you why do you? Why are you interested in football? In fantasy football? In my opinion, it really is a question of like what's important each person? Like, what's the best experience for you? Why do you play fantasy football? So, like j J I, you're a funko fanatic. I think is that fair to say? I see I see him behind you.

00:42:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:42:15
Speaker 3: So I have a friend who's an absolute funco fiend. He has a collection that is like it's got to be over one hundred deep at this Yeah, I'm sure.

00:42:23
Speaker 2: I'm sure they probably keep him in the box and all that kind of stuff too.

00:42:26
Speaker 4: No, no, no, he's got them all to play.

00:42:27
Speaker 3: He's got like collections and it's like different, like this is my Naruto one and it's like all the you know, like characters associated with each other and everything. And so often he'll send me a snapchat of some absurd new funko with the question have I lost the plot? And it invariably I respond by assuring him that he has not lost the plot. It's it's it's become like a bit of an unspoken bit between us at this point. No matter how ridiculous the funko, he gets joy from this. He's responsible about the way that he spends his money. He allows himself to explore this sure bizarre hobby and continues to find joy in it, and like, I will never tell him that he has lost the plot unless he like, actually, you know, wants me to be accountable with him or whatever, like, but I don't think that's what we're doing. And so like, why why do you play fantasy football? If it's to have fun or deep in your join me in the NFL, then hell yeah, like, welcome to the dank data world. Follow me on Twitter, Cannibal at the deep end. There's no losing the plot if that is like inconceivable for you, because you play for competition, you play to make money. You're in the right place. Listen to JJ, like he will not steer you wrong and will not allow you to lose sight of what's actually important in being a successful player. So like that would be my answer, I guess. I I do think that, like, as an analyst, you have a responsibility to make sure that you can textualize the data that you use and you help people understand it, and so I do my best to do that. In the FFT newsletter, I write that it's free. You can google f FT Newsletter Jacob Gibs newslet, or you'll find it. I don't want to mislead people.

00:43:55
Speaker 4: For sure.

00:43:55
Speaker 3: I want people to be able to follo along with what I'm saying, even be able to do their own research and all that. I want people to to trust me to be well informed, to be able to like responsibly participate in the discourse that I do facilitate.

00:44:05
Speaker 2: But like.

00:44:07
Speaker 3: I can't count for every person, especially on Twitter. Like when it comes to Twitter, I have to just like acknowledge that, like the some of the information that I share is going to a team at times like lead to misuse. And I don't know, is that my responsibility to like only share actionable predictive data, like I think on Twitter, I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy who likes football. And I'm just like, here's this cool, Like I don't know, Like I'm just like, here's the defenses that are using the most stunts. Yeah, And it's like what does this mean?

00:44:34
Speaker 4: What do you mean? What does it mean?

00:44:35
Speaker 3: It means exactly what I said, That's all that it means. Like I just think it's cool that like these defenses are different than others. Like I don't know, Like I'm very curious to hear what you think about it, because like, yes, I'll just name my guys from Fantasy Points Data, Like we're off a deep end. We're coming up with new stats. Does average separation score like matter for fantasy maybe, but we don't know. They're literally in the beta phase, like they're they're dropping new stats every day and like coming up with new stuff. Like maybe there is an oversaturation. I don't know, but like, I don't think that's wrong as long as you're coming from a place of like intentionality and mindfulness when you do create and share those like they're very They've got like read of Ryan Heath article of Fantasy Points Data, like that's the closest I've come to JJ Zachareson like in terms of like attention to detail and laying out the whole process behind his research and everything that he's done to get him to this point. And then here's the information. They've got tutorials and everything off Fantasy Points Stata. They give you the process, they get. They're very transparent about the charting that they're doing and all that. So like is I think the people who are at the core of like bringing new information to the forefront of the industry and spreading that information are you and Dwayne and those guys like I think they're very intentional and mindful with that responsibility, and that's all that you can ask. I think the people who are really not are just like aggregates, and like that's going to exist at the adoption stage of like anything, you know, Like I don't know.

