Late-Round Perspectives: Dan Schneier

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Speaker 1: Dan Schneier is a senior editor at CBS Sports and a co host the Big Blue Banter podcast. He previously has done work at Pro Football focused in Fox Sports. He's a Giants fan, he's a film grinder, and contrary to popular belief, there is no D in his last name. These are his late round perspectives. I've been typing your name more frequently than I would otherwise be doing, obviously because you're on the show and I'm putting together the show sheet.

00:00:34
Speaker 2: And all that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: Do you how frequently do you get a D in your name versus not in it?

00:00:41
Speaker 2: Not being in your name?

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Speaker 3: It's just constant. It's been my entire life. I think even when people don't see the D in pronounce the D, they just have no clue how to pronounce this last name, even though it's like easy too if you just think of like Schneider without the D, but it just confuses people, and it's been confusing for everybody my dire life. So that's my life.

00:00:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild. It's like it's just one of those names.

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Speaker 1: There's some names where like whenever I type them out and i'm typing them, I just I can I never will. Like, for some reason, Trey McBride's last name, I always put me bridge for some reason. Right, So like every time I'm putting that G in there for some reason, and with yours i'm typing it out. I just keep putting the D in there, and I'm not meaning to put that in there? Do you get Schneider more than Schneier in general?

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Speaker 3: I think I get Schneer the most. That's the one I get the interesting? Yeah, interesting, man.

00:01:26
Speaker 1: I mean as someone who can who can you know, feel for you with the uh last name mispronunciations, I totally get it, totally.

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Speaker 3: And I gotta be honest. I have never done one of these cold opens in a show ever. I had no idea what to expect. So I hope I didn't mess that up too badly.

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Speaker 2: No, No, you didn't.

00:01:41
Speaker 1: Look and look, you can't mess up the cold open any worse than Uh. There was one episode that I did with UH with John Dagel last year, good Friend, and he.

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Speaker 2: Hopped on and I was just like, Degel, how's the gold buddy? Like those that those the cold open?

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Speaker 1: No, this is perfect. That's a perfect way. I like doing a cold open because you just get right into it and you're able to kind of you know, break the ice a little bit, and uh, you know, it at least gives a little bit of a different like from like a from a listener perspective. You know, they're they're jumping in literally when we because like most shows that we do, I mean ninety nine percent of them that don't have cold opens, you're having People don't necessarily know this, but like there are some shows will go on where we're having conversations for like a half hour before the show starts and then again for a half hour to the show ends. And you know, at least with this, you're cutting off that beginning part and you're getting all of the discussion.

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Speaker 3: I like it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, interesting.

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Speaker 1: This is your first time on perspectives, So I want, you know, the audience, if they're not familiar with your work and what you do, to sort of get to know you. So talk about what you're about, what you do, your Giants fandom. I almost met by the way, I almost made a D and Giants defense joke in there, but I decided not to.

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Speaker 2: You know, with might yeah, it would it would have been would have a little rough.

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Speaker 3: No.

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Speaker 1: I was just gonna say to talk about like everything about like what you're doing, like like your your come up and how you got into this crazy game.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate that. I did need to start the show though, first by thanking you. It's an honor to be on the show. Dude. I've followed your work forever, been a huge fan of your work forever. Can literally word for word this is kind of sickening, but word for word, recite the Living the Stream intro song.

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Speaker 2: God, I don't know how one of those sickos.

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Speaker 3: I'm one of those siccos I don't even know how. I still have it in my head. Like not to be offensive, but I haven't really listened to the show as much in the last couple years because I'm so busy. I still can hit that intro word for word, and I think it's the best intro in sports. But love the work you do. I love the transition you've made the solo show. It is not easy to solo podcast. It is really difficult thing to do, so I thought I was really impressive that you took that leap and you were able to execute it the way you have. So thank you for having me on the shows. Definitely a big honor to be here. As far as my journey's gone, with this whole job, in this career, it started out of nowhere. For me at least, I've always loved football. My dad took me to my first fantasy football draft at eight years old. It was an auction draft. I'm the biggest auction proponent, and since then I've just been hooked. We were reading Matthew Polite columns on Roadal World, and then for you know, for school, I went to Wisconsin. I was going to just do advertising, and that was going to be my career. Like my parents are always like, you can't do any of the stuff you want to do. There's there's no value to that, there's no career ahead. And I was working my first job, which is a video advertising job in the city, commuting every day from my parents' house in New Jersey, JJ, the most miserable commute of a lifetime, waking up every morning like I don't know if I can do this again another day. And in that time period, Chris Westling, who I don't know if you're familiar with Chris, Yeah, fortunately rest in peace, one of the greatest dudes, put out a tweet it was twenty and twelve. Twitter was basically nothing. It was a few thousand people at the time, probably, and his tweet was just this rotor World account is so poorly managed, I can't believe it. Kind of just like venting at the moment, like he had so much to do, he couldn't do that. And so I found his email, I think at that time, via LinkedIn or something, and I've just said, listen, I'll run this account for free. I just want an opportunity. Did that met Mike claith that who gave me an opportunity of Pro Football Focus. Then it's kind of jumped from there and I've moved over to CBS Sports and then Fantasy Football Today and obviously now Jacob and I for those who aren't aware, we have a new show that's debuted this year. Last year we were doing it as well, but we have our own channel now, which is exciting, and it's Fantasy Football Today beyond the box Score, where we do a lot of deep dives into the film and the advanced stats. So it's been a really fun journey for me. I get to do what I love JJ, so I'm excited.

00:05:23
Speaker 2: That's awesome.

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Speaker 1: There's also a lot of like intertwining with people with both of our careers and such like you mentioned. So first off, people don't even know this. I probably have brought it up on a Perspective episode. But I before I got to Number Fire, which was in twenty thirteen, is when I got that job. There was a year period where I launched the Late Round Quarterback ebook and that's sort of when like living the Stream started and stuff, and I got gigs at like a one off sort of article series with Rodo World. That was one of my bigger breaks, if you will, talking to Silva and he just kind of wanted me to do a quarterback series on there. But then also I did three I wrote for PFF. I did three articles for PFF under Mike Clay and so we had that where that's how I got I got introduced to Clay. That was before you know, pre ESPN days for Clay and then you working with Gibbs now is crazy too, because Gibbs started his sort of journey and doing all this fantasy stuff with me at Number Fire, like that's where that's where that all began for him, and so he's he's one of those people where I look back and I'm just like very proud of like what he's been able to do. You know, Scott Barrett and Graham Barfield both started under me a number fire as well, and Chris Raymond another one who's just been absolutely coaching. Yeah, I feel I feel, I feel amazing about I mean, obviously they they're the ones putting in all the work, but you know, it's great that like I can at least look back and say, like I can literally see how far so many of those guys have come and how far I've come. Like there's you know, I'm a totally different analyst than I was, yeah back then, but like, you know, just thinking back, I'm like, man, I really wish we had a better.

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Speaker 2: Budget to be able to have held on all those dudes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I could have done. But they've they've gone on to do great things, and I think it's it's worked out for everyone pretty much.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, hundred percent. Hundred percent. So let's talk about you as an analyst. How would you describe your process a bit as an analyst? I actually recently was working out and I was like, I need to I need to find a podcast, need to listen to something.

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Speaker 2: And I listened to you on the.

