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0:36Zacharysen. What's up everyone, it's JJ Zacharysen. In this episode 1102 of the Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in.
0:42Some of you may have heard about it already, but Late-Round Fantasy Football has a brand new website.
0:48We're shifting off of Patreon, and we've now got a members hub for all Late-Round members.
0:53We can get rankings, data dumps, Discord access, and more.
0:56And the site itself has more information too. Prices aren't changing, but if you're a patron and you want access to the
1:03new site, you should have received some communication via email already.
1:06If you haven't, and you want to make the switch, email david at lateroound.com, and David Kitchen can help you out.
1:13There's going to be a transition period here, so bear with us, but the new website is seriously awesome.
1:19And on that site, you can now officially pre-order the Late-Round Draft Guide.
1:23That guide is going to give you everything you need to crush your season-long drafts this year.
1:28There's game theory discussion, player analysis, targets and avoids, rankings, and more.
1:32You can check that out on the new lateroound.com site right now.
1:36That's lateroound.com. The first question this week is from Kobe on Patreon.
1:40It says, Hey JJ, are there any big picture dynasty strategies that you consistently live by to keep a roster healthy and competitive long term?
1:47For example, in a start three wide receiver PPR league, would you generally lean toward elite wide receivers like Chase Puka and
1:54JSN over elite running backs like Gibbs and Bijon if they're in the same tier because of the longevity and roster building advantage?
2:01And in the deep late rounds of a startup are high upside players who may never pan out better stashes than handcuffed
2:08running backs and sacrificial ex-wide receivers that we don't expect to hold much standalone fantasy value.
2:13So I don't have one singular answer here because every roster needs to be approached differently.
2:18Like if I'm in win now mode, I might hold on to less of those project wide receivers who need some time to develop.
2:26I'll opt for backup third string running backs. It all depends on where my roster's at.
2:31And I don't think there's some clear cut answer with whether you go with Chase or Puka or JSN versus Bijon and Gibbs.
2:38I can tell you that I tend to build with wide receiver and non-running backs and usually dress running back last.
2:45I do that for two reasons. First, if I have a higher end rookie draft pick, I can get more of that
2:51immediate production at running back in a lot of classes.
2:54Like Jeremiah I loved this year. But even last year, we had a handful of year one impact type players at running back.
3:02But then second, if I'm competitive or borderline competitive, my biggest need is at running back.
3:07It's a position that teams are typically more willing to part with mid-season.
3:11Non-competitive teams. Because players like Derrick Henry, they're at the tail end of their career and managers know that.
3:17If they're not competitive, they'll want to cash in before being the ones holding the bag.
3:22From just a perception standpoint, it's not quite the same at wide receiver.
3:26The overarching approach and philosophy that I have with Dynasty is to draft for value and trade for need.
3:32I'm rarely jumping tiers for need in rookie drafts early on in rookie drafts, unless it's a league that doesn't have a lot of trading.
3:39But in an active league where I know that I can get a deal done, I won't reach for a need.
3:46I want to first accumulate that value. And then I can address it later.
3:50And when I address it later, I have a larger player pool to choose from.
3:55Not just rookies. It makes doing a deal easier because I have more options.
3:59Hopefully that answers your question though. I think the beauty of Dynasty is that every league has different dynamics.
4:05And every league is going to force you to have somewhat of a different approach.
4:10The best players, in my opinion, they're the ones who are able to adapt to that specific league environment.
4:16Now speaking of adapting to your league's environment, the next one is an email from Corey.
4:21It says, Hi, why are quarterbacks generally prioritized so heavily in Superflex leagues?
4:25I draft primarily on replacement values. And for a 10-man league, so replacement starter is the 20th ranked quarterback, those values say
4:32that only Josh Allen should go in round one.
4:35Most Superflex mocks and rankings have five or more quarterbacks in round one.
4:39So if I'm being totally honest, I cannot stand Superflex rankings.
4:42I despise them. Because if you're not reading the draft room, reading your individual league's draft, if you're not doing that in
4:49a Superflex league, you're doing it totally wrong. And rankings can't account for that.
4:53In some leagues, you're going to get eight quarterbacks drafted in round one.
4:57And unfortunately, the position will dry up. You mentioned using a simple VORP equation where your baseline quarterback is the QB20.
5:04Some leagues, that's not the baseline quarterback. Because some teams are going to draft three quarterbacks before you're even thinking about your second one.
5:12And obviously, the league size matters here too. League size is generally 12, not 10.
