Late-Round Perspectives: Chris Harris Returns

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Whether you're new to football, a fantasy football fan act or a die hard fan, NFL pro will help you analyze the game like a pro. Listen to NFL pro on the I Heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Chris Harris is the owner of Harris football who hosts the popular Harris football podcast. Prior to Harris football, he's been over eight years at ESPN. He's a film based analyst, a novelist. He's got a new book called "Pound Fullish" out on September 1st. These are his late-round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by DraftKings. We've partnered up with DraftKings again this year for Bestball and we've got a can't miss offer on their biggest bestball contest ever. $20 million in total prizes. It's DraftOne, GetOne. Draft your team wants no weekly line of management and your top scorers start automatically each week all season long. Download the DraftKings daily fantasy app and sign up with promo code late-round. Enter a lineup in the $20 million bestball contest for $25 and get a bonus ticket for a second entry. Two shots at the title. DraftOne, GetOne, only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. How's it going with this new book? You're going to have to ask me in like two weeks because it's not out yet, but people are pre-ordering and yeah, you know, I would, you know, it's like I would love to say, oh, the response has been amazing, but nobody has it. You have it, but you know, it's busy time of year. Tell me about the book, what it's about, what inspired you to write it. I mean, you've done other novels and such in the past, other other other books, like what was it that made you go? And this is your first football, like football focus one, too. Second, second. Yeah, my first novel is called Slotback Rhapsody. It was like 2011. And actually the, so that's about an undersized running back who tries to make it in the NFL. And it was it was it a precursor to Christian McCaffrey? Is that what the, no, you know, it was Danny Woodhead in his Patriots days. All right. There you go. It was, it was more like that. That was who I had in mind. Is it it takes place in Detroit, but it was Danny Woodhead was a, who I had in mind. And so then you're right. I brought a bunch of other books and came back to football as a subject matter for this one. And it's a sequel. The same character from the first one is one of the main characters in this one. Gotcha. This one's a lot more ambitious and has a lot of other characters in it and is about the season in a life. And the team happens to have somebody who might be a serial killer who's murdering women on the team. Oh, and so, uh, so the character from Slotback no longer plays. He's or tired. And they bring him in to like investigate the things that they cannot be seen investigating themselves internally. Like see if you can figure this out. They like ask them. Yeah. Yeah. So he infiltrates the team. And then we meet many of the team members and there's a lot of fun game action and stuff. And, uh, yeah, it's what inspired me to write it. I guess was my own feelings of moral compromise about being a barnacle on the side of professional football. Yeah. Do you feel that way? Yeah, I feel that way all the time. Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, there's definitely like a grossness to what we do, you know, for, for a living that, that I think that like, it's only human to feel that way. I think it's important to like talk about that on shows sometimes and, and, and remind people that we feel that way for sure. You know, like, it's very easy for, you know, what we're doing to essentially just minimize what these athletes are going through and doing on a football field for our entertainment, you know, and treating them as like they're not people sometimes in the way that we analyze fantasy football. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I feel that way all the time, all the time, plus just there's that aspect of it, the sacrifice, the churn of human flesh, you know, human flesh. There's that side of it and there's the compromises that they have to go through to get put themselves through it. The bad behavior that that can sometimes then result in that we then wind up either excusing or waving away and certainly the leagues waves away. And then to me, my way of thinking worst of all is kind of the too big to fail nature of the billionaires and the business and the whole bread and circus and nonsense. As though they're smart as though they've done anything other than literally just accidentally find the the goose that lays the golden eggs or be the lucky sperm club of such a person. And then that somehow because they're billionaires and own these teams grants them some sort of claim to intellect or savvy or anything. And then they get to hold communities hostage the bears are going through this right now where yeah, give us public money that we don't need, but we can ask for it. We can hold a gun to your head. So we're just going to do it like yeah, it's all pretty nauseating in some ways and people who get turned off of the NFL. I have plenty of friends. I have a really close friend who's been in my fantasy leagues for more than a decade this year. He quit and he didn't he loved the come out camaraderie of fantasy. We all do. It's my favorite part of it. Loved it. Right. He just didn't want to watch football anymore. Yeah, just yeah, I mean, yeah, there's definitely there's definitely that angle to it. And so yeah, I mean, I think it's important to like have that out there that, you know, we're we're self aware enough to understand that this can be gross. Sometimes as we get, you know, into this show and we're going to be talking about, oh, this guy's bad at this thing. Like, you know, it's like that. And that's, you know, but JJ, that's almost the point though. Like I still love it. I'm not telling you I don't love it. I'm not telling you that you watching and listening shouldn't love it. Please continue to love it. It helps me and JJ a lot if you continue to love it. So all I'm trying to say is it's complicated. And people, yeah, people going la la la la. I don't think that's really living in the real world. And anyway, why did I write the book is to try to sort of tap into some of those feelings? So the book is definitely not all like budgeting people saying bad NFL, bad NFL. But it's just sort of trying to say it's very complicated. And there's a lot of stuff that goes on that is very weird and not awesome. But yeah, then some stuff that's totally awesome and incredible. And how many common spaces do we have left in America? I know, I know that's the thing to like, there's so much good. Yeah, there's so much good that comes out of this game. Yeah, too, that can't be dismissed. I mean, even even the players themselves get like, you know, their own stories where they're able to to find something that they're able to make the amount of money they're making doing it. And they're, you know, obviously becoming something that they could only dream of becoming. And they're, you know, like that's what I love about the NFL draft most is just the story and like seeing people achieving their goals in real time. Like to me, that's amazing, right? And then I'm sitting there and I'm writing up the prospect profiles being like, Oh, yeah, this guy's, you know, breakout score was, yeah, right, right, right. But yeah, like that's the dichotomy. Like that's the, you know, the back and forth that I think any healthy fantasy analyst is probably, you know, going through and thinking about. But again, like it's good to at least voice that. And you get to put it out there and, you know, metaphorically in such in a book the way that you're doing. Yeah, I'm really proud of it. I hope people, if you're interested in reading fiction, I hope you give it a shot. If you have ever listened to anything I do, I did the audio book also. There's an e-book you can pre-order it all. Go to Harris football, there are links. I'm doing a tour. I mean, this is the first reading tour I've ever done. Yeah, that sounds like fun though. Kind of be a good time, right? Yes, because mostly it's just an excuse to do meet-ups. And I've done a lot of, I've done a ton of meet-ups up with fans of my show. And they're so fun. People are so nice. My God, it's just what a, like what a hardship to walk into a room where everybody likes what you do. You know, it's, I know. So, whoa, it's me, it's so hard. But these are towns I've never done meet-ups in. So, Sunday is Seattle. It's actually Tacoma, but Seattle area. Monday is Portland, Tuesday is Vegas, Wednesday is Phoenix. Wow. So, four cities, four days, a lot of travel. And I'm going to make a podcast in the morning from the hotel at each. at each site. Are you? Yeah, I was going to ask. Yeah. You did the Almanac this year. I know you started. It was the last year you started doing it again. Like, you took a little bit of a break with it. Yeah. And then, but like, I mean, that's a lot of writing in general. Like, you clearly, I mean, you're very, you're a very great writer. Thank you. But like, that obviously is just a part of you. But I know for me, like, I do the