Late-Round Perspectives: Greg Brainos

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Greg Brainos is the founder and creator of the Coach Speak Index. He's an award winning comedy screenwriter. He loves everything about gambling. He's got a crazy story about his upbringing, and he's definitely watched more coach press conferences than you have. These are his Late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. If you haven't played over an underdog yet, now's the perfect time. There are tons of different best ball leagues that you can join, and there's definitely a league out there that fits what you're looking for and you can use all the things that I've talked about with guests. I'm becoming a best ball bro to crush those drafts. But like I said, now's the right time to join up because if you go and you sign up and use promo code Late Round, you not only get a nice deposit offer, but you also get a free Late Round Draft guide that's a twenty five dollars guide email to your inbox after signing up for absolutely free. So head to Underdog Fantasy dot com, sign up using promo code late Round, and make it a posit. I can confirm it's a really, really fun platform to play on now back to the show. You are the first show that I've done with glasses. Ooh yeah, yeah, feel honored. That's a huge honor, my man.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: It's it's not at all looking great.

00:01:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.

00:01:27
Speaker 2: Double smart. Now we're double counting like we often do with fantasy and everything.

00:01:34
Speaker 1: With literally anything fantasy football. Uh yeah, it's it's been a it's been a change.

00:01:38
Speaker 3: Man.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have relatively bad eyesetter bad eyester, if you were have a prescription. But I put these glasses on. I got them yesterday. My eyesight's not bad enough where I have to necessarily wear them all the time. But I'm one of those people that when I see an enhancement or when I just feel so much better, Like I changed my diet three four years ago, and and I just felt so good that I just it's I don't want to ever not do what I do now because I just feel so much better right And I feel that way while we're in these glasses, man, Like I feel like I can see through walls at this point. They're my eyes are just so much better, So I think I might just wear them often.

00:02:16
Speaker 2: This is this is someone who is gonna win Best Ball Mania and and and in place one through ten this year.

00:02:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's uh, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves because I might have a little bit too much Zach sharbonnay with all of the uh the Kenneth Walker stuff going on. But we'll talk about that in a second. The thing that I really want to kick things off with is coach speak Index. It's been something that has really really done you. I mean, you've done an amazing job with it over the last year or so. And I know you sent that like montage video out. Was that the one year anniversary.

00:02:49
Speaker 3: When you're anniversarypeaconnextion?

00:02:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so you spent that you sent that that montage out.

00:02:53
Speaker 3: I was.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: I was very honored to be part of that in some form whenever we had that big uh ship chasing live stream. But it's still, you know, a relatively new thing to the fantasy football space. But you've done a great job growing it and getting it out there. Before we get into coach speak Index, what that's all about, I want you to just let the listeners know what you're about, who you are, where you come from, all that good stuff.

00:03:17
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's much too long for just one show I had a really crazy upbringing. I was raised in a cult in North Carolina and got out of that at twenty years old, started to get out of it. Wow. Yeah, And it's kind of I mean, of course, it's shaped who I am, right, And there are a lot of things that you know, I would have liked to have enjoyed a normal childhood where I could have played sports. And you know, I loved and BA and I wasn't allowed to watch NBA. I had to follow it in the newspaper because we weren't allowed to watch television. Yeah, so that that that just like made me want to watch it even more.

00:04:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:04:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then as an adult I really got into NFL. And you know, all these experiences just kind of shape me. The My father wasn't part of this cult. Everyone else in my family. It wasn't like a commune thing. It was you know, going to church like four or five times a week, and the pastor had to make all of the decisions for you. You had a life decision, you had to bring it to the pastor. And just like very oppressive, none of the God has loved stuff. Just God could come back at any moment and you know, you're going to hell if you don't do exactly every single thing that I say. Yeah, so if I my was able to get out of that because my dad the the one thing that he put his foot down on, right, he let my mom control everything else, and which which I blamed her for a long time, I don't anymore. She was just doing what she thought was right. It wasn't malicious. But the one thing he put his foot down on was greg is going to college. You know, that was something that that the church didn't want because it opens you up to new experiences. And I went to college and I was like, oh, okay, I liked this lifestyle a lot, a lot more.

00:05:33
Speaker 1: This is a lot better than the than the one that I was living, right.

00:05:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I really got into poker in college and that ended up leading to a lot of really great friendships and in gambling of course, and I was able to watch sports and really fell in love with with NFL, and in this whole process of of growing up kind of repressed. It's a lot of day dreaming, it's a lot of reading because you're not allowed to watch anything. So that kind of started to shape who I was and just a lot of you know, daydreaming and creative thinking, and I think that kind of turned me into a out of the box thinker. Yeah, and just the creative problem solving kind of stuff. And for instance, I'll give you a good example of this is in twenty ten, I was working as a brand strategist for my buddy's restaurants in North Carolina and the World Cup was happening and England was playing the USA on the second day of the World Cup, and my buddy asked me, Hey, do you have any ideas of like, how can we pack the restaurants for this match? And I thought for a good like ten fifteen minutes and had this idea. And he was a gambler, so I knew he would love it. I said, Okay, the US is seven to one to win this match according to the bookmakers. So what you do is you say, if the US wins, we're going to give away all the food. There's no cap on how much you can order, no cap on the amount, and if the US wins, it's all free. And now you figure out what your food cost would be if you were to give away all this food for free and all the restaurants are packed and then you bet a percentage of that on the US money line to win, and they just packed out all their locations. People were ordering like steaks and just crazy amounts of appetizers for the table, and the US ends up drawing that game so they don't have to give away that food for free. So that's just like one of the types of Yeah, the way the way.

00:08:04
Speaker 1: Your brain thinks about this kind of stuff and thinks about I guess the world even beyond football just in general. So have you been like throughout like after college, what kind of stuff were you doing that then led you to where coach speak indecks even just starting coach speak index.

