0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. We'll be right back.
0:04This is the Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zacharyarysen.
0:07What's up everyone, it's JJ Zacharyarysen in this episode 1113 of the Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast.
0:12Thanks for tuning in. Before getting into this week's mailbag questions, I just want to send another reminder to check out the Late-Round Draft Guide.
0:21There's over 270 pages of content that includes game theory, strategy, ways to spot breakouts and busts, players to target, players to avoid, and more.
0:29You get cheat sheets in the guide, which includes a cheat sheet of our new market score metric.
0:35It's all updated weekly, directly to your email inbox.
0:38Check it out and learn more over on LATEROUND.COM The first question this week is from Troy from the Members Hub.
0:45It says, Hey JJ, sorry for the lengthy question.
0:48I have picked 12 in my 12-team league. In these early mocks, I often find myself taking some combination of Gentie, Barkley,
0:55Hampton, Chase Brown at the 1-2 turn, due to there being much more quality running backs there than wide receivers.
1:02At the 3-4 turn, I'm often taking Devontae, Flowers, Ladd, Higgins, Burden.
1:06My question is, do you feel comfortable going into the season with your top wide outs being from that tier?
1:13The short answer is yes, I'm fine with that.
1:16I'm a huge fan of that tier of wide receivers for upside purposes.
1:20So if you're throwing multiple darts at it, you're increasing your odds of hitting on one of those players.
1:26I also think double-tapping running back at the back end of drafts this year is a super strong approach.
1:33You've got to spend money to make money at running back.
1:36I say it in the draft guide every year.
1:39The elite players of the position, the ones who are giving you a huge edge in fantasy football, they're almost always drafted early.
1:47Now you get a similar dynamic at wide receiver, don't get me wrong.
1:51But as you noted, the quality of fantasy player at that stage in the draft is much more attractive at running back than it is wide receiver.
2:00Now, scoring, lineup settings, that all should dictate which direction you go in.
2:05But let it be known that you shouldn't feel uncomfortable with this approach given the upside that you can get at wide receiver in that 3-4 turn area.
2:14Not only that, in non-best ball environments, you'll have a chance to potentially get another good upside receiver in round 5.
2:21That's honestly how I would approach a lot of normal drafts from the 11 or 12 spot this year.
2:27This last question is also from the members hub.
2:30It's from at Illmatic27. It says, Hi JJ, I have a question.
2:34What's your take on drafting two quarterbacks in redraft leagues that start only one quarterback?
2:39Say the roster is one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end, one flex, and six bench spots.
2:46Is it worth using a bench spot on a second quarterback in this type of league?
2:52And if so, under what circumstances? For example, if I land Allen or Lamar, I feel like grabbing another one late isn't worth it.
3:00But if I take Malik Willis at the end, would it be better to pair him with a high floor quarterback like
3:07Goff, or instead go for an upside guy like Tyler Shuck or Cam Ward as a second quarterback?
3:13Thanks. I feel like there's an idea out there because I hear about this a lot.
3:18That I'm totally against rostering two quarterbacks in fantasy football.
3:22It couldn't be further from the truth. I've even had seasons of the draft guide where I wrote about doing this exact same thing.
3:30Getting two later round quarterbacks as opposed to spending up on one.
3:34When you take a quarterback early, you're taking on a massive opportunity cost.
3:38That's obviously the downside. It's not that we don't want Josh Allen on our fantasy teams.
3:43It's that drafting Josh Allen means you're missing out on some really good running backs and wide receivers.
3:49But this is a little like the question before.
3:52You can take multiple players at a discount at a particular position.
3:56And when you take multiple players, you're increasing your odds of hitting on one of those players.
4:02This is why we don't just roster fill when we're drafting our fantasy teams.
4:07You'll see in a lot of inexperienced rooms where people just draft a running back.
4:12They draft another one. They get a couple of wide receivers and then they say, oh, I've got to get my quarterback
4:19in tight end because they're in my starting lineup.