draft guide, right? It's, you know, a lot of words and a lot of like, my brain is just completely fried. So I imagine that you're completely fried right now. You're doing both the Almanac and, you know, the book stuff. I'm okay. I mean, this book's been done for a while because it takes a long time to start putting it together. You know, like, I didn't have a cover in April, but like, the book was done in April. Right. I've been writing another book. But yeah, I mean, the Almanac is a big, is a big summit to climb. I mean, you do a guide. So like, you know, it's, it's all, it's pretty all-consuming. I essentially, you know, I'm writing a profile for 230, 240 players. There's no way to do it unless like, every day I just make myself write five. So like, I'll go, I'll go do something else, usually go to the coffee shop and work on writing fiction. And then I'll go to the gym. And then the afternoon, it's like, well, I got to write five profiles. And the good thing about that is like, I'm loopy at that point. And so I'm mostly just trying to make a joke each, you know, like a lot of those. But you get a copy every year. I've read it. Like, you know, I hope there's good football stuff in there. But I'm also just trying to make people laugh. So hopefully, sure. Yeah, of course. Yeah. All right. Let's get into some of these, some of these topics. I always like talking to you about fantasy and about football in general because, you know, we approach things from a different angle. But I've said this before, even when you were on perspectives last time, it's like, people will put you in a box of like what kind of analyst you are without real. You know, like I did a show with you like a week and a half ago where we talked about film only. Yeah. You know, like it was just, we're just talking about guys that we like watching and, you know, going through that. And it's not, and I mean, I've seen in the, in the Almanac, like you're doing little research stuff within there that's, that's data driven. Absolutely. But I, but I do appreciate how you are very, very willing to just say this is what I believe. And I'm not saying you're a moron if you don't believe it, but I'm telling you that I believe this thing, right? And so I want to start this off by asking you, what's something that you think about valuating fantasy football players that you think the rest of the fantasy industry, whether analysts are just players, you know, managers, just kind of get fundamentally wrong. The one thing I'm writing everybody else is wrong. That's, that's a long list, JJ. No, I mean, you know, it feels like it changed a little bit this year only because last year running backs had their moment and wide receivers got hurt. But it does feel like this year things tilted a little more towards understanding where there's real scarcity and yet still not enough. And to my way of thinking, it's just a numbers game. I don't feel like people fully understand anybody who like I'm in the middle of doing a Reddit AMA right now, taking a little break to do this show, which is, you know, very thank you for having me. I'm really, really excited to be here. Of course. And, you know, people are like, okay, so I have the two pick and I'm going to go chase and then I'm going to go and I'm thinking to myself, don't do that. Who's telling me to do that? You don't have to do that. Take a running back. What are you doing? Just from a pure like replacement value over replacement level. There's just no substitute for running back and we've lived through the era of zero RB. It feels like that's maybe going away a little bit, but now it's been replaced by hero RB, which is that even a thing hero RB isn't that what people who like RBs always said, make sure you get one. I don't know. But anyway, right. Yeah, I guess the place where I've always kind of put my stake has been. I'm agnostic. I don't care. I just want to find the places where there's the best value over the guys I can get as replacements. And for as long as I've been doing it, it's been running backs and it feels like depending on what happened last year, the market keeps. Fascinating back and forth and I just don't vacillate. Yeah, I think that that's a really important point is like all the research that I've done for the draft guide each year because draft guides like very much game theory, you know, focused and such before I get into like player takes and you guys I'm targeting all that kind of stuff. The one thing that's been consistent through every single draft guide is that if you have an elite running back, you have the best advantage, the greatest advantage in fantasy football period. Right. Like if you have that player and you got to spend money to make money, like you got to you got to pay up to get these guys generally, you know, if you're going to, you know, acquire one of those players. And if you don't, like it's just going to be very, very difficult to have the game breaking the most important players, you know, in fantasy. I do think that the current NFL meta, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this, but like the current NFL meta in the way that, you know, we were seeing a little bit more heavy personnel. And that's obviously led to, you know, run heavier offenses than what we've at least seen over the last like five, 10 years. I mean, last year we were the lowest pass rate since at least like 2011. So it's, it was a lot less pass heavy than than other seasons. And I think that, you know, the response to that from some people is like, oh, I have to draft running backs really, really early now, which is true. I think that you should be drafting running backs early, but to the counter to that would be, I mean, you do rankings every week. I mean, last year when I would rank wide receivers, I'm like, okay, there's eight guys that are good that I know can be, you know, difference making type players. And then once I get to that like next year, it's just the same dude until like wide receiver 30, right? Like it's the same cluster. And so that's the hardest part for me this season is balancing because like there are those like game changing wide receivers that in this meta, right, where you have more 12, 13 personnel and there's fewer, you know, there's fewer wide receivers in the field. But then those wide receivers also get hyper targeted a little bit more because the alternative is, okay, we're going to throw to this, you know, AJ Barner or who have, you know, some random tight end that is fine, but very replacement level. And then you kind of get like, I think, I mean, Jackson Smith and Jigba's awesome don't give me wrong because a phenomenal wide receiver, but I do think schematically it helps that they ran the offense the way they did because it force fed some of those looks his way. And so, you know, I'm curious how you feel about like those elite wide receivers that we can pinpoint, but you know, on the flip side, we could sit here and say, we thought that about Justin Jefferson last year and look how that ended up, you know, so, so I get that argument to but where you at with that in general. So the biggest piece of advice, if I can always reduce it to a bumper sticker is draft players, not positions. And, you know, I again, this reddit is is on my mind and people are like, okay, so what do you think about two two running backs in the first three rounds? And I go, oh my god, it depends on the running backs. I can't. You know, and so somebody else said, hey, I know you say always take a running back in the first round. Like, no, I don't. I have Jamar chase in a standard lead with no PPR as my number six player, which means if my first five running backs are gone, am I taking Jamar chase number six? You're damn right. I am because he is an unbelievable player and one of the like you said, one of the whether you want to call it nine or maybe four this year, I don't know how to do 100% like fine. Yes, I'm not, you know, receiver isn't quite the scarce commodity that running back is, but it's the second most scarce and if I can get the best guy, absolutely, I'm going to adjust. I'm going to deal with it. What you're saying is very well said the thing about 13 personnel and 12 personnel and let's face it three wide is still the base formation of the NFL. Yeah, you still see a lot. So we still see an unbelievable churn of receivers any given game like six or set. We didn't live. We united not grow up in a world where seven receivers on a given team were running routes in a game. Right. We would have our heads would have exploded. How are we supposed to play fantasy with this nonsense where you're telling me, you know, some random Shmo is fifth. The F10 Chism has a chance to catch three passes in a week and ruin my day, you know, the reason that wide receivers so flat beyond what we hope are the elite guys. I might argue three or four elite guys is because of that churn and because three wide is still the base formation. But yeah, when you have three wide. And then you're not throwing out of three wide more, which is definitely true trying to try to stretch a defense out and run that creates even more flatness because I mean, Niko Collins. I love Niko Collins. I think he's a terrific player. He's in my top 12. I view as a