00:08:21
Speaker 2: Uh, A lot of NFL gambling, a lot of fantasy stuff, and uh I ran an underground high stakes poker game for a long time, and uh we you know we we we had home leagues for for fantasy there. And you know, gamblers are very in tune with with sports and and and the NFL especially, so just you know, we're constantly talking about that stuff and and also in in in poker and in this world. It's like, Okay, what are the what are the edges? Right? What are the what are the angles that that will give us a big edge over everyone else that that we're playing again, So just kind of always looking for that for that edge is is what led to coach speaking nix and and this I think is one of my like, I guess least creative ideas, Like I couldn't believe that no one had done it up to this point. It just it just seems so like natural that Jim Jim Caldwell saying Calvin Johnson completely healthy, definitely not going to be a decoy out there on Sunday, And we just constantly get this from coaches and coach speakers. Has played fantasy football for the two decades that that I've played, And then in twenty twenty kind of hit the breaking point with Zach Taylor calling Joe Mixon day to day for weeks and then he goes on IR and and and misses the rest of the season, and I was just tired of getting rug pulled and quickly came to the realization, well quickly after a couple of decades, but came to the realization of well, hindsight's twenty twenty. I can go back six years on every coach look at all their actionable coach speak you know, looking at their press conferences and press conference transcripts and everything that they've said, and just log that into a database and grade each piece of coach speak is true or or a lie or a grey area. You know, put in put in full comments so I can go back and reference it whenever we get things like language matches of a you know, Pete Carroll saying no hesitation playing Jackson Smith and Jib but well he said no hesitation about about these other players in the past, and they played like thirty percent of snaps in those games.

00:10:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna ask.

00:10:49
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're definitely gonna get into the coach speak stuff. Number first thing I want to say one of the top things that I always tell people when they're like, hey, how can I, you know, do this as a job. How can I make it in the space, Like do you have any tips for that? And you know, aside from me telling them to like do what you're good at, be yourself, that kind of thing, which I think is ungodly important. You know, I think it's really really important to differentiate yourself and find something that's not being served up. And everyone's like, oh, but the industry is so saturated with all this content and all this stuff, like, how am I ever gonna find something that's not being served up? This is the perfect example, guys, is what Greg's doing with coach speak Index. There's something out there that's not being served and he says, hey, look this is something that I can do, and then I worked on and now all of a sudden we have a really really great source to get clips and to see what coaches are saying. And then obviously you know what you're saying is is the grading system. So let's talk about coach speak Index for a little bit. So if you could describe it in a handful of sentences paragraph, however long you want to talk about it, how would you pitch or describe coach speak Index as someone who hasn't checked.

00:11:54
Speaker 3: It out yet.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: I'm so terrible at encapsulating these times.

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Speaker 3: I am too, I am.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: And they always say that a business isn't good if you can't, you know, describe it in a sentence or whatever.

00:12:06
Speaker 3: I'm like, screw that. Just tell us what coach speaking indexes are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you go to my my letter box and and my movie refused is just like I really like this one. Yeah, Yeah, coach Speak indexes is is a fantasy football tool that it's it's a coach speaks solver, and it it gives you all of the context that you need to approach each piece of coach speak and kind of translate it into how this is going to affect a player for the season. I don't know if that's good.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: Good, that's no, that's really that's a very very good and concise I just wanted to give you breathing room if you wanted to talk any more about it.

00:12:47
Speaker 3: It's a very good and concise way of describing it.

00:12:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about this. It's the most important tool in fantasy football right now?

00:12:54
Speaker 3: There you go? There, there you go.

00:12:57
Speaker 1: Uh So you were you're mentioning like how you grade coaches and such. You have these like trustworthiness scores and such, you know, to show these meters to show how trustworthy a coach may or may not be. Can you talk a little bit about that process and how those were created. You kind of hinted at it that you went back like the last six years and started to you know, grade and look at how coaches were talking about their players, and are those things you know, constantly changing as you get more data in like if a guy was really trustworthy for the last five years and all of a sudden something changed and he's like, you know what, I'm gonna be a jerk to the media and you know, into fantasy players all around and just not be trustworthy.

00:13:37
Speaker 2: When when I started building the database for the coach Speak Index, Pete Carroll was was the first coach that I started with, And originally I was thinking, Okay, I'm just gonna log everything that these coaches say and it'll be sort of one big thing of this coach a liar across the border, or this coach is honest across the board, and very quickly found out, oh, oh okay, I need to break these down into categories of depth, chart, injuries, transactions, usage, and workload, because coaches are sometimes very honest in one category and then you know, completely unreliable in another. Now now some coaches will will across the board be very honest or or whatever. You rarely see one that's just kind of a liar across the board. So it's really important to to create those categories and put coach speak in those. In those categories, I do grade them. I weigh each piece of coach speak differently because there are there's this whole whole scale to this right of of of Zach Taylor calling calling Jim Mixon day to day and then he's out for months, like that's egregious. But then a coach saying a guy is is day to day and you know he comes back three weeks later. Okay, that's not quite as bad. It's still a strike, but it's not quite as bad. And then you have some coaches who like really nail something like Dan Campbell talking about David Montgomery and Jamior Gibbs is usage last season. Everyone thought that, oh, they spent this high draft pick on on Gibbs, Montgomery's buried and and Dan Campbell told us that that was not the case and that Montgomery was going to carry a load for them, which he did, so that you know, that grades out really well for him. As far as coaches kind of changing their their spots, you don't usually see that for a coach who's been in the league a long time. Yeah, we did see that with Brian Dable pretty honest in his first season and then second season like pretty unreliable, and Brandon Staley also kind of the same thing. Early on reliable and then turned completely unreliable. And I think that goes to sort of, uh, their psychological profile of when things were going well for them, it was easy for them to be honest, and when their backs are up against the wall and and their their teams are performing horribly, then it's okay, the gamesmanship is is coming out now.

00:16:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it also could just be their like general feelings about life. Right We're just like, yeah, I don't want I don't want to deal with you guys right now. I'm not gonna give you an honest answer. Just just just just brush it off and just not worry about it. That that's really interesting though, Like that, you know, when when things were good, they seem to be a little bit more trustworthy. Then you know when when things sort of went south, how difficult is it? Then you know you get like Brian Callahan right now going to Tennessee new head coach. You know, obviously he was an offensive coordinator for years, and you know, most coaches are going to have a coordinator job for some amount of time, you know, for a while. But we might see a college coach get promoted, We might see a special teams coach where I'm sure there's a lot less information on and stuff. How do you do things with newer coaches and implementing the coach speak index.

