The Show: Mike Tomlin, Way-Too-Early Quarterback Rankings, and More

00:00:00
Speaker 1: You're about to listen to the Late Round Fantasy Football show, which originally aired on YouTube. If you'd like to catch the show live this offseason, you can head to the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash at Late Round FF. We'll be live each Wednesday at noon Eastern. Without further ado, here's this week's episode.

00:00:32
Speaker 2: Welcome in, Welcome in. David Kitchen here, COO of Late Round Media, one of three. Now, because we do have another guy, Brandan Godola, who's with us. He's not on the show with us, but if you are a newsletter subscriber, you saw his newsletter this morning. Yeah, well done, mister Brandon. And I also have a CEO, the Man the myth Legend JJ, Zach g Reeson Free. No more burdens of that Steelers laundry, JJ.

00:01:04
Speaker 1: They're They're the only burden in my life is Luther Burden.

00:01:08
Speaker 2: Oh?

00:01:10
Speaker 1: That was good?

00:01:10
Speaker 2: Right.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: I gotta say one thing before we get going. Everyone. It's David Kitchen's thirtieth birthday today. Yeah sure, thirty thirty right, yeah yeah, happy birthday to our CEO. Very happy that you are the CEO, and uh yeah, I hope you have a good one. Hope the girls treat you right. I hope And by the for the for the record, I mean the daughter's daughter's daughter's wife. Yeah, he doesn't have like multi over here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I hope they treat you right. You can after this show, you can take off the rest of the day if you want. How's that.

00:01:49
Speaker 2: I've got some work to do JJ, so I will not be taking off. I did though, did you just a little bit behind the scenes? Did you do your super Bowl NFL stuff yet?

00:02:01
Speaker 1: Super Bowl NFL stuff? I'm not, No, let's do that.

00:02:07
Speaker 2: It's gonna be awkward if we get to Radio Row and they're like, uh, you, Kitchen, you can come in.

00:02:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, Kitchen is gonna do the lay round show from uh this year.

00:02:17
Speaker 2: That'd be like the worst. That'd be the worst ever if it was just me and and not you. I sometimes I worry that I, you know, my addition brand's edition is putting too much on your plate. Have you ever done a way too early QB rankings like this before?

00:02:36
Speaker 1: No, this isn't really my wheelhouse slash the kind of content that I always do. But I I look, I know that this is the kind of content that people really want, and they want some early takes, and I get all that I want. The caveat though the blended statement caveat, Yes, this is insanely early. The research has only just begun. Uh, this is definitely not how I necessarily will feel come, you know, like June July ish, whenever I'm actually you know, producing some of those Maybe may producing those rankings for redraft purposes, but I do think it's a fun exercise to go through and you know, talk about where I wanna rank these guys, these quarterbacks. We'll do it by positions in the next four weeks. Well technically it's five because we're gonna take a break for the super Bowl. But the next five weeks we're gonna go position by positions. The next week we'll do running back, than wide receiver, and then tight end. But to me, this is sort of like this is our first real off season with the Late Round Fantasy Football show. This is sort of the playground, if you will, from like a content perspective, where like we can do stuff like this, whereas the flagship show, the Late Round podcast, you're gonna get more of the boom boom boom, like very serious takes. This is a little bit looser and more of like a place where this is where my mind is generally going, as opposed to like my concrete takes, which you're gonna find on the flagship show.

00:03:58
Speaker 2: There you go, Debt. That's what I was gonna tell everyone. It's just that. Don't hold JJ to it. But it is good just to think about, and it is fun. And we've talked about this bet when you have a Dynasty team, if you're not in a Dynasty league and you're listening to the show right now in January, get it, get in a Dynasty league. If you are a Patreon member, We've got a league finder in there where tons of Dynasty leagues open up, So join the Patreon, join the Late Round community on Discord. It's a great community. Also, again, JJ newsletter, we're just beefing it up this year.

00:04:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, Godula had a great newsletter that went out today about how and I didn't even realize this, but he wrote about how playoff snap rates for rookies are actually more predictive of next season snap rates for those rookies so they turned into second year players obviously, then the whole season regular season snap rates. So what we this is the and he highlighted at each position the guys who saw really good snap rates this past week and what that could mean for twenty twenty six in that season. And so it's a great newsletter. Brandan's doing awesome work. We have a lot more coming also, just so we're clear, Kitchen's not thirty. There's I think I think I think some people might be taking that seriously.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: If they want to take it that serious, they can.

00:05:23
Speaker 1: I think that's a compliment to you that you can pass for thirty right now. That's pretty aggressive.

00:05:27
Speaker 2: I got a baby face over here. Yeah, So I'm good with it. If you think I'm I'm thirty, I'm definitely good with that, all right.

00:05:37
Speaker 1: Actually he's actually fifty one today, guys.

00:05:40
Speaker 2: And remember this is an interactive show. I'm not fifty one. I'm forty two. Forty four to two. There you go. Forty one was a good year. It also like you know six seven, JJ, you know, forty one is kind of like a.

00:05:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, the forty one thing came out of nowhere one day with my daughter and I was like, I had no idea. I tried to warn you.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: I remember I did try to warn you, Like Whenember I was. I was trying to. I was like, have you ever heard of the six seventh thing? You're like, no, when was this? This was like in the spring? You had not you were.

00:06:16
Speaker 1: Like you were like you were like a six seven hipster.

00:06:19
Speaker 2: No, not at all. In fact, I was late to the party. But you you did not have kids that were like in that preteen age, so like you were the second grader, right, you're getting that. It's kind of like we say in like here on the East Coast. East Coast dads were later to the trends because that they started in California and they kind of moved their way over. Yeahs kind of way with the with with trends for you, and then when you're in the middle of those trends, you'll just realize, I want to get out of here.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: Oh it's hard. I mean it's like I guess last year, like if it were in the spring, my daughter would have been in first grade. And so it's even even more to the point that, uh that I'm lagging with some of that stuff.

00:06:57
Speaker 2: Let me out of here, all right. Uh so, yeah, subscribe to the newsletter. I get some good stuff going on. Of course, if you're not subscribed here, I'll please do so and interact with the show. And yeah, as far as this show again, we're gonna do our best. We're gonna do our best to get these rankings down, but no promises. And with that, JJ, you ready to get to the news.

00:07:23
Speaker 1: Do it Today's fantasy news.

00:07:29
Speaker 2: All right, let's start with the wildcard review. JJ. Let's just start with your overall assessment of the wild card games.

00:07:38
Speaker 1: I thought they were awesome from just a from a you know, energy, The Monday Night game, Monday Night game was a little rough. Well actually, the Monday Night game was fine until that fumble from Rogers and then everything just kind of collapsed after that play. But yeah, I mean, like the Steelers offense played played pretty atrociously, which was to be expected. I thought they had a legit chance to win that game going in and just because of lower scoring, some variants and such. But then, you know, in that the start of the fourth quarter or so, the Texans showed why they are clearly the better team. But the wildcard round I thought was awesome and we're seeing, you know, some The cool thing for me is that there's almost like this new there's this new quarterback crop that's sort of that that twenty twenty four class is really stepping up. You know, you now have Drake May obviously being a stud Caleb Williams has looked a lot better in my opinion, even if data doesn't always match it, I think that that Caleb Williams has that it factor, if you will. I mean, that fourth down throw was one of the best throws I've.