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Speaker 1: Couch with Bloom and I loved your conversation because I love listening to people who approach this stuff differently than I do. Right, That's that's where I can learn the most. No offense to a you know, Rich Reebar, Dwayne McFarlane, but like, I feel like I learned more from you know you guys having that conversation versus me talking to Dwayne and Reebs, because Dwayne and Reebs were more than likely going to be drawing the same conclusions and look at the same stuff anyway. And so I want to just like talk to you about like how you are as an analyst, who you are as an analyst, and sort of how you approach the game.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definite, it's definitely different. I think it all kind of harkens back to my interest in football as a game because I've always loved the strategic part of it, the chess match, the eleven verse eleven, the moving pieces. And back in twenty eighteen when I started my Giants podcast, which is Big Blue Banter, I wanted to be a film based podcast, so I found a co host, Nick Urchin at the time, who's now working as a football coach. That's how like advanced he was, and I was like, teach me how to watch the game, teach me how to watch film, and teach me what I should be looking for from a film standpoint. So I worked with him. He taught me a lot, and now my new co host, Nick Vlado, same type of deal. Like went to the Scout and Academy, learned the game, played football, teach me how to learn this game better. And from that, I've really become an analyst that really focuses mostly on what I see on film, and it's not necessarily all film based. I don't want to say that, because I believe honestly, fantasy a lot of time. You just have to understand situations. But I do feel like my advantages come from honestly being deep dive into the draft. Like when it comes to the offensive line, I know every offensive lineman from the top fifteen of each position group that are coming to the NFL, and I know what kind of offensive linean they are, so I know how they're going to impact the team they're drafted doing and how they're going to fit the run scheme, I how it's going to the blocking scheme in the pass game, and I use that to my advantage and what comes to situation. To me, it still is one of the major factors in predicting fantasy success. Who's around you, what kind of role are you going to have on that team? And then what do I see on film that I think can fit that role. A lot of the players are going to talk about today, I like or dislike them based on their fit in the scheme and what they were drafted to do. So for me, it is mostly film. It's ninety percent film based. And that's not necessarily just evaluating which players are best on film, but it's which players fit the schemes they're going to be drafted into and they're going to play in.

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Speaker 1: If you were to say, like, like when we have the film versus analytics discussion, which which happens all the time, has been happening for since I started in the space, yeah, like, and it's silly, it's kind of dumb, you know, just just because like we shouldn't be bucketed the way that people bucket But obviously, like I approach it from the standpoint of, like, I know what I can bring to the table, and so I'm going to bring that thing to the table, while also I mean again, if you go back, can you listen to me ten years ago and you listen to me now? I'm very much talking more about real football concepts today than I was ten years ago, because I think it's really important to try to at least grow where you're deficient while also hopefully, you know, emphasizing and doubling down on the stuff that you are good at.

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Speaker 2: Right, what do you think? You know?

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Speaker 1: This is sort of off topic, but I think it's still pretty related. What do you think are like the advantages and disadvantages to those approaches, like like for your film based stuff, like where where do you think people can go wrong? Often because we have plenty of like strictly film related and focused folks. I mean like Chris Harris, for instance, has made his entire career off of watching film, and I think bloom is more film based or Waldman is more film based. But where do you and obviously you being that way, where do you think there are some drawbacks? Then we can also talk about that from an analytical perspective, and I would love to hear your perspective of where.

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Speaker 2: That could be from an analytical perspective.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really interesting. I want to make it clear, it's not I kind of phrase that wrong. It's not like I'm only relying on the film. I think Jacob Gibbs is my coast, has done a great job of marrying the two and he used to be all analytics. Now he's trying to move into film. I'm trying to go that other route like factor in the analytics, factor in all of the things that are coming up. But I think where you can go wrong when you rely on the film is pretty obvious. It's sample sized base. It's you're not getting a chance to watch enough. You're using and look, there are times where I honestly do believe this as an analyst, especially when you're watching specific position groups. You can watch one or two games, and as far as projecting them to the NFL, I'm talking about college two NFL, you can get a feel for exactly what their traits are, what the coaches are going to see in them, and what the coaches are going to try to get out of them, and a lot of the times, yeah, you're going to get more out of watching the full sample size of their games as far as you know, are they consistent on a down to down basis, and that does matter to coaches, and ultimately sometimes players careers fizzle out because they're not consistent on a downtown basis. But if you watch a six game sample size, you can see what the traits are and how to project them. But you're always going to be limited by sample size. If you're watching the tape, you're also going to just be limited by things that are really predictable based on the things that you've gone over and other great analysts like yourself. Like if you're an older player and you're dominating against the players you're watching on tape, twenty four years old, twenty five years old against eighteen nine year olds, it's very hard to adjust that. There's another example a player we're going to talk about today where I loved his tape and I'm buying in on this player, but it's against a really low level of competition, and I have to project how I think he's going to look against a real level of competition. I mean, and then you see it too, Like when you watch the tape, I remember going over it with my cost Nick, one of these players we'll talk about today, and he's like, yeah, this is awesome, and he looks I see what you see, Dan, but this cornerbacks technique is so bad on this play and we're going over each rep and we're like, you're right, like this technique is horrible and a corner is never gonna like that's never gonna happen at the NFL level for this, So it's.

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Speaker 1: Interesting and then and then like when it comes and I agree, like, but to be fair too, like I don't want to act as though analytics solve those problems in totality, you know, the schedule stuff and the opponent stuff, like that's.

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Speaker 2: Still not like easily capturable.

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Speaker 1: Not only that, but I would argue that there's not enough going on of that in the fantasy space like it in the in the analytics space. Like I really the last if you guys have read like the Prospect Guide or like looked at the ZAP model over the last five years and like seeing the iterations of it and stuff. Really only in the last two or three years have I done a lot of the adjusting for program strength, you know, in at least more detail in a more like processed way. Before it was kind of uniform and just not as like formulaic. But I found so much more signal and doing it in a more processed way, and I think that that's still not as like people still aren't doing that enough, So like I think that that still applies to both. And then when you and I'm just curious about this because I, like, I don't want you to think that you're gonna like offend me or anything.

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Speaker 2: Like that, because you won't in terms of like how you you know, how you might view analytics or.

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Speaker 1: But like as someone who might not be like model building or going in, like where do you think analytics aren't seeing what you would be seeing on film?

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Speaker 3: Okay, the biggest thing for me is that I don't necessary and this is a problem that I don't know how to avoid and I'm how to fix. But there's just a lot of times where I don't think the charting checks out with what I'm seeing on the tape. For example, a catchable catchable whenever we're going over receivers like contested catch rate. That's a great example of where you know, for example, Oscar delp was a prospect that I liked a lot in this class, doesn't have a lot of production at the college level, and then I see all his stats about just catchable target rate is horrible. He's catching, he's not catching any best. Then you go back and I was lucky enough to have someone do this for me on Twitter, and they charted all of his quote unquote what was charted as are They put the film cut up of all of his quote unquote catchable targets and pretty much across the board, it's just Gunner Stockton throwing the ball late, not on time, high off target and for some reason there can considered catchable. There's a wide range though, of what's considered catchable target and not and it's not really parsed out in my opinion correctly or like it's one catchable target is not worth the same as like what this not so catchable target that's kind of a catchubal target is charted as so the charting is probably my number one issue I would say with just models, like what's being charted and then trying to think of anything else that like doesn't check out from like charting to the tape. I think that I don't know, I don't know necessarily why i'd be I'm not necessary and again I'm not necessarily against using models to kind of find things, but I think The other thing for me actually would be this JJ I play fantasy in a way where I'm trying to either win first or get last. Like I don't want to be going for that. So I think the NFL is built kind of on outliers in fantasy for example, Like some of the best players that have emerged in fantasy have been outliers, and so that's another factor for me. I am. I think the models are trying to focus on. Like I'm not saying it takes away the idea of the importance of the outlier, but it's essentially telling me, like, these guys are outliers, so maybe they might not succeed, and more times than not, they're not going to succeed. But if I find the guy that I think can succeed, I'm willing to maybe take that chance. And I don't know if that makes me a good analyst. It just kind of a way a fantasy though.