00:46:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that I do think that there is an oversaturation with some of these metrics, and I don't think that it's necessarily anyone's fault, you know. I think that what we're seeing right now is there are there's access, there's there's better access to data. As we talked about before, the access is still gate kept to some degree, right, Like you having access to true media is something that ninety nine percent of even analysts are not going to have access to because.

00:46:31
Speaker 3: There is a thousand people a year asking me what it is and it's like I'm sorry, like yeah, right.

00:46:36
Speaker 1: Right, and it's it's it's a very like like just straight up, it's an expensive thing too that just can't afford, right, and so like that's part of it too. That's why it was like really exciting that next Gen Stats was going to have their one hundred dollars product that they came out with, which has been good. It's not like amazing, you're not querying stuff and stuff like that, but like it's still a relatively decent product that gives you some baseline numbers and stuff like that, or like Fantasy Life even has some pretty good metrics that you can unlock. But my thing is, you know, it just goes back to I do think that there is in like some sort of bonus on us as analysts and you said this too, to at least contextualize what we're saying and not just throw out the data and make the assumption that people know what to do with that data. Right now, I know that I sort of do that with the data dump, but the stuff that I'm doing with the data dump is very very high level type stuff. Like it's just usage stuff, right, It's not, Hey, here's this separation metric that needs a lot of detailed or needs a lot of context around it. And I'm not calling fantasy points out here either, because like you said, they are transparent, you know, with that process. My thing is, I think there's a lot of power that you have that others have that.

00:47:53
Speaker 2: Will tweet out the data stuff.

00:47:55
Speaker 1: And then I've even seen it on my discord where people then use that that tweet or that data point to then when they're when they're chatting with folks in the discord to argue for or against, you know, a certain guy. And then I see it and I'm like, okay, guys, number one, like let's be let's be civil here. But but number two, like here's where you know, like and I try to provide some of the context of what that data might be saying. Right, I'm not like calling I'm just saying like, yeah, of course, like you're tweeting stuff all the time with data and stuff, so of course your name has been thrown out there at times. But like Jasn is a really good example of that, where like again, if we were to tweet out that Jasn's yards per oute run has been bad, you know, is that predictive for future performance? Yeah, I mean there is predictiveness to yards per out run. We know that, but we also know that there are these other factors that aren't necessarily being put in, like like even a dot, you know, like a dot affects yards per oute run.

00:48:53
Speaker 2: Quarterback play affects yards per route run.

00:48:56
Speaker 1: And it's almost like when we talk about yards per route run were you know I do.

00:49:02
Speaker 2: I'm guilty of it too.

00:49:03
Speaker 1: Like I'll go through, Okay, this guy's yards per out run is two point two, he's been good. This guy's only at one point one. We usually don't see guys with that low of yards pro out run rate do X, Y and Z moving forward. But at the same time, you know, I'm looking at Cedric Tillman right now, who last year had a historically bad yards perrout run rate, like horrific, Like Cedric Tillman was one of the worst rookies efficiency wise that I've looked at over the last decade, right, and then he steps into this role. And how I've approached it is I have n't been very aggressive, admittedly with Tilman, and that might end up being in l I'm still grounded in the fact that he wasn't very efficient last year, but you can't be so grounded in that fact that you ignore what he was dealing with, And what he was dealing with was an absolute just atrash just one of the worst quarterback situations you could possibly find in the NFL, right, or a situation where you know he is competing with with some other pass catchers where that yards parow run might fall a little bit, or you know, there's all of these different factors that go into play. You go back to yards par Out run with Green Bay last year, and you know, I'm a Jaden Reed truther, so of course I'm saying, yeah, dude, is his yards par out run was so great last year.

00:50:15
Speaker 2: He's a stud blah blah blah blah, and he has a stud right.

00:50:18
Speaker 1: But it is interesting that we kind of ignored the fact that Bo Melton had a really good yards pro out run rate. And then you're like, well, maybe, just maybe this is a team oriented thing just as much as it was a j Red thing, you know what I mean. And so and I'm looking at it right now. One of my number one examples of this in my opinion right now is Jalen Waddle, because everyone is trashing Wattle right now, and I get it. He has not had and this is not people are gonna say this is cope because I liked Wattle during the season.