00:08:43
Speaker 2: Ever seen in my life. That was insane, just absurd.

00:08:47
Speaker 1: And if you watch that game, and you know, of course, if you're a Packers fan, you hate it. But if you watch that game and you don't get a reaction out of yourself watching Caleb Williams do that, I don't know if football is a sport for you. Because that play was everything, in my opinion, from from just like a drama standpoint, a coming of age stamp, everything it was. It just had it and so that was really good to see.

00:09:13
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:09:13
Speaker 1: You know, I think that the the the rivalry between the Packers and Bears kind of being reborn the way that it's been reborn. Uh and Ben Johnson saying what he said in the locker room that pissed off a lot of people, I think it's it's good for the game, like just in general. So like all of those storylines happening, I thought the biggest disappointment was probably the Chargers offense of the weekend, like a lot of the stuff. I mean, I shouldn't say that the Philly. The Philly offense is really disappointing to the Philly I think that was the surprise to me. This surprise outcome to me was the San Francisco Philadelphia game. I thought Philadelphia was gonna easily win that game because San Francisco's down multiple lineback basically their whole linebacker corps.

00:09:58
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:09:58
Speaker 1: They they have you know, George Kittle goes down early. And then you have this Philly offense that yes has struggled throughout the season because Kevin Petulo is what not is was the worst offensive coordinator in all football this year, just given the talent that he had in the ridiculous you know, I have some data that I'll talk about later. Uh, but Kevin Tula should have been fired. He should have been fired, in my opinion, let go part way through the season. It was it was that bad, that atrocious, but it was still a shocking outcome. AJ Brown had one of the worst games I've ever seen him play, uh you know, in that game. And so I think that we're going to see some changes, you know, with Philadelphia based on that outcome. But but then I I also take a step back, and I look, and I think that the big difference right now is uh that the teams that are remaining either have elite coaching or Josh Allen. Right, Like, it's it's just you are a you have a phenomenal coach at this point, or you have a literal you know, deity at quarterback and Josh a guy who just like can do no wrong, you know, throughout. I mean, his playoff history has been great, even though they've gotten l's. But he is the best quarterback remaining by far in my opinion, in terms of who you would want to have. You know, people are gonna say like Matthew Stafford and such, but like who can just take over games? You know, Josh Allen is that. And you know, nothing against McDermott, but I don't think that he would be nearly have nearly the success without Josh Allen. Right, you just look across the board, it's just good coach after good coach. And so I think that's a huge, huge story of this playoff right now.

00:11:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it's it's I've told you, like my super Bowl desire is Bears.

00:11:42
Speaker 1: And Bills'd be fun.

00:11:44
Speaker 2: I think if like we're at radio Road just putting myself like, there'd be so much buzz about the Bears, but the Bills.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: I think of realistic. Like my pre playoff I had some misses, like I thought the Packers were gonna beat the Bears. I thought the forty nine er or the Eagles are going to beat the forty nine ers. So I had some misses in at the beginning. But my playoff pick entering the playoffs was a Bills Ram super Bowl, which because I just think that that Again, the AFC has a lot of flaws in it, Like I mean, look, if New England plays the way they played against the Chargers, I think they could easily do it right, right, But like, the AFC has some flawed teams. So I think, you know, I'm just gonna lean towards who the best player in that conference is remaining, which is Josh Allen and the Rams I think have the most complete team. You could argue Seattle pretty easily too. That defense is just so good. It's just really hard to trust Sam darnoald. I hope he proves me wrong. I hope, you know, I would love to see Seattle do that and see a Seattle Buffalo. What I think there's a lot of good iterations remaining. But yes, I think it would break everything if we get these two fan bases that have just been that have just needed this for so long to one of them, you know, naturally get a w if if they're both in the Super Bowl.

00:12:55
Speaker 2: Okay, let's move on to some of the news items that happened in those games, and then we'll get onto the firings and everything else heading into next season. But George Kittle, that was a bummer.

00:13:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you see the Kyle Shanahan clip of him thanking George in the He's like, where's George? And I think when the game was over, no, he was like thanks brother, love you. You know, like it was like a almost like a I know that this is likely.

00:13:22
Speaker 2: Well a team owner followed him into the locker room. I mean you get a playoff game going on, Yeah, I mean, like the locker room.

00:13:28
Speaker 1: You're thirty two years old, you tear an achilles and you play an explosive style of ball. It's going to be pretty difficult for George Kittle to come back and be you know, the the old, the George Kittle of old. I'm not saying it's impossible, because modern medicine is totally different than it was even ten years ago, especially with these Achilles injuries, but it's definitely you know, like I I've got Kittle on Dynasty, and that went through my head also, you know, you know, more so after the fact. At first, I'm just like, oh my god, this sucks because I wanted to watch George Kittle do stuff in the playoffs and if the forty nine or going a run, you would want to see George Kittle be part of that. Not only that kitchen. This match up against Seattle this week, Seattle has been pretty weak against tight ends if they were if they are weak against any position, and they could really have used Kittle, you know, in that in that spot.

00:14:15
Speaker 2: So you got Jake Tongs, They've got uh, they've got wide receivers named Juwan Jennings.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that they would rather have George Kittle than than Jake Tondres at this point. But yeah, I mean, like I have someone right now in Chad saying, jaj we got to figure out the hair in the front of the snapback? What do you what are you saying? My hair is coming down underneath the snapback? Sorry, I have hair, okay, Sorry.

00:14:40
Speaker 2: Sometimes it goes, sometimes it goes. No, I mean I keep it there.

00:14:46
Speaker 1: You you like it there?

00:14:47
Speaker 2: You're saying, yeah, back in my day, and I'm dating myself, But back in my day, we we had the bangs underneath they would like just floating underneath it.

00:14:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you would kind of.

00:14:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:14:59
Speaker 1: I mean, what what does this matter?

00:15:01
Speaker 2: Your hair is in that in between category where it's not like below the band and it's not long enough where you can go you.

00:15:08
Speaker 1: Sorry, I don't hop onto a YouTube live stream caring about where my hair is. I'm trying to give football takes.

00:15:14
Speaker 2: People. We said this was an interactive show, like we should have clarified. Yeah, looks great, though.

00:15:21
Speaker 1: I don't need to I don't need to sit here and sorry, next week, I'll wear a tuxedo. Is that Is that better for you? Guys? I'll do my hair well, I'll do all that and then and then it'll make you feel better. Evan, Okay, all right. No, So with the with the forty nine ers, it's sad. With George Kittle, you know, I have him in some in some dynasty leagues and such, and I think that if you do have him in dynasty, you're you lost about a round of of you know, capital or equity with Kittle, you know, if he was like a second round or he's more like a third round er. Now, it's just it's sad that kind of thing happens. And then you know, hopefully we get to see Ricky Pearsall. But I haven't seen any any updates on Pearsall.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: No, I have any either. They desperately desperately need him. I haven't said, look, man, it's great takes. Let's just look as great as it takes. And then Bingo says, look good, play good.