rock solid wide receiver one Drake London. Rock solid wide receiver one in my ranks number seven or something. My ranks love them. I'm going to draft these guys and know that because of the way these teams call plays and the way defenses are creating hard shells and umbrellas were. We're back to the Legion of boom 10 years ago 15 years ago. I'm going to get weeks at a Drake London Niko Collins where they do two for 17. Yeah, I just am. Yeah, and yeah, that's something there's has to be built in because there's very few receivers for that for whom that is not the case because it is such a rotational three wide league with absolutely you're right. I'm going to say, I 100% agree that the trends also are you're also going to get some more plays where we're all the receivers sit and the guys are running around. going to get the ball and they're simply going to run more. It just creates this incredible flatness at wide receiver that makes me think I'd say it all the time like I can't swear to you that like George Pickens is going to have a lot more fantasy points than Chris Godwin. I mean, I really can't. Chris Godwin's awesome. He's a really good player. He could wind up wide receiver eight and pickets can wider pressure for 18 and another one gets hurt because the difference between eight and 18 is like 50 yards and two touchdowns because it's so freaking flat. So I certainly in draft strategies and very open to taking those elite wide receivers. If the running backs, I don't want to take argon, but I feel best firing shots at Chris Godwin and his like in the sixth, seventh, eighth, as opposed to going, well, maybe Chris Rodriguez takes over that job. You know, yeah, I feel like I got a much better shot at hitting with the wide receivers. Yeah, I always, I always kind of like again, going back to like some of the draft guide stuff. I would say that like if the normal fantasy manager slash the way that ADP generally falls is a zero to 100 where like, you know, one year, it's zero in the next year, everything kind of flips and people just kind of overcorrect and overreact to what happened that previous season, which we know happens all the time. Yeah. I tried to just stay in that like 30 to 70 range, you know, in the way that like I'm trying to strategy and fantasy football has become and I'm, look, I come from literally like that's how I started doing all of this was like doing a lot of the strategy game theory work and stuff, but it's almost gotten to the point where people are way too strict with it and going into their drafts and they say, I'm going to go zero rb. I'm going to go the reason you should understand strategy is to know how to react when things are going down in your draft, right? It's no different than like strategy in war or something, right? Like where like, oh, we're expecting this, but we don't know if this is going to, but I'm smart enough to know because I've been researching this and I've been thinking about this so much that when this thing happens, I can react to this and then therefore I can put together a really solid, you know, it's similar to like just understanding where tier breaks are where like, there's drop offs that occur and who's available and who's unavailable. And so like, it's almost, it's, it's weird because I feel this is not the position I would would have taken 10 years ago because 10 years ago was very much a people walking into drafts and just being like, I'm just going to pick whoever's at the top of my board and not really think about dross or constructing and like what I can get later. And now it's just this like really, really harsh way of attacking drafts when it just feels a little wrong. Like, like, you can win with many, many different drafts. And I would argue that a lot of different, like, there are better draft strategies than others obviously. But you do have to be reactive. Like if you're sitting in, you know, round two and only running backs have been drafted and Jamar Chase is sitting there, but you're like, you know, I'm so stuck. No, but I went into this drafting. I was going to go RBRB. I've got to go RBRB. So I'm going to pass on Jamar Chase here instead of drafting. I don't know like a Javante Williams or something like that. I don't know. I just think there's been like this like over thinking of the strategy side at this point instead of really focusing on like why we're talking about strategy in the first place. I mean, not to keep flattering ourselves with comparisons, but it's like chess, you know, people memorize openings and they'll memorize pretty far into openings. And they'll, you know, this is what I do. This is what I do. And then the moment you don't do the book move, they go, Oh crap. I mean, you were supposed to move the night. And now that you didn't move the night, I don't know what the line is. You know, and then they, they don't have a deep understanding of the actual position. They just knew what they memorized in the opening. Someone say that's the equivalent of a Mike Tomlin defense. It's the same thing every week. And it works for against some teams within some teams know how to beat it. And he's just like, Oh, I don't know how to adjust. That's what we do. Right. I do want to ask you to because obviously you come from a film perspective with a lot of your work. And I appreciate that kind of stuff when I'm a listener because it's just the stuff that I don't need to listen to other data people necessarily because I feel comfortable with like the conclusions I'm coming to and like what I'm looking at and whatnot. But I always love hearing, you know, other perspectives with film and such. But I am curious to put you on the spot a little bit. What's something that the analytic side of fantasy football has sort of convinced you of over the years that you may not have uncovered, you know, or thought otherwise as you're doing the work that you're doing. Oh, I mean, I love the conversations, you know, I'm never I just don't want them to be like the soul drivers behind things. But yeah, like I don't think I paid attention to like ariards at the target as much. That's a nice simple little. I mean, that's become. That's even just in the past few years. Doesn't feel like that one has become like so mainstream. Oh, it's like, it's like just part of like the average player understands. Yeah. Yeah. And like eight out for receivers being very important. You know, I'd say I'll look at expected numbers. Yeah. And honestly, I will like use them if they make my point. And if they don't, I'll just be like, I didn't I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see it. But you know, I think it's I'm glad it's there. I'm I'm interested to see what it says. I don't really know that like win shares win shares added per play that that stuff. I don't really buy too much. But but yeah, for sure, I mean, like you said, in those sections of the Almanac where I do the little research projects, I mean, I'm intending that to be somewhat of a nod. It's not it's not always an analytic question. But sometimes it is. And and have it be like, well, how often has 34 year old wide receiver. You know, acted like a wide receiver one or wide receiver two. I mean, I think that's that's kind of analytics, you know, to some degree. And that stuff is gives context that I find to be incredibly helpful. That's the stuff that I love to lean on as like a guide is the the trends type stuff, right? And not to say that like, I do actually think that there's a lot of over analysis. I mean, shocker. I mean, you'll definitely agree with it. There's a lot of over analysis with numbers that have not been tested in terms of them being predictive whatsoever, right? Like you go on Twitter. And it's interesting to maybe look at. But it's really, really easy to then have people kind of like latch on to whatever this analyst is saying or what have you. And I mean, people could then come to me and be like, well, this person said this on Twitter. And this is the metric that they were citing and whatever. And I'm like, that's cool. I just I want to know how valid that metric is to begin with. You know, like how how important that kind of metric is before I'm just blindly falling. Now some metrics are obviously going to be like somewhat intuitive. And they're obviously if you're looking at like usage on third down and long or something like that for a running back and seeing like if they're, you know, rotating running backs and getting, you know, data that way to just understand deployment in the way that teams are kind of using their players. That's one thing. I'm saying more so of like these proprietary metrics that are out there that kind of look like they make sense on paper. But they are not necessarily predictive whatsoever. And so that's kind of like the angle that late round's always gone with. And I hired Brandon Gadula on in January to sort of like dig into that stuff like our newsletter just basically Brandon digging into does catchable targets rate matter. You know, it's a metric that people throw out there all the time, but how predictive and how meaningful is it. And you know, it a lot of these metrics are like they matter at the extremes, but they don't really matter for the bulk of the players. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. And there's such a difference between these high, you would consider them to be almost like high fructose, highly processed stats that like you said, sometimes are proprietary or sometimes I just don't. They don't really make any intuitive sense about how they're coming up. Oh, trust me. It's a it's a pretty complicated formula, but it works. We came up with it. As opposed to things like you said, like observable things that are simply converted to math. Those are really right. Very, very useful. As background noise that I'm constantly looking at, you know, I'm we're constantly like, well, how many routes did he run on third down? Like, yeah, you know, that's hugely important to say that there's no data in what I do. Or I mean, to say that there's no film, what you do. I know from personal experience, you watch every damn game. So like, yeah, the idea that there's some, I think we you a lot of the same things. And you know, absolutely, there's it would be impossible for me to do my job without that without this kind of observable order ordering of what happened into some consumable numbers that I can then make understand with what I'm observing. That's such a massive important of what I part of what I do. Right. It's impossible to know after watching a game exactly how many routes a player, right? Of course. And what's that one? And like, you know, what did they run the route beyond 10 yards? Like, that's all amazing stuff to know. I really important. Right. Yeah. Is there a player trait that you think fantasy analysts tend to overrate? Like, can be any position just like a trait that you think that, you know, I mean, I guess I already phrased it. The fantasy analysts end up overriding. I mean, it's the combine 40 time and it's probably more for running backs than anything else. It's, yeah, it's just it's, it's wild. It's out of control. It's, it's, it's as if Rahim Moster never happened. They just forgot. And I mean, my poster child for that right now is Omarion Hampton, where I'm not saying he's bad. I don't really know. I guess you really can't come out of last year having a, if you have like a super cemented opinion that you're positive what Omarion Hampton is after a year where he got hurt and obviously before that the tackles got hurt and so the charges were not what they wanted to be. I think probably you're being stubborn, but his going like early second round almost like at the turn feels like wish casting based on combine numbers because I watch him play and yeah there's if you're going to tell me at some point that there's we're going to explain away this Hall of Fame career this first year as as a broken byproduct of bad things that happened. I guess that could wind up being true, but there's some bad tape from his rookie year where great you're fast. I never see you get there. I never see you break around the edge. I never see you make someone miss. I never see you cut into the clear and like have good vision. So anyway, I'm going to just use Hampton as again, I don't know if he sucks. I'm not taking him where he's going. I'll make him the poster child for my overrated stat quality, whatever, which is like straight ahead speed for running back. Yeah, I mean certainly not the player that you want to attack aggressively if you're trying to be risk averse in the second round. I mean, I can't get behind like there's very proven talent in that area of like, you know, we both like Chase Brown a lot as a player in a great situation as well. You know, Saquon is in there. I think now I like right now today, I have, you know, both H and Henry above Amari and Hampton because of the, you know, just the stability piece of it. I understand the upside case though for Hampton at least like the like that that offense could end up just being like a juggernaut this year realistically. If things, if things end up clicking, I didn't think that what I saw with him last year was phenomenal by any means. And he, but I do wonder how much he could potentially crush with just gaping lanes, right? Like that like because it's because if vision is part of the issue. Also, he does take a little bit longer than what I remembered watching him in college. And his analytical profile actually look, he looked pretty good in the in the zap model too. But regardless, like it took him longer than I would have liked for him to get to that top speed last year. I would say, you know, so we'll see. We'll see what happens. It seems like you're drafting laundry at that point. It seems it seems like if you're going to take the plunge on Hampton, I understand what could go right, but it's almost like you're drafting the situation and not the player. And I'm just, I think you, I think you have to. Yeah. I think that's what it really comes out. Like would you be, let me ask you this, would you be shocked? Like shocked. If he led the NFL and touched it, rushing touchdowns this year. You know, the answer is no. Shocked one man's shocked is no man's, you know, jolted, slightly jolted. But no, but I also wouldn't be shocked if Henry did. And I wouldn't be shocked if H and did no one be shocked. Barkley did. And I wouldn't be shocked if Chase Brown did. And I wouldn't be shocked. Like that's, that's kind of the point. It's predicting sports. We don't really know what's going to happen. I've just seen all those other guys be good in the NFL. And Aaron Hipton is the one guy you said it that stands out as never having done it. And I'm scared when we draft situations, when we draft situations, Aston Gentigo's five, you know, like, I'm scared of, well, there's so much theoretical upside. And it almost doesn't, you know, it's like Tevin Coleman, great 40 time big guy. Come on. It's like, yeah, he kept running into the side of the barn. Couldn't see anything. So anyway, but anyway, I got us onto a specific player. I'm interested in your response to my thought of the 40 time being the thing I'm most annoyed by. The new NFL season is here. And you should be listening to NFL daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61 last year. We had Mike McDonald, Sam Darno on the field after the game, but that was last year. If you're a football sickle like me, NFL daily is your kind of show. It is in the name NFL daily fresh content in your feed every day, all season long. Matthew Stafford coming off his MVPC on a dazzling darts from Matthew Stafford. Big time trades that shake up the NFL. AJ Brown is loose. And of course, those Seahawks trying to run it back and win another Lombardi trope. The Seahawks win Super Bowl 60. They are bringing Lombardi back to the Northwest. If it's happening on a football field, NFL daily will cover it. Listen to NFL daily on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, everyone. I'm Mikey Ab. And I'm Trevor Sikama. And together, we host the NFL Fantasy Football Show. Fantasy season is upon us. Are you ready to dominate your league? Because if you aren't locked in with us on the NFL fantasy football show, you're already playing from behind. Every episode, we're going to dive into the biggest fantasy headlines. Injury updates that you'll need before kickoff. The best starts and sits across every position. And matchups, you can exploit to destroy your leaguemates. You know, we're talking sleepers, breakout stars, and the guys you cannot afford to bench. From rookies on the rise to longtime stars still at it, we cover it all. Whether you're a first-time player or a grizzled vet chasing another championship, we give you the advantage and the confidence you need to make every move count. Weekly analysis, hot takes, and unique insider knowledge all in one place. Does fantasy dominance sound appealing to you? Listen to the NFL fantasy football show on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. When I talk to people about my prospect model, the initial reaction to people who like maybe haven't jumped into that arena ever or seen anything that's college prospecting based, that's numbers driven, is that they assume that it's all a combined based. And I can't even explain to you how little the NFL, the thing that matters in the prospect model actually is just the the height and weight measurements that I get from the combined because bigger running backs do tend to outpace, they're draft capital a little bit better from a fantasy perspective and such. I care about size. Now, the speed stuff, it's more so that you would obviously like a, if you had the exact same analytical profile or like you're watching a player, I mean, obviously I'm coming at it from the Zat model perspective. If I had the exact same analytical profile from like an age-adjusted production standpoint, and one player had a really good speed score, weight-adjusted 40 time, and one player had a really bad one. Yeah, I'll go with, I'll clean the player that had the really good one, right? And it's more so at the extremes and stuff, but again, it's one of those things where like you have to have a backbone of good NFL production. And this is also one of those things where like I built the model and I've really enhanced it and it's gotten better every year. And I really turned the corner in like the 2020-2021 time frame or so with like modeling and I mean, it was around