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Speaker 2: With with the newer coaches, Well, of course we have the kind of qualifiers of you know, insufficient data on the reliability meters or when we start having some data, you know, we'll put a low sample size on that. But you look for certain signals from these guys. And one of them, for instance, is they asked Drawd Mayo about an injured player and he said, I'm actually not quite sure right now, and I don't want to tell you something and then that ends up not being true. So uh, I'll just tell you like I don't know right now that I mean, that's We're not We're not gonna be super super bullish and say, okay, everything he says is gonna be honest and in the truth, but definitely okay. We're starting to lay kind of a groundwork here for for his profile. With with Brian Callahan, it's and and many of these coaches, it's first of all, does what they're mate, Does what they're saying make sense? Does it align with what we are hearing out of training camp? Does it align with what their offensive coordinator is saying as well, when when Brian Callahan was in Cincinnati, the things that he was saying didn't always align with what Zach Taylor was saying. Zach, Brian Callahan was saying, I want Joe Mixon on the field on all three downs, and Zach Taylor said that samaj p Ryan is gonna play on third downs and and Joe Mixon isn't gonna play that much on third downs, and of course the head coach one out there. But with Brian Callahan calling the the running backs interchangeable, and then Nick Holts, the offensive coordinator, saying that Tony Pollard in ty J. Spears or one A and one B. Then you get the unofficial depth chart coming out where they're listed as co starters and and and and then you know, you look at what the GM rain Carthon has has said about ty J. Spears that like he's about like that good ship, you know, just like loves this guy. So yeah, you're just like looking for for signals. You're not immediately saying, Okay, this this is an honest guy or this is a misleading guy. Now, now when they do say stuff that that misleads that's a much stronger signal. We we kind of saw this with Damiko Ryan's last season with with player usage, so it's it's it's a work in progress. They're definitely tougher to gauge, obviously than coaches that we have huge sample sizes on.

00:20:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's really no different than like prospecting and prospects and rookies entering the league right where you know, you have a sample of guys of veterans that we've seen a lot of. We know that Justin Jefferson's a good wide receiver. We think that Marvin Harrison Junior and the league neighbors are elite wide receivers, but we haven't necessarily seen that yet, so we're not putting them in the same category as of Justin Jefferson just yet. Similarly, you know, you might be bullish about a guy like Brian Callahan the way that he's answering questions or how he's aligned with the rest of his coaches, but we don't know for sure yet, So I do that's great that there's you know, that that open mindedness to things being a little bit more volatile with those newer coaches are there are there coaches, and I know there are, but which coaches I should say, have you found to be the most and least trustworthy with all of your years of research and data.

00:21:00
Speaker 2: So there are five head coaches who have a reliability rating of at least eighty percent in all four categories. That's Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Dan Campbell, Todd Bowles, and Nick Sirianni. So all pretty reliable in all those different areas, and they're all pretty candid when they are asked questions about stuff. You know, we see this with Sean McVay on injuries all the time. Just I mean, you ask him an injury question, like he'll answer it. He'll answer it the large majority of the time. And if a player, if he doesn't expect a player to play, like he'll tell you, yeah, I don't think this guy's going to be able to play this week, or like it's fifty to fifty or whatever. And then Dan Campbell, you ask him about how is this player performing in camp and if they're not performing well, he will tell you that same thing with Todd Bowles. So love when these coaches are both candid and you know, reliable as far as least reliable. We got rid of the two least reliable this past coaching cycle with Bill Belichick and Arthur Smith. So the one that we have left now is Robert Sala, who is extremely unreliable. Really funny situation last year with offensive lineman Dwayne Brown where he missed three days of practice and and Sala said, or they asked, Sala, is he going to be able to play? You know, missing three days of practice? He was like, yeah, yeah, he'll be good to go. They put him on injured reserve the very next day. That's just like one example from from Sala.

00:22:49
Speaker 1: So yeah, do you think that do you think that's sometimes like in that Sala example, like it could just be that he's that disconnected from what's going on with the team. Not to say that that would make the coach speak index unreliable because that's obviously a trait. Then that could just continue throughout their tenure wherever they're coaching, But do you think that that could play a role as well.

00:23:09
Speaker 2: I mean, when you see this pattern of these things happening over and over, I just can't believe that that this guy has no idea of the operation of his of his team and like the health of it of his players.

00:23:21
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, So it's like a combination of like maybe he sucks as a leader, but also maybe he's just a liar, and either way, he's not a reliable, you know.

00:23:31
Speaker 3: A coach.

00:23:31
Speaker 1: When it comes to the coach speak index stuff, one thing I want to talk to you about is, you know, it's very easy. You know, the whole reason why people talk about coach speak often at least on like fantasy shows and such, is because of the unreliability of what coaches are saying. And obviously you're trying to solve that with coach speak index to say, well, this guy is reliable, this guy isn't reliable. But then oftentimes you'll see fantasy managers run with these ideas of what coaches are saying, one example being you know, what's going on, let's say with I mean, let's just say, I mean, we're gonna talk about some backfields, but let's just say let's just let's talk about the Kenneth Walker thing really quick, where you know, uh, all the coaches are coming out saying that he's crushing camp, and then you get Ryan Grubbed, their offensive coordinator. You had tweeted this the other day about or saying that Kenneth Walker is looking like a three down back and they want to use him more as a pass catcher, right, And so obviously, like even myself, I look at that and I'm saying, that's the one piece of information we've really really been waiting on that they can sit there and say we're gonna use them more.

00:24:37
Speaker 3: We're gonna use them more.

00:24:38
Speaker 1: But what is it that Kenneth Walker really needs? It's the pass catching stuff, Like that's the place where he had where that's where he what he hasn't had, you know, throughout his college career and now in the NFL. But do you think that it's it's there's a fine line in using that information to your advantage and taking advantage of that and then taking it too far where you can say, I'm a bump Kenneth Walker up a tier and maybe into that like mix in Rashad White Range, let's say, as opposed to having him in more of like the Alvin Kamara, David Montgomery. Kamara's not a great example, but David Montgomery Range, let's say. And so so you know, you bump them up a tier, it's a modest jump, but it's probably pretty easy, and I'm sure you see it all the time, people taking it a little little bit too far. And so my question to you is do you think that people are taking it too far? And how would you balance that and that all that information.

00:25:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, first, I think the most dangerous thing is when people just automatically dismiss every single piece of coach speak, saying you can never trust what what a coach says, so like, we're not paying attention to any of this. You know, this is the reason why I created the coach Speak Index. It is so we can know when we can trust something as far as believing the coach speak just kind of in a vacuum, not even talking about reliability ratings. I think the most dangerous thing is when we are only accepting it and using it to confirm our priors and we are never allowing it to change how we feel about about players. I think that's a very dangerous spot to be in.

00:26:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good point.

00:26:28
Speaker 1: And the other thing that I'll say is is I've used it, especially the stuff that you're doing, It's been really really helpful for my process. I obviously am doing a lot of like player analysis and prospecting work and projection projecting and projections. And so when I see them say Okay, we're gonna use Kenneth Walker more in the passing game, like let's use that as the baseline argument for the situation, I look back and I say, Okay, what's the evidence that we have that this would happen?

00:26:57
Speaker 2: Right?

00:26:57
Speaker 1: You go back, And of course, by the way, a couple of shows that I went on on Tuesday or whatever right before that came out, I talked about, well, they're not talking about Kenneth Walker as a pass catcher. And then literally after I did all these shows, they talked about Kenneth Walker as a pass coutcher.

