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PodcastFrom The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast

1103: Market Score

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.

17 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Jun 2, 2026
Published
Tue, June 2, 2026
19
Player insights
19
Players mentioned
Topics
A.J. BrownAlvin KamaraBaker MayfieldDavid NjokuDe'Von AchaneGeorge PickensGreg DulcichJake FergusonJalen HurtsJawuan JohnsonJosh AllenKyren WilliamsLamar JacksonMatthew Stafford
Player analysis

Player insights

19

A.J. Brown

PositiveProjection0:10

A.J. Brown played above ADP expectation, but it wasn't a standout year, marking him as a neutral player.

Insight page

Alvin Kamara

NegativeBust0:08

Alvin Kamara had a market score of +2.8 but played 3.8 PPR points per game below expected, marking a significant miss.

Insight page

Baker Mayfield

NegativeBust0:08

Baker Mayfield was one of the biggest fades at quarterback according to market score, indicating a disappointing performance.

Insight page

David Njoku

NegativeBust0:14

David Njoku is flagged as a poor value by market score, suggesting he may not meet expectations.

Insight page

De'Von Achane

PositiveBreakout0:09

Devon Achan had an impressive season, significantly outperforming expectations.

Insight page

George Pickens

PositiveBreakout0:10

George Pickens also had a strong performance, significantly exceeding expectations.

Insight page

Greg Dulcich

PositiveBreakout0:14

Greg Dolcich is the top tight end by market score, indicating strong potential for the upcoming season.

Insight page

Jake Ferguson

NegativeBust0:14

Jake Ferguson is also listed as a red flag player, indicating potential underperformance.

Insight page

Jalen Hurts

NegativeBust0:07

Jalen Hurts had a market score of +2.6 last year, indicating he was expected to outperform his ADP, but he actually underperformed by 1.1 points per game.

Insight page

Jawuan Johnson

PositiveBreakout0:14

Jawan Johnson rounds out the top four tight ends by market score, suggesting he has breakout potential.

Insight page

Josh Allen

PositiveValue0:11

Josh Allen has a market score of 2.3, suggesting he is undervalued at an ADP of 29th overall, with expected points per game rising from 20.3 to 22.6.

Insight page

Kyren Williams

NegativeBust0:12

Kyron Williams is flagged as a red flag player by market score, indicating potential underperformance.

Insight page

Lamar Jackson

NegativeBust0:08

Lamar Jackson also fell short of expectations, marking him as a player to avoid based on market score.

Insight page

Matthew Stafford

NegativeBust0:12

Matthew Stafford has a market score of -2.5, indicating significant regression and a potential bust this season.

Insight page

Pat Freiermuth

PositiveBreakout0:14

Pat Friermuth is also among the top tight ends by market score, indicating a strong outlook.

Insight page

Puka Nacua

PositiveBreakout0:10

Puka Nakua had a market score of 2.8, indicating he was a top performer and a potential league winner.

Insight page

Tony Pollard

NegativeBust0:12

Tony Pollard is also flagged as a red flag player, with expectations of underperforming by 1.8 points per game.

Insight page

Tucker Kraft

PositiveBreakout0:14

Tucker Craft ranks high in market score, suggesting he could be a valuable tight end option.

Insight page

Zach Charbonnet

PositiveProjection0:09

Zach Charbonnet played well above expected last season, showcasing his potential as a valuable player.