the time that I started this company. So I wanted to do the prospect guide. So I really leaned into all of it. And I then look back because I'm obviously testing off of data. Yeah. And I look back at previous years and guys that were drafted in 2016 or whatever. And I'm like, I see why people fell in love with this player and I see why he busted. And a perfect example of this with the speed score stuff and the 40 time stuff is like a Christian Michael, right? Where he had unbelievable athletic measurables and he gets pretty good draft capital. His production profile was absolutely horrendous. Like it was terrible. And so when you get that pairing, that's when you know the market is likely to inflate that player. And that's when you say, okay, but the thing that matters most, the production stuff, the predictive production stuff that I know has been predictive. Like if that's not there, then I don't really care about what this 40 time says. Like maybe, you know, every once in a while you're going to get like the random one off hit of like bad production profile or like mediocre production profile and you know, really high end speed because every once in a while, athleticism does translate better than than what we imagine and what we think. But I do think a general guideline of like people over rate 40, I mean, especially wide receiver, there's actually, I don't know if you know this, but there's an inverse correlation. Oh no. For wide receiver 40 time and how well they perform the FL and draft capital. So like if a wide receiver gets drafted in the top 100, you know, day one or day two in the NFL draft who ran a fast 40, you generally want to fade that player as opposed to leaning into it because you're almost double counting because the NFL already, you know, really enhanced that player's profile by drafting them so early by, you know, it's the Darius Hayward Bay thing or, you know, the, you see it all the time. Unfortunately, where these guys just get boosted and boosted and boosted by these NFL teams, but their production profiles would matter. I care so much more now. Every once in a while, you get screwed. Like I like David Bell when he came out, you know, but I think it's a good rule of thumb, honestly, where I would, I would generally agree with you. Can I ask you just about the college production profile? I did a little research thing in the Omanack for Gidere and Price, which was the fewest college touches of any running backs selected in the first round of the NFL draft since 2000. And the fewest college touches was Gidere and Price. I mean, for obvious reasons, he was playing behind very, very good player. And the guy with the second fewest who went in the first round was Josh Jacobs, who clearly has had a really, really good career. But otherwise, the list of names is, uh, right. Terrett, mostly terrifying, Michael Bennett, Felix Jones, Clyde Edwards-A-Layer, Richard Mendenhall. I guess Richard Mendenhall was head and rb8 season, but if a guy has little workloads like that, does in your model, does that get scary for you? - Yeah, but I don't approach it the way that, people think that I, or not I, but people would assume that you would then say, oh, I'm just not drafting this play. I just view it as volatility, right? I just view it as like, we don't know. But the thing with Jadarian Price, that's a little bit different, like if he didn't have, so I have a teammate score in there that he gets boosted because, and it depends on where Jadarian my love gets drafted, so he gets drafted third overall, and then all of a sudden that teammate score really, really boosts Jadarian Price, and he ended up being like a pretty, like more of a fairly neutral player within the model, despite the fact that he had, probably the worst production profile of anyone in that model that got drafted that high, right? And so I view it as like, I'm not fading, I'm not going to probably be as aggressive as some people because I don't necessarily want to take on that kind of volatility in the first six rounds of my rookie, or first six picks of my rookie draft, but I don't view it as like, Jadarian Price is definitely going to bust because obviously there are send you wedding circumstances as to why the production wasn't there. But if there was, if you didn't have Jadarian my love, and he had that production profile, yeah, I'd be sitting here being like, this is a scary profile guys, I don't think that we should be leaning into it, and more often than not that works, but then sometimes, I mean, this wide receiver class in particular this year was genuinely like not very good analytically, just very as the kids say mid, right? And so Desan Stribling did not have a good production profile. Caleb Douglas did not have a good age-adjusted production profile, but it's also a choose your own adventure kind of thing because all of these guys didn't, to me, it was like this big four wide receivers with Tyson, Tate, Lemon, and Concepcion. It's always nice when draft capital kind of aligns with that because it means that like the NFL teams are thinking similarly and such. And then it was just kind of like, all right, I'm not gonna be shocked because someone's gonna emerge, I'm not gonna be shocked if it's someone with a crappier profile just because there's so many of them this year. So yeah, I mean, it's more so a volatility thing for me than anything else. That's kind of how I view price. We kind of talked about this a little bit, but obviously like you've drafted now and we're in the midst of draft season, as you look at the way that your drafts kind of gone as well as just ADP. I know that you, you're one, I mean, God bless you. I can't do this, but you, you, you wait, you wait until it's until Monday of this week. I don't, I don't look that's honestly incredibly impressive because I have been looking at ADP since I think February, so I appreciate the people who can, who can hold back like that. But what's been sort of the most common team construction that you find yourself, you know, leaning towards sounds like you're going RB heavy just because of what the board is giving you and such. But like, have you been in different parts of the board where you're like, oh, late round one, I like double tapping, running back, maybe in the first part of round one, I'm getting running back, but then maybe like, what does that look like for you? You know, the number of drafts I've done is I would say more often than not running back in the first round, but definitely gotten chase a couple of times, gotten JSN a couple of times in the first round and built a team that I liked really depends on what else went in front of me. Around that two three turn, I have tended to find just the, for whatever reason the drafts I'm in, there's sets in mid round two, the running back panic sets in. And I don't know if you, you'll have to correct me if you feel this way too. Like I get to that turn if you're picking, you know, the Gibbs Bigeon area, you're lucky enough. Right, if you're lucky enough, it's, you're not going to find a lot of great running backs at that two three turn. And so sometimes there are, and it really just depends again. I'm drafting players not positions. So this is all theoretical until we get in a draft and you see what actual players are there. But a lot of times it winds up being two receivers at that point. Yeah, again, you know, like a lot of Devonte Smith, a lot of Chris Olave, a lot of Zay flowers. I love them in those in that little area. And then maybe maybe two of them, but also sometimes there's another running back there. And I go, sure, I can make that work. But you said it before, like when it's Javonte, I have done like a Bigeon Devonte Smith Javonte Williams. And then I just find all I'm doing is feeling like I'm playing catch-up at receiver. And it's okay. I'm fire and fire and fire and Terry McClure and come on down, you know, I'll get some Roma dunze. I'll get some Christian Watson as we go further and further down. And I feel okay about that because again, I just think there are 50 guys who can finish in the top 10. It's such a, and the top 10 is almost meaningless because there'll be an average of like two fantasy points per game between like the Webger Siever 12 and the Webger Siever 50. And also like the back half of, you know, if you're in that one of those slots, you know, from like 109 onwards, it's very, very easy to just get your two running backs and feel great about them. And then when you're in round three and four, there is a, I wonder if you feel this way. There's just this tier of incredible upside wide receivers that you can go for, you know, that you feel just like very comfortable with. And data shows that the front half of drafts are, you know, especially the 101, 102. Generally, you're gonna have better results and such. But I don't really mind the tail end of round one this year because I do think, you know, to your point, like if you're in the front half, as you get to the end of round two, you're definitely forcing it at running back. Like you're feeling that too, as you're making that selection. But at least in the back half, you're like, oh, I can get, you know, James Cook and maybe a Kenneth Walker comes around the second or something