00:27:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Underdog, Yeah yeah yeah.

00:27:13
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, you've got to be kidding me, Like I thought. I was, like, I have them right now. But regardless, my thing with the Walker stuff, and and correct me if I'm wrong with this, because I think it's a really important conversation to have. My thing with the Walker stuff is we have this evidence in college at multiple schools.

00:27:31
Speaker 3: Right. He then goes to the NFL.

00:27:32
Speaker 1: And in the NFL, not only did they go out and they get Zach Sharbonay, you know, after his year, after Kenneth Walker's year one, but Sharbonnay in his year one of Kenneth Walker's year too. So last season, you know, was a arguably better pass catcher, got just as much work out of the backfield as a pass catcher. It's literally been like five seasons worth of data now that Kenneth Walker has not been a high volume receiver.

00:27:56
Speaker 3: Right.

00:27:57
Speaker 1: And then when you look at the projections for Seattle, you see dk Metcalf, Jackson Smith and Jigba Tyler Lockett, Noah Fant obviously a decent pass catching tight end. You have these bodies there where there's only a one hundred percent target share from a projection standpoint for every team in the league. That then gets divvied up. I know that people don't like divving up targets or because targets are earned and so is target share, but when you have a lot of competition, this is part of my argument against like a DeAndre Swift this year, is like, yes, DeAndre Swift is a pass catching back, but what benefits them more to throw to DeAndre Swift or to throw it to Romadunze, or to throw it to Keenan Allen, et cetera. Right, because those three guys could each see a twenty percent plus target share this year. So the way that I kind of consume this information, and again I would love for you to critique that as someone who is looking at the coach speaks stuff consistently, is to say, Okay, Kenneth Walker has had a sub eight percent target share per game rate both years that he's been in the NFL. They're saying they want to use them a little bit more in the passing game, or they want to use them in the passing game. Understandably, probably not going to get to like a fifteen percent target share in that offense.

00:29:04
Speaker 3: Like it's gonna be.

00:29:05
Speaker 1: Pretty difficult for Walker to get that high, but sure I'll bump him up maybe to like a ten or eleven percent, Like I think that's now a reasonable outcome for him based on the way these coaches are talking about how they just want to use him, and if he doesn't get there, he's not necessarily a bust of a fantasy asset. He's just back to the volatile Kenneth Walker, Right, Like the guy that's an RB two, He's gonna give you these spiked weeks, but he's gonna be kind of a headache to manage in a managed season long league. Not so much best ball, but he's gonna be more of a headache and a managed season long league because it's going to be up and down and Zach Charbonnae might get work, et cetera, et cetera.

00:29:39
Speaker 3: Is that the way that we should probably be thinking about things.

00:29:42
Speaker 2: Well, first, let's go back a couple months when they ask Ryan Grubb about using running backs in the passing game. He said, I love using running backs in the passing game. Which we didn't see a ton of that when he was offensive coordinator at Washington. We did see that when he was the offensive coordinator at Fresno State. So it's kind of the dependent on the personnel for him, which is which is good. Right, He's not he's not forcing it if he doesn't feel like he has that personnel. And now he's talking about Kenneth Walker as you know, as if he views him as a you know, he doesn't have to be Christian McCaffrey of getting eight targets per game. We just need like a few targets per game out of Kenneth Walker and this is kind of icing on the cake if especially if he's staying around this ADP where he is right now, he he is, His hands are decent. Right that this whole thing of like Kenneth Walker can't catch the ball is a myth. You can talk about not not earning a target share. That's that's fine, right, But let's understand that he does have okay hands. Again, not not CMC, but he's not Tank Bigsby where like balls are bouncing off his hands here.

00:30:57
Speaker 1: I think I think that's also something I want to shout out, is that, like I don't think that there's a massive, massive delta between an above average pass catcher at running back to a below average one, right, Like, if you were to categorize as Kenneth Walker is an average pass catcher, I would like just because his target chairs have said what it's said throughout you know, his his history as a player, I'm not going to argue that at all, Right, Like, I think that's a really that's that's probably what he is. And so therefore a coach saying this could easily make Kenneth Walker see an uptake and a three percent target share.

00:31:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and and there's also just like how how how will they get him the ball. It's not like he's going to be running these deep wheel routes, right, He's not that kind of pass catching back. But you you you throw the ball out to Kenneth Walker kind of the same way that the Buccaneers used Rashad White last season. As you know, they they would pass them the ball on these short little screens or whatever as an extension of the running game. And you know, knowing how Ryan Grubb likes to get his offensive lineman out and like kind of moving them out in space, like we could see a lot of screens for Kenneth Walker this season, or you know, these short kind of dump off passes, and we know what he can do once he has the ball in his hands. So him him, we've seen him rip off just these monster runs time after time. We talked about it. Yeahability, yeah, So so now you get that in a different spot, in a different way than just running the ball. So he can do it running the ball, and he can do it on these kind of schemed up touches where it seems like there's a little more chaos going on in the play, which is very much a Ryan Grub thing, and that chaos benefits Kenneth Walker. He's been a very chaotic running back.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a difficult val for me. No doubt that Kenneth Walker and Alvin Kamara are the two running backs this year that have given me the most heartburn. It's just it's a very very I've gone back and forth. I'm probably like I feel like by the middle of August, I'm probably gonna be above the market on Kenneth Walker after being below the market and saying that he was basically an a void for a little.

00:33:19
Speaker 2: While, right, Like that's a tough thing to do.

00:33:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, look, I'm not. My game is not to sit here and stick with a take no matter what. Like when I'm getting more information like through coach speak Index, and I'm using that information because my goal is to get people to win. Like, my goal is to not just of course, I want to be right because that leads to people being leads people to winning. But you know the fact that my ranking of Walker has changed and the way that I'm drafting Walker has changed, the you know, ninety percent plus of people haven't drafted yet, right, So I'm fine with I'm even more fine at this point, like, you know, pivoting at least a little bit. I'm not saying that I'm gonna like go out and get Kenneth Walker everywhere, say that you got to get them everywhere. But I do think that all of this is really really pertinent information because at the end of the day, I do think that coach speak index and coach speak in general is really really big at the running back position because it's something that I've talked about for years on this show. If you were to look at the positions in fantasy football, obviously quarterback just the way it scored, it's just a different beast. So talent doesn't necessarily always drive fantasy production. But at wide receiver especially, you got to get open to earn a target, Like you got to win these battles by yourself in order to get targeted in the first place. Now you've got to hope that you have a good quarterback, you have a good scheme, all that stuff matters. But wide receiver is a more talent driven position when it comes to production, whereas running back is. Hey, if your coach, you know, if you're Sean McVay and you have Kien Williams and you say, I want Kyen Williams to see one hundred percent of the backfield touches. Kien Williams is all of a sudden, the top two or three running back in fantasy football. Doesn't matter how good or bad you think. Hian Williams is what the coach is directly doing to that player, and for that running back matters tremendously. And that's why when it comes to this kind of stuff, I'm way more open to changing my approach with these guys and my feeling, my vibes surrounding these running backs because of coach speak than i am other positions. Have you found that to kind of be the case.