00:50:49
Speaker 2: It's not this.

00:50:50
Speaker 1: I have taken the l We're done with that. This is me just trying to look at this objectively. But Jalen Wattle right now, he's been bad through like across the board compared to where we've typically seen Jalen Wattle.

00:51:00
Speaker 2: Right.

00:51:01
Speaker 1: But the thing that is just not being put in the context is that Tyreek Hill has been bad across the board compared to what we're typically seeing from Tyreek Hill has still been better than Jalen Wattle. But I would argue strongly, strongly that the worst pick in fantasy football this year is not Christian McCaffrey. It's not Jalen Wattle, it's Tyreek Hill. Because in Tyreek Hill's case, you're spending a top five pick on the guy and you're never benching him right, and he's giving you eleven PPR points in a given week if he scores right. He's not giving you these Tyreek Hill games, and he's sinking your fantasy rosters. Whereas if you have Christian McCaffrey, you know McCaffrey, you're not taking a zero whenever McCaffrey is out of the lineup. And so Tyreek Hill has had a bad year and Jalen Wattle has had a bad year, and so you have to then look at the team level stuff and say, okay, what's going on. Well, they've been targeting their tight ends a lot more. They've been targeting, They're running backs a lot more. Their offensive line is not great as we know. I mean, it hasn't really been great throughout the McDaniel era, but it's you know, we saw two under pressure a lot last week against the Rams.

00:52:11
Speaker 2: The Rams can generate pressure, but we saw two under pressure.

00:52:14
Speaker 1: And then you have to think about, well, are they doing something this is us talking about sort of like the the intense stuff and sort of the read between the line stuff. Are they doing something different because they want to save tuus health and they want to make sure that something crazy doesn't happen again. Who knows, Like, we don't know those answers. But some of the things that I'm talking about, the poorer offensive line, the shorter, the lower aid dot, you know, getting the ball out to a running back or a tight end, easier targets to just get to quick that all points to maybe they're changing it up because of these other circumstances that we're not really that predictable at the beginning of the season. And so I do think what I'm what I'm really getting at here is that when we just look at it and say Jalen Wattle without context, right has had a bet.

00:53:00
Speaker 4: Ye.

00:53:01
Speaker 1: What that's going to do is that in the future, you're going to assume that Jalen Waddle is a bad football player when we have four years of data showing that. These are three years of other data showing that he's a really good football player.

00:53:16
Speaker 2: Right, we have way more data showing that he's good than he's bad.

00:53:19
Speaker 1: And just because the most recent thing is showing that he's bad and you're not giving any context to that, I think that's where bad process comes into play. And so when you or me or Dwayne or whoever goes out to Twitter and has a one off tweet about Jalen Waddle's yards per out run rate, I do think that it's important, you know, if someone at least comes back to us and says something to us about well, blah blah blah blah blah, to at least recognize, yeah, there's a lot more context, or to maybe even preface that there's a lot more context to that kind of.

00:53:49
Speaker 4: Thing for sure.

00:53:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, another thing we didn't bring up with Wattle is it's been matchup dependent. They've they've played a ton of defenses that like funnel targets the running.

00:53:57
Speaker 2: Backs exactly like the Bulls twice, right, like.

00:53:59
Speaker 3: The Bills Cardinals. Yes, yes, that's sixty percent of his games with too, exactly exactly, Yeah, I know, Jim Lottle, I've been going on a crusade. It's like this guy averaged more yards for a run collegiate career than anyone drafted from twenty twenty on. That's CD Lamb's Chumar Chase. That's Devanta Smith, widely considered the best collegiate receiver of all time. He's insanely good. Yeah, that's you know, that's a looseight here.

00:54:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right.

00:54:24
Speaker 1: And the other thing though, too, is that like with data and with these ideas, because like I love coming up with general ideas and narratives that can sort of help, you know, like communicate the ideas in a better way. Right, So, like us backfields right started discussing this like like eight or nine years ago, and when I talked about it, it's like it's a very easy to sort of like understand thing, and then I'm going to provide data with it and stuff like that.