00:16:14
Speaker 1: No, No, I think it's I think it's a valid thing to bring up, you know, the player this year that's kind of interesting in that bucket is like a Jenarium price for instance, right where like production profile is just so weird because he played, But there's the context that's needed and stuff. I think that I from my perspective, you know, with when it comes to numbers and the numbers driven analysis, Like I've tried to open my mind more to you know, like not necessarily buying in but it's to me, it's about like the cost benefit side of things, you know. It's it's like like understanding that the outliers will exist, but not necessarily spending up to assume the outlier. You know, So like like if you're really into some wide receiver, like if you really like Zach Rya Branch, let's say, right, and obviously Zach Branch has a really weird usage in college, it's not necessarily like super transferable or easy to recognize and how that would translate into you know, NFL production and such. You know, you can still say I like him because I like the upside, because he would be somewhat of an outlier from that perspective, but and you could recognize that even through data.

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Speaker 2: But then my thing is.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: Always like all right, let's uh, let's let's make sure that we're not drafting him over Cardel Tat.

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Speaker 2: Or Jordan Tyson something like that, you know what I mean. So I think it's all valid, though.

00:17:28
Speaker 1: I just wanted to hear your perspective on it because I think it's a It's an interesting discussion to have, and I think people always want to hear, you know, both sides, because they.

00:17:35
Speaker 2: Hear it from me all the time. They need to hear it from smart people like yourself.

00:17:38
Speaker 3: I appreciate that one thing I do want.

00:17:40
Speaker 2: To talk about.

00:17:41
Speaker 1: People are sick of this topic, probably, but I really want your perspective on it, and you know, someone else's angle on it. We're seeing all of this chatter right now about teams reaching for players versus the consensus big board. You know, we saw it with the forty nine ers in particular. Do you think that this matters at all, like like down and is it? Or do you think that it's valid to be you know, do you think it's valid to be somewhat concerned about how these teams were approaching you know, the big board debate to.

00:18:11
Speaker 3: An extent, Yes, I mean, look, you could. It's very interesting, so I think in doing so, when a team does this and they're like, you know, we know more than you, We don't care, we trust our eyes. It's similar to the outlier discussion in some ways, like the forty nine ers are a good example, Like they've missed on all these running backs where they felt like they knew more than us on and that's been bad. At the same time, they also found George Kittle in round five. They also found Fred Warner in round three. These are two of the best draft picks by any team or any draft class in the last ten years, so finding those outliers at times has really provided helpful for them. So then the question comes down to, like, as a team building your roster out and this is not fantasy related, it's more like roster building related. But what's more valuable to you finding a George Kittle or a Fred Warner every now and then or missing on some round three or four picks that ultimately don't play a huge role if you look at we'll go over some of the numbers, but like, for example, there's only been three receivers in the last twelve draft classes that were drafted in round three out of a fifty four receiver sample size. And I shout out Adam Mazer for the stat He told me this on Finnis Wall today that have scored ten point eight or more on average Fantasy points per game in PPR and full PPR. That's how unproductive the round three has been for wide receivers. So these picks we tend to put a lot on them. We make a lot of it. It's our game. We're looking to go deep. But like ultimately in the NFL, when you get outside of the top fifty overall, you kind of need an outlier to make an impact on an NFL teams. There's not as much safety, there's not as much like floor as people seem to prescribe to it. So I think if the forty nine ers were doing it earlier, it made more sense, and this year they did with Stribbling right like at thirty four. That's a pretty premium pick that decides to use on a player who's gonna have to be an outlier from a success standpoint. But ultimately, what I think that it comes down to is this JJ there's two factors that we're never gonna have when we build out our consensus boards when the analysts make their big board. For example, one, they're gonna have no nowhere near the medical information that these NFL teams get on these players. Okay, they have none of that, So that's a huge factor in which players fall and which players are drafted higher and lower. The second is none of the people like and these are great draft analysts who put together that you know, the consensus board that a reef puts together. It's from really smart people, but none of them have any access to interviewing these players. They don't know who they're going to be, they don't know what they're about. They don't know the human side at all. Really, I mean, they could read Dane Bruger's work in the Beast and it's great. He gets into the human side a little bit, but it's nowhere near like what these NFL teams have access to from interviews, from having like scouts just follow these area scouts, follow these guys around and see them in season, how they operate. So those two factors that are always lost make me think that like I do or respect and appreciate the consensus big board, but it is missing information that these NFL teams have.

00:20:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And that's why I think the data that I've researched, which I think is interesting that it shows that values in terms of big board versus actual right like where guys get drafted, the values really aren't any better than the guys who are like slight reaches. Let's say, like the guys who are massive values. Technically, the guys who are slight reaches are better value, better producers versus expectation than the guys who are huge values, because the guys who are huge values likely for the stuff that you're saying, where they fell in the draft because of bad interviews, because of medicals, because of whatever the case may be, and they're falling round after round. That's so many data inputs that we're getting from team after team after team after team, whereas a reach is just one team being like, yo, we really liked that well in the second round, you know, like we really want.

00:21:39
Speaker 2: To go that route.

00:21:40
Speaker 1: So it is interesting, you know, like I'm obviously someone who's going to come from the perspective of like wisdom of the crowds probably is better than we want to admit that it is. And this is an imperfect science to begin with, right, And you know, there's something to be said about there's somebody to be said about like getting your guy. Yes, I think that's something that like I don't want to dismiss at all, because it does matter, Like it matters in fantasy, right, Like we're we reach for guys in fantasy because we want our dudes.

00:22:08
Speaker 2: I get it, you know, I get it from that perspective.

00:22:10
Speaker 1: But then there's also sort of like the humility aspect of it, you know where where Like, okay, but if I can get this guy, you know, if I recognize that this is a probability driven thing, and I can get this, like if I have a seventy percent likelihood that this guy is gonna hit and a sixty five percent likelihood that someone else is going to hit, then I should be okay with maybe foregoing that player in trying to extract more value.

00:22:35
Speaker 2: Right, and then know that the fallback plan is still there.

00:22:37
Speaker 1: Now, look, if your evaluation says that design Stribbling is so much better than every other wide receiver that's left, I think it's fine to like take him where you took him. My thing is also what I want to follow up here with is doing that consistently. I saw this tweet that I thought like really captured the whole reaching conversation.

00:22:57
Speaker 2: I think I said this on the show before, but it.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Was something along the lines of, you know, reaching for players in the draft is like breaking the law where you know, if you do it, you know people are gonna do it every once in a while. You know you're gonna speed or you're gonna just do something that's that's not very comptant. But if you do it over and over and over again, that's when you start to get in trouble, right, Yeah, And that's what I felt like with those forty nine ers picks this year, this year, where you know, you get stribbling, Okay, like we can forgive that. It's really it's not like there was an obvious to me at least like easy go to wide receiver. And on Day two this year, like I thought the NFL got it right with who went earlier in the draft, you know, generally speaking. And so from that standpoint, if you want to fill need or if you really saw something out of him, fine, but then you go back and then you get Kaylon Black in round three. And my question you like, do you think that the dynasty market is sort of not correcting enough for where the forty nine ers drafted these guys or do you just see this as it's the forty nine ers they're reaching. We've seen them bust with Tie Davis Price, the Tie Davis Prices of the world at running back. Maybe he's on Stribling as something like how do you feel about these players and how the fantasy community has reacted?