Insight page
Full transcript

Episode Transcript

185
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is the Late-Round Podcast with your host, J.J.
0:05Zacharysen. J.J. Zacharysen. What's up everyone? It's JJ Zacharysen in this episode 1103 of the Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast.
0:12Thanks for tuning in. Many of you are familiar with the ZAP model.
0:16There's one at running back, wide receiver, and tight end.
0:19And the model aims to project a player's fantasy output across his first three seasons in the NFL.
0:25That's been something you've read and listened about for years now.
0:29And many of you know that draft capital is sort of the foundation of those models.
0:35Everything revolves around where a player gets drafted, and it pivots off of that based on various inputs.
0:41Age-adjusted production, size, teammate scores, program strength, and so on.
0:44A typical wide receiver drafted 50th overall might be expected to have a ZAP score of say 65.
0:50But if he has really good inputs, that number can be a lot higher.
0:55If the inputs are bad, then it can be lower.
0:58Those models have served me well through the years.
1:01They're helpful tools during your rookie drafts to help you make better decisions.
1:05But for a while now, I've been wondering why that logic stops with the NFL draft.
1:11Why create a model like that only for prospecting?
1:14Why not do something similar for our season-long leagues?
1:17That's what myself and Brandon Gadula have been working on this offseason.
1:21And for the first time, I'm talking about it with all of you.
1:25Introducing Market Score. Now before I dive deeper into this, I did want to remind you to check out the brand new late-round.com.
1:33You can become a member, become a subscriber straight on the website now.
1:37Not Patreon. You can pre-order the 2026 draft guide if you'd like.
1:41Or you can just look at how pretty this site is.
1:45Regardless of what you do, at least check it out.
1:48Late-round.com Market Score is a metric that lets us see if a player is overvalued or undervalued by the market.
1:55It looks at a player's average draft position, it factors in some previous season numbers, and it says, This player is expected
2:02to play above or below expected this year. Let me explain this a little bit further.
2:08I talk about average draft position expectation all the time on this show and in the draft guide.
2:14Essentially, when you do a little bit of regression analysis, you can find the number of points per game we'd expect a
2:21player to score at a particular ADP. A wide receiver selected 50th overall, based on history, might be expected to score something like 13 PPR points per game.
2:31That's his expected points per game. Now obviously, if he was drafted earlier, that expectation would rise.
2:36If he's later, it would fall. Market Score takes that number, it factors in some previous season analytics, and it tells us
2:44how many points above or below that number we should expect the player to score.
2:49All based on his ADP. So just like the ZAP model, this is centered around market value.
2:54But instead of draft capital, it's average draft position.
2:57The obvious problem that pops up is that ADP is dynamic.
3:01It changes and it fluctuates. Draft capital, once it's set from the NFL draft, we're good to go.
3:07And that's definitely going to be something I've got to talk about when I reference market score within my content.
3:14The formula might like a player in May or June, but if his cost really changes through the summer, then all of
3:21a sudden we could be looking at the player totally differently.
3:25At least through the lens of market score. Now look, me talking about this, I'm sure you're curious about what market score says about players here in 2026.
3:34But before we get into that, I want to share sort of the historical numbers with this metric to really wrap your head around what this is doing.
3:44Average draft position is a pretty good indicator of how good or bad a player is going to be.
3:50But just like draft capital, it is far from flawless.
3:53And just like draft capital, there are parts of the draft, mostly in the middle and late rounds, where average draft position becomes far less predictive.
4:02For example, middle round tight ends, something I've talked about for years now.
4:06They really just suck. As in, we're terrible at predicting which ones are going to be good.
4:12Tight ends pick 60 first, so just after round 5 through pick 120 or through round 10 of a 12 team league,
4:19there's zero correlation between where the tight end was drafted within that range and how many points per game that tight end scored.
4:27The R squared is .7%, meaning ADP explains virtually none of the variation in fantasy scoring for tight ends drafted in that range.
4:35It's irrelevant. But with market score, we get that R squared to about 14%.
4:40Which isn't like going to solve all of our problems, but it directionally gets us into the right place.
4:46Throughout your draft, in general, market score is more predictive than ADP.
4:50And there are certain spots where historically, it's been insanely more predictive.
4:54Like with middle round quarterbacks. Quarterbacks drafted in that same range, that round 6 through round 10 range, we have an R
5:01squared of 1.3% when looking at ADP versus actual points per game since 2014.
5:06With market score, so if we replace expected fantasy points per game on ADP with a player's expected fantasy points per game
5:13via market score, that R squared shoots up to 23%.
5:17That's pretty crazy. Now I could go on and on talking about this, but the TLDR is that this has been tested
5:24and throughout your draft, market score is going to be more predictive than average draft position.