4:22I'll draft them right now. The obvious problem with that is that they're not considering hit rates and where they can get
4:29the same caliber players later in the draft. You're not guaranteed your pick hitting when you draft them.
4:35If you take Luther Burden, you're not guaranteed that Burden ends up hitting.
4:40But if you get Burden and then you draft Jalen Waddle, then you're increasing your chances of getting a good wide receiver on your team.
4:48It's not all reliant on Burden, but you've got a chance now with Waddle too.
4:53It's no different at quarterback. Your goal is to get an every week starter.
4:58Your goal is not to stream the position. That's the fallback plan.
5:02And one way to do that is to draft two higher upside quarterbacks late.
5:06You won't take on a high cost. The cost is essentially a bench spot.
5:11This is much easier to do in deeper leagues for sure.
5:15Like I did the Kings classic last week at the fantasy football expo, where we have 14 teams in the league and it's really deep rosters.
5:23Because of that quarterback matters a little bit less.
5:26We have two running backs in our starting lineup, three wide receivers, three flex spots, and one tight end.
5:33The demand grows for these non quarterback positions, and that makes quarterback less valuable in that kind of format.
5:39Now it's a sharp room. So Josh Allen fell in the draft, but I didn't pounce.
5:44I instead waited and I waited. Because I really do think the quarterback position is very deep this year.
5:51That's what I did that episode in the late round quarterback strategy just a couple weeks ago.
5:56But people started taking backup quarterbacks before I had my starter.
6:00That's when I knew I had to go after my quarterback.
6:04Otherwise, there's a chance I could have been locked out at the position.
6:08So what did I do? Well, I was at the one-on-one spot and at the 12-13 turn.
6:14And remember, it's a 14-team league. So it's a deep part of the draft where the pick before was Isaac Teslaw, and
6:21the pick after my quarterback was Emmitt Johnson. But actually, I double-tapped quarterback.
6:25I got Bo Nix, and then I got Tyler Shuck.
6:29I got a relatively stable piece who still has some upside in Bo Nix, and then the pure upside play in Shuck.
6:36So if you're thinking about getting Malik Willis this year, which I think a lot of you guys should, I like pairing
6:43Malik Willis with a more stable piece. It doesn't have to be another late-round quarterback.
6:48Because generally speaking, really good quarterbacks, the stable quarterbacks, Jared Goff, maybe Brock Purdy even, who I do have ranked well ahead
6:56of Goff, those guys are still going to go pretty late in your drafts.
7:00So you can absolutely pair that kind of player with Malik Willis.
7:04So yes, the TLDR here is that you can definitely get two quarterbacks, especially if it's in a deep draft, where the
7:12waiver wire won't be filled with great starters, where the backup plan, the fallback plan, it's not as easy to stream.
7:19Just make sure that you're not spending up at the position.
7:22Get two guys late. This next question is from at J underscore S underscore Stoaf on Twitter.
7:28It says, I remember an episode a couple of years ago, where you laid out that taking a running back in around
7:35seven to 10 ish, when they had a teammate going in the dead zone was a good bet.
7:41Has that data still been supported the last couple of seasons?
7:45And how does it translate to 2026? So on one hand, I'm happy that I've been able to come up with new
7:52ideas and new research over the years. But on the other hand, the problem with research is that it evolves.
7:59And some people remember something that you did like five years ago, and that something has just changed, gotten better, or it's just not relevant anymore.
8:08The idea at a high level here generally is not wrong.
8:11But I've stopped talking about the dead zone in that way.
8:15And I've stopped having round cutoffs in that way.
8:18Because it doesn't allow people to be loose and reactive when they draft.
8:22They're too confined. The idea here though, is that when a middle round running back has a teammate who isn't being drafted
8:30super high, like as a top 12, top 18 running back, that often is giving us some information.
8:36It's what I've always called ambiguous backfields. The starter might be kind of clear, but it's not totally clear.
8:42Otherwise, that starter probably would have been going earlier in the draft.
8:46Or the middle round running back wouldn't be a middle round running back.
8:50He'd be a late round running back. But also think of it this way.