00:24:04
Speaker 3: For me, It's just always going to be individual for me, I'm never going to look at it in a group like that, and that's I just have to make my evaluation based on what I see and how I project it and go from there. So I'll just touch on those two individually for a second. Stribling is one of my favorite players in Dynasty. I have him ranked very high. Nice when I watch Dribbling, I see two things that I think are really good for his chances of making it work in the NFL one. He's going to come in and immediately be one of the best blockers in this class. Him and Malchi Fields are to me the two best blockers on tape and also the two best projected blockers, meaning they have the frame to actually block at the NFL level versus nfldbs and when they're used as insert blockers near the line of scrimmage. Now, why is that important to me? It's going to get him on the field early. Why is that important to me? Because then he has a chance to produce more. It's more and more Like a lot of times these players drafted round two three. Like I mentioned with round three, they just don't get on the field early as we expect them to and they don't get the opportunities we expect. But the big reason I love Stribbling is I feel like the forty nine ers saw something in him on his tape that they feel that they feel fits their system and their scheme, the Shannan scheme perfectly. And what do I mean by that. It's the ability to win on the over routes, those inbreaking routes. He creates awesome separation on those routes. And when I think back to like what they got at Ayuk, it's not the vertical stuff. Iuk was a great vertical player coming into the draft. That's how people viewed him. Where I became a really dominant if you look at the numbers, great yards are outrun, all the per target metrics was his ability to win on those inbreakers, those deep overs, and the whole forty nine er system is predicated on those deep overs. That's all the Shanahan mc, Kevin O'Connell mc. You watch all these these coaches, less so McVeagh, but they're winning on these deep overs that are created via the run game, that are created via the action in the run game, even the play action run game. And he's just going to fit that like a glove man. And then the post catch when he catches the football. On those, you see the speed like I see the speed after the catch, I see him breaking away from defenders. I feel like I saw some stats on his GPS testing was in the twenty two to twenty three mile per hour range, and I know from just like the forty time it was four three seven. I feel like the fit is just there for him. He's going to get on the field because of his blocking, and they're going to use him on those routes that Ayuk was winning on and Deebo was winning on. And to me, I get at the age sucks. He's old, he's an older prospect. The production profile is not there, but from a schematic fit standpoint and from the things I see him do well on tape, I think they translate really well to what the fortynineers are going to need him for.

00:26:23
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a reason that like his You know, if you look at like NFL Mock Draft Database, like he when I published the prospect for the pre draft version in middle of March, his projected draft capital was one hundred and seventy second overall or something. And it was funny because he was like the one profile where I was like, analytically, you know, you don't have to be concerned with stribbling unless he unless his draft capital surprises.

00:26:48
Speaker 2: Like I literally use that phrase.

00:26:49
Speaker 3: And it's a point.

00:26:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, good thing I used it for that player because that was the guy where it was surprising. But his so like his consensus, and I know we talked about consensus big board and stuff, but I'm saying more so because that's being driven by how people are evaluating these players, right is the big board and he just rose and rose and rose and rose. Okay, Like you know, he goes one seventy two to his finished big board rank on NFL Mock Draft Database was around ninety.

00:27:15
Speaker 2: So while some people.

00:27:16
Speaker 1: Had like never heard of the dude before, Like if you were tracking big boards and you listened.

00:27:20
Speaker 2: To like a Brugler or something, you knew that he was rising.

00:27:22
Speaker 1: The ranks at the very least, you know, And so it wasn't like as shocking that he went. I think it was shocking that he went early round two, but day two I think it was probable that he was going to go day two. My question though, is like why do you think that happens? Like why do you think the right Like is there a group think mentality going on here? And obviously, like I say this to you because you're coming from the standpoint that like stribblings a decent prospect, right, and so I really want to know like how that kind of comes to be, Like how he goes from being someone that people were thinking is like a day three pick a project, whatever the case may be, to then all of a sudden and being looked at like this. And then you have people who like yourself, who are obviously objectively just like doing the work and you're just evaluating them and that's it. But then now after the fact, you have all these like talking heads in the media that are like trying to save face for the forty nine ers, like saying all these good things about design stribbling that they.

00:28:17
Speaker 2: Weren't saying beforehand.

00:28:18
Speaker 1: And I'm just curious, like how are why you think that all like came to be and how that happened.

00:28:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, how does the process come to be? I think a lot of it, ultimately, for me, is a lack of information. That's not to knock anyone or anybody, yeah, but the reality is a lot of these people. You know, if we have a consensus draft board that we're talking about and we're referencing here, a lot of them are based on one analyst evaluation of the class. Right now, that's one person trying to put together a big board of two hundred and fifty three hundred prospects. Now an NFL team is has how many people working on that? How many people are watching them during the year, when maybe some of these analysts are doing other things that they have to do for their work during the year. Ultimately speaking, if we're honest with ourselves, the teams are putting a lot more time and work and resources into evaluating the class as a whole. I'm not talking one individual player. I'm talking just three hundred plus or whatever it may be, five hundred, but we got to consider all these players you have phase and then also in addition to that, they have all the information we don't have the off field stuff, who they are as a person, and all that factors into a player potentially becoming the thirty whatever it was, thirty four, thirty seven, whatever it was Bick when he was expected to maybe be a later day two guy like in the seventies or eighties range. So I just think there's so much more information that these teams are working with, and we have no idea, no idea how many other teams, like Stripling, you know, we don't know the whole time. There could be four or five teams who are considering him that range. We'll never know that well never. There may be some reports that surface post draft. I always find those to be complete bs. Like the Giants are funny or they always do this, Like they took a player this year, Colton hood at thirty six, and a team traded one spot ahead of the Giants, the Texans, and they took Kadi McDonald, who obviously the Giants wanted. But then like at the post draft presser, they're like, no, we were gonna take Hoode the whole time. We had him ranked ahead of him the whole time.

00:30:02
Speaker 2: That's like, that's like the Steelers.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: Steelers went out there and they were like, no, Wed Mikayle Lman, we were just on the phone with him just talking.

00:30:08
Speaker 2: We're just having a good time, Yeah, exactly.

00:30:11
Speaker 3: So we don't know ultimately who was who was evaluating stribbling in the range where he was drafted. It could be more teams than not. I think ultimately the reality is these teams have so much more resources and time put into this, to be honest.

00:30:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Kaylon Black, like what what do you see with him?

00:30:25
Speaker 3: Like?

00:30:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, was that was that a situation?

00:30:27
Speaker 1: Because like, analytically, man, it's I gotta I gotta really squint to it's something positive here.

00:30:34
Speaker 3: You gotta really squint with Kaylon Black. And it's funny because we did a sleeper show Jacob and I before the draft and Kaylen Back was a sleeper for both of us. But that was a sleeper, Like we were talking about guys ranked outside of our top tenant running back who we like, and his film is great, but it's a translation thing, it's a projection thing. Like to me, he was the closest bet in this class. I'm trying to think there's anyone who is closer, because there might have been one or two. I'm sure who is. I think he's probably the closest in this class to be the Kyle mcnunguy of this class, like tape is just better than the analytics, and he's just somebody who NFL teams like. But the issue for me with Black is he wasn't as good on tape as a manung guy, and he was a stick slower. He wasn't as good after the after contact, both in the metric you know, both by the metrics rize yards after contact per attempt also by the film. I don't think he was explosive, and I don't think he was as latterally agile or quick. But the forty nine ers clearly do problem being multiple things. One like you mentioned trading up for trade sermon here Davis Price. They've missed on running back over and over two and this one doesn't get discussed as much. The Shanahan runs game isn't what it used to be. Man, They've not really upgraded and continue to replenish. Their offensive line just keeps getting worse and worse every year and becoming a team that has really had to rely on dumping it down to McCaffrey as an extension of their run game because they're not able to do the same things in the run games Stripling will help that with his blocking, but like that's not going to be it. They need offensive line help. They need people who replenished. So like, I'm just not as excited in general about the forty nine ers passing game anyway. I'm sorry run game.

00:32:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm in the same boat where like I can so like like again, I'm I think that like I'm not like over the overjoyed about Shribbling as a prospect, but compared him compared to other wide receiver prospects that sort of like went in Day two and such, he at least analytically matches up with them more because I think that the wide receiver class was just like overdrafted, overrated in terms of like their actual you know, production profiles and how they looked when I watched them versus their actual draft capital, right, And so if you're looking at it from that perspective, I think that Stribling makes a lot more sense, you know, Like, I mean, you get Xavi and Thomas being drafted on Day two, and you're like, like that's or Caleb Douglas I think was was a worst pick.

00:32:43
Speaker 2: Than deessign Stribling.