00:16:12
Speaker 1: Wow, wow, all right? I little did I know people actually care about what I look like.

00:16:17
Speaker 2: On the JJ will find out that Evan Hill is actually JJ's wife, right, That actually would be pretty good. All right, So let's go to Nico Collins and that Texans passing offense.

00:16:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need Nico to play for a lot of reasons. But look, I think that one of the big differences in that game against Pittsburgh this past Now, I'm gonna change my hair, change my hat there here. Look, I'll do this so that it's not my hair's long, right now? What can I say? All right, that's a little bit better. I think one of the big differences in that Steelers Texans games was actually wide receiver play period. Like if you wanna no, obviously the defense was different, but but like if you think about the turnovers that c. J. Stroud had as sort of an equalizer of the Texans defense just being so much better than Pittsburgh's, I think one of the key differences in that game was depth at wide receiver and just wide receiver play in general. You know, Christian Kirk, Jalen Nole, Jayden Higgins, all of them would easily be the two on that Pittsburgh team. And Nico Collins going down, Sure, they lose a step because it's Nico Collins. He's one of the best wide receivers in the game, but they have really good backups. They have really good depth at that position, and they've shown that depth all your long. Even Xavier Hutchinson isn't that bad of a player, So you know, if Nico's out I do expect a lot of those guys to obviously step up. Jaden Higgins, I think has been a pretty underrated player all season long. You guys already know how I feel about Jalen Nole and then Christian Kirk balled out against Pittsburgh had a great game. So I'm I'm you know, obviously we want Nico Collins to play, and the Texans would need him to play and want him to play, but at least they do have some depth at the position that they could overcome, you know, a one week concussion. Uh, you know with with Nico.

00:18:02
Speaker 2: All right, what about Woody Marx though, I mean he looked good. Yeah, I thought he did too. On this woolcast, Davis said that he didn't think he looked as good people have.

00:18:13
Speaker 1: People have been hating on Woody marks all the way. I think hate there's there's been a lot because look, he hasn't had the best rushing metrics in the world. Yeah, he's he's been a volume dependent you know. And I was someone, I mean, anyone who listened to the show all season, you guys know that I was standing for for Woody Marx since Week one of last year, just as an ambiguous backfield situation and a player that the Zap model actually didn't mind despite the fact that he was a little bit older and uh, but but he had a good receiving profile and he has some juice. And I think that, to me is the difference. You know, when you have a very incomplete offensive line like Houston, does you gotta you gotta kind of in my opinion, you you kind of have to evaluate running backs by Yes, hopefully you can see their vision and what they're thinking when holes develop. But when there's a bad offensive line, those holes don't develop as often, so there's not as many chances slash opportunities for you evaluate that, and so you have to kind of lean back on just like does that person and that player have the juice? And to me what he Marx has that? I mean, he has juice in his game, you know standard you know, typically we see these day three backs kind of disappear. We saw this with Damien Piris a few years ago, right for the same exact Houston team. And so from like a long term standpoint, I don't know if I'm gonna be like overly bullish on what he marks. But people really don't like Marx. They really don't think he's that good. I think he's fine, and I think that you know, the weird part about Marx is they still haven't totally deployed him and allowed him to use his bread and butter, which is pass catching like he's that's where he can really really crush. And so I think he's a good player. He's a really I think it was a good pick for them, and obviously it's peg dividends now here in the playoffs.

00:19:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just paced a little segment from the sure Cadula's newsletter blurb today in the late run newsletter, but I wanted to highlight this. I felt like this was at least a fun stat stat. Yes, because he he played seventy one percent of the snaps and they said the seventy percent snapwrate for a rookie in a playoff game is fairly rare since twenty thirteen. Tim names on that list these are fun, David Johnson's Giovanni, Bernard cam Akers, Zeke Elliott, Christian McCaffrey, Devin Singletary, Kareem Hunt what he marks, Kenth Walker the Third, and Leonard Fournette.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look like any of those guys like I could see. I don't think he's going to go with camp Maker, like cam Aker's career got derailed because of injury, right, Like more than anything else, I could see him having like a Devin Singletary type enpack in the league. Like, and that's there's nothing wrong with that. You can get RB two production in fantasy at times, you know, in the right environment. So yeah, I think what he marks as a solid player.

00:20:54
Speaker 2: Okay, Tyrrell shavers towards ACL in that game, Dude, I mean, what are we gonna do?

00:21:01
Speaker 1: But did you see he played the second half on a torn ACL.

00:21:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's insane. A little bit of a little bit of your CEO lore is that I played. So I tore my ACL with like five games left in the season, and I had never missed a home game before basketball and it was our senior night. So I grabbed my buddies his like big honk and knee brace, put it on and could barely run, but shot the lights out, scored seventeen. Was so good that they put it in the paper.

00:21:43
Speaker 1: Wow, it's not the one that got the clip that gets tossed around sometimes that I've.

00:21:47
Speaker 2: No, this is a different one. But the my surgeon, who was also the Titans surgeon at the time, saw it in the paper and called me and was pissed because it makes it worse. Well said, you could have done a lot of damage. But his jokes on him because I didn't, Uh, because I still can't straighten my left knee out.

00:22:06
Speaker 1: All the way. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, like it's crazy though, that that he was able to do. It's like Philip Rivers did that in the playoffs the one year. Yeah on his acl.

00:22:15
Speaker 2: Grit grit, But what yeah, I'm gonna do with those receivers though in Buffalo.

00:22:18
Speaker 1: I mean, it's gonna be They're gonna not rotate nearly as much, right they They're gonna use a lot of Brandon Cooks, Khil Shakir and key On Coleman. I think is gonna have to be a full time player, and you gotta hope for the best. I mean, the one thing I will say is that I think if the if the Bills run like the against this Denver team, it's smarter to run more twelve personnel anyway, and I think they're gonna lean in on that a little bit more, and that's gonna allow for the running game to get going a little bit more too, probably, so I think that, yes, it's a big deal, but in the end, we're not talking. You know. This isn't like Nico Collins towards a cl This isn't like some stud towards It's just that they gave Davis has heard too toward his AC. I mean, like the whole the whole team.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: That the depth that they had really like all right, Coleman, get in there.

00:23:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like we have no choice. Now we might have benched you throughout the season, but now, hey, keon, what's going on, buddy, So we'll see, you know, we'll see. I do think though, that twelve personnel is the way that they should be running that offense, to be Denver in particular, And so the injury matters, of course because you want the depth, but it might not make as big of an impact as people would originally think.

00:23:32
Speaker 2: Okay, we had some offensive coordinator firings, and I tweeted this just thinking like I want a chart of all the offensive coordinators that are going to be like replaced next year because you have so many new coaches, so you assume that new coaches bring in an offensive coordinator. And then you also have teams that are just firing their offensive coordinators. Who are some of the recent teams to fire their offensive coordinators Eagles, Detroit, There is another one. But as far as like the new offensive coordinators plus the coaching changes, what's your what's your just overall take on this?