00:54:51
Speaker 2: One of the things.

00:54:52
Speaker 1: Too, I do a lot of research with like ADP data, and one of the things that popped up multiple times over the last handful of years. But in particul this year was that team wide receiver twos who were drafted as wide receiver twos. So I'm talking wide receiver thirteen to twenty four and ADP and they're their team wide receiver two. So Jalen Wattle, DeVante Smith, they've actually been better than the alternative historically by ADP in terms of like exceeding ADP and such, and so I don't think you, like I said earlier the offseason, like I don't think you have to go out of your way to obtain those players, but don't fade those players because they're their team's wide receiver two.

00:55:30
Speaker 2: Is really what I concluded with it.

00:55:32
Speaker 1: So now people see Jalen Wattle and Davante Smith not living up to expectation this year without putting context around that, the context of Jalen Waddle that we just talked about, DeVante Smith. The Eagles are have thrown the fewest passing thems per game in the football like they're they're not. They have the fewest targets per game in all of football, and so naturally a guy who he's still seeing decent enough target shares. It's just that they're not throwing the ball nearly as much as what any of us projected. If we knew that the Eagles were going to be last in the league in total targets per game this year, Davante Smith wouldn't have been a wide receiver too, he would have been drafted that way, you know. And so I do think it's just really really important to not say, like, oh, well, wide receiver two is no matter what they're going to work out or there better.

00:56:15
Speaker 2: No, there's just so much context that that's that's necessary and needed there for sure.

00:56:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's I love.

00:56:21
Speaker 3: Like I called you in and Duayne Grounding Forces, it's because you do research like that. Like I mostly I would love to do that stuff, but I'm mostly like just so obsessed with the player and coach stuff that I just like get so deep into that world.

00:56:33
Speaker 4: But that that stuff is important for sure.

00:56:35
Speaker 1: My favorite thing in the world is ADP, like like analyzing market trends and trying to like beat the market that way and be smarter than the market, because I just think there's a lot to be gleaned there, and there's a lot of analysts that just aren't doing that work too, And there's an opportunity for it all. Right, before we end this, before I let you go, I want to really quickly talk about metrics that.

00:56:58
Speaker 2: You think are overrated and underrated.

00:57:00
Speaker 1: So is there a metric out there that you think is really undervalued and underrated right now?

00:57:05
Speaker 2: And then on the flip side, a metric or two that are overrated.

00:57:09
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

00:57:10
Speaker 3: First downs per route run I wanted to talk about, and while we're here, I really do think that we should be playing in point per first down leagues more than PPR. I think that makes sense. First downs are more important in moving the chain, scoring touchdowns, winning football than receptions. I started one this year and it has been really fun. I have some examples, but I kind of want to avoid the players, just because I think it would be fun to do an entire podcast and not give any actionable takeawy yea'd.

00:57:34
Speaker 4: Be g awesome.

00:57:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have no player takes throughout this entire thing.