00:32:45
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, even when you give the context of him going later than Stribling did the Kilon Black thing though, you know, I I thought that they're like I liked Emmitt Johnson Moore, Jonah Coleman Moore, you know all these like like uh even even probably like a I mean completely different band, like yeah, yeah right, like both of the.

00:33:02
Speaker 2: Penn State backs.

00:33:03
Speaker 3: I would prefer both the states I would have preferred as well.

00:33:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and so and then like Kaylin Block's twenty four and a half years old. You know, it's like it's like there's just this complete ignorance to some of the more obvious things that we should be looking for. And I know that people are like, oh, you know, age doesn't matter as much anymore in this nil era, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, I would strongly disagree. There's a one of the big factors last year in the model not liking R. J. Harvey was the age factor. Because when you adjust what they did from a production standpoint for how old they are, uh, it mattered.

00:33:35
Speaker 2: It still gets signal.

00:33:36
Speaker 1: You know, I know, Tyrone Tracy has hit your you know, for your giants to a degree, but it's still like, you know, that's also a different kind of situation in general, just given the fact that that you know, he's converted wide receiver and stuff, and he wasn't playing running back as long as some of these other prospects have, So like, the Black thing is is stranger for me, Like I want to be on record being like I understand the stribbling thing, you know, at least to like some degree. I just don't get it with Kaylon Black. I don't believe it's crazy. I can't say I do. He's the third running back drafted in this class. That's just very unexpected. And the problem with it though, in having that take, is that running back is the one position where, like Matt you know, the talent profile matters a little bit less, and so he could still realistically be fine enough from like a fantasy perspective. But I just don't, you know, I think that he's very much in the same bucket as like a Ti Davis Price, you know, from the standpoint of like how excited I am versus you know, some of the other guys that that you know could have been you know, for for.

00:34:33
Speaker 3: Them, I'm more excited about his teammate they drafted last year, personally, Jordan James yeah right, I thought, yeah, yeah, right, it's crazy.

00:34:43
Speaker 1: So at this moment, we're looking at rookie drafts, we're doing rookie drafts. I'm curious who you think is the most underrated player right now.

00:34:50
Speaker 3: So I did kind of give up the lead already. But to me, it is Dejeon Stribbling for sure. I mean, if you just look at the combination things I talked about earlier, how he fits the offense, how he can win the offense, how soon he might get on the field, how productive that offense is for fantasy, and how much we like that offense. How often they're gonna be in the reds on Holt, I'm gonna score touchdowns across the board. Those things, for me make him to me at least somebody who should be drafted way earlier than he's going. I mean, I see people, I see people drafting players over him that make no sense to me.

00:35:19
Speaker 1: So let me let me, let me give you some names, and you tell me if you would take that player. I'm just gonna think think about rookie drafts right now. Yeah, take design Stribling or that player. Okay, we'll start easy. We'll go with like Chris brazzle.

00:35:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, stripling.

00:35:33
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll go uh, we'll go Chris Bell stribling. Okay, we'll go with Jeremy Bernard stribling, Antonio Williams stribbling, and then Denzel Boston stribling.

00:35:50
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're like, you're like late first stribling.

00:35:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean I think I I just I had it up, but my emails being janky, I think it was I have him at six or seven overall for me in Dynasty.

00:36:00
Speaker 1: Oh so you're okay, so you're you're you're in onun stripped like you're you're gonna basically.

00:36:03
Speaker 3: Get after race right after case for me above Cooper Junior as well.

00:36:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Cooper thing.

00:36:08
Speaker 1: I actually am kind of concerned about Omar Cooper for a lot of reasons. Like I thought his profile was like not like unbelievably spectacular. Now I thought the same thing about Rashie Rice, who was his top comp in the ZAT Model, and I think that he could play that kind of role. But I also think that Rashi Rice found the exact you know, speaking landing spot and such like talk about like just the perfect place for him to just dominate in fantasy. I don't think he's doing that in pretty much any other location, you know, in football. So like I'm I'm nervous about Omar Cooper as well, I'm nervous about Denzel Boston. That's the thing, is that, like once you get past concepcion, Yeah, that's where I'm like, realistically, anything's fair game, you know, Like I just I'm nervous about pretty much every prospect that comes after that.

00:36:50
Speaker 2: And are you then?

00:36:51
Speaker 1: Are you hyped on any of the Day three rookie running backs over a stribbling or stribbling over all of those.

00:36:59
Speaker 3: Guys, strippling by far over those guys I'm perplexed by. We'll get into that in a moment, but I'm preplexed by the Day three running backs.

00:37:06
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Okay, same exact question. Let's talk about overrated player right now.

00:37:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, the most overrated player that I've seen in this year's Dynasty Rougy drafts and maybe any since I started doing this to me is Jonah Coleman. I don't even think it's remote quotes. I don't even understand the hype personally for Dynasty. I see him going every first round back end the first round. He goes back to back end at first but every first round apparently we're talking about a Day three running back drafted to a team that. Yeah, historically Sean Payton was somebody who generated crazy amounts of points for the running backs in Fantasy in New Orleans, but that offensive scheme is totally different in Denver Bonix. They've essentially taken all of the targets they used to give those running backs, not all. You know, we saw Harvey get some down the stretch. There's still going to be some Sean Payton, but I'm a good majority of them and converted them into quick hitters for the receivers around the line of scrimmage. They're just doing it different. They're running a completely different offense than the Drew Brees offense. And so we know that. We also know that for some odd reason, kind of every running back looked bad running wise behind the Sean Payton scheme last year. They're blocking scheme. They have good guys on the old line. I have to do a bigger deep dives. This is something to talk about with Jacob a lot. But they don't generate like I expect them to at the point of contact in the run game. They don't move people off the ball, and it's not necessarily like we're seeing like great, you know, a great power gap play where somebody's pulling, or even zone runs being successful. There just haven't run the ball well in Denver. So now we're talking about an offense it's not great at running the ball. A Day three prospect who joins a crowded backfield with a player who was just drafted in round two ahead of him, I know, and people are out on Harvey. It is what it is on that front. Yeah, but like, what the heck is the hype about here? I'm not I'm not really sure what's going on here because he's a Day three investment on a crowded team that hasn't run the ball very well.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: So here's here's my stance on Coleman number one. There's obviously a drop, like we talked about after all those plays, you know, there's just like, yeah, choose your own adventure. So I can understand, you know, why he would be going where he's going from that perspective. I also think the other thing too, with like the Day three capital and being like I think he was like one hundred and eighth overall, I think we're gonna find when we look back in like three or four years that Day four or sorry, Round four is the new Round.

00:39:11
Speaker 2: Three for running backs.

00:39:13
Speaker 1: For running backs running I think that's yeah, Like because we saw we saw Skataboo last year. You know, like it's like it's like teams don't want to use that quote unquote premium pick, but once Day three turns, they're like, sure, let's go for base shall Tuton last year. Who has an opportunity now this year, you know, we'll see what happens with that.

00:39:29
Speaker 2: I think there's a possibility of that happens.

00:39:32
Speaker 1: The thing that I like, here's my logic, and I want to hear what you think about this with why they got Joonah Coleman is that JK. Dobbins was at least serviceable in an early down role for them last year and then he obviously goes down and he's not reliable.

00:39:46
Speaker 2: From like an injury perspective and stuff.

00:39:48
Speaker 1: And when I watched Denver last season, they tried over and over again to establish r J. Harvey, right, Yeah, like they they tried so hard to make RJ. Harvey a thing, but he he was just not He bounces everything.

00:40:02
Speaker 2: He's just he's just not a grinder at all.

00:40:06
Speaker 1: And I think that was part of the problem with his analytical profile coming out too, where like a lot of the boosting that was.

00:40:13
Speaker 2: Going on with him was very much like like I think r J.