8:55If you have two running backs from the same team that are being drafted in like the top 36, let's say, and
9:02the RB1 out of those two backs is getting selected maybe at RB20, the RB2 maybe at RB35.
9:08That's telling us that the offensive situation is probably pretty good.
9:12The market is drafting two running backs from the same offense with relatively high draft capital.
9:17Now we know as the season goes on, a lot of these backfields, they just stay split.
9:23That's one of the problems from an interpretation standpoint that we run into with the ambiguous backfield idea.
9:29It's not that one of the players in the backfield will definitely emerge.
9:33It's that they do at a relatively decent rate, at a better rate than a handcuff or a backup to an elite running back would.
9:42Whether due to just talent beating out talent or an injury to one of the other running backs.
9:48There are multiple outs for one of those ambiguous backfield backs.
9:51And if there are multiple outs in a good offense, then that means there's a lot of upside.
9:57But you don't need to look at this through the lens of dead zone or not dead zone.
10:03You can generally look at it as, is he backing up an elite player?
10:08And then you can also do what I do in the draft guide, which is relate that player's backfield to expected fantasy points by ADP.
10:16That expected fantasy points number is driven by ADP of the running backs in that backfield.
10:22So hopefully that helps. I'm trying to be a little bit less confined with the parameters these days, because it gives you
10:29a little bit more flexibility when you're drafting. We just need to understand the idea at a high level.
10:35It's just a smarter way to do things in my opinion.
10:39This next question is from Nick. It says, I'm wondering how a chopped league changes draft strategy or the opportunity cost equation.
10:46I got pick 18 of 18 and I'm thinking about if a onesie position such as Brock Bowers becomes better or worse in the format.
10:55On one hand, I understand an early onesie with this many teams is less than optimal.
11:00On the other hand, players I am passing on will be reentering the player pool.
11:05Plus I can almost completely eliminate tight end from my free agent auction budget.
11:10Thanks for all the hard work you do. So for anyone who doesn't know in a chopped league or a guillotine league,
11:17you typically start with 18 teams and one team, the lowest scoring team gets eliminated each week.
11:23That person's team then goes on to waivers and everyone can bid on those players the following week.
11:29So part of the question here is saying, if I have Brock Bowers, I won't have to care about going after tight
11:36ends when I go get players off waivers. But you're missing half the story here.
11:41You're only looking at it from the angle of Brock Bowers.
11:45You're not looking at it from the angle of why can't the Brock Bowers team lose in a given week, allowing you
11:52a chance to get Bowers with your free agent budget.
11:55Or worst case scenario, why can't I, the team who drafts Brock Bowers, be the one who loses?
12:01The bottom line is that you're answering this question with your own question.
12:06You know that a onesie position is suboptimal with more teams in your league because more teams means you're drafting even more
12:13running backs and wide receivers than you typically would.
12:16Double or even triple sometimes the rate as tight ends.
12:19Going with a player like Bowers, who I absolutely love this year.
12:23It's a high risk move when you want the opposite in this format because you have a 94% chance to advance in
12:31week one and a greater than 90% chance to advance for most of the season.
12:36The opportunity cost becomes greater to take on Bowers.
12:39I don't think he's attractive in that kind of format.
12:42Just like a player like Josh Allen's not attractive.
12:45There's too big of a cost involved. So I would not get cute and overthink it.
12:50This next question is from Mike. It says, Hey JJ, love the show.
12:55So Bashaw Tootin's cost seems to be at a point where he needs to hit in order to pay off.
13:01But I'm not convinced that the Jags are ready to just give him a full workload.
13:07They brought in C-Rod for a reason and Dobbins being their first choice shouldn't simply erase that fact.
13:13Factoring in Lawrence's ability as a rusher as well.
13:16Is it possible that we're getting too take locked into the narrative that hashtag all roads lead to Bayshall Tootin and then
13:23it's causing us to overlook the reality that coaches don't always deploy their personnel the way that we in the community think
13:31that they should or hope they will. Thanks. I mean, look, of course coaches don't deploy their personnel all the time the way that we want them to.