5:16They get prioritized so heavily in Superflex leagues because obviously the supply and demand equation just shifts.
5:22Instead of starting one, you're generally starting two. Now, you could argue that it matters a little bit less in full PPR
5:28formats because some elite wide receivers can match those quarterback scores.
5:32But quarterbacks is generally going to score more points than the other positions.
5:36And there are at most 32 of them. There's 32 starters.
5:39And at this moment, we don't even know who some of those starters even are.
5:44Which means the supply can run out quickly in leagues where teams aren't afraid to just start their drafts with like two
5:51quarterbacks or where they get two in the first three rounds.
5:54I do think that Vorp has flaws, just inherently.
5:57I talk about that a lot every year in the late round draft guide.
6:01But even if you go with Vorp, you still need to account for where that baseline player gets drafted.
6:07If he goes in round four, let's say, then it's not an apples to apples comparison if the baseline player at a different position goes in round eight.
6:16If the baseline player at wide receiver, let's say, goes in round eight, that's different than the baseline player going in round four at quarterback.
6:24Because that point differential from that player to the baseline player, it's stretching across fewer rounds at quarterback in that case.
6:30Which means there's a higher opportunity cost if you pass on that position.
6:35But look, I think your overall feelings towards rankings and super flex is very valid because even myself as someone who does super flex rankings, I hate them.
6:43It's different in dynasty because there's a market component that we have to worry about long term.
6:49But in redraft, you need to read the room first and foremost.
6:52This asks questions from Dylan. It says, who are some of your favorite underrated tight ends in dynasty right now?
6:59Any interesting finds with a new tight end model?
7:01Or was that just for prospects? Well, that model is for prospects.
7:05Yes. And if you go past like even the 2025 class, you're getting into tight ends where we now have multiple NFL seasons from them.
7:13So a prospect score is just not as relevant.
7:16But if we look at last year's class, the model reinforces the idea that Colson Loveland and Tyler Warren and Harold Fannin are all really good.
7:24And I'm still holding out hope for Terrence Ferguson.
7:27I had him as a buy this offseason. And even though they drafted Max Clare, Ferguson is an athletic tight end who
7:34scored well in both the old model and this new model.
7:37And we know the Rams are going to run heavy personnel.
7:40And I'm expecting Ferguson to take a step forward.
7:43According to Keep Trade Cut, he's at a very reasonable price tag of tight end 22.
7:48Another tight end you might want to look at is Greg Dolcich.
7:52He's tight end 42 on Keep Trade Cut. He's probably on the waiver wire in a lot of your dynasty leagues.
7:59One of the things to always look for in a breakout tight end is an obvious lack of pass catchers on that team.
8:06And Miami clearly has that. Dolcich is also coming off a season where he was targeted on almost 23% of his routes
8:13run and he had a crazy good 2.31 yards per route run rate on 145 routes run.
8:18That's according to PFF. Now look, that's not a ton of routes run, so these numbers aren't amazingly predictive.
8:24But when we're talking about a totally free player in a situation without pass catching alternatives, I do think that we can
8:31use some of those numbers to just say, hey, let's throw a dart at this player.
8:36I've also taken him plenty in best ball drafts so far.
8:39Some other players who I think are worth dart throws are Juwan Johnson, who's coming off his most efficient season by most metrics.
8:46Pat Friermuth still isn't 28 years old. He could have a larger role in this new offense.
8:52And Michael Mayer. The Raiders are probably going to run a lot more 12 personnel.
8:56I've talked about that this offseason. And Mayer has injury upside if something happens to Brock Bowers.
9:02So those are some random names that make sense to me right now.
9:06This next question is an email from Robert. It says, hey, JJ, love all the work you do.
9:11Thanks. Thank you. Are we ignoring LaQuint Allen in Jacksonville?
9:14Everybody's talking about Bashaw Tootin's breakout, but isn't getting on the field the first goal of a successful running back?
9:21Allen has already proven his pass protection and work in the passing game.
9:25What are the chances he gets the lion's share of work?
9:28Thanks, Bob. I mean, to be fair, they played almost an identical number of snaps per game last year.
9:34Bashaw Tootin and LaQuint Allen. They just did very, very different things.
9:38Allen would run a few more routes per game.
9:41Tootin would see a handful of more rushes. Allen only had a little over one rush attempt per game last year.
9:47He played their third down roll. According to Fantasy Life data, 79% of their long down and distant snaps last year went to LaQuint Allen.