00:24:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that.

00:24:19
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:24:20
Speaker 1: The one that I'm most interested to see is Mike McDaniel because I think.

00:24:24
Speaker 2: He I think he might be the Titans head coach.

00:24:27
Speaker 1: Though he could be, but but I I do think that there's if he's not a head coach, because there's a lot of openings for head coaches, So I'm you can't say that he won't be. Yeah. By the way, I think Mike McDaniel was actually a pretty good Like say what you want about Tomlin and his record and all this kind of stuff, Like Mike McDaniel was not that bad in Miami.

00:24:45
Speaker 2: It's a hot take, but he's my number one. Oh.

00:24:47
Speaker 1: I mean I think Mike for the Titans, I think would be a great offensive coordinator. If you get Mike McDaniel in Detroit, I mean, that'll feed families. That is that is an insane in my opinion.

00:25:01
Speaker 2: Uh, where was Greg Roman was the other offense?

00:25:05
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the Chargers of the other one. Yeah. And I think the Greg Roman firing is huge for and has huge fantasy implications. People are gonna be like, might have the reaction that it's a bad thing for like an a Marian Hampton, because Greg Roman has that power run scheme and he loves to to, you know, have this like ground game approach the way he does. Number one, they were very pass heavy to start last year until all the offensive line injuries happened, right, But number two, I'm not really that like if a if a running back can play, a running back can play. Of course there's gonna be certain schemes that that are going to help that running back. And I would assume they're going to hire somebody who could fit with a mari And Hampton. But Marion Hampton is not just a oh he would only be able to be good in Greg Roman's offense, Like he's a pretty well rounded back. So I wouldn't really be concerned about that. I'm more so just interested to see what direction they generally go because they have such good weapons. They're not such good, but like really strong weapons there and the other thing they fired their their offensive line coach. This is gonna be one of those situations where this is, this is how I feel, similarly with Mike Tomlin. So Tomlin getting leaving and we'll talk about that in a second, I know, but Tomlin leaving, Everyone's like, oh, just watch the Steelers not have a winning season next year. Yeah, well, the Steelers are also gonna have a tougher schedule next year more than likely, just even when when you calculate based on like win totals and stuff, because they won the division. So anytime you win the division, you're gonna see tougher opponents the following year, right, and so like that's naturally going to happen. There's naturally gonna be some regression more than likely. Same thing with this like offensive line coach for the Chargers. Their offensive line is gonna play so much better when guys are healthy on that line. Two huge, huge additions to that line will become. It will be happening you know, next year, and so uh with with with them being healthy and so when that happens, of course, the offensive line is going to be better. It's not just the offensive line coach as why that's happening, So make sure you're looking at the correlation and causality of these things. But yeah, I mean I think that my my favorite pairent would be Mike McDaniel in Detroit. I've seen McDaniel uh in Philly, but I think there's gonna be more change that film. I'm not gonna be surprised if AJ Brown's gone, you know this obvious and such. Just based on vibes, I think he's gone. And so there's a lot of change happening in Philly that I mean, Detroit is the team that already has everything in place for Mike mcdonield just crush and just destroy.

00:27:27
Speaker 2: Two other names that got fired but the head coach did not get fired. Bucks offensive coordinator Josh uh Gizzard yep, and then Cliff Kingsbury with the Washington Commanders. Yeah.

00:27:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's I mean, that's five thought all really good spots, right, That's that's.

00:27:46
Speaker 2: Vibe in addition to all these head coach openings that are coming open. So it should be fun from just trying to guess what these coordinators are gonna bring in. And Mike Tomlin, I'm just gonna give you the floor right now with all his head coach openings. Yeah, you can say whatever you want regarding Mike Tomlin.

00:28:05
Speaker 1: Look born and raised Pittsburgh. Talked about this plenty on this show. You know, went to countless Steeler games, had some of my favorite best memories as a sports fan because of Mike Tomlin, you know, with him leading the charge of my of my favorite team. You know, I said this in a tweet. I think it was just time for this to all happen. You know, there can be divorces that occur that are that are mutual, and everyone feels like it's the right choice in the right time. You know. I've seen the responses on both sides. I think that one thing that I am a little bit upset about is how just like gross, some people have been about it, just like celebrating and cheering like crazy, you know, and video and stuff like that without realizing that, like, he's still a good coach that allowed you to have a lot of good stuff happened to your favorite team. You know, you can you can look at it that way while also being excited about what could be possibly coming for this Steelers franchise, because you know, I think he's a great motivator, a great leader, you know, someone who can get the most out of his players. But when it comes to the combination of you know, two things are happening in Pittsburgh. They haven't had a franchise quarterback since Ben Roethlisberger left right, Yeah, and the tail end of Roethlisberger's career he was a shell of himself too.

00:29:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's feeling a little brown zesk.

00:29:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean they haven't had anything since Roethlisberger, and they've tried, and they've been doing this stupid thing where they go out and you know, I actually don't think it's that stupid from a quarterback perspective, as like a bridge just to see like, oh, well, Russell Wilson get it back, or will Justin Fields get it back, or Mitch Trubisky or Aaron Rodgers, will he be serviceable for us to maybe get lucky and have some variants hit in the playoffs. The thing that annoys me more is that they think that they can consistently go out. I think that Joe Hayden had an impact on the way that they've been building this team because he had success late in his career as an older player, and they found him. You know, they went out and they got him. But they've been doing that at like corner for years now, and they go out and they get these like thirty plus year old corners, and you know, they go out and they get Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay this past year and things just don't work that way because of that one thing happening. I think they have this notion that they can get these like veterans. Now, there are some good pieces on this team that are younger that they can build off of, especially on the defensive side of the ball, that that are exciting. But I do think they need to just rebuild this team and you know, start from scratch and find somebody that, like I think what they're gonna do. I think Kris Shula is going to be the next head coach for the Steelers. That's my that's my guess. And I think that he could bring on, you know, some innovative offensive core, young offensive coordinator you know, possibly from the Rams, and they they build something together, uh and it's a young higher as they've done with Chuck Nole, Bill Kauer and Mike Tomlin, and they you know, maybe get a Malik Willis this offseason or go that round to just see while also thinking about the future and not necessarily needing to make the playoffs next year, and just realize that they need to rebuild. Because the Steelers perpetually have this idea in their head. Ownership has this idea in their head that they should always be contenders. But that's just not how it works in the NFL. I mean, you got to at one point have some high draft picks to be able to have a chance at that franchise quarterback. So look, my feelings on Tomlin are this was time. I'm very much in the middle of where people stand of him being a good coach and a bad coach. I think that the national media makes too big of a deal out of the non losing season stuff, because it's not that impressive when you don't win any playoff games. He hasn't won since twenty sixteen in the playoffs. I mean, they've been a long time.