13:40That happens all the time every year. We're projecting what we think will and should happen.
13:45Not necessarily what actually does. I'm going to be wrong a lot this year.
13:50That's just the nature of fantasy football. But I've noticed that anytime there's like some sort of bit like this, people seem
13:57to think that that bit isn't grounded in reality.
14:00I started saying all roads lead to Bayshall Tootin last year.
14:04It's just a fun reference to the fact that I thought eventually Tootin would get his chance.
14:10But I don't say something like that or feel that way without actually having data and thoughtfulness behind it.
14:16Let's discuss this question item by item. You first say that Tootin's cost seems to be at a point where he needs
14:23to hit in order to pay off. I would say that's the case for most players, especially in the earlier rounds.
14:30But yes, in order for him to pay off, he probably can't be the RB2 in that backfield behind Chris Rodriguez.
14:37Of course, I would agree there. And maybe you feel like the other running back bets in that range don't have quite the same type of competition.
14:46Maybe you think Quinshot Judkins is a safer bet because Dylan Sampson won't be the Browns RB1.
14:52Or Cam Scadaboo versus Tyrone Tracy. Or David Montgomery versus Woody Marks.
14:56My argument from a competition standpoint is that I don't think Chris Rodriguez is an undeniable talent.
15:02We're talking about a day three selection, one who went significantly later in his draft than Bayshall Tootin went in his.
15:09And Rodriguez has quite literally never been a high volume pass catcher throughout his entire career, including college.
15:15He's good at breaking tackles. He's good at getting those tough yards, for sure.
15:19I think he's a good enough early down runner.
15:22But he doesn't have the same big play profile that Tootin has.
15:26He doesn't have the pass catching profile that Tootin has.
15:30Rodriguez has gained 20 or more yards on 1.5% of his career runs.
15:34The league average in the NFL during this time, 2.1%.
15:37Now I get it. Tootin didn't do anything in that department last year either.
15:42Not until the playoffs. It's a fair counterpoint. Maybe Tootin's also not explosive.
15:46I just have a hard time believing a player who ran a 4-3-2 and who had an 82nd percentile explosive run rate
15:54is all of a sudden not explosive at the NFL level.
15:57Is it that? Or do you just happen to not break a long play on a relatively small sample?
16:04Which is a sample that included a lot of short yardage work.
16:08And that brings me to my next point about Tootin.
16:11There's definitely an assumption out there that Chris Rodriguez is going to be the goal line in the short yardage back.
16:18Now that might happen. Again, I think in range of outcomes.
16:22But keep in mind that the Jags gave Tootin seven goal line rushes last year versus Travis Achan's ETN's 12th.
16:28Proportionally, much more of Tootin's rush attempts came at the goal line than ETN's.
16:33Guys, I don't know if I should call him Achan or ETN.
16:37You guys let me know in the comments. Tootin converted five of those seven rush attempts.
16:42He was great at the goal line. Chris Rodriguez has seven touchdowns on 19 goal line rushes throughout his career.
16:49There were some metrics last year where ETN was better than Tootin.
16:53Tootin, remember, was just a rookie. But Tootin had a success rate that was 11 percentage points higher than Travis Achan's.
17:00You see how I'm interchanging the names? I know it's confusing.
17:04I don't know what to say about his last name.
17:07But Tootin's success rate was 11 percentage points higher.
17:10He had an EPA per rush that was better.
17:13His yards after contact per attempt was 3.31 versus 3.08.
17:16That's according to PFF. And by the way, that stat will get cited often with Chris Rodriguez.
17:22But Chris Rodriguez wasn't so substantially better than Bashaw Tootin and yards after contact per attempt last year.
17:28He was at 3.46. Again, Tootin was at 3.31.
17:31They were both top 15 running backs within that metric.
17:34And he was also second on the commanders in that metric behind Ja'Cory Krosky Merritt.
17:39And guys, remember, Bashaw Tootin was a rookie. All the while, like I said, Rodriguez has never been a high target earner.