9:55Allen. Travis Etienne and Bashaw Tootin combined for the final 21%.
9:58Now, Allen was a great pass catcher in college, and that translated to a role right away in the NFL.
10:05The problem is that he likely isn't the player that they're going to want to use on early downs.
10:11I mean, last season, Allen had six total first half rush attempts.
10:14He had 17 in the second half. And about half of his attempts came on third and fourth down.
10:20The reason Tootin's getting love right now, or even Chris Rodriguez, is because Travis Etienne, who was the most valuable asset in that backfield last year, he's gone.
10:29And the idea is that someone's going to be taking that work.
10:33And since Allen played a very specific role last season, and this is the same coaching staff, there's more upside for that
10:40role to be absorbed by Tootin than LaQuint Allen.
10:42Now, with that being said, I've thrown plenty of final round dart throws and best ball at LaQuint Allen.
10:48He'll likely have a role in that team. It's just that when we aim for pass catchers in fantasy, we don't only
10:55want guys who are mostly playing on third down, and who probably won't be seeing much goal line work, if any.
11:02The likely outcome is that Allen more so caps the ceiling of a player like Bashaw Tootin or Chris Rodriguez, as opposed to having crazy standalone value himself.
11:10But in best ball, I think given that he has some role, and he's so cheap, and there's at least some chance
11:17for a little bit more work, he could give us some usable weeks here and there on a full PPR platform like DraftKings.
11:25This next question is from Twitter. It's from at BNLBRGHT31.
11:28I'm sure that spells something, but I have no idea what it spells.
11:32What's your outlook on Matthew Stafford this year? Seems like a clear regression candidate based on touchdown rate, but Rams throw at
11:39a much higher rate close to the goal line.
11:41I mean, look, to be fair, the Rams were still just 11th last year in pass rate within the 10-yard line, and
11:48in 2024, the year before Devontae Adams, they were 17th.
11:51And Matthew Stafford had a 3.9% touchdown rate one year, and then a 7.7% touchdown rate the next year.
11:57But look, Stafford undoubtedly had a crazy high expected touchdowns number because they also threw it a lot at the goal line, at the actual goal line.
12:06His expected touchdowns last year were closer to 42 or 43.
12:09That's insanity. He threw 46, so he outperformed that mark, but it's not like he outperformed it by such a crazy, crazy number.
12:16Now, I've seen this a lot in fantasy analysis.
12:19People often think that if a player didn't far outperform his expected numbers from the previous season, whether it be yards, touchdowns,
12:26whatever, that automatically means that he's not a regression candidate.
12:29But that's not exactly how this works. Like, we can't just assume that Stafford is going to have 42 expected touchdown passes again.
12:36The year prior, he was at 28. That number fluctuates and it changes.
12:40It's just helpful when we're looking at a player and we're saying, if he maintains this type of workload, will things get better or will things get worse?
12:49That's what the expected numbers can help us do and find out.
12:53And for Stafford, it would be a little bit worse probably.
12:56But we also shouldn't expect him to maintain that kind of workload because it's not a common number to hit at all.
13:03It's a very, very high expected touchdowns mark. And we also know that touchdown rate is a number that regresses to the mean.
13:10I'll likely have another rewind episode on this topic coming up, but touchdown rate has a negative relationship to current season production among quarterbacks in fantasy football.
13:19As in, when you're looking at a draft-worthy quarterback, the ones with higher touchdown rates in the previous season actually underperformed versus
13:26expectation at a higher rate than the players who have lower touchdown rates.
13:30And that's because fantasy managers, they look at the previous season and they look at those numbers and they say, oh yeah,
13:37I'll draft Matthew Stafford really high because he had 46 touchdowns last year.
13:41That raises the player's cost and it makes it harder for those guys to really exceed expectation because touchdown rate regresses.
13:47So we'll see where Stafford ends up landing ADP wise.
13:50I don't usually have strong quarterback takes in best ball because I'm usually just stacking, but I don't have a serious problem
13:57with this QB 15 ADP over on fantasy pros.
14:00Now it might sound crazy, but I think someone like Tyler Shuck, Kyler Murray, they might have more intriguing upside because they're
14:07rushing and Malik Willis even because if you draft them in season long and they don't pan out, you can just start streaming and still be okay.
14:15It's crazy. I understand that it's crazy to say that because Stafford is just so good, but we have to play this game of fantasy football.
14:23That's what the game is. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to view it, mobility at the quarterback position matters so much.