00:35:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you have so much more control as a coach over what is happening with your running backs and the running game than the wide receivers like you just illustrated, Yeah, they got to get open. You don't know how how the defense is going to play a certain guy, if they're going to like triple team them like they used to do against DeVante Adams and in Green Bay, or you know what's going to happen with with Jamison Williams. You know that there's a lot more volatility with the wide receiver position, whereas with the running back, especially with the team that wants to run the ball, you know, with the Rams last season, and Sean McVay didn't have anyone behind Karen Williams that he trusted. So yeah, Kyen Williams gets a ton of work.

00:36:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then it makes people like me or whoever, literally, I mean, I guess ninety nine percent of people because no one thought Kyen Williams would be the bell cow that he was.

00:36:22
Speaker 2: You know.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: Fortunately, I always talk about that the Kien Williams stuff because you know, I, like every other fantasy analyst, I had him as an AD after Week one last year, but I also was fading cam Akers because of Kien Williams. It's like I was so close, so close to set, you know, to being I wasn't quite on Kien Williams. Yeah, during draft time, but I was good exactly exactly. I was understanding that that Kyen was going to be used in that backfield to some degree.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: You had a house in that neighborhood.

00:36:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, exactly.

00:36:49
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of these backfields and what you've heard, what you've studied.

00:36:54
Speaker 3: I think one of the more intriguing ones.

00:36:56
Speaker 1: And this is another one where I've changed my opinion on a little bit over the last month. Is Cincinnati, where you have Zach Moss. If you look at these players from like an archtype standpoint, you know it does make sense as a one two punch. You get Zach Moss as sort of like an early down bruiser, maybe goal line guy. Chase Brown a good change of pace back who can catch balls out of the backfield, a lot of explosion to his profile. I like Chase Brown a lot as a prospect coming out, but then he didn't get a lot of work in year one, so it was like year two score in my model didn't look great. So it's been a roller coaster for me with Chase Brown. But I've been incredibly bullish on Brown based on what I've heard and seen, partially through or largely through your account, of course.

00:37:36
Speaker 3: But are all.

00:37:37
Speaker 1: Signs sort of starting to point towards Chase Brown or do you think that based on your history of that coaching staff, this could just be a way of like motivating him or getting people excited about what they have in their backfield.

00:37:48
Speaker 3: What do you see out of that backfield?

00:37:50
Speaker 2: So with Zach Taylor, like I mentioned earlier, completely unreliable on injury coach speak, and he's very self aware, like he talks about how unreliable he is and then in that area, but he does have an eighty five percent reliability rating on player usage and workload coach speak. And what he is saying, what their de facto general manager Duke Tobin is saying, what their offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher is saying, what the camp reports are saying, is that, Yeah, Chase Brown is going to get a lot of work here. Zach Taylor said a big emphasis on his role this season. He said, I think he's earned that. I think he's worked the right way. They've talked about how they asked him to work on his pass catching during the off season, and he's really really focused on that. I believe Joe Burrow also talked about it. So yeah, definitely see the role increasing this year. I'm still not sure how it's exactly going to play out in terms of a split, because they haven't talked about, Hey, this is going to be the split for these these two guys. As they do like Zach Moss a lot. They keep saying, like we we knew exactly what we were getting in Zach Moss, Like he's doing every single thing that that we expected, you know from him when when we made that signing. The the uh, the goal line role is just going to be so big of which of these backs gets the the goal line role? People people seem to think about Chase Brown is like the small running back right because he's explosive. He didn't get a lot of third down work and you know, no, no real like short yardage work and yeah, just like these like what are the past protection issues with him? I mean he's about the same size as Zach Moss and the past protection stuff, he greatly is a pretty good running back in past protection in college and then last year didn't get many opportunities. Uh, and in didn't grade well when he did. But he has the size, right. I worry about a running back who's one hundred and eighty pounds that isn't that isn't good at pass protection. But a guy who's like two ten like Chase Brown, you can work on that technique. You can't teach the size, you can teach the technique. And obviously he had some of that coming out of college. So you know, they they want him to they're talking about him as an explosive element in this offense. So at worst, I feel that Chase Brown is this you know, kind of change of pace running back, but you know, one that gets forty percent right, like like a pretty pretty split ish share there.

00:40:47
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:40:47
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if I'm being totally honest, like if you look at market trends and you look at breakouts that we've seen historically in fantasy football, like, he checks a lot of the boxes. The thing that really turned me off from a dynasty perspective was that year two. And I still think, you know, there's a lot of fragility to Chase Brown's like long term profile, you know, when you're looking past what happens in twenty twenty four. But if you're trying to place a bet on like a middle round running back, you want your two guys who are pass catchers, who are in good offenses. I mean, like, he's really checking a lot of those boxes.

00:41:18
Speaker 3: Zach Moss checks some of them.

00:41:19
Speaker 1: But I always tend to lean towards the pass catchers more just because we know that targets are more valuable in every single format. And now all this hype is just it's just there for Chase Brown to the point where I'm fine with being really really aggressive and targeting him right now, but I'm also fine with targeting Zach Moss. There's a lot of those really ambiguous, up in the air backfields this year. I love it because I know that's where gold is found in fantasy football, and that's for you and for your business purposes. That's great because people are gonna be seeking out that information. But I think Cincinnati's is one of the more intriguing. Another backfield that's a little bit more up in the air than it was last year. Talked about it a little bit with Kien Williams. You know, my stance on Williams has basically been he is Sean mcvay's dude, Like Sean McVay loves.

00:42:09
Speaker 3: Him some Kien Williams.

00:42:10
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, you know, I recognize, you know, his size, he's a little bit smaller than Chase Brown. I recognize his prospect profile coming out wasn't the strongest in the world.

00:42:22
Speaker 3: Wasn't that bad.

00:42:22
Speaker 1: I thought he would be more of a change of pace receiving back in the NFL level, but obviously he was a bellcow last year and then you look at their actions, and they go out and they draft Blake Korum, who, of all backs in this class, is the most that looks like Kien Williams. They draft him with a Day two pick. So what have you seen through these interviews and such? You know, do you think that Kien Williams is properly rated by the fantasy industry or do you think that there is reason to be a little bit worried.