00:31:44
Speaker 2: I was actually thinking like, yeah, I mean, what, it's before your elementary aged child was born, right, you know, it's it's a long time.

00:31:55
Speaker 1: It's a long time, especially when you have those opportunities to be in the playoffs and none like that. They've been to destroyed in the playoffs. Right, Tomlin is a great leader, great motivator, can get the most out of his players, but he's not an x's and o's guy. And the other problem I mentioned the quarterback, the franchise quarterback thing. He's a horrible, horrible evaluator of coordinator talent. The coordinators that Pittsburgh has had have been so he has. How crazy is it that you have a nineteen year tenure with a team and you don't have a tree. No, there's no Mike Tomlin tree at all at all. I mean, Bruce Arians went out and he ended up, but Bruce Arians was established before Mike Tomlin didn't develop any coach to go on and be a head coach anywhere. It's crazy to think the failures that they've had Arthur Smith that offensive coordinators been fine, but definitely not great. Matt Canada was arguably the worst coordinator hire slash coordinator that I've ever seen in NFL history.

00:32:54
Speaker 2: Right.

00:32:55
Speaker 1: I think that is a huge, huge problem with Mike Tomlin is that he didn't know how to surround himself with the right coordinators. And we can blame Mike Tomlin for that. And you can still play you know, I've had a lot of responses being like, oh, he's had no he's had no non losing season in nineteen years. Yeah, it sucks making the playoffs every year, but yeah, and he hasn't had a quarterback and doing that. Guys, the head coach has say in who the what kind of personnel they're drafting and working with. It's not like Mike Tomlin, you know, sits in his living room on draft night and has no say and what they're doing at any position. Right, Like he's going to the Senior Bowl. He's going and he's evaluating these guys. They haven't found the answer. And they passed on Jackson Dart last year, you know, like quit this garbage off. He hasn't done anything at quarterback or he had that. He's done a lot with nothing at quarterback when they've had opportunity, they've had opportunity. Like it's it can be partially on him too, So I think it was just time.

00:33:56
Speaker 2: Hope.

00:33:56
Speaker 1: I hope he crushes it wherever he goes next. I think he's a really good due who has gotten, like I said, gotten a lot out of his players, and he gave a lot to Pittsburgh and the city of Pittsburgh is a part of me, even though I don't live there anymore. Yeah, it's a huge part of me, and I'm very, very grateful that a person could come in and give the city that much.

00:34:16
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, we are going I told you I was gonna let you just for your your late round. Ran knows you didn't mention Kenny Pickett. You're at your Pittsburgh boy, and.

00:34:30
Speaker 1: Love Kenny Pickett because the dude got my my my school in a SEC championship.

00:34:34
Speaker 2: That's right. So we just real quick, we're gonna move Rookie of the Year to the end of the show. Harrorball available. Who would you choose if you were a horrball Titans or like Giants or somebody else.

00:34:50
Speaker 1: I mean easily the Giants. We said it last week we ranked them.

00:34:54
Speaker 2: Okay, you say easily, but easily.

00:34:57
Speaker 1: I would easily take the Giants over the Titan. Yeah.

00:35:00
Speaker 2: But now that you hear like hardball's evaluating, where where.

00:35:04
Speaker 1: Are the Titans significantly better than the Giants?

00:35:08
Speaker 2: Uh? Cap room?

00:35:10
Speaker 1: That's where they got cap room? All right? Alright?

00:35:14
Speaker 2: And no state income tax. So there you go. That's how that's how we get them. Uh, you know, just no state income tax, country music stars and not. You don't have like the New York limelight we treat celebrities here.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: Look. Look, I personally would rather live in Nashville and New York City or or you know, in the New York area for sure.

00:35:36
Speaker 2: Place to live. Yeah, okay, all right, we got to get onto the speaking of of Jackson Darts, he's he is in the cover boy and he is he is on this list, so let's get onto it.

00:35:47
Speaker 1: The late round main event. I did have some data too that that we that we skipped over their kitchen.

00:35:59
Speaker 2: I didn't see any data.

00:36:01
Speaker 1: Oh wow, did we? That is bizarre. I thought I had some day. Okay, we'll just skip it. I had. I had players who I'll do it next week. But I had players who outperformed an underperformed ADP expectation most at quarterback this past year. But you can look at my Twitter account. I went through all of that on Twitter. That's really weird though, that it's not I guess the image might not have saved don Let's look at way too early top ten quarterback rankings for twenty twenty six. Yes, okay, so again, guys.

00:36:33
Speaker 2: It's so funny to because again you said, this is not your forte you want to be like, well, researched. A lot can happen between January fourteen.

00:36:42
Speaker 1: Look, I think that look early, you know, way too early rankings. They're fun content. But just know that this is just fun content. Okay, got it all right. People have come to me over the last decade of my life where they want, you know, very thoughtful, you know, accurate analysis, and I don't how accurate this is gonna end up being, just because.

00:37:01
Speaker 2: Those people just want to know do you have their quarterback on their dynasty or their keeper team right ranked? They just want they want to feel good about themselves.

00:37:10
Speaker 1: Number ten, I think we're gonna do a blackout thing. You didn't do the blackout thing for these okay, but now we got now and now everyone can see that Trevor Lawrence is number nine. Yeah, number ten, rock party. I have Brock Purty at ten. I honestly think you could argue him up to eight, but you could argue him also down to like twelve or thirteen. He has back to back season this this is what's really key about Brock in my opinion, is that the last couple of years. He's been using his legs a lot more. We saw that a lot in that Bears game, that shootout, you know, second last week of the season or whatever it was, you know, championship week or maybe that was Week sixteen. But uh, he's been using his legs a lot more. He's had three point six points per game via rushing in each of his last two at least three point six. He's average over eighteen points per game over his last three seasons. But I think that the reason why we would be more bearish is because this kittle thing. But the offensive environment's good, the weapons aren't terrible. You know, you should feel good about attaching a quarterback to someone in this general tree of you know McVeigh Shanahan sort of that style, you know, the Koc kind of style. Although I know the Koc thing didn't work out this past year, you should feel pretty good about asociating this player, especially when they have a backbone of being a good fantasy asset. So brock Purty number.

00:38:33
Speaker 2: Ten, Okay, let's move on number nine. You've got Trevor Lawrence at number nine.

00:38:37
Speaker 1: Well, shocker, right, Trevor Lawrence. Man, I think that he could have I mean he could be better than this next year. The one thing I'll say that I don't think is getting enough. I mean, I haven't really seen it. Talked about a lot on social he had nine rushing touchdowns. Yeah, in twenty twenty five, he's not gonna see he might that's probably be cutting half.

00:38:55
Speaker 2: Next year he'll probably have four or five if he's. If he's I don't know if you could consider him a league but he was definitely like a best ball advancer.