like, you know, like someone that you can at least envision being a pretty strong fantasy asset this year, right? And then in round three, you're sitting there, you're like, maybe we do get a Falling Zay flowers or a Falling Devente Smith. But even if we don't, oh, here's Jalen Waddle on Denver or something, you know, like there's just a lot of upside there. So it's interesting this year and the way that, you know, the drafts are unfolding and such. But I think it's fairer because Beijan and Jameer Gibbs are just such smashes, you know, in the top two picks, in general, that there should be a somewhat of a disadvantage, you know, in the later rounds for that spot. - Yeah, you know, we think we know everything and then we get to week one and our mind palace is just shatter and it turns out. - Ryan Robinson's running into the end zone and being on the sideline. - Yeah, I mean, first of all, count on zero hands, how many times Beijan Robinson has more than 70% of his team's carries in a season has not happened yet. And I don't think it's gonna happen this year. But that doesn't matter 'cause he's great. Like what we want is great players. They all have summary of time shares. But another conversation, you know, the, my point is that, Seikoan wasn't the 101 when he ran for 2,000 yards, you know, like there's just things that happen. We just think we know and then it turns out we don't really, really know, which is why I think if you're airing on the side of drafting players that if everything goes right, they're good enough that they can go really go bull. And there aren't that many running backs where I can say that's the case. But there's a lot of receivers. - Yeah, you know, if you grant the Jags a top three offense. - I can name three receivers who might be startable for fantasy, you know. If you grant the Jags a top three offense, maybe Bechel-Tuton is, but I don't think Bechel-Tuton is great. So like maybe he'd be, he'd be, he'd be startable, but I'm not sure he'd be like a league, a smash league winner. The wide receiver talent in the league right now is unfricking believable. I mean, I don't mean interrupt, but like, that was one of the things that we could have even talked about at the top of like why the spread is the way that it is. Because we've just gotten really good wide receiver classes the last 10 years, you know. We've just gotten really good wide outs out there. - That's the position that the crazy athletes play. I don't know if I said this to you when you were on my show last week or two weeks ago, but it's like if you could send any of these receiving core back to like 1970 NFL, it would be like going back to the pilgrim time and giving them one sour skittle, you know, and like their heads would explode. Like these guys are freaks. And like the fourth receiver on every team is under other unbelievable ridiculous size speed freak. The amount of talent at receiver is both daunting for fantasy, but also just like overwhelmingly admirable. It's crazy. - Yeah, no, it's a really, really good point to make. - The new NFL season is here and you should be listening to NFL Daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61. Last year, we had Mike McDonald, Sam Darnel on the field after the game, but that was last year. It is in the name NFL Daily, fresh content in your feed, every day, all season long. Matthew Stafford coming off his MVPC. - On a dazzling darts from Matthew Stafford. - Big time trades that shake up the NFL. - AJ Brown is loose. - And of course, those Seahawks trying to run it back and win another Lombardi trope. - The Seahawks win Super Bowl 60. They are bringing the Lombardi back to the Northwest. - If it's happening on a football field, NFL Daily will cover it. Listen to NFL Daily on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. The NFL never stops and neither does its newest podcast. The NFL report hosted by me, Andrew Ceciliano. It is your home for everything football. We're tapping the biggest news stories, giving you expert analysis, fantasy previews, game picks, and more. Want to hear from the league's top stars, add of the biggest matchups we've got you covered. That really good football team. We got to have all hands on deck. Join me at an all-star cast of analysts for everything you need to know from around the league. Get new episodes of the NFL report Monday through Friday, all season long. Listen to the NFL report podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. I have to ask you this because I know the answer to it. And I just want to hear you, you know, get angry and yell about it. All right. Tell me, uh, how much you hate preseason football and why you hate preseason football. What do I call it? I call it exhibition football. Do you, are you old enough to remember when, when they lead called it exhibition season? Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember that when you were a kid? Oh, I remember. Yeah. Did, did Adele change it? Yeah. Was he the, okay. Okay. Yeah, he did. Yeah. I just don't watch it. The beat reports of the joint practices. I think that's way more important for, uh, you know, as long as whoever's healthy, you know, which position groups, who's out with whom, who gets matched up on the top guys, who stands out, all that stuff, they're, they're, they're, it's certainly controlled play by play. A lot of it's not even tackling to the ground, but it's just, it's the actual plays that they're going to run. And it is the actual personnel who is going to run them. And the problem is that all the exhibition games, not only is that, not the case for the exhibition games, but the extent to which it's not the case varies wildly from team to team. So you just don't know what you're looking at. And it's so easy to get bamboozled, oh, but they were playing the first defense. Yeah. They had like vanilla quarters coverage that they wouldn't budge out of no matter what. It doesn't ever translate. So I, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I probably put stock into it like before I've truly realized, you know, I think that everyone just gets better at whatever they're doing as they're doing it. And I find myself like, I, I don't care at all about preseason football anymore either. And there's a couple of reasons that a couple of things that happened in my life to like really get me there. You know, like maybe like 10, 15 years ago, I would put a decent amount of stock into it. And then as the years went on, I gradually cared less and less. And then the thing that made me literally never care again was the year, year two Kenny pick it. And the Steelers, the Steelers offense, I think they went the whole, the first team offense, I think went the whole preseason without punting or something like there's something like there was incredible, right? Like they were, they were crushing everybody. And then we know how the story unfolded, right? And it's what, what's really funny, I don't know if you've seen the stack at thrown around, but it was something along the lines of like, so design stripling had like seven catches or something the other day in the, in their first preseason game. And I saw like the AP sent a tweet out that was like it was, it was tied for the most catches in a preseason game or something like in the first half or something along those lines. And then you know, you're getting excited and you're like, oh man, design stripling is him. And look, he might beat. We have, I'm just saying that the preseason has nothing to do with whether he is or not. And in parentheses, it showed the two players he tied. And it was Josh Palmer and AT Perry that he had tied with the, so everyone's like quote tweeting this and like retweeting it. And they're like, design stripling is the man, but in the tweet, it's like AT Perry and Josh Palmer. These guys that we just want nothing to do with from a fantasy football perspective. So it's like, you know, there's, there's a lot of that. I agree with you. Like there are some really, really good reliable beat writers out there. If you've been doing this long enough, you know that you can look to that, you know, can give you the right kind of insights with their teams and such and like try to find them. And you know, you can ask us, I'm sure, but you know, obviously just, you know, don't take everyone's word for it. But there are people that have been doing this for many, many years that can be really helpful and just like understanding usage and such, because that's what we're worried about, right? And fantasy. We want the volume side. How they perform in preseason just, I've officially retired from that. So I'm with you. I just need to hear you get angry. Not angry, but it's a scam. It's just one more case where the, it's not enough, it's not enough money. You don't understand. I just not enough money. My jet doesn't have jewel and crusted cigarette plates or whatever. Like, you know, I need to, I need to build the season ticket holders and make them pay for exhibition games. It's just, it's just a cash grab. All right, I want to go really quick and talk about a handful of teammate battles that are going on. And I won't even talk about ADP. I just want to talk about them as players and like where you lean and how you feel about them