00:42:50
Speaker 2: Well, the Rams certainly have a type yeah running back. They when they drafted Blake Quorum in the the press conference that night and they were asked about him and they said that they drafted him because he showed a lot of the traits that kyn Williams had. And we saw last season, you know, they used Kyen Williams so much because Sean McVay didn't trust the running backs that they had behind him, and you know, when he was out, we got sort of a committee'sh thing with Royce Freeman and Darryl Henderson and they and Sean McVay talked about when Karen Williams came back, how completely different the offense was with and without Kyen Williams. So they didn't want to be in that situation again where you know Kyen Williams, like you said, kind of kind of a smaller guys, has had some issues with his legs, and they don't want to miss a beat if he needs to miss time whenever he needs a breather. Their general manager, Less Snead said that the Blake Horn pick was more about kind of not totally wearing kyrone down. Is the exact quote from him. And yeah, se Sean McVay just thinks of Kyen Williams like a second son. And they ran the ball more last season than they ever have under Sean McVay. And then this offseason we see them, you know, beef up their offensive line. I think this is a kind of a Sean McVay thing where he's staying a step ahead of the rest of the NFL. He sees linebacking corps getting smaller and smaller, So what he does is he beefs up his offensive line, and I think they probably run the ball even more this year. Is as long as that offensive line is healthy. Yeah, yeah, it's not the it's not going to be the ninety of offensive snaps that we saw from Kyen Williams earlier last season. Because Sean McVay said during you know, during the season that and I believe this was after the injury, that like, we need to we need to bring that snap percentage down a little bit. We can't be playing him in ninety five percent of snaps every single game. We saw that start to come down just a little bit. So the Blake Korn pick is they they don't want to miss a beat when when Kiren Williams, you know, either gets injured or or needs a breather, and it's still going to be heavy heavy Kyen Williams usage this year.

00:45:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I mean I've definitely seen him as the RB one in that offense. I'm a little bit more pessimistic versus the market on Williams just because I think number one, that Korum is not a bad prospect. But also, you know, I think that there's just volatility of this situation, whereas I'd rather kind of get like a Henry in that range or something, you know, or even like a Devon h Chan. I like more than both of those guys. But so that's that's mostly the reason. But yeah, I mean, like Kian Williams seems like the dude. The one thing that I would say, and I brought this up on other shows before, and some people get angry about it, But there's the idea that Sean McVay only likes bell cow backs, and I would push against that because of exactly what you just said. Kien Williams goes down. Last year, they didn't have a Bell cow back. It wasn't like it was the Royce Freeman Show. He has a Bell cow back when either there's not a better alternative to a guy who's good like Kian Williams is, or the guy's just a really really good running back in general, right, like a Todd Gurley or something where you're not going to take Todd Gurley off the field. That's where I would push back on that kind of notion and idea, or I wouldn't push back is that Sean McVay loves Kyen Williams. Is very clear he loves Kien Williams.

00:46:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.

00:46:47
Speaker 1: Tennessee's another team that we talked about briefly, but that's another ambiguous backfield. And I've been really bullish on the Tennessee Titans offense in general this year. In fantasy drafts. I've taken both Pollard and Spears. But admittedly I've leaned on Spears a little bit more because he usually goes a little bit later and there's a lot of pass catching data that suggested he's a really good player. But I have nothing against Tony Pollard if people want to go after Tony Pollard as well.

00:47:14
Speaker 3: But you know you.

00:47:14
Speaker 1: Mentioned the interchangeable quote. I've been using that a lot just to cite what this coaching staff is saying. But do you see this as a potential just there's a fifty to fifty thing going into the season.

00:47:26
Speaker 3: We'll kind of just see what happens.

00:47:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, Brian Callahan has said that at times if there's a hot hand, like we will just keep writing that guy during during games. But overall, this is this is a one A, one B situation. Both really good pass catching backs. You know, we know Pollard converted from wide receiver to running back and we all saw how electric Ty Shakespears was last season when when when they passed him the ball and got him out in space. And this is an offense that wants to throw the ball a lot this season. Like they've signaled that over and over and they've talked about how important it is for the running backs to to be a part of that. So definitely in Best Ball, I'm i'm I'm taking a lot of Tony Pollard and Anti J Spears, you know, not not on the same teams, but you know, different different drafts, and then you know you have the standalone value of each guy, and then if something were to happen to one or the other, then oh my god, we're we're taking a trip to the moon here exactly.

00:48:37
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is like the definition of ambiguous backfields and why they're important, and there's so many of them this year. But you can't ignore the contingent upside of these guys and what could happen if one of them goes down or cause like the path for these players versus let's look at Detroit Detroit, as Jamier gives David Montgomery. Yes, there's contingent upside for David Montgomery, but number one, Montgomery's going a lot further ahead in drafts than a lot of these running backs we're talking about here in these ambiguous backfields. But number two, there's no natural way for David Montgomery to really overtake that backfield and become a bell cow and just be the dude, because Jamir Gibbs is objectively the superior talent between the two guys, and he's not gonna leave the field. They're not gonna just keep Jamiir Gibbs on the bench. Whereas you look at Cincinnati, Okay, Chase Brown's competing in Zach Moss, like could he take over that backfield?

00:49:29
Speaker 3: Naturally?

00:49:29
Speaker 1: Of course, look at Tennessee. You know, it's not like Tony Pollard is coming off kind of a down year. I know that he surged towards the end, and you know, I think that a lot of the negativity surrounding Pollard had a lot to do with just his lack of touchdowns and not being able to convert more than anything else. But regardless, you know, he's in year six of his NFL career. He's never really been like a true, true effective bell cow. Would we be shocked if there is a larger lean towards tad Jay Spears or even the other way around.

00:49:58
Speaker 3: Tadj Spears is a little bit undersized.

00:50:00
Speaker 1: You know, he's not like, is he gonna carry a big work, So like like a guy like Pollard could hypothetically take over. So that's why these ambiguous backfields to me are just so so attractive because the talent that we're talking about here, and this is why I usually go after like the younger players, the up and coming players, because they seem to have a better chance of just naturally like taking over that backfield. But that's why they're just so important, and that's why something like coach Speak Index, you know, can be so helpful with those backfields in general.

00:50:31
Speaker 2: How do you have the Cincinnati backfield ranked in relation to the Tennessee backfield?