5:30Or at least average draft position expectation. Otherwise, why would we want to have a model like this, right?
5:36There would be no point to have market score if it wasn't more predictive than what ADP is just generally giving you.
5:43Now just to be clear, market score can be both positive and negative.
5:48And it generally will range from like minus 4 to plus 4.
5:52Meaning a player would be expected to score between minus 4 to plus 4 PPR points per game above or below his expected points per game.
6:00A score of 0 would mean he's simply expected to score what his ADP says he'll score.
6:06He's being drafted in the right place. Let's start with quarterback to really wrap our heads around this concept.
6:12When looking at early round quarterbacks or top 60 picks since 2014, quarterbacks with market scores below minus .5 have beaten expectation
6:20by 2 or more points per game at a 25% rate.
6:24They've underperformed versus expectation by 2 or more points at a 38% rate.
6:28When that market score is above 1 though, the opposite end, when market score is saying this quarterback is undervalued by at least 1 point per game.
6:37We see those quarterbacks outperform expectation by 2 or more points per game at a 36% rate.
6:43So it's 11 percentage points higher than when they were at minus .5 or lower in market score.
6:49And then they underperformed by 2 or more points per game at just a 9% rate.
6:54So essentially, I can look at all of this in a similar way that I do other analysis for the draft guide each year.
7:02I can find a player's market score at a certain position, and I can see how frequently that player played really far
7:09above or really far below expectation in that given year.
7:13Now as for results, since 2025 is fresh in our minds, let's go over some of those.
7:18And I'm only going to include players who ended up playing 8 or more games so we have enough of a sample
7:26to judge their points per game outputs. Last year, unfortunately, the best value by market score at quarterback was Jalen Hurts.
7:33This is not off to a good start. I was in on him too.
7:38And he underperformed versus expectation. His market score was plus 2.6 last year, meaning the metric thought that he'd outperform his ADP expectation by 2.6 points per game.
7:47But he underperformed by 1.1 points per game. Since 2014, we've had 15 other quarterback seasons where the quarterback entered the year with a market score above 1.5.
7:56So Hurts was a good bit above that. Of those 15, 3 of them failed to play 8 or more games.
8:03So there's 12 remaining quarterbacks. And of those 12 quarterbacks, only 3 of them played below expectation.
8:09So essentially, Jalen Hurts underperforming last year wasn't something that we'd seen very frequently with his type of market score.
8:16Aside from Hurts though, on the top of the list in market score last year, we had Josh Allen.
8:22He played over 2 points above expected. Caleb Williams, he also played 2 points above expected.
8:28And then Brock Purdy played 4 points above expected.
8:31Those were the top players at quarterback within market score last year.
8:35On the flip side, the four biggest fades at quarterback according to market score were Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff, Lamar Jackson, and Jordan Love.
8:43Now Goff technically played above expected, albeit barely. But the other three, they technically played below expected.
8:48Especially Baker Mayfield, who ended up busting, and then Lamar Jackson.
8:52He busted even more. And then there's the running backs who were drafted in the top 10 rounds by ADP.
8:59Like quarterback, we had a pretty big miss at the top of the list at running back in Alvin Kamara.
9:05He played 3.8 PPR points per game below expected, when his market score was plus 2.8.
9:11That's a big miss. But the other players at the top of that list, Brees Hall, played slightly above expected.
9:17Zach Charbonnet, well above expected. And then Devon Achan and Jameer Gibbs.
9:22Both of them crushed last year. Now on the flip side, market score didn't like Ja'Cory Krosky-Meritt.
9:27That was solid. It didn't like Nick Chubb, who barely squeezed into that range based on the ADP source that we're using over at FantasyData.com.
9:36But that was obviously a win. It didn't like RJ Harvey very much.
9:40That was a pretty good call. And then the other call out was Kyron Williams, which was kind of a miss.
9:47But Williams did start to see that dip in production as the season went on.
9:52So last year at running back, overall okay, but nothing amazing.
9:56Wide receiver and tight end really crushed last year.
9:59Listen to the top five values at wide receiver according to market score last season.
10:04Puka Nakua was first with a market score of 2.8.
10:07He crushed. Jalen Waddell was next and he played 2.2 points per game above expected.
10:12And then it was George Pickens. He destroyed. A.J.
10:15Brown was next. He technically actually played above ADP expectation, though it wasn't a great year.
10:21And then lastly, Chris Alave. I mean that's a solid, solid group of five players.
10:26You had three league winning wide receivers in that group.
10:29And then on the flip side, market score didn't like Marvin Harrison the most.
10:34That's a W. Stefan Diggs was on there. That was kind of whatever.
10:38But so was Cooper Cup, Justin Jefferson, and DK Metcalf.
10:41Market score literally said Justin Jefferson had a score of minus one last year.
10:46I think that's pretty cool. And then listen to the top four tight end values last year.
10:52The tight ends with the highest market scores. Tyler Warren, George Kittle, Tucker Craft, and Trey McBride.
10:57Here are the worst values. Evan Ingram, David Njoku, TJ Hawkinson, and Travis Kelsey.
11:02Now some of these names were predictable without using market score.