00:57:38
Speaker 3: I'll give some player takes. First down per route run. Ryan Heath researched it and really brought this more into the forefront of I think, you know, the fantasy football consciousness this offseason. Higher correlation to fantasy production than yards peru run, which is really interest because yourarts preader run has kind of been the wholy grail for reide deceiver stats and it's all so not just is it like, has it been predictive? It's also important to go like hand in hand with yards per route run because the ards per run could be really influenced by big plays, whereas like an eight r touchdown to George Pickens really boosts that yard per run rate is just one first down and then yeah, I do think it also might be I want to research this more. Might be a signal to like a player who becomes really important in the offense if they're converting first downs, then maybe the offense starts to give them more and more looks because that is really important. And so Juwan Jennings always been good at converting first downs. Third, and Juan he is awesome. All of his PARAT data on the year is awesome. He pops in first down perrout run rate as well, and I think he legitimately might be a league winner for people. I know that people push back on that because they're like, who this guy has been a fourth why did he report for his whole career now? He's gonna be league winner maybe. I mean he's been behind some of the best players in the NFL, like on the San Francisco forty nine ers, and he is fourth in yards per out run on the year, and like of all players like behind just Nico Collins and Brown adjustin Jefferson out and now he's stepping into this expanded role, basically playing the Brandon Iyuk role. He has really good separation scores. He's very very good against press coverage they're placing. They're facing the press coverage every team this week, and a lot of them down the stretch. The other thing is the Niners have the second highest projected point total from Vegas carrying forward for the Fantasy playoffs to from this point on, only the Lions are expected to score more points. So I think that we're going to see some big fantasy point totals in San Francisco. And then another stat that's really good, this is also available Fantasy points data, is first retarget rate and he completely dominated that for San Francisco this past week. I think it was thirty nine percent of the first retargets went to Juwan, So really psyched about him. Mark Andrews I would bring up. In terms of first downs per route run, I think he's top five. I just we did this out. John new Smith, by the way, is first. That's a bit fluky. Yeah, But in terms of first downs per route run at the tight end position, Mark Andrews is third, behind only John hu Smith and George Kittle. Just behind those guys are train with Bride, Brock Bowers, Travis Kelcey. So it's not a it's a stable stat. It's not a fluky stat. I say it's fluky for John of Smith because his route rates have been about fifty percent on the year and so it sample sizes smaller than the rest of these tight ends and that's sort of coming into play here with Andrews too.

01:00:27
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:00:30
Speaker 3: But I do think there have been some encouraging underlying data points for Andrews all year, and I think it's possible that we're seeing him round back into form. He did have that car crash, and like that could be something that affects him, you know, like that is a traumatic incident that happened to him right before the start of the season, and then he's going into a high contact sport and I don't know I don't know idea what it's like, but we have seen him looking more like himself lately, and I just think he's interesting because a lot of people have left him for dead.

01:00:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the thing with Andrews that scares me is just simply are they going, Like, like the question is not talent for me, it's just are they going to you? Because like it's no coincidence that he saw a ninety four percent route here last week because Isaiah likely was out, you.

01:01:12
Speaker 3: Know what I mean.

01:01:13
Speaker 1: And so like the question really comes down to are you gonna believe that they use it more? Are you gonna believe that they don't use it more? You know, or that that they're gonna revert back to the most of the season, you know, in that like sixty ish percent sixty to seventy percent route participation. But I'm with you, Like, I mean, look, I had I had Andrews as a target this year.

01:01:33
Speaker 2: I had to to eat that l early in the season.

01:01:36
Speaker 1: Fortunately I have him in Best Ball, where he's been a much better fantasy asset, so you don't have to because like that's the other thing with Andrews, man, is that like, like we sit here and I talked about this a little bit on my my live stream with my my patrons this week. But with Andrews, the first four weeks was terrible, like not not playable, but we were playing him right Like I always try to think about the psychology of a start sit and the four weeks with Andrews, we're not playing him at all. And then week five comes, we're like, well, we're not going to play Andrews because he's been horrible. He has an okay game in week five, and then the next week you're like, oh, I can't really play him because you know he has been good all year, and then he has a touchdown like he and he pulls the streak together of like scoring a lot of touchdowns. But it wasn't until last week that we really saw like the good good peripherals, like the the the Mark Andrews of old, if you will. And that's the only thing that would scare me with Andrews is like are they going to use him or is this in Isaiah likely annoyance annoyance thing? You know, Moving forward, I think that he'll at least be efficient enough to be like a top ten guy, you know, at the end of the day.

01:02:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.

01:02:40
Speaker 3: I do think it's interesting at least that he did see that role expand so much, because I had wondered if they were just not going to do that, if it was health related or something. I thought there's a chance that he would stay in sort of the same role and Charlie Colaarer would play more. I think they like him. He's somebody who has some talent and has made some plays this year, but they didn't. They just like, let Andrews be the guy, and so I think it's possible play as approaching they do kind of shift.

01:03:01
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope, Yeah, I hope.