17:47He's maxed out at a 1.2% target share in a given season in the NFL.
17:52Last year in a split backfield as a first-year player, Bashaw Tootin was at 2.9%.
17:57Rodriguez had a pro-rated best season reception share in college in the 11th percentile.
18:01And his age and schedule adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt mark was in the 6th percentile.
18:07Meaning, he wasn't giving us the goods as a receiver in college at all.
18:12And he hasn't done that in the NFL. At the very least, Tootin was in the 88th and the 61st percentiles within those two metrics.
18:20He actually does have some sort of pass-catching backbone.
18:23In the end, I really do think that we're looking at a situation where Tootin could inherit last year's ETN role.
18:30And Rodriguez could take on Tootin's role. Of course, that could be wrong.
18:35Of course, coaches don't just do what we want them to do or what we think they should do.
18:41And yes, there were reports that the Jags wanted Dobbins and they settled on Rodriguez.
18:46I don't necessarily think that's a surprise though. They weren't going to go into the season with Bashaw Tootin and LaQuint Allen at running back.
18:54They needed to add a veteran. They needed another body.
18:58But it's also what we're working with with the backfield right now.
19:02It's what we have to evaluate. This is the competition.
19:05And the funny thing is, given cost, I actually don't think Rodriguez is a fade.
19:10Especially in best ball. Best ball is a great place to draft Chris Rodriguez.
19:15I just think in a managed season-long league, I want to swing big.
19:19And historically, fifth, sixth round picks, he's at the 5-6 turn right now in non-best ball leagues.
19:25Bashaw Tootin is. Those hit rates are not super strong to begin with.
19:29So let's go for that triple, maybe even a home run instead of the single.
19:34The last one this week is also from someone named Mike.
19:38And it says, Hey JJ, thanks for tuning into my question.
19:41Why are people so low on Devon Achan? He was a beast last year and he was in a bad offense.
19:48So why are we worried about the offense this year?
19:52Make it make sense. So let me first get out of the way that I'm below market with Achan this year.
19:59But Achan is also a good example of where best ball and managed season-long ADP don't really align.
20:05In best ball, you'll get them at the end of this giant tier of round two.
20:10Running backs a lot of times like late second round, Achan will fall to.
20:15But if you look at ESPN or CBS, he's RB5 over on Yahoo.
20:19He's RB8. That's a lot higher than where he goes in best ball.
20:23So keep that in mind. Now, as someone who's been very in on Achan since he's entered the league, the reason I'm
20:31more out this year is definitely situation-based. It's not always comfortable being lower on objectively good players.
20:36Don't get me wrong. But to me, that whole tier of running back is filled with objectively good players.
20:43And most of them don't have the instability that Achan's working with.
20:47And that's the thing. To me, I think it's too binary to view this offense as just good or bad.
20:53Like, yes, last year's Miami offense wasn't very good.
20:56I saw a tweet floating around this week from Zach Savage at Zach Savage on Twitter.
21:02And it said, Fade Devon Achan because the Dolphins offense is projected to be bottom in the league.
21:08And that was in quotes as if it was coming from someone who was saying to fade Achan.
21:14But then Zach added, Totally fair, considering last year Achan put up 20 points per game in an elite Miami offense that
21:21finished 25th in points, 26th in yards, 28th in first downs.
21:25So it's a sarcastic tweet where he's saying, Hey, this Miami team sucked last year on offense.
21:30Therefore, there's no reason to fade Achan if the offense this year is going to suck too.
21:36And I get it. But there was a great tweet also on the other side of this from my friend Rich Rebar
21:43this week at Lord Reeves on Twitter, where Rich said the 2025 Dolphins were certainly not a good team, but there seems
21:51to be some notions that they were an outright disaster.
21:54This was a competitive team. They won seven games.
21:57They were 16th in snaps led one spot behind the bills.
22:01They were 14th in snaps trailing ahead of the lions in the bills.
22:05And they even led by double digits at the seventh highest snap rate.