00:40:16
Speaker 1: Harvey was a good sleeper type last year before he got the draft capital that he got, and a lot of people were just like in on RJ. Harvey and so you know, he got the draft capital that he got, and so people were just like, well, I got to stick with it because I like RJ. Harvey as the player without necessarily factoring like the changing cost and like what he actually was as a player, right, And so last year I don't think he looks the part of being a bellcow at all.

00:40:41
Speaker 2: And he then, you.

00:40:43
Speaker 1: Know, you can look at the metrics to I mean, third worst and rushing eard respected per rush, like he was serviceable as a receiver, like he can do you know, the the normal stuff as a pass catcher out of the backfield, and he did show off the explosiveness you know, at times throughout the season.

00:40:57
Speaker 2: So like that kind of stuff did translate.

00:40:59
Speaker 1: But I think den Ever saw Jonah Coleman, who in my opinion, in this class was probably the easiest all around. Running back to project is like a he's just good at everything, but or like find at everything but not necessarily elite at one thing. And they say to themselves, let's just get someone who's just a reliable body. Let's just let's get someone who we know can can do a little bit pass pro, can catch the ball to the backfield well enough, can play the goal line if we need him to. And in these scenarios where a Dobbins goes down and we can't rely on our j Harvey, we at least have someone that's serviceable enough and fine enough where that elite trait might not be there. Do you think that's a real like a realistic way to view why they did what they did with Coleman.

00:41:41
Speaker 3: I think a very realistic way to view it. And I think you could even harp hearken back to like some of the things Champagne said after he drafted Harvey mentioned the joker role like you mentioned Sours. He did. Yeah, of course every player gets that role until no one does. But he like, it makes sense that Harvey is a much better player in space. I mean, coming from that gus malzone offense, you see. It was my biggest concern, and same thing when I watch these Tennessee running backs, it's like, all right, well, you're seeing these super light boxes. They're running into like six man boxes at times five man boxes. It's like, this is never gonna happen in the NFL level. And obviously as a running back you may develop some bad habits. When you're running into lighter boxes over and over again, you have more space to work with you your bounce. And it didn't translate. So that and I was a big miss for me. I loved r. J. Harvey as coming into the NFL and Dynasty a huge miss for Ja. Both Jacob I were big on him from the film. From the landing spot didn't work. The question becomes like, is that how they view him moving forward or are they already to the point where they're like, we've seen enough tape on Harvey. We made a mistake here. We don't want to have some cost fallacy. We're drafting a player who can replace him maybe, or the other question would be this is going to be a second year in a similar scheme, the same scheme with the Broncos runs. I mean Davis Webb may be calling plays. I'm not sure if it's going to be Davis web or Sean Payton. I don't think they've really decided that regardless, like the run scheme should rem in the same. Can Harvey take a step forward from processing standpoint, because as far as it goes from what these guys can offer them on a down to down basis, if you have Harvey on the field or you have Coleman on the field, there's a difference, like you're gonna have a lot more upside from not just the big play potential. To me, it's the yards after contact per attempt, it's the forcing mistackles, it's the receiving profile that I know Coleman's is decent. And then my other question for you with Coleman would be, let's take a step back here for a second. I want to ask you this, if we just take a step back and think about him not related to the context of where he was drafted or what the Broncos might want from him and our assumptions on that, how often we can even take the day three thing out of this, because I think you made a good point about that earlier, but just in general, how often do you think the prospect that you described earlier, this kind of good at everything ends up being good for fantasy? Like, what are our examples of this working?

00:43:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really fair.

00:43:49
Speaker 1: I think that the way that I see almost any of the guys that were drafted this year outside of love and price, I mean you can even maybe throw a price in this bucket is it's a game theory thing for me, where there's a chance that they give you enough hope year one that you can sell after year one.

00:44:07
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, you know what I mean?

00:44:08
Speaker 1: Because I do think that Coleman in this environment is going to probably see some run and get some run, just because we know that they rotate their running backs and we know that he does something a little bit different than the other guys there do in terms of just as I mean even just his.

00:44:24
Speaker 2: His body right, and how they might want to deploy him.

00:44:27
Speaker 1: And so if RJ. Harvey because like obviously r J. Harvey didn't have a good rookie season, right, there's a chance that he turns things around. But like, let's just like I'd say, there's a better than not chance that like he's going down this path of not hitting the way that we would want him to hit, right, And so if that's the case, then you might get a season where Jonah Coleman is seeing a decent amount of work, you know, like like what we saw with like Damian Pierce year one, not not that much work, but like just getting just getting volume and not necessarily doing amazing things with that volume.

00:45:01
Speaker 2: And then typically in.

00:45:03
Speaker 1: These scenarios, those players are flippable after year one in Dynasty, and you make a profit and you kind of move on. And the reason I say that in like the context of this class too, is that I think we're gonna see a lot of the day two wide receivers that we draft.

00:45:19
Speaker 2: Some of them, like like a couple of them are probably going to.

00:45:22
Speaker 1: Emerge, right, But I'm thinking about it from like a value year over year value perspective, and I think that we're gonna, like because they don't have these like really strong profiles to fall back on, and so if we don't get decent production from some of these guys in year one, we're gonna the market's gonna react in a really negative way. And so in that scenario, I'll say, Okay, I'll throw the dart at the Joanah Coleman type instead of the you know, random day two wide receiver type, only because I think there might be more opportunity to flip that down line.

00:45:55
Speaker 3: I think that's great, and I think from the game theory standpoint, this could be where there's a hole in my game because I'm not really looking for these small profit wins, but maybe I should be because in gambling from my outliers, I'm losing a lot of value in that too when they just become the total bus. I just it's so hard for me to try to want that small profit win, especially when I know, like at times it's really hard to flip players in Dynasty, even though it seems on surface like they like it's easy to do, Like trading is really difficult in some leagues. So yeah, I'm almost just looking more so to like Rosterbilt, like to get my biggest wins.

00:46:25
Speaker 2: It's a fair point to make.

00:46:26
Speaker 1: Because I just pulled up his comps, I couldn't remember exactly who they were, so he had Doug Martin as a comp just that's basically size related.

00:46:31
Speaker 2: But Martin was a better prospect.

00:46:33
Speaker 1: But then the other two are Zach Stacey and Zach Moss and Stacy not the perfect example.

00:46:38
Speaker 2: Of that, you know, like that's quite.

00:46:40
Speaker 1: Literally Zach Stacy, Like, I can see that scenario where cool. Like, I think there's a very real chance. I said this on my show earlier this week. I think there's a very real chance that after this year, the Dynasty market views Jonah Coleman more and better than R. J.

00:46:56
Speaker 3: Harvey. Right, I think that's fair.

00:46:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, And in that scenario, knowing that he's not the most like incredible prospect in the world, I think he's just solid. But because of that, you you will have an opportunity to probably make a profit on it. Let's talk about Nick Singleton, right, So Nick Singleton going to Tennessee. You know, he's obviously in a crowded backfield this year with Tony Pollard and Taj Spears, but both of them could be gone.

00:47:20
Speaker 2: Or they're both free agents next year.

00:47:22
Speaker 1: And you know Brian Dable, you know, you're familiar with the fact that he's used Day three running backs in the past as rod because it's not you know.

00:47:30
Speaker 2: An unknown for him.

00:47:32
Speaker 1: I think Singleton personally, my evaluation thought that he had a higher ceiling than a GUALI Joanah Coleman.

00:47:37
Speaker 2: But what do you see with with Singleton.