00:39:03
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I think he was a league winning type player if you held out, if you were able to hold on to him and use him, just because of when that peak happened, right, I feel good about the because I love Tela. Entering the season, he was one of the highest best ball players rostered in terms of, you know, at the quarterback position, and most importantly in the bold predictions at the beginning of the year, which went over to Reddit dot com go off King, I I had Trevor Lawrence with outscore Baker Mayfield, and the first month of the season it was looking real rough. But the reason I pointed out is because that was probably the one bold prediction that I got the most hate for because a lot of people hate whatever because like te law was kind of like a popular, you know, late round pick, you know, like like go to quarterback because Liam Cohen was going to be there, et cetera, et cetera. And I think a lot of people hate it when analysts sort of like have similar take, like I like Drake London this year, right, and it's like, oh, another analyst who likes Drake London. But I do think there's some validity to the fact that, like a lot of analysts were recognizing the importance of Liam Cohen, and we saw it really come to fruition during the second half of the season. Trevor Lawrence during his final six games was over twenty seven Fantasy points per game and that standard that's minus two points per interception too. The weapons are there. Parker Washington breakout happened, which I'm really excited about because if you guys go you know, the ZAP models changed a lot at wide receiver and running back and it's definitely different than it was back then. But when Parker Washington came out, the model really liked him and he hit a positive draft capital delta. There was a lot to like about his profile. Very versatile. He was an early declare and so it's nice to see those kind of players eventually get something and get there. And I think Parker Washington is a really good slot player who's sort of in like that I don't know, Golden tateish kind of he's got that kind of vibe to his game where he's just like a complete bruiser, you know, Hines Ward esque kind of player.

00:41:06
Speaker 2: So the weapons are there for for Jacksonville Hunters. It was not even there at the end of the season.

00:41:11
Speaker 1: You were not even talking about Travis Hunter when they go trade for Jacoby Myers. Brian Thomas I think had some injury issues to start and wasn't totally like he started to vibe a little bit towards the end of the year.

00:41:22
Speaker 2: BDJ is like the like the least uh, I guess reliable option now, which is crazy to kind of even think of. But with all the with some of the drops he had, they got Parker, they got Parker Washington, Jacoby Myers in a three year deal BTJ and a rookie contract, Travis Hunter.

00:41:39
Speaker 1: And a Yeah, Breton Strange is a good tight end. I mean they have they have the piece of the offensive line exceeded expectations this year. I think Tilt could be ranked higher than than than nine. The reason why I have him here is because I'm a little bit worried about that rushing touchdown regression.

00:41:53
Speaker 2: All right, let's move on to number eight. You might recognize this quarterback from this past week. He made a really good play. It is Caleb Williams.

00:42:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have Caleb at at eight. I think that you could flip flop these guys if you want to. But Caleb, you know, he had he had an eight an eighteen point seven Fantasy points per game average when his completion percentage over expected in the regular season was actually worse than the NFL according to Next Gen Stats, So he had a horrible completion percentage over expected. But he's still finished as a QB one in fantasy. The weapons are obviously there. We'll see what happens with like a DJ Moore type. But regardless, Colston Lovelin's coming on, He's gonna be an elite tight end. You know you have Romadonde was banged up, but I think I still think he's good. And Luther Burden could be special, Like Luther Burden could be a really really good player, so the weapons are there. There's nothing weird about his four point eight percent touchdown rate this year, so I don't think there's gonna be any weird wacky regression going on. He averaged well over four hundred rushing yards per he's He's averaged well over four hundred rushing yards per season so far with his legs. One of my one of the most fun stats. And I remember I had written about this in a data dump earlier this year when I was looking at Keaton Mitchell's twenty mile an hour runs and how the percentage of his twenty mile hour runs is just crazy. Caleb Williams ranked ninth in the NFL in twenty mile an hour runs. That's not r.

00:43:16
Speaker 2: Run.

00:43:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a scramble that he had against the Packers this past week. If you guys go rewatch that game. He's going down the far sideline and his verse is insane, like he is so fast and people do not realize how fast this man is. He was ninth and twenty mile an hour runs. He had more twenty mile an hour runs this past year than James Cook, which is crazy. So I think that should give us some confidence that that rushing production is here to stay. But I am a little bit worried about him sustaining some of his deep ball stuff, where his deep ball numbers, you know, like he was fine on the deep ball overall, like completion percentage wise and stuff. But he had twelve twenty plus are yard touchdowns according to PFF, which was one of the higher marks in the league, if not the actually led the league. And so that number probably regresses a little bit. But there are other places where he can improve and get better. And I think that's a natural thing to think in a Ben Johnson offense going into year three. All right, so let's get to number seven, cam Ward just kidding. Someone said cam Moore top two, and I just highlighted the comment, you know, just yeah, we're going Jackson Dart here again. I think the ceiling like this, I'm not gonna be surprised that Jackson Dart is sort of like the cover boy late round quarterback next year, depending on where his ADP lands. I think in Sharper drafts, you know, best ball drafts, he's probably gonna go around QB six to nine or something like that.

00:44:41
Speaker 2: His head coach shift your either way, Like let's say they get Arthur Smith.

00:44:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, it'll depend on who they get. Yeah, if it's Arthur Smith, I'm not gonna feel that great. But you know, it's more so coordinator whoever they get there. But I think what we obviously love about Dart he averaged seven point three points per game via rushing. He was third in designed rush attempts design rush attempt rate, I should say. And so he's a mobile quarterback, like he can get a lot done with his legs. If you look at the twenty one season since twenty eleven, where a quarterback through two hundred plus times and had between six and eight points per game via rushing, the average points per game among those quarterbacks was nineteen point nine. So he was below that mark a little bit. I think he was. I mean, I think he was below that mark, but he was below that mark this year. But he's a rookie, like we're we should expect a little bit more as he progresses as a passer. Moleague neighbors. You know, I know that his recovery hasn't gone as well as expected so far, just based on the fact like he was using a cane or something recently, and that matters I guess I'm not a doctor, but hopefully Milieue Neighbors is back at some point early next year. And second year quarterbacks are sort of an ADP hack. They've been really good bets. I mean this year we had Drake May obviously as the huge bet, but you know, Caleb Boyos was not bad versus eighty expectation this year. So I think Jackson Dart is going to be a favorite of mine in twenty twenty six.

00:46:08
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get to number six, mister cool Joe Burrow.

00:46:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I mean, look, if you look at his games where he's had twenty or more attempts over the last three years, he's averaged nineteen point four points per game. It's just a really safe, high floor option. I am a little bit nervous though. Last year he had a six point six percent touchdown rate. This past year, so two years ago six point six percent touch on rate. This past year also six point six percent. It's a good offense. He's a good quarterback, so like we're gonna be able to sustain that touchdown rate more than a typical quarterback would. But it is a little bit high. It is a number that generally would regress. If he is drafted the same ADP that he was this year, I'm not gonna draft Joe Burrow because it's the exact I mean, I faded him this past year. He was a player to avoid in the draft guide. And if he has the exact same ADP, being the exact same player without any real changes to that, there's no reason for me to feel like we should be drafting him at that ADP. But if he's a round eight, round nine guy, I think it's fine. You know, I think that we can go that route. And I say that you're gonna sit there and be like, Wow, Joe Burrow in round eight, round nine quarterback is so deep. I mean, I'm not even mentioning guys like Dak Prescott Matthew Stafford on today's list. You know, these guys who are capable of giving us these really big passing seasons. And this is the same kind of archetype of player, because you're not gonna get massive amounts of You're gonna get some, but you're not gonna get massive amounts of rushing production from Joe Burrow. Right, So you have to think about the archetype and what we generally see with ceilings here. I'm not gonna be so surprised. This might this might sound hot, taky, and it's January, so I can say whatever the heck I want to say, But I'm not gonna be surprised if I have Jackson Dart ranked ahead of Joe Burrow next year, just because of the rushing upside and what we know works in fantasy football.