01:03:03
Speaker 3: Another guy I wanted to bring up through the lens of first downs per out run is Terry McLaurin. And I'm really curious to Jay to get your thoughts on mclauren because I my thoughts are very jumbled. I have no idea what to make of him. But he is just behind Juwan Jennings as the wide receiver six in first downs per out run. He's been integral to the offense in the red zone and just in this instance, in converting first downs. On one hand, it seems impossible that he can continue to score like half of the Commanders exceeding touchdowns. On the other hand, it's kind of seems impossible that the Washington Commanders are going to like continue to only score rushing touchdowns. Like I do feel like Jayden Daniels is probably good enough to score more than zero point eight passing touchdowns per game or whatever he's at right now, And so like, I'm curious, like what you make of Terry because he's been really, really consistent, which is not that's atypical for him, and it's not necessarily come on like a huge target increase. His target rates are higher than the never been as first dark rate, high than it's ever been. Sure, But like, I just don't know what to make of the guy, and I'm curious we have any thoughts.

01:04:05
Speaker 1: No, I think that your point about how they're scoring touchdowns is very very important. They right now, I just pulled it up. They have eleven passing touchdown This is pre Thursday night football. They have eleven passing touchdowns and eighteen rushing touchdowns. They're past a touchdown rate if you touchdown rate if you will, is thirty eight percent, which is by far the lowest of football. Philadelphia actually who they're playing tonight, their second lowest in the league. But the thing that I've always been intrigued by is by comparing that number, which is how teams are scoring touchdowns to their overall pass rate, because usually there is some correlation between teams that it's not super super strong, but there is some correlation between pass rate, So how pass heavy a team is to how they're scoring their touchdowns. So obviously a team that's throwing the ball a lot will probably see a lot of their touchdowns come through the air versus on the ground. And right now they I have a very just a linear formula of a expected passing touchdown rate, and right now they're numbers at thirty eight percent. So again they have eleven passing touchdowns out of twenty nine total touchdowns. It should be closer to fifty five percent. So there is that regression that should hit in terms of how they're scoring their touchdowns. So to me, the McLaurin thing is kind of moot, where he should see a smaller share of their receiving touchdowns versus you know, there is some touchdown regression coming from that perspective, but you also have to factor in how they're scoring their touchdowns, and how they're scoring them is not through the air. Now they're going to skew more towards the ground a little bit because they have, you know, a run heavy approach, and you know, they're the most run heavy team in neutral game scripts according to some ways of measuring that. You know, obviously Jayden Daniels can steal some some touchdowns too, you know, as a mobile quarterback. But we should see this revert a little bit. And so if it reverts a little bit and they start to throw for a little bit more touchdowns, even if mclaurin's share isn't as large, he can still maintain what he's doing. I don't think he's going to be better than what he's doing, but I think you at least maintain it.

01:06:03
Speaker 4: That's what I'm meant too.

01:06:04
Speaker 3: As far as overeaded metric, I thought the matchup points that you and Duyne brought up were really good. I think there's a ton of double counting that comes into effect. I've been guilty of that for sure. When I first found the matchup data. It's basically the same story that you and Duyne told. You just get obsessed with it. It's so yeah, yeah, at this point, I do. I try to keep it pretty simple where it's just like the extremes. I think that press coverage information is really interesting, and that's something that gets a little bit overlooked because it's not publicly available, like it's not even on Fantasy Points data, and that's something that will hopefully become more mainstream. But like there are some receivers like George Pickens for instance, completely dominance gets press and that's no surprise. And there are some defenses that use press coverage like eighty percent at the time, it's a little you know, it's a lot more prevalent than like man coverage, where the most used is like fifty percent and the average is like twenty percent. Like press coverage the average is like fifty or sixty percent. So I think that is something to keep an eye out for in terms of matchups. But overall, I think matchups we're doing a lot of nothing. The other overrated metric and MS talking about doing a lot of nothing is running backs rushing stats. I feel like there's so much contacts being missed with what happens to the line of scrimmage for well, I wish we could just have some better rushing stats, and I think that will come in time, hopefully, But even then, like rushing efficiency is just overstated for fantasy, Like less than half of PPR production at the running back position is the result of rushing yardage, which that's like nearly six percent is receiving or touchdowns. If you look at the top ten and fantasy running backs like four to ten have pretty brutal rushing efficiency metrics like Kirim Williams, Devon Han Bresall, Hama Kamara. And why is that? Is it because they've been bad? No, I think they've all been really good this year. I think it's just because rushing efficiency metrics are mostly fake. They're fun, then they are descriptive, like and like you can like point to Bucky Irving's rushing metrics and Tyrone Tracy's rushing metrics and like show what they've been good at and how impressive what they've done is and all that, but for fantasy purposes, like, if you care about them at all, you're probably caring too much.