14:31I do expect regression from Stafford this year though.
14:33We can't project anyone to hit 40 passing touchdowns, let alone repeating 46.
14:37The last question this week is from at Brainy Ballers.
14:41It says, it would be awesome hearing about your early years in the industry and what helped shape the legend we all know today.
14:48I've heard you talk about your background a couple of times in your podcast, but I'd love to hear more about your
14:55inspirations and what helped shape late round QB in its early years.
14:59So first off, I'm far from a legend. I'm just a guy in mom's basement doing fantasy content.
15:04But this type of question has now been asked multiple times over the last couple of mailbag cycles.
15:10And it's the off season, less stuff is going on.
15:13And so I'll talk about it and I'll bookmark this for any future questions like it because I know that I tell
15:20this story periodically, but I'll just do it one more time.
15:23And if this kind of thing does not interest you, thanks for listening.
15:27I appreciate you. Have a great weekend. I'll catch you next week.
15:31Anyway, where this all started. I graduated college in 2010.
15:34I got my degree in marketing and I had a background in graphic and web design.
15:39Back then you couldn't vibe code. I just learned front end development design while I was in high school.
15:45I started building websites when I was like in eighth or ninth grade.
15:49I actually thought I was going to go to school for design at one point.
15:54So out of college, my now wife got a job in Cincinnati, Ohio, and that's where I moved.
16:00And I got a job at an ad agency and I hated it.
16:04I love the people. I love the atmosphere, but I just didn't like the job.
16:08I was a project manager. I thought I was going to bring all my skill sets together and be really good at that job.
16:16And I think I was good at that job for what it's worth, but it just felt like admin work.
16:22I took one other job at a different agency where it was smaller and I did some more hands-on design, some more hands-on website development work.
16:30But while I was at my first job, I knew I couldn't do that for the next 40 plus years.
16:36I knew I needed to do something about it.
16:39So I sat down one day, I wrote my passions down in a Word document, and I couldn't get off the fantasy football idea.
16:47At the time, there wasn't nearly as much content as what we see today.
16:51It was the big players, the big media sites mostly.
16:54And at that time, which was late in the 2011 season, I couldn't help but notice how every analyst was essentially telling
17:01people to draft quarterbacks early next year, or that you needed a good quarterback to win in fantasy.
17:07But I knew through playing for a decade at that point, because I started playing in like 2001, 2002, I knew that the logic didn't make sense.
17:15Yes, quarterback numbers were really good in 2011, but it wasn't like we predictably knew exactly which quarterbacks would be good.
17:22And we also knew supply and demand was a big part of this game.
17:26And that position just didn't matter that much from a supply and demand perspective.
17:30So I decided to blend all of my passions together on a project outside of work.
17:35At that time, ebooks really weren't that easy to produce and they weren't that popular.
17:40But I knew how to design, I knew how to code so I could write the ebook, I could design the charts,
17:47I could make it look decent, and then I could code it so it was responsive on different devices.
17:53So that's what I did. Each day I'd go to work, I'd go home, and then I'd write.
17:58I had very little responsibilities at the time because I was 23 years old.
18:03I then did that for about six months and I published the Late Round Quarterback ebook in June of 2012.
18:09And then in 2012, a lot of stuff that I wrote about ended up coming true.
18:14Quarterbacks regressed, we had more chaos at the position, and Late Round Quarterback dominated.
18:18That got me a guest series on Roto World after having a call with Evan Silva, who funny enough is a friend of mine now.
18:26And then I actually wrote a few articles on PFF when Mike Clay was running things there.
18:32Almost exactly a year after my book launched, I got a full-time job offer from Nick Bonadio at Numberfire.
18:37I was asked to create content for them, which turned into me essentially building out the media business for Numberfire.
18:44I would recruit writers, they'd write content, I'd edit the content, I'd critique things for the writers.
18:49We were a well-oiled machine. We were doing up to 30 articles per day at one point.
18:54Some really awesome analysts actually got their start under me at Numberfire.
18:58Scott Barrett and Graham Barfield over at Fantasy Points, Jacob Gibbs at CBS Sports, Chris Rabon in Action Network.
19:04There are tons more. Apologies if I didn't name you.
19:07But I'm proud of what we built, without a doubt.
19:10We then were bought by FanDuel in 2015. I became a FanDuel employee.
19:14The first couple of years, they were actually kind of rough just from the perspective that FanDuel didn't know what they wanted to do with us.