00:47:39
Speaker 3: Singleton's a fun one because I always liked the prospects where opposite side of consensus on and this is one of them. Because everybody hated Nick Singleton in the community, in the film community, and I lit any community you ask. I liked him. I liked his tape. I thought he had good zero to sixty speed, good stop and start. I thought he did a great job in zone runs of setting up the zones and then and and you know, using that assessing skill to create a lane for himself. But mostly what I liked the bat him from a fantasy standpoint. I broke this down with Jacob is he was by far and away to me, the highest end reps of pass production on tape. He had reps where he was decleting people in the backfield as a pass productor and as a receiver. He was really natural when it came to such the football like he looked like what could be the best receiving running back, even though that's not outside of love obviously, even though it wasn't necessarily in his profiles, more just watching the tape and kind of making it an assessment based on the skill set, so from a passing game standpoints where I get really excited, But that again was for like a small win type of thing, Like don't I see him as mostly like a passing down back who can have a couple create a couple of exposive plays here and there, mostly in the twenty to thirty range rather than the forty to sixty range and beyond in the run game. So it's another player where like I see him really shooting up these Dynasty rookie drafts and I'm like, I don't know if I could ever make that gam well for me, it's tough though JJ I'm very anti running back in Dynasty, and I'm trying to adjust that. Yeah that I'm trying to just improve on that because I don't like that about my process, like I need. I almost feel like it is a little bit biased and I over And this is similar in like, like I think when you do that from a game theory standpoint, you kind of limit yourself and you limit your stealing because running backs ultimately are the position that if you hit right, are most valuable to your team. So I don't want to use that against him, but I I he's hit him and Coleman from here the two most perplexing just from where they're ranked overall in Dynasty right now?

00:49:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

00:49:30
Speaker 1: And I want to ask you about Chris Bell because he's been going really, really high. Yeah, obviously has the ACL. I'm getting pretty sick of the AJ Brown comps. But where are you at with Bell?

00:49:41
Speaker 3: So Bell is a player I liked more pre draft than post draft, if that makes sense, because post draft I'm fighting against all the people who are pushing him up because of the situation which I didn't really want to happen. I want him to be drafted into a quote unquote bad situation with a good quarterback that people are oh, it's so crowded, and let him have time to develop because I think now you have to draft him at a price point where I'm open to it because I have him ranked so high because I actually liked to I liked his tape. I like it's more so the skill set that I like. It's similar to shribbling. It's these guys who can win on the over routes. That's where everything is made today in the NFL. I think Jacob just put up great stats on this Yesterday, the difference in the NFL from an EPA standpoint on passes thrown over the middle versus outside the numbers. It's staggering because again, what makes total sense to us, right with where the NFL is moving metalwise, so many teams are just copying Fangio or Fangio principal defenses with middle of the field open, meaning there's not a one high safety closing the field. It's either cover two, Cover three, cover six, regardless the middle of the field is open. They're split safety looks. So that's where you have to win. But it requires timing, It requires a quarterback who can anticipate throw with velocity and ball play them. But guys like Bell who can win quick and explosively and powerfully over the middle like that are gonna be the guys that I think can produce consistently at the NFL level. So I do like his skill set as it translates, I'm just not thrilled about the price.

00:51:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I agree, Like I thought that he was like, like he's solid prospect from like just like a median standpoint, but like obviously the ceiling, Like it's interesting because he's one of those players where analytically he was just fine, Like I didn't have like crazy red flags or crazy green flags. But realistically, I think when I watch him and what I think about his his archetype and how that translates the NFL, he's actually just like wildly volatile, like the ceiling is.

00:51:28
Speaker 2: Really high, the floor is really low.

00:51:30
Speaker 1: You know, of course, like a prospect like yeah, I could give to Jonathan Mingo route, but maybe it goes into like a A J.

00:51:35
Speaker 2: Brown, like you know, diet AJ Brown, you know route or something like that.

00:51:39
Speaker 1: So that that's why I think that his ADP is fine, just because you know, again, everyone's gonna be pretty rough in that range.

00:51:46
Speaker 2: At least he has like a like you can you can squid and see that ceiling, you know what I mean.

00:51:50
Speaker 3: That's fair, totally fair.

00:51:51
Speaker 2: But on any late round rookie picks this year that that you're eyeing.

00:51:54
Speaker 3: I saw this question, I'm going to go real late. Is that alright?

00:51:57
Speaker 1: Of course, yes, we're degenerates here a point where.

00:52:01
Speaker 3: Most leagues you're probably not gonna have to draft any of these players, but I would add them to your rosters. Start with a guy who I called out as my biggest sleeper pre draft thought he would go in round five, six or seven, and then the team gave him I believe round two draft capital, which is insane. I might have been round three, though you can correct me on that. The Houston Texans selected tight end Marlin Klein in the second round. I believe was that two or three where they got It wasn't two.

00:52:22
Speaker 2: It might have been two.

00:52:24
Speaker 3: It never thought he would be drafted until day three. But I loved him because here's an example of a player whose production profile is horrible. At Michigan, he didn't catch many passes at all at any point. But when I just watched him, I was like, this guy moves differently. This guy can move both on the horizontals the over routes, but also he had some vertical element to his game. He's explosive in and out of his cuts. He can sell routes well. I feel like he can develop into a really good route runner. I think the Texans really viewed him as somebody who could win routes for us, like somebody can just separate and get open and win in the red zone. And I'm so intrigued by him now that he had second round capital, because look, if I see the skill set on tape that I like and that I think can translate from a trade standpoint to the NFL level, and then they get the capitol too. I'm just gonna be very excited about that player. So he's won for me.

00:53:11
Speaker 2: Another one.

00:53:12
Speaker 3: We're gonna keep going deep here. Another one, A player that was my sleeper before the draft that got drafted into the best fossil situation I could have asked out of him. Is Kobe Young, the wide receiver out of Georgia. Not Zach Ryer Branch, the other wide receiver. This guy, when you watch him on the tape, he pops. He's explosive on his release off the line of scrimmage for a players I think almost six or four. He's either six three or six four. You don't typically see guys at that height with that kind of release off the line of scrimmage, and it allows him to stack vertically, it allows him to win on inbreaking routes as well. I just think he's got a really good skill set that was completely hidden by one a junk system at Georgia that just simply was not designed to utilize him at all, and two really bad quarterback play at Georgia, which again that was my big thing with like Nico was my big breakout in that class, and I was like, dude. I watched him at the Senior Bowl. He dominated every route. He played a terrible quarterback play at Michigan and an assistant that didn't use him. Let's see what happens from a trade standpoint, and that one hit, there's missus. Of course when you go this route too, I'm not just gonna highlight them. There'll be more missus than hits. Yeah, way more missus than hits. But that's another one for me. Colby Young drafted to the Bengals, You give him Joe Burrow. Maybe this is what everyone wanted the Alabama receiver to be that yeah Burton, Yeah, that just couldn't stay and stay awaken meetings or whatever it was. And then the last one for me, I'll give is another just super super deep sleeper. J Michael Sturdivan. He actually was at Florida last but I wasn't back and watched his UCLA tape. I really liked his ability to stack on the vertical plane, get vertical and then once he wins vertically, which he can do with his speed. He was subbed for four. But also just with his technique to the release off line of scrimmage and the stacking, he's really good. Like he'll extend for these crazy highlight catches, he'll high point the football. It's like he'll win once he wins vertically with the separation, he'll also win at the catchpoint. And the Packers drafted him like this is just the Packers and the Steelers to me are the two teams that scout the receiver position the best by far in the NFL historically over the last ten to fifteen years. And maybe is falling a little with the Steelers lately. I guess like they're not as good as they were once were during like the Mike Wallace days and things like that. But you know, that's another player that I can see totally developing to a fantasy role where he's popping off. He's on waiver wires and now all of a sudden, this guy who wasn't drafted in your dynasty drafts is on every roster.

00:55:25
Speaker 1: Yeah he uh, he definitely had. He broke my my spreadsheets with his name. I love that with the way it's formatted.

00:55:32
Speaker 2: But yeah, he did, he did. I was wondering where he ended up going.

00:55:36
Speaker 1: It was it was Green Bay as an undrafted so good call outs as some deep sleepers for us. All right, real quick, we only about five minutes left. Let's talk about a veteran winner and loser from a fantasy football perspective stemming from the draft.