01:08:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've I've railed against this for years. At this point.

01:08:07
Speaker 1: One of the things I do tend to do is at least look at similar situations with players on the same team, right, So, like, yeah, I think it was glaring early in the season to see how much better Chase Brown was than Zach Moss. Like when it's when it's so unbelievably obvious, right, Like when it's so and then you know there's other things like oh, do they trust him in past pro and blah blah blah blah blah that you can talk about. But like, just like as a player, and I think we saw it a little bit with Bucky Irving earlier this year with Rashad White, where White has just been a pretty inefficient runner on the ground. But but again, like I was a Rashad White guy last year because people were fading him due to the rushing metrics, like due to what he how inefficient he was on the ground, But like that doesn't it just doesn't matter.

01:08:52
Speaker 4: It did not matter at all. It doesn't matter.

01:08:54
Speaker 3: It was the same story, was not efficient as a runner at all, was a running back form fantasy exactly.

01:08:58
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's not nearly as big a deal as people think. Whenever you have especially when you have a good pass pass catching profile like he does, and even right now with Rashad White, like he's not going to lose a role in this offense because he has a pass catching uh uh acumen. Like he's he's a good he's always been dating back to college. He was a great pass catcher in college. Like, this is not a thing that is just gonna disappear and go away. I can say that I'd prefer Bucky Irving over Rashad White because of X, Y and Z, which you know, it's it's that's for another day. But you know, like I I never really bought into like Irving just like taking over everything in that backfield because when a player, when a running back shows off a skill set that's more important to the game of football, which is catching the ball at the backfield versus running it. Well, you know, to me, what's replaceable is the rushing part for the most part. And unless you're uh someone who's just like ungodly efficient and it's just very obvious that you know, you're just a very very special back I do.

01:09:57
Speaker 3: I think Bucky Irving is so good at everything that he could basically over the backfield. And when I say that, it's not one hundred percent obviously, but like sixty five percent and including like being the main guy on passing doubts as well, because he can pass block.

01:10:08
Speaker 2: He's he's good as a receiver too.

01:10:09
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's possible they might just realize, like he's better at everything.

01:10:12
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And look, I in my Mailbag episode I literally talked about this. Were like, not only do I think that they could just use him more because he's the rookie, they want to see what they have all that kind of stuff, and he's been really really good, but also their schedule down the stretch really favors a runner and an efficient runner more than the negative game script, long down in distance kind of running back that Rashad White has become.

01:10:35
Speaker 3: I just think it's really interesting. I looked at Vegas look ahead lines and the Bucks were only twenty second of projected points from this point on, and I'm like, that's crazy. Either fifth in points, what is that about. It's because the over unders in their games are like the third lowest or something. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, that they're projected to win all these games, but it's gonna be low scoring games because it gets the Giants and the Panthers and stuff like that, and so like that scares me a little bit for Mike Evans, but like, who really The takeaway I think is like, this is exciting for Bucky Irving. I think a lot of game scripts is set up really well for the lead back to rushing back.

01:11:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and the like That's That's what I'm really saying though about Rashad White, is that we want running backs in fantasy football that because we're gonna be wrong predicting game script all the time, We're gonna be wrong with predicting how a game is gonna go down. We can say with confidence Tampa Bay is gonna go to and zero against Carolina, they'll beat Dallas, blah blah blah blah blah, but we don't know for sure that's gonna happen. And so out of our fantasy running backs, we want the guys who are on the field no matter what, right, And I don't think that we're gonna get to that point with Bucky Irving this year where if they are in a negative game script, it then becomes more of the Rashad White Show, which is what we've seen over the last month. But to your point, my point is, I mean, the schedule looks like on paper, this looks like it could be the Bucky Irving takeover, Like it could.