00:50:37
Speaker 1: So I have Cincinnati ahead, like, well, I'll say I have Chase Brown ahead of both Tennessee guys now, But then I have I think both Pollard and Spears ahead of Zach Moss. But I don't say that as in, like you know they're in They might even be in the same tier, you know, So I like it's like a choose your own adventure kind of situation. But the logic behind that, again is the Chase Brown hype combined with Chase Brown being more of the pass catcher, me being attractive to that kind of profile because those are the guys that historically have hit at a better rate because you can it's not like you can't score touchdowns outside the goal line. And it's not like Chase Brown can't see goal line work like we talked about. So I just think there's a little.

00:51:19
Speaker 3: Bit more upside with him, and I'm chasing that upside.

00:51:21
Speaker 1: You know, like at the end of the day, if I'm gonna if I'm drafting an RB three, I want that RB three to have RB one upside or at least have a chance to get there. And so you know, that's that's essentially the way that I've been looking at those guys. But I do all summer, I've I have had Taj Spears one spot ahead.

00:51:38
Speaker 3: Of Tony Poller. Ooh spicy, Yeah.

00:51:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean maybe a little spicy at least the at least the ADP gap because before, like on Underdog earlier this summer, it was like a two to three round gap between those those two backs, and so I was just like smashing Taj Spears. Now it's like around to half round, like it's not nearly as significant.

00:51:56
Speaker 3: As it was. But yeah, I mean, if that's spicy, it's spicy.

00:52:00
Speaker 1: I guess I'm you know, it's it's just a player that I'm riding a little bit heavier this year.

00:52:06
Speaker 3: You know versus others.

00:52:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I don't think it's too spicy. I mean the one A, one B like.

00:52:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course do you do you disagree with the way that those are sort.

00:52:18
Speaker 3: Of laid out.

00:52:19
Speaker 2: I have Tija spears like just behind Tony Pollard. I usually take Tony Pollard in a spot where I'm taking one or the other, and I think, right now, I have the Tennessee backfield like just ahead of the Cincinnati backfield, but kind of like you said, kind of in that in that same tier where it's you know, well, how how is my team shaking out? Like what kind of profile am I looking for right here? And then making the pick dependent on that.

00:52:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll say this.

00:52:53
Speaker 1: I mean I'm higher on all four of those guys versus the market because I pushed down some of like the Devin Signaltary Brian Robinson types. They just don't do it for me nearly as much, and we won't be talking about them today. But I'd much rather be going after the ambiguous backfields because there's just so much more upside. The reason why there's multiple running backs being drafted from the same team in the middle rounds is because that situation is likely pretty good. Right Like Cincinnati, that situation is pretty freaking good. We've seen, although Joe Mixon hasn't been the most efficient running back in the world, we've seen his expected fantasy points just be amazing through the years in Cincinnati. And then you know, Tennessee, I'm buying just the offense in general taking a little bit of a leap. So that's the main argument I think with those ambiguous backfilds, another sort of ambiguous backfield, but they're not being drafted very high. Is Denver This is the last one that I want to talk to you about. My first question is is Sean Payton reliable? Because I feel like most people would, just like offhand, just guessing say that he's probably one of the least reliable, well just just assuming that he would go that direction. But uh, you know, whether reliable or not, how are you expecting the Denver backfield to sort of shake out?

00:54:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he has a fifty reliability rating on shock usage workload coach speak. So yeah, definitely not reliable. But you know, like I mentioned earlier about just kind of looking for signals from from these coaches, and he has talked about Jalil McLoughlin so often this offseason, and a lot of it has been unprompted, which is like the number one kind of thing that's like.

00:54:40
Speaker 3: The Holy Grails, yes of coach speak.

00:54:43
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, So his his role, I feel is very locked in. It's it's never going to be kind of a workhorse role for Jalil McLoughlin, you know, smaller running back kind of in this you know, joker position that that Sean payton likes. But I think we see an average of probably nine to twelve touches per game for him, and you know, sort of high value touches you know, being used in the past game, and we know how efficient he is with the ball in his hands. So that seems like the most kind of clear cut role in this backfield. And then you have that kind of first and second down runner position, which is Javonte Williams and Audric Estime most likely kind of battling it out. Sean payton Is has talked quite glowingly about Javonte Williams this offseason and talking about how he said that the complete heel finishes at two years for a running back or for a player coming off of an ACL injury and saw them give Javonte Williams two hundred and sixty four touches last season and in the first year coming off that injury, and then Sean Payton body shames him this offseason into into losing ten pounds. So he looks like he did on his North Carolina tape and it just seems to be headed in that in that direction of Okay, they're they're probably going to use Javonte Williams a lot, and they also do like his you know, his past blocking it obviously his his receiving work. You know, he can He's a guy that can play definitely on all three downs and a few like little orange lags in the way that he's talked about Audric Estimate in the past of you know, talked about, well, they took him because they had a third round grade on him. They took him in the fifth round and just like really liked the value and you know, they said that he grew on them as they watched the tape and talking about like, you know, we could see a vision. But then we get the quote from him that sometimes there's a guy that you just want to leave a draft with. And Audric Estima was was was that type of of player for them, and you know, big hammer type of of running back. Uh you know, think about mark ingram uh And and what Peyton was able to do with him. But he did say the other day I put this in the I don't think I tweeted it out. I think I just kept it in the coach speak index discord plug. But talking about Audric Estima, how like they they don't you know what, I'm just gonna pull it up real quick because I think getting accurate.

00:57:49
Speaker 1: I'll I'll say this while you pull it up. Like I I think that of the players in that backfield, Javonte Williams probably has the most like natural belcow upside, right, do we see that this year? You know, you look at how many touches he had last year, and you say, even if he gets that many touches this season, he's probably gonna be a pretty decent fan like fantasy asset overall. So I think that Javante's fine where he gets drafted, Like, I wouldn't call him like an obvious target, but I think he's fine. I've gotten a lot of Jalil McLaughlin. I think McLoughlin's like a very easy player to pick where.

00:58:24
Speaker 3: He goes, because.

00:58:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you if you look at you know, I always look at running back arc types. The Blake Watson train that was sort of getting uh, you know, leaving the station in like May after they had picked him up as a UDF A. You know, that seems that seemingly has cold down a bit.

00:58:41
Speaker 3: But.

00:58:42
Speaker 2: Haven't yeah, right since then? Yeah, exactly.