00:55:51
Speaker 3: Okay, veteran winner the biggest one for me, and this is not just because you could see the background. It has to be Camp Skyadaway, right, Like, yeah, all off season the discussion was are gonna take Jill, They're gonna draft over, They're gonna sign Ken Walker. None of that happened. The Giants didn't even draft a single running back at all. And what we saw last year was clear Camp's Gottabo missed all the preseason with injury and then immediately took over as the lead back role. There was no question, there was no discussion. He was the guy because he was the best in pass downs, he was the best on rundowns, and he offered something as a receiver that even though Tracy was a former receiver, he can't offer Scatta, who's a much better outrunner than Tracy. So I think, look, if he proves himself healthy, and so far, the signs are good. He's already sprinting. If he comes back and he's himself, he's going to be the lead back again on a team where you know, we're talking about Tracy, we're talking about Singletary. But the reality is this is camp Scattabho's offense. All they've done is helped the situation around him. They brought a Malachi Fields who might be used as a power slot, which would be amazing for the run game. Obviously Patrick Ricard, who's going to be helpful in the run game. So and they added Francis and they obviously their tenth overall pick. Francis Malnoa is the best was what I thought was the best run blocking guard in this class, whole playguard for the Giants. He played tap two down the line. Maybe, So it's Scataboo for me? Is the biggest winner the biggest loser? Let me think of the biggest loser out of this draft. I could just go with like it's kind of a cop out, but can we just go with Tyler Algier? Yeah, you know he's technically the biggest loser, right, Yeah, that's.

00:57:15
Speaker 2: A that's a very very quick loser.

00:57:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's not really a draft where you have the direct losers as much.

00:57:22
Speaker 2: So I did to show the late round fantas Football show on winners already, and I'm doing losers next week.

00:57:26
Speaker 1: So i haven't even dug into like who would be on that list necessarily. But I think that part of the reason why it's harder to come up with those names is because the running back class was so weak, and that's usually the position that would just replace you know, another running back and and make it so, you know, not as well, like at least when you add a wide receiver, like maybe you could say Chris Alave was a loser of some sort just because like he's splitting more work, but it's like, I mean they're gonna work together there.

00:57:53
Speaker 2: That's a it's a good match from that perspective.

00:57:55
Speaker 1: Or you know, you could say like Wandell Robinson is somewhat of a loser because of carneal tape, but it's like but he's still they're yeah, they're not playing the same position, really, you know, it's not And like even where like Makai Lemon when it was like, I don't know, it's just there's just not as much of that one to one, even like Garrett Wilson with Kenyon Sadik and Omar Cooper hypothetically a loser, but like, at the same time, we're looking at prospects that are questionable that we don't even know what kind of role they're going to play, and so are we really going to call him out as a loser. So that's probably why we had the reaction.

00:58:26
Speaker 2: They didn't feel the way.

00:58:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, all right, before I let you go, who's one player. It's early May, okay, so so you don't have to you know, this can change. But who's one player that you think you're going to be drafting a ton of this year?

00:58:40
Speaker 3: It's going to be another deep cut, but it is what it is. I am going to be drafting the most of So I want exposure to the Chargers offense. I believe, wrongly, this is going to be one of the best offense in the NFL. It's gonna cost a lot to get hamped in, It's gonna cost a lot to get Conky, It's going to cost a lot to get Herbert. I want Trey Harris. Trey Harris is a player who's film I absolutely ignored and obviously there's a little bit of bias because I watched more Trey Harris tape than any other receiver in last year's class because of Jackson Dart. Obviously, Ginning drafted the Giants, but his ability to get in at he reminded me so much of what I watched with Terry McLaurin in Ohio State, the ability to get in and out of his breaks at the top of his route, and then all we've seen since, to me is overwhelmingly positive. First of all, the Chargers used him not just as the X receiver like was used at Ole Miss. They used him all over and when they were asked about it in week by the coordinators, I'm listening to these conversations, They're like, yeah, he's proven he can do everything. Is the way that he shows up and prepares, he can play every role in our offense. Then they started using him in the red zone and he was featured there a little bit and made some big plays there. I just think that he's going to breakouts in this mc McDaniel system because he fits the system so well. And ultimately it is going to be tough because there's guys, there's so many players on this team from a skill position standpoint, I don't ultimately know even like Brandon Thompson, who they drafted for Mike McDaniel. But Trey Harris to me, is someone whose tape I love, the fit I love, and I just love his trajectory, Like he played much different role than I expecting your own. I think he wasn't just the sacrificial X.

01:00:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to be fair, I think that there are like you said, there's a lot of weapons and stuff on there, but they're not super established, you know, like to me, like I love Lad, Like I think that he could blow up this year and have a great season, and I you know, I love this offense and investing in it. They get their tackles back and their offensive line is gonna look so much better.

01:00:21
Speaker 2: Like that's huge with what's gonna happen.

01:00:23
Speaker 1: Like like justin Herbert's really really undervalued even right now. But yeah, like like to me, if you're gonna throw, like you might as well throw some darts because I think it's still pretty wide open outside of Lad, you know, like new offensive coordinator things, things will look a lot different. And then so all of a sudden, you know, there's that opportunity for a player like Trey Harris to step.

01:00:42
Speaker 3: Up, and everyone's expecting this offense to look a lot like the recent McDaniel offenses we thought we saw, But I think that's just recency buyas. I think it's gonna look like the early two of days, where like these receivers are running these deep incuts and just getting wide open and Herbert's is diming them up with velocity and just looks awesome.

01:00:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.

01:00:59
Speaker 1: I think that the last couple of years we've we saw McDaniel switch things up. The offensive line was so bad and Tua, yeah right, and Tua couldn't do and that's why we saw John hw Smith do what he did and like the devon a Chang, get like a twenty two percent target shair and stuff, because that's what they were forced to do.

01:01:14
Speaker 2: Just give in personnel.

01:01:15
Speaker 1: You have the literal opposite problem now right where the offensive lines can can handle it as long as they're healthy and justin Herbert is one of the best that just in general, but also being able to get the ball down the field exactly.

01:01:28
Speaker 2: Dude, this was awesome.

01:01:29
Speaker 1: Let everyone know what you're working on, where they can find you, and where they can get more of your analysis.

01:01:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm just going to shout out one thing. There's a few things I work on, but we really I would love you guys. If you enjoy this show, and if you enjoy anything you've heard today, please check out Beyond the box Score. You can type in Fantasy Football Beyond the box Score. It's on Spotify everything. We're also on YouTube. We're really trying to get off the ground. We are just over a thousand subscribers. We started about a month or two ago. Really, you do a lot to help us grow by just subscribing, hitting the like occasionally on a video, you know, leaving a comment, anything like that, you'll get discussions like this, but even more because Jacob Gibbs, I call him the star of the show. I'm more of the host, but I bring a film aspect. He brings the data, the analytics, the film. He's just, to me, one of the hardest workers in the business. So I'm trying to match his energy. JJ It's hard to do. I think this guy just doesn't sleep. He just watched his tape and studies fantasy. But we've got a lot of good content over there. I think you'll enjoy.

01:02:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, And I'm gonna be hopping on your show next week.

01:02:21
Speaker 3: I'm excited for that.

01:02:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll have it. We'll have a good discussion there. I always love chopping up with Gibbs as well.

01:02:26
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, just just rekindle and and talk about you know, are the good old days and number fire back in the.

01:02:31
Speaker 2: Day when I would criticize his work and have to love like that. But yeah, I appreciate you hopping on and and chopping up. Man. It was really awesome analysis and really great talking to you.

01:02:41
Speaker 1: As always, guys, check out late round dot com make sure you were looking at that Prospect guide still available for order, all updated.

01:02:49
Speaker 2: It will help you out with your rookie drafts all that good stuff. Otherwise, as always, thanks for tuning in. People moved the Continent tap into the PAS