22:09The 2026 Dolphins are currently favored in one game on their schedule and are on average nearly a touchdown per game underdog.
22:17That's 31st in the league. These are not the same environments if that plays out closely to those expectations.
22:23I think that's the nuance that we need when we're talking about this offense.
22:28I talk about this in the draft guide too.
22:31It's very clear that early round running backs tend to underperform when their team environments are bad.
22:36And I'm not saying this subjectively. There are preseason metrics that we can look at to form our opinions about team environment.
22:44One of them is just straight up win totals.
22:47Late rounds Brandon Gadula did research on this just this week on how team totals can impact early round running backs.
22:54Because this year we do have a handful of early round running backs with low team win totals.
23:00The research is actually pushing me away from being as aggressive as I've been with Ashton Gentty, admittedly.
23:06But Gadula found that of the 14 running backs in our ADP database who were drafted in the first two rounds with
23:13team totals of seven or fewer, only 7% of them exceeded ADP expectation by four or more PPR points per game.
23:20For context, every other cohort that he looked at 7.5 to 8.5 win total, 9 to 9.5 or 10 or greater, each
23:27of them were at 20% within that metric. The lower group was at 7%.
23:32And the low win total backs were worse at exceeding expectation period.
23:36Just 29% of them beat their ADP expectation in points per game.
23:40Every other group was above 46%. Meanwhile, on the draft guide, I analyzed team environment scores.
23:45Essentially a score given to a running back based on where his teammates are going in fantasy drafts.
23:51Based on their average draft positions. And what I found was that we've had 14 running backs who were top 10 running
23:59backs since 2014 who had a team environment score below 75.
24:02Which, that's an arbitrary number. You don't need to worry about that.
24:06But Devon Achan finds himself in this bucket this year.
24:1012 of those 14 backs played 8 or more games in the season that we're analyzing.
24:15And only 3 of them outperformed ADP expectation. The average back underperformed by 2 PPR points per game.
24:21And as a group, they average fewer than 15 PPR points per game.
24:25We have a ton of variability here. We don't know what Malik Willis is.
24:30We don't want to say, Willis won't check down.
24:33But we can absolutely say we have no freaking clue.
24:36Does that mean it could end up being a great fit?
24:40For sure. But again, look at all the other running backs and even the wide receivers going in that 1-2 turn area of drafts.
24:48There's either just as good of a talent profile or there's a far better situation without this volatility.
24:54This really goes back to just how I view fantasy football in general.
24:58When I sit and I say that I'm lower than the market on a player, it doesn't mean that I'm incapable of seeing the upside case.
25:07A-Chan could get peppered with targets in a bad offense that's going to see negative game scripts.
25:13I'm simply weighing the range of outcomes here to the best of my ability.
25:17And my conclusion is that I can't pay an RB5 type price tag for Devon A-Chan this year.
25:23That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening.
25:28If you've yet to subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are messaging for it.
25:34Pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at LateRoundQB.
25:41Thanks for listening this week, everyone. Greatly appreciate it.
25:44I'll talk to you next week. This is Rob Parker from The Odd Couple with Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington.
25:51What is Toyota affordability? It's buying smart. Your local Toyota dealer has great deals available today on the Tacoma, Tundra and 4Runner
25:58with the space and features for any adventure. It means driving for less with available hybrid options, delivering great MPGs without sacrificing power.
26:06And it means trading for more. Toyota is known for building long lasting vehicles, meaning your truck will hold its values for years to come.
26:14Shop Toyota.com to find out more. Toyota, let's go places.
26:17I'm U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The sound of a seatbelt.
26:21It's one of the most important sounds in our car.
26:24It means everyone is ready and everyone is safe.
26:27The more our kids see us put on our seatbelts, the more natural it is for them to put theirs on too.
26:35Make it a priority. Buckle up every time. Hear the sound?
26:38Make it a habit. Paid for by NHTSA. This is an iHeart Podcast.
26:43Guaranteed human. The next time, we have a great day.
26:46You can see it. You can see it. You can see it.