00:47:50
Speaker 2: Speaking of rushing upside, Number five Jalen Hurts, So.

00:47:56
Speaker 1: I know that he burned a lot of fantasy managers. This is gonna be really depending on who they get an offensive coordinator.

00:48:01
Speaker 2: Surely though they have learned their lesson from this past season, I think.

00:48:06
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. I think that Hurts could move a lot on this list, and the only direction you'll probably move is down based on you know, just general Yeah.

00:48:17
Speaker 2: Tope, he's not going higher than five, but he could go down. Yeah.

00:48:19
Speaker 1: I just don't think he's going higher than five. So this is probably the peak for him. But look, he's been over twenty points per game in his four other seasons outside of this year, where he was still he had a horrible year for all intents and purposes, like everyone hated everything about the Philadelphia offense, he still averaged eighteen points seven points per game, which is not that bad. We got to watch what happens with AJ Brown, who knows what goes on there, especially with like contract stuff. Kevin Btulo being gone, in my opinion, is huge because the Eagles last year twenty seventh in pass rate, twenty fourth in play action rate, which is crazy when you have a run game the way that you do, even if, even if play action isn't as dependent on the run game as everyone thinks analytically, and there's been a lot of studies that show that play action doesn't really matter about you know, having like an efficient run game doesn't really matter for play action purposes. Just run play action and defenders will bite. Right, So you want a team and an offensive coordinator who's pretty high on the list in play action rate because it tells you that they generally know what's going on. In today's NFL they were twenty fourth and play action rate even crazier with the personnel they had twenty ninth in motion. If you look at the freaking route charts from AJ Brown and DeVante Smith through this year, very few crossing routes which are cheat codes in today's game. Just a really dumb offense overall. Kevin Botulo I said it earlier, just like nothing against the dude. I have no idea who like, I've never met him before.

00:49:42
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's a nice guy.

00:49:44
Speaker 1: But being an offensive coordinator in the NFL was not what he should have done this year. Okay, he just was not ready to have that job. So I don't feel super comfortable with hurts here. I could put them below a burrow a dart Hey.

00:49:58
Speaker 2: But I think it's early. It's way it's way too early. It's way too early. Yeah, yeah, we don't know, you know, it's early when we don't even know the guys offensive coordinator, just like this guy right here, Jade Daniels.

00:50:14
Speaker 1: Jade Daniels.

00:50:15
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:50:15
Speaker 1: Look, I mean this is definitely a more of like a prayer, you know, type of of you know, like a vibes slash hope type ranking. But he was injured all season. He still scored eighteen point six points per game in games outside of that weird Minnesota one where he was knocked out and they didn't want to you know, he like came back from injury too early and stuff. It was a weird game in general, and Minnesota's a good off are a good defense too, But the ceiling is clearly there based on his rookie season. He was top in the league this past year and scramble rates still and that is a pretty predictive way of looking at rushing production the following year. Now, we don't necessarily need to look at scramble right to say that Jade Daniels or Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen will scramble, but it is something that we at least can say more concretely that it will happen, and but look for that, look for scramble raid for like other guys like Brock Perdy was one last year going into this year or two years ago, whatever the case may be, where it was like a little bit higher than you expected, and then he did you know, he was running a little bit more. But you know, you have oc question marks right now in Washington. I think there's a little bit of volatility here too, Like this is I still like jayde Daniels. I would still put him for obviously, but I do think that this could move as well based on who they hire and what they do this offseason.

00:51:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have I don't know. I can't remember if it's a Blow or Blow, but it's David Blow there is their new offensive coordinators promoted. I think he was a quarterback for Purdue back in the day.

00:51:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, he played for like Detroit and stuff.

00:51:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I remember playing him in college football dfs back to the day. But yeah, he's an up and comer. You hope that that he knows what he wants to do, which in that offense, just like whoever is the offensive coordinator for this Lamar Jackson at number three?

00:52:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is like we can go through this pretty quickly because we know Lamar Jackson's ceiling is new coaching staff could be a plus. He hasn't finished below nineteen point seven points per game prior to this year, which is obviously strong. And then you know, you just have to hope that this year was more so due to injury than actual talent regression. And I like, it just was a weird year for Lamar given injuries and stuff that I don't want to just bury the dude. Based on that if we can get.

00:52:28
Speaker 2: A didn't bury him, you put him top three?

00:52:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.

00:52:31
Speaker 2: It was the most frustrating person in fantasy football last year.

00:52:34
Speaker 1: But my point is, like, if you you could like the ceiling is cute, Like, you don't have many quarterbacks in fantasy where the ceiling is actually pairing up because spoiler alert, Josh Allen is the QB one on this list, but there are very few quarterbacks in fantasy football that you can feel has the exact same kind of ceiling as Josh Allen. Lamar Jackson's one of the very few. So he's got to be a top five quarterback from a ranking perspective.

00:52:58
Speaker 2: All right, er two and not going to surprise anybody. Drake may Cover boy and one of your guys that you were high on earlier this year. Yeah, before the season, I guess as you said.

00:53:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love me some Drake man Man, not only because he helped my career this year, but also he's from the area that I live, which is cool, you know, is his brother coaches the high school basketball team of the high school that my kids will go to. So but yeah, there's gonna be a little bit of regression, probably with a six point three percent touchdown rate, but he trailed only Jayden Daniels and Justin Fields, who probably shouldn't even qualify and scramble rate. He scrambled more than Josh Allen this past year, which again really nice and predictive for future rushing production. He was best in the NFL and completion percentage over expected and that was within a like probably I don't know we call that pass catching group like average probably in New England, and he had the best CPOE in the entire league. Now, I haven't studied completion percentage over expected enough to to know the true stickiness year over year, so maybe there is going to be some regression even there happening. Because when I approach certain metrics, my general way of my general outlook and looking at them is this, this metric is going to regress. You can't just assume that it sticks year over year. So that's why, like Calb, it's interesting because he was so low, like he could just improve and then all of a sudden he'd be probably a better fantasy asset. But generally speaking, this just shows that Drake may balled d F out this year. Like he was awesome, right, He's just a safe bet overall. I think he's just really really good. He's now part of that elite group. He's still young, incredibly young, So to me, Drake May needs to be in the top two or three.

00:54:45
Speaker 2: Okay, and number one you mentioned it either good coaches or this guy. It's Josh Allen.