more than anything else. So let's start with with Luther Burton versus Roma Dunes, a assuming burdens fine week one with the growing injury that he's dealing with. Okay. I mean, I'm not assuming that because there is some X percent chance that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm just curious where you're at with them as just like players in the outlook. If they were healthy, right? Okay. They were very close in my pre-burden injury ranks, but I still did have a Dunes day a little bit higher. And I did not expect that going into the off season. I was mad at a Dunes day. Obviously he's like, you know, it was crummy at the end of last year and he was hurt. And I don't know if you heard, but his foot felt funny. But now apparently his foot feels fine because that was always nonsense. I watched that tape before he got hurt. Me and Andy did on the Yacht Club show that we do and we both came away going, this is dude, it's good. Really, really sudden for as big as he is. So right now I have a fairly strong lead to lean a Dunes day because of the burden concern. Like what if he hurts it again in week two, but even beforehand, it was a slight, I like burden two, but it was a slight Dunes day advantage. I lean on the burden. So I'm a burden bro. So I'm coming out of that. I love them as a prospect. And then like all that happened was that he kind of like verified some, a lot of my priors, you know, as I watched him last year, he did, yeah, I know second half break out. I know, I know. But my thing with a Dunes day verse burden and I'm curious if you, if you would maybe, you might completely disagree with this. But I think a Dunes day is definitely like a lot of people who lean film and like, like analyze that way. Like Harman, for instance, loves Roma Dunes day and this is nothing against you guys at all. I think there's a lot of validity to it. I'm curious, though, if a Dunes day might be more aesthetically pleasing as like a traditional wide receiver and burden who has, I mean, he's incredible after the catch Lutheran burden, like it's so much speed, right? And there's a piece of this where burden just fits what a Ben Johnson offense might be able to do. It like, like if you want to get a, an offensive mind that can scheme open as wide receivers and where you don't have to worry about some of that nuance as much like Ben Johnson would probably be on your short list of, of guys that you would lean on, right? For that and burden then obviously is that like short area quickness can do so much after the cat. Like with the ball in his hands, he's the best player on that team, right? Yeah. I am trying to look at scheme and fit and such and I'm not, like I'm not sitting here calling him. I'm an Ross St. Brown or anything like that, right? Because St. Brown, I think is a better route runner than, than Luther Bernous today and what we know. But there's just something about the scheme and what and how that matches with Luther Bernous, that's really appealing to me. I get it. I don't, you know, you're asking me if I like Coker Pepsi and because I said Coke doesn't mean I hate Pepsi, you know, like, yeah, I understand the argument for burden. Yeah. There's been a lot of people since I'm on Ross St. Brown broke out who've been the next I'm on raw and none of them are, you know, well, I know, but he could be I'm on raw, I know those limitations could be I'm on raw, no, no one turns out to be, but you're 100% right. Like he's really fun with the ball in his hands now. Is it Jaden Reed, you know, and then you go, okay, then if you can't do anything other than that gizmo stuff, then I just thought that useful to me. We'll find out. But no, this is not me disliking Luther Burton. You're a new England guy. So I am very curious about how you feel about that back feel with Trayvon Henderson and Ramondra Stevenson. I mean, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to tell everybody right now, Trayvon Henderson's being overrated. It's year two. They still can't trust him in past protection. You know, I was the guy when everybody was dropping Trayvon last year who got on the show and said, little birdie is telling me, do not drop Trayvon Henderson that we have plans for him. And then like a couple weeks later, they had plans for him. And it was obviously a work in progress. And all I can tell you is that it is continues to be a work in progress. And this is going to be, if you're drafting Trayvon in the fourth round, you're going to be annoyed because they're going to be some weeks where he touches it 13 times and has 44 yards and doesn't break the big one. And Ramondra scores two touchdowns. And you're going to be like, why did I do this to myself? I have Ramondra straight up. I mean, they're in the same tier for me, but I've, I, because I, look, I understand the explosive nature to Trayvon's game. Like there's a lot of upside packaged in that if things start to click. But I mean, I, I, I think that new England just looks at what's reliable. And I think like Ramondra Stevenson, first half of the season, fine. He, he was awesome the second half of last year, like he was legitimately really good. And I took an L because I was, I, I was a rat. We won't get into it. I'm not trying to happen to everybody. It happens. Yeah. I mean, look, sometimes you take L's with this job. It's not over. it's not over with Henderson. I think here's where they are. I mean, I'm not telling you I know everything, but like I know a little something. And I think where they are is that they view it as a continuum, and they're trying to be patient with them. And they're excited. They want them to return kicks. And they, you know, like they view it as a really awesome quiver arrow in their quiver, I should say, you know, they, as an excellent, they're going to be times where they just try to isolate them and get them with a nice kick out block and a very obvious clear lane. And there's a 90 yard run waiting to happen right there. Yeah. But yeah, I just think it's not that he'll never be able to do the rest of it. But I don't think they think he can do it now. Yeah. I'm also, you know, they, they ran the fewest amount of plays while trailing last year in terms of percent of, of plays run. And that's going to change. Romanger is on the field for, yeah. Romanger is on the field for more than double the snaps is traving on in those situations because of the pass pro stuff. And so obviously, tougher schedule this year more than likely and just general regression, just the way that the NFL ebbs and flows. Yeah. You're going to see more negative game scripts. And that's where I think Romanger is just going to be on the field more. That's correct. Like you could argue that last year was really, really a decent situation in general for a player like Travion who was struggling in pass pro. And now, you know, they might just go with the more the reliable guy. As long as Romanger can hold out of the ball, of course, because there's right. There's that side, which he seemed to figure out. Now, I mean, there's obviously a lot of variance to fumbling and such. But it's, it was a problem for him for a while. I mean, two years ago, two years ago, I thought he was going to get cut. I mean, yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. Brian Thomas versus Parker Washington would love to hear your take on this one. Man, Parker Washington. Could there be more heat behind any player and fantasy right now? Holy no, but I've, I've freaking love it, though, because I mean, I don't love it because I like, I like Parker Washington. I'd like to get him. I'm just, he might like the cheaper price. Yeah, I like the sixth round price. I don't think that's ever happening again. My take, I'm interested in your take, but my take is that the new Jags coaching staff came in. Liam Cohen and his cohorts and said, Brian Thomas, with your nose so bright, you know, you're, you're the man. And they tried to have him do everything. And within about six weeks, they were like, oh, he can't do everything. I mean, he looked terrified to go over the middle. He looked uncoordinated, having to run dig routes. He looked like the timing was just off. And so I felt like they started taking stuff away, that stuff away from him and put him back in more had to Matt Harmon, sacrificial X land, even before he got hurt. And then, of course, the rater game he gets hurt. And after that, it probably isn't fair to judge because who knows he had a high ankle sprains legit hurt, you know, he came back maybe a little too early. And maybe that's why he wasn't great. But the lesson I took away was Parker Washington wasn't even the fourth receiver at the beginning of last year. And they found him mid year. And suddenly he's doing all the stuff that they had Thomas, at least the stuff interior type stuff that they had slated for Thomas. And he just killed it and was awesome at it. And so why in the world would you go back? So I pretty strongly prefer Washington to Brian Thomas. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. The thing with Parker Washington too is that like he's not the traditional slot guy. I would argue like he's I mean, he's built like a running back kind of right where he can he can do a lot with with his size. But he gets vertical a lot more than people realize too that I think is is a huge part of his game. There's some it's just oh, sorry. There's some two year ago JSN in him. Yeah, like like like you want to talk about a like an Amara archetype type player like he would be one that kind of fits in that a little bit more. And it's, you know, it is a scheme in an offense that I don't put a ton of stock in this kind of thing. But like has traditionally fed slot guys. And I, you know, a person else is going to going to dictate this to a degree. But like Liam, like Chris Godman was on his way to having the the best season of his career with with Liam Cohen. I mean, you can even date back to Cohen at Kentucky. He was using Juan Del Robinson, you know, in that in that kind of role. And so like I don't think it's this all happened by accident. Like I do think that Parker I actually thought Parker Washington wasn't a bad prospect to coming out as one of those things where the model was said, because I can go back and I can look at old prospect guides and see what else they come out these players. And I was like fighting against the model in my right up. I'm like, the model really likes him. But I'm like, you don't need to like go Chris. And I'm like, I wish I would have just leaned into this a little bit more, you know. But yeah, I'm I'm with you with with Washington. I genuinely think that he has, I mean, we saw it last year, his upside down the stretch. And they were a top three offense and touchdowns per game. Like they were, they were one of the best offense in football when they started to focus that off that that offense and that passing attack through him. Even against some tough. I mean, that Denver game was the one that really got me where I'm like, I'm like, oh, okay, so they can do this against a defense like Denver's on the road. Yeah, on the road. So again, I'll I'll kind of draw a little JSN with DK Mekf there. Those first couple years where he's mostly a slot player. And he's doing, but he's still doing downfield stuff. And you know, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna go downfield. And it's hard now that JSN broke out to be like, next JSN, all you need to do is put them on the outside. I don't know that for sure, because I didn't know for sure that JSN would do that. But yeah, I'm more excited by him. And to be honest, after I came away from that Brian Thomas film review, if somebody offered me a first-round pick for Brian Thomas in the NFL draft. Yeah. Even on the rookie contract, I probably would have done it. Yeah. Yeah. Also, Brian Thomas, I said this on a show. I had Rich Rebar on and we did a players to avoid episode. And he brought up Brian Thomas as one of the players. And he's he's going to be one of those players that is going to be such a headache and a managed league. And so if you guys play bestball, like get that exposure there, because he's going to have big plays spiked weeks. You know, like he's he's just a classic better and bestball type player. And he he probably will have decent production at the end of the season. If this offense does click, it's just probably going to be someone of a headache. You know, I think I think Parker Washington is going to be just going to be way, way more reliable. All right. I want to give you one more. One more. Well, Steelers Backfield, because you have on one side, Jaylen Warren, who I went on your show and said you love it. I think that yeah, talent wise, I think he's like a fringe top 10 running back in the league. And then you have Rico Doudel, who people think is Mike McCarthy's son because of the way that he's been tied to McCarthy. And you know, it's his guy. So how do you feel about that backfield in general going into this year? I mean Warren. I want Warren. And it's really I'm sure that it is a split because they mostly are splits these days. That's just the way it is. And so give me the guy. I think it's better, which isn't to say Doudel is bad. He's Doudel's had such a great story. You want to talk about things that make you like the NFL. Think about Rico Doudel. Right. Like, right. Not a prospect. And you know, a practice squad player and just barely hanging on in Dallas and then gets a chance and looks great. But they won't sign them to a contract. Why? I mean, it worked out. Yeah. I don't understand why you wouldn't have just paid him the $2 million page of Aunt Day Williams. It just seems really strange to me. Then he goes to Carolina. It seems buried. Nope. Takes that job over terrific. And now goes to Pittsburgh and still didn't get great money. But like a little more money. So love the story and think he's a good player. Like more more power back than not. A little bit of speed. A little bit of wiggle. He's okay. He could catch it a little bit. But you said it on my show. Best. I mean, Jay one Warren is a extremely talented person. He is very, very good. And so like, do I do I reach to get Jay one Warren? He's a flex. But I will definitely choose a mover doubt. Yeah. You know, if you want some data to the Jalen Warren stuff too, because on that show, I couldn't talk about data as we know. I was not allowed to bring up data on that episode. Exactly. But since Jalen Warren entered the league, among relevant. I can't remember. I think it was like an 80 sample running back sample of like a certain routes run threshold. He's fourth in the NFL and yards per out run behind only Christian McCaffrey, Austin Eckler and Bucky Irving, actually, who's very good per out run. Just they don't deploy him enough in that way. And then in terms of yards per carry, which is a bad metric, especially with low sample sizes. But I looked at only running back since the end of the league with 400 or more rush attempts, which starts to stabilize more once you get that much volume. And he's top 10 and yards per attempt as well on the ground among 42 running back. So like, he's literally like this combination. He's ahead in yards per attempt, then all the other running back, you know, the three other running backs that I just named. So he just got this really unique combination that you just don't find elsewhere. He's really good in past pro two, which is something that obviously doesn't get talked about much on fantasy shows and such. But I don't know. You keep him on the field. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you pair him with a guy and Aaron Rodgers, who's his teams of ranked third and running back target share the last two years, because he's so afraid to throw the ball down the field. So, you know, it's it's only if only he'd been on a team with Aaron Rodgers last year and cut the ball. Oops. Yeah. I know. It's freaking Kenneth Gainwell, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, but like to me, the fit is as I mean, he's just I just think he's good. And it's I agree. It's like, I don't mind out all. I mean, that was fine. Yeah, that was fine. And like, I don't think we're sitting here saying, and that was the day we decided Jalen Warren was a top 10 running back in the league. He's not he's not he's he's but he's good. He probably is a top 20 running back in the league, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not not really fantasy wise because of all various external factors, but I don't have them 30. You know, I have them in the 20s. Like he's good. He's good player. Yeah. All right. Before I let you go. Yes. I need you to give me and the listeners a bold slash hot take for this season. Oh, a bold slash Matthew Stafford top five quarterback. back. There you go. You're, you're, you're bucking the regression trends. It is, I was actually talking about this with Rich because we taught like my thing was Stafford. I know you're, you're pro Stafford this year. And I, I understand the, the, I found, I find quarterback ADP to be fairly sharp this year for the most part. Like it's not, I don't really have like a ton of qualms just because there's such a, it's syncing cluster. It's syncing, which is good. Yeah. Yeah. Which is good. Right. Exactly. And there's such a cluster of players that I, I could throw a dart at from like QB seven or eight to like QB 16 and not really feel that much different about those players. Right. But let everyone know where they can find you and, you know, your book, of course. And, you know, everything that you're going to be doing during the season right there. pound foolish. pound foolish. Just go to Harris football.com for all things, all things me. Of course, check out late round.com. Check out the late round draft guide that will be being updated now multiple times a week because people want rankings updated very frequently with all of, seems like everyone, by the way, everyone in this draft guide that has been a player to target in some way has gotten hurt. So it's just, it's just a, like, if, like players should not want to be on this list because it could just end up, end up being rough for them. It's like final destination at this point. But yeah, check it all out late round.com. Otherwise, everyone, thanks for tuning in. You'll have fresh content in your feet every day, all season long, that game winning drive. Maybe it's Herbert. Maybe it's Gino. Maybe it's my homes. 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