01:11:45
Speaker 2: Be that happening.

01:11:46
Speaker 1: I just you know, it's it's it's still I don't think ever this season gonna be the full Bucky Irving takeover of Even in those bad game scripts, you know, he becomes like the dude in that bad I.

01:11:58
Speaker 4: Could see it being like Tony Pollard and Spears split we're white.

01:12:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right right, that's a really good example.

01:12:04
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:12:04
Speaker 3: On the Chase Brown note, did you see that he was a past protector much more than he's ever been. This past week, Josh has tweeted out the passport reps.

01:12:10
Speaker 4: He looked good.

01:12:11
Speaker 3: They used them more that way. He was running back one in route rate this week. Yeah, baby, So yeah, we're cooking like some really exciting stuff. I was a little bit hesitant after the week before. I people were ready disappoint him because he had thirty two touches or whatever. But like those roles didn't change that much. But if they're going to trust them in that role, then it's like, yeah, this is like a top five potential running back the Bengals. I think we're third or fourth in projected points from now till Week seventeen.

01:12:33
Speaker 1: I think that one of the most overrated things in football is running back pass protection. And the reason I say that is because my belief is that there are going to be guys at the extreme who are really really good at it and really really bad at it. But the delta between the guys, you know, the the guys who are ranked like fifth to ninety fifth, you know, like like not the edge guys, but just the majority of running backs, the true delta between how good or bad they are a pass pro is not significant enough to play the inferior player, right, which is why, you know, like with Chase Brown after his slow started the season in Fantasy, one of my transactions was to hold him because I think logically, you know, sure, Zach Moss is quote better in pass pro than Chase Brown, but Zach, You're you're still losing something by playing Zach Brown over Chase or Zach Moss over Chase Brown. You know, you're still losing the talent, the ability of the big playability, all that kind of stuff whenever you're playing the inferior player. So my my this isn't a take that's like coaches believe it. I don't think coaches believe this at all, because we see it all the time where they're using the quote better pass protector over the other guy. But I think a lot of times they're just not giving the other guy enough reps to be able to show that they're not significantly worse than the guy who's in front of them. And so I'm hoping that more coaches realize it because I think it could end up being an edge in a way where you're kind of like you're saying to yourself, like, yeah, I mean, intuitive we should we should want the guy who's better in pass pro, but realistically, I don't think that the payoff is really there at the end of the day.

01:14:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an interesting point.

01:14:07
Speaker 3: I didn't have any Chase Brown this year because I wasn't confident in his ability to do anything other than being early down back, and the Bengals passed so much that I was like, not really that interested in that.

01:14:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well in Zach mosk I mean, Zach Moskeet's hurt, and so it's you know, it's been a it's been a good runout. And then the guy they replace Zach Moss with is really kind of like a Chase Brown duplicate. It's like like, all right, well, I guess we're riding with Chase Brown now. But anyway, all right, we've gotten way way over, Jacob. I really appreciate your time. Is really fun chopping it up and getting kind of high level and not really you know, throwing the player takes around.

01:14:38
Speaker 2: But let everyone know where they can find you and what you're working.

01:14:40
Speaker 4: On at j A.

01:14:42
Speaker 3: Gibbs Underscore two three on Twitter, Google my name or f FT Newsletter and check out my free newsletter if you like this, you know, advanced data stuff. That's what we're doing over there beyond the box Score on YouTube. I just started that podcast and it's it's been a lot of fun. We had really really cool guests on Nate so brought him up. He was on the he was on you could listen to us talk. There's a lot of evergreen stuff in that one. It's Drake May and Jane Daniels and Marvin Harrison Junior and all that kind of stuff that should be relevant for a while. So yep, check it out and thank you so much, jaj.

01:15:12
Speaker 4: This is dope. Yeah.

01:15:13
Speaker 1: Of course, of course you guys can find my stuff over on Lateround dot com as usual, make sure you're taking advantage of the underdog offer and make sure that you have a great week.

01:15:23
Speaker 2: Eleven. As always everyone, thanks for tuning in.