00:54:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's just no one like him in fantasy football. One of the crazy things. And I talked about this in the draft guide this past year about some of the early round quarterbacks, specifically Josh Allen is. I think there's an argument to be made, especially in like a ten team league, that he's just underdrafted every year, that the late round quarterback, the guy who wrote the book on strategy, I'm saying that Josh Allen just Josh Allen, no one else. Josh Allen is consistently undervalued in fantasy leagues. He has outpaced his ADP expectation by two points per game or more. Yeah, in each of his last seven seasons. Because we're not drafting him. He should probably be a round two pick, but he's usually a round three pick.

00:55:39
Speaker 2: Now.

00:55:40
Speaker 1: I think in best ball and stuff it's different because of team construction and how we're playing it. But in a regular season long league, in a ten team league, especially with only two running backs and two wide receivers in the tight end where quarterback is going to be more meaningful to that lineup. Josh Allen should be a second round pick at the very least, and so so I think Josh Allen's the clear QB one. He's been first or second in fantasy points per game in each of the last six seasons. That is insane. It's insanity, it's it's crazy.

00:56:10
Speaker 2: So and even more so in the past few years he hasn't really had a wide receiver one.

00:56:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, and look someone so someone in chat saying getting burned on early quarterback was not fun this year, totally get it. There are I write about this, I talk about this every single year. There are areas and times where you go early quarterback, and then there are areas and times where you don't. Most of the time, you're probably not right. I do think that Josh Allen continues to be sort of an exception to the rule. But we all know in playoffs like like I had Josh Allen as a cell remember, like like earlier this year because the playoffs schedule was rough, and there are instances where where you know, like the playoffs could just not look good for that player, and you're just kind of out of luck and he puts up six points. But that could be the case for any player in fantasy, you know. But yeah, early around quarterbacks, Jane Daniels gets hurt, Jalen Hurts, underperforms, Lamar Jackson underperforms. Yeah, and those were the and Joe Burrow Burrow got hurt. So like those were the five guys, and Josh Allen was the only one who was like okay, but it's been that like Josh Allen has not seen the variance and fluctuations that the other guys have, which is why I had him at QB one, you know entering the season. I'm gonna have him at QB one again this year.

00:57:23
Speaker 2: All right, Uh, there's your top your way too early, top ten. You already mentioned JJ. Just the quarterback class is deep. I mean, obviously Mahomes got hurt late in the season, but Yahmes, no Prescott, no Nicks, no Stafford, no Baker.

00:57:41
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, no, no Jared Goff. I mean, how could we have Jared Goff in.

00:57:45
Speaker 2: The top go do Ja Kobe Brissette.

00:57:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just I'm just hoping that there's not Jared Goff, you know, the the Jared Goff contingent like we had last year coming after me for having him ranked at like QB seventeen.

00:57:58
Speaker 2: I don't think there will be. I don't think that that crowd has probably quieted down. All right, let's wrap this up, and I figure we could wrap it up with a little bit of picking your brain. Who the Rookie of the year is going to be? The nominees JJ one person was egregiously left off, even though he set the rookie passing record for the organization and never missed a start, never missed.

00:58:30
Speaker 1: Who is cam mood battling with uh Joe Levis, will Levis, will Levis and Jake Locker oh Man tough to break that record?

00:58:41
Speaker 2: Uh, you might have heard of him, Steve McNair, Bence Young.

00:58:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that was different. That's that's all.

00:58:48
Speaker 2: There's still the organization, all right, anyways, we don't all right, all right, Tyler Shuck. By the way, someone in the chad said David Blow or blow was David bluckuh because of the Tyler Shuck pronunciation. Travon Henderson, Jackson, Dart Ashton, gent T, Ttero McMillan, and Carson Schwessinger.

00:59:12
Speaker 1: I think that the Rookie of the Year should be I think it's going to be I think it's gonna be Tterro McMillan.

00:59:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think it should be.

00:59:23
Speaker 1: People are gonna think I'm gona say Tyler Shuck. I think it should be Jackson Dart. I was gonna say Jackson Dart too. Yeah, he just didn't start that. He gain worked with what he worked with, neighbors going down, you know, coming back from like coaching changes, coming back from concussion and such. I thought Jackson was the most impressive. Like in a year where we didn't have a running back or wide receiver tight end really stand out right to me, you got to then just default a quarterback. And who the most impressive quarterback was to me was Jackson Dart.

00:59:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he came in there and and did I feel like from a fan standpoint, he was like, yeah, that's what we want. Rushed side.

01:00:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Tyler Shuck was was impressive.

01:00:08
Speaker 2: Okay, towards the end he gave him, but nothing.

01:00:11
Speaker 1: I honestly, I think Kelen Moore is a very underrated coach.

01:00:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. I would agree with that, given given what.

01:00:17
Speaker 1: We saw in Philadelphia and then you know him going to New Orleans and him rallying that team, and even Spencer Ratler wasn't horrific, and everyone's like, why are you benching Spencer Ratler for this guy? And then Tyler Shuck ended up being kind of legit towards the end of the year.

01:00:31
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get out of here. JJ. Just as a reminder, go follow the late round. Obviously the social accounts, but the newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter. That's that's the big ask that we have for you, because we've got some good stuff going on there, and we be doing more stuff, more stuff each and every week. JJ.

01:00:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, what, I'm really excited. So what I've been working on the last week. I've been in my hole and in Godula and you're Dave Gettlelman the Dave Gettlelman meme of typing on the computer. But I've been in my hole and I'll randomly just send stuff to kitchen and Godula of like what's going on with the the ZAP model stuff. But there's been a lot of cool changes with the wide receiver and running back models. Not changes in the way of like you know, completely altering the metrics that are going in, but the way that they're being weighed. And so, for instance, just to give you guys a little teaser, like for the wide receiver model, there's a metric that I added that gets more signal for late round wide receivers and not early round wide receivers, and so it kind of I'm working more on on weighing some of these metrics rather than not that things were linear in nature with the model before, but now there's there's specific ways that I've worked on it to make sure that I'm giving proper weight depending on the area of the draft that we're in, and so it's really interesting stuff in my opinion. I mean, it's pretty nerdy for most people, but I think really dig it. There's also as a result of all that I'm gonna be changing the way that I'm sort of displaying zapp scores and thinking about Zapp scores, so that'll all be in the guide and such. But lots of prospect work starting. I have not dug into the actual class yet. I've just been making sure the models are good with the testing that I do every year, and then once I'm hoping to be done with a lot of that this week, and then once that's over I can start digging into some of the prospects and stuff. But next week, next Tuesday, the flagship shows back, so you get the regular Late Round podcast schedule back on Tuesday next week, so there won't just be this one show in the feed every week.

01:02:42
Speaker 2: You get that show, and again we'll be doing more and more stuff from a free standpoint and behind the pay well, lots of good stuff JJ could duel in myself last week had our little two day planning session, so it's gonna be a fun twenty twenty six and we thank you for being along for the ride. And with that being said, JJ, let's get out of here, so on behalf of JJ I'm Kitchen. We'll see you next time here on the Late Round Fantasy Football show piece.

01:03:11
Speaker 1: A right