11:06Of course. A lot of them were targets. A lot of them were avoids in the draft guide last year.
11:12But just like the zap models, I think market score can serve as a metric that can ground us.
11:19If we're really high on a player, but market score says, hey, this is a red flag situation.
11:25Maybe we look into that player a little bit more.
11:28And I feel that way a little bit about guys being drafted here in 2026.
11:33Not so much a quarterback though. The player with the best market score is, drumroll please, Josh freaking Allen.
11:40Go figure. The model just loves him for obvious reasons.
11:43But he's sitting with a market score of 2.3.
11:46And that's at an overall ADP of 29th overall.
11:49At 29th overall, his expected points per game is 20.3.
11:52So market score implies something closer to 22.6. Other names at the top of the list right now include Jackson Dart, which I thought was pretty interesting.
12:01Cam Ward, which I thought was really interesting. Jalen Hurts once again.
12:05And then Justin Herbert. All players that I can definitely get behind in one way or another.
12:11Now on the flip side, the biggest call out is definitely Matthew Stafford.
12:15Beyond him, there aren't a ton of red flag players.
12:19But Stafford's got a score of minus 2.5, which really is a number that we don't see that much from a non-elite quarterback.
12:27Funny enough, back in 2022, Matthew Stafford was the QB 12 and he had a market score of minus 1.6.
12:33In nine games that year, he played 5.3 points per game below expected.
12:38Now I highly doubt that happens, but we know regression is coming for Stafford.
12:42So it's no surprise that he's at the bottom of the list when you consider cost, which is 94th overall in QB 13.
12:50The running back list actually shocked me a little bit.
12:53Kyle Monungay and Blake Corum, two players I literally just talked about last week as high floor, kind of low ceiling without an injury type of players.
13:02Market score loves them. They have scores of almost two.
13:06On the red flag side, it's Kyron Williams. So I think the model just doesn't like in general for a number of
13:13reasons, but it's Kyron Williams and Tony Pollard. The fact that my analysis on Pollard called him a fade, and then this
13:21is saying that he'll play 1.8 points per game below expected.
13:24It's not looking great. Now after last year's wide receiver showing, I was pretty interested to see what market score said about this year's group.
13:33And we got familiar faces at the top. Puka Nakua and George Pickens.
13:37Jordan Tyson was actually third on the list. A lot of that has to do with the fact that rookies get treated
13:44differently within the model because we don't have previous season data.
13:48And unsurprisingly, the market score model uses zap scores as an input because zap score is predictive.
13:54And the zap model loved Jordan Tyson. So this model likes him a lot too.
13:59Carnell Tate's really high too, as is Wondell Robinson, Alec Pierce, and Terry McLaurin.
14:03Market score just seems to really like this Tennessee passing attack, which is kind of frightening.
14:09On the flip side, as much as it pains me, it's not vibing much with Emeka Ibuka.
14:14That's something that's going to want to make me investigate further.
14:18It also doesn't really like Quentin Johnston. And then the last call out is CeeDee Lamb.
14:24So it likes Pickens at his ADP, but it doesn't like Lamb at his ADP.
14:29It doesn't mean that it likes Pickens straight up more than Lamb.
14:33Remember, this is all versus cost. And Lamb's a 10th overall pick according to this ADP.
14:38Pickens, 26th. And then lastly, tight end. I thought this was pretty funny.
14:42I mentioned some tight ends on last week's mailbag episode without even looking at market score.
14:48And literally three of the top four tight ends by market score are players that I mentioned.
14:53Greg Dolcich is number one. Tucker Craft is number two.
14:57Pat Friermuth is number three. And Jawan Johnson is number four.
15:00On the other end, it's got a bunch of rookie tight ends.
15:04And then Brock Bowers is actually viewed as overvalued.
15:07Though I wouldn't overthink that. David Njoku, Jake Ferguson, and Dallas Goddard round things off on the red flag side.
15:14Now, all of those names are going to change as the summer moves forward.
15:19Because average draft position changes. We're still very early on in this process.
15:23But as we get into August when our drafts are happening, we'll have a pretty good idea of which players market score
15:31is into and which players it isn't. And there's no doubt I'm going to be referencing those scores both on the podcast
15:38and in the draft guide this year. There's so much to still uncover with this metric.
15:43This is really the 2.0 of late round fantasy football.
15:47We've got this new website. We have this new members hub.
15:50But Brandon Gadula and I, we're also working on a ton of these different ways that we can dissect this game through numbers and analytics.
15:59Market score is awesome. It's something that we want to continue to develop and make better.
16:04But beyond market score, there's more on the way too.
16:07That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening.
16:12If you yet subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found.
16:21And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at LateRoundQB.
16:25Thanks for listening everyone. I'll be back in your ears on Wednesday, live on YouTube for the Late Round Fantasy Football Show.
16:33And then on Friday, you get an episode of Late Round Perspectives.
16:37I'll talk to you then. This is an iHeart Podcast.
16:40Guaranteed human. Hello, everyone. I'm back.

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