00:58:46
Speaker 1: Exactly, And I think a lot of people, you know, if you look at the arc types and you look at the four running backs, assuming samaj p Ryan's on on the team, but if you look at the four running backs, Blake Watson matches the little McLoughlin arc type and Thenante Williams matches more of the Oddric Estimate one. I'll say this too, though, that I think Javonte Williams is a better pass catcher than Addrick Estimate is because Estimate didn't really have those chops or show them off at least, you know, in college. So that's a plus for Javante. But if you're dressing three guys on game day, that means that there's a lot less competition for the Jalil McLoughlin role in that offense. And we know that Sean Payton loves to target his running backs out of the backfield, So that's why, you know, of course, I'm not expecting McLoughlin to be like a top five running back in fantasy, but I think he's like, if he's healthy, he's basically a lock to not far necessarily outperform, but definitely outperform.

00:59:38
Speaker 2: As adp Yeah, well we'll get a lot of spike weeks from him in basketball. And in the quote on Audrick Estimate, this was three days ago, Sean Payton said, is he a third down back? I can't tell you that relative to just the reps that we've seen.

00:59:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:59:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they even talked about it, didn't They talk about it when he got drafted to They literally called him an early down back.

00:59:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, the vision as a person second down back.

01:00:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, So it was like very obvious that they saw him in that way. And honestly, and you know, longer term because this is Javonte Williams last year and his rookie deal, but long term Audrick estime plus Jolil McLaughlin is not a bad one two punch in terms of like what they can provide to an offense.

01:00:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. The the one thing I guess I would be scared of a little bit with Javonte Williams, is does Audric Estimate get that goal line work? Just like really big beastly back that once you get on those you know, one, two, three yard line, it's all right, let's bring an estimate.

01:00:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like Sean McVay is a coacher, Sir Sean McVay, Sean Payton's a coach that will will definitely use all three of those backs, like this isn't a situation where holding they used the top two. Like he'll he'll probably give Estimate some work as long as all three of them are dressed.

01:00:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the factor is going to be like how much does samaj p Ryan if if he stays in town, how much does he eat into each one of these roles?

01:00:57
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, his presence still being there because we're all almost assuming that he's just not going to be on the team, But his presence honestly could really ruin some things, whether it be Estimate. Actually, I think Estimate would be the dude that he probably ruins the most, because Estimate then might not dress let's say on game day, but obviously then p Ryan would just dig into the other guys like we saw last.

01:01:20
Speaker 2: Year, right, I will say, you know, watching all of these Sean Payton press conferences, he very rarely brings up some J. P. Ryan's name. He talks about these other guys a lot. And it like to the point where the other day when they were asking Peyton about, hey, how do you feel about the past protection ability of your running back room and and he was going kind of down the line and mention P. Ryan. I was like, oh, we got a we got a here.

01:01:57
Speaker 1: He recognized his existence on the game. That's good to see. That's good to see. All right, Greg, before I let you go, give me the biggest coach speak talking point that you think could sway fantasy football leagues this year?

01:02:11
Speaker 2: Oh my god, no pressure, but there's just so many. It's like picking picking your favorite kid, right, well, I think one. And it's kind of a different bet now than it was when we were first starting to get this. But it was Dan Campbell talking about Jamison Williams and looking at the timeline of comments and again Dan Campbell extremely candid and just like blunt about players last year with Jamison Williams, Who's saying, man we just got to keep working with this guy. Gotta keep working at it. And then we saw that progress later in the season, said, Okay, he's kind of coming around. We got to start using him in creative ways to use him a little bit more. And then we saw that usage go up and they were saying, hey, he's getting better. And then we see that coincide now with what Matt Harmon charted for reception perception of you know, the the kind of first half of the season for Jamison Williams and then after kind of mid October where the reception perception looks very different for him. Now in the off season, Dan Campbell saying, Jamo's pushing to be a full time starter now and when they're talking about this wide receiver three conversation, Jamison Williams is not a part of that. He's like pretty locked in at this wide receiver too now and Dan Campbell saying he's a man on a mission. He's the standout of OTA's just very very bullish things for Jamison Williams. And he was going in kind of the one hundred range a couple months back when when we were starting to get these these quotes from Dan Campbell now he's gotten pushed up into kind of the the early eighties and people are really scared of Oh, he's the fourth option, Like fourth receiving option on on the Lions. Well what about the fourth receiving option on on the Niners. Like that's a pretty valuable yeah role as well, and and you know tougher bet in redraft, but yes, for best ball with Jamison william like a fourth receiving option on one of the best offenses in the NFL, with one of the best offensive coordinators, like that's that can be a pretty valuable role.

01:04:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that, you know, like I I've talked about how history is not on his side, just based on what we've seen historically. I think that, you know, obviously he's gone through a different journey, but that has led me away from him in a managed season long league, not a way, but just not like high on right, I'm pretty much at market with him. But when it was a best ball I think that he's a classic better and best ball kind of guy, right, Like, not unlike like a Christian Watson or something like that, just a better and best ball kind of player. And we just have to recognize that. And there is a little bit of contingent upside there too, because if Laporta or ARSB, you know, end up going down, there could be a higher target share in store for JMO.

01:05:08
Speaker 3: So good call out.

01:05:09
Speaker 1: We haven't talked a ton about Jamison Williams on these shows this offseason, So I'm glad we got a little JMO out there.

01:05:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that that brings the viewers in.

01:05:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, We get some get some Detroit love here on this show. Greg Man, I really appreciate you in your in your Time'll plug your stuff, Man, let everyone know where they can find you.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, Twitter at Coach Speak Index, and like I mentioned, we we have a private discord. Now you'll you'll see a lot of really super important stuff go on to Twitter. But I watch every single press conference from every head coach, offensive coordinator, and general manager, and I just spend all day on the private discord. I have separate threads for each team and I'll put there's a lot of really important information that like I just don't have time to craft tweets and tweet out that just goes directly into the discord. And what will be really cool is, you know, months from now, a year from now, whatever. These are ongoing threads, so you can scroll down, you can search for players, whatever, and just kind of see what the progression is of how the coaches and coordinators are talking about these guys. So you'll get the most recent stuff that they've said about them, but you also get this really nice thirty thousand foot view when you're heading into drafts of Okay, what has Sean Payton been saying about Audrey guestime And yeah, kind of kind of draft off of that with that information, just giving you full context, all the most important information, super valuable. Definitely would not want to draft without it.

01:06:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's really really cool. Definitely check out all of Greg's stuff. It's been a very very valuable tool for me. I've obviously shouted you out and cited you on this show a handful of times over the summer, and we'll definitely be continuing to do that as the season progresses.

01:07:00
Speaker 3: I'm on Twitter at Late Round QB.

01:07:02
Speaker 1: Make sure you check out the Late Round Draft guide over on lateround dot com take advantage of that underdog promo. Otherwise, everyone enjoy your weekend, and as always, thanks for tuning in.