19:22But my team, alongside my boss, Adam Kaplan, who was there with me back at Numberfire, we all just started kind of
19:29taking over as thought leaders within that organization and with digital content.
19:33So I was at FanDuel for almost seven years, and I did some cool stuff there.
19:38I got to do TV spots. I got to have a real budget to work with.
19:43I really did enjoy my time at FanDuel. I have nothing but good things to say about that company and the people that I worked with.
19:51It just got to a point where I always had this goal in mind to run my own company.
19:57Just going back to the start, I taught myself how to design and build websites.
20:02That was what I did in high school to make money.
20:05I didn't have the traditional jobs. That's what got me decent internships in college.
20:10I've just always had this desire to create. And the only way that I could really do that completely freely was to
20:16go out on my own and start a business.
20:19So in January 2022, that's what I did. I left FanDuel and I started late round fantasy football.
20:25My plan was to actually never hire anyone and just do my own thing.
20:29But then David Kitchen became available and he was something I actually had to do.
20:34I actually had thought of when I started the business as someone who could help manage sort of like the business side of things.
20:41So I hired him last year, January 2025. And then I was able to add Brandon Gadula in January of this year.
20:48And look, right now, I really don't have plans to be much bigger from a human resource standpoint.
20:54I would be totally content and fine if it's just us three forever.
20:58Because I want to be able to stay true to what I really want to do, which is create content and analyze this game.
21:05The bigger you get, the more managing that you have to do.
21:09And if that's the case, then I would have less time focusing on the content.
21:14But look, in the end, if you want to talk about inspiration and what pushed me to do this, I just couldn't
21:21do the typical nine to five thing. I didn't like it.
21:24I knew I didn't like it. I knew I needed out.
21:28I was determined to do whatever I could to not do that because I know myself.
21:33I know that if I had that standard job that I just didn't like doing, it would affect my mental health.
21:39It would affect my relationships. And that's not a good thing at all.
21:43And I am fully aware of how lucky I am.
21:46Look, I know that I worked hard. I know I was able to think about things in a way that other people weren't thinking.
21:54I was able to market an idea in a way that was unique.
21:58And that's something I'm very proud of. Don't get me wrong.
22:01But anytime you're able to find success doing something, you have to take a step back and you have to try to be objective.
22:09You know? For me, I was lucky to have an interest in an industry that was just starting to boom.
22:15I was lucky to have a loose connection to even have an interview at Numberfire.
22:20I was lucky that my content ended up getting seen by the right people at the right time.
22:25And there have been ups and downs through all of this.
22:29Trust me. Most of the really tough stuff happened pretty early on where I was working like 14, 15 hours a day pretty consistently.
22:36There were definitely times in that like 2013 to 2016 timeframe where I let my work like get in the way of health.
22:43Fortunately, though, I've always had a great support system with my wife, my family, my friends, and I've always been able to bounce back.
22:51I think that's key with anything that you set out to do.
22:55Don't do it alone. Lean on people. Ask for advice.
22:58Be willing to feel what you need to feel.
23:01Don't let it just sit there. But really, what inspired me to do all this was just this desire to create something.
23:07To create something that could connect people and get them to think differently about a game that I really do deeply love.
23:14As I've gotten older, I've realized that critical thinking is something to just not take for granted.
23:20It's important to always work your mind. And this game is a way for us to do that.
23:25That's one of the many reasons I love doing what I do.
23:29I get to go in the lab. I get to completely fry my brain researching things.
23:34And then I emerge with some new idea that you guys can judge me on.
23:39It's legitimately really, really fun. And it's one of the things that drives me to keep innovating and coming up with new ideas.
23:46Now look, there are plenty of details in there that I could have gotten to.
23:51I could have talked about this for hours. And if any of you want to learn more or you just want to
23:57bounce an idea off of me, you can always email me.
24:01But that's really the story. From a lazy high school student who just built websites, hung out with friends, played some sports,
24:08to an advertising project manager, to an editor-in-chief, to an entrepreneur.
24:11That's how late round fantasy football came to be.
24:14Thanks to all of you for listening. If you yet subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are
24:21by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found.
24:24And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at LateRoundQB.
24:29Thanks for listening this week, everyone. I greatly appreciate it.
24:32Make sure you check out LateRound.com. Sign up for whatever you can sign up for or whatever you want to sign up for.
24:39I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for the continued support.
24:42Enjoy your weekend. I'll catch you next week. This is Sophia Donner from OK Storytime.
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