1118: Risers and Fallers

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, it's Ashanti Plummer from Foot Around and Find Out. Coming out of the draft, it's been a special time for us here at Foot Around. I want to thank everyone from the fans to the sponsors, especially GEICO. Not just for supporting AZ, but for showing up where it matters, like the Business of Women's Sports Summit. That kind of thing really moves the needle. And now that AZ is starting a new life in Dallas, we don't know what next season is going to bring, but we know that we're all on the same team. And it's been amazing to feel the love and support. So keep showing up for our girl. Show up for each other. Thanks to GEICO and our listeners. When the people speak, McDonald's listens. Back by popular demand, McDonald's is firing up spicy McNuggets plus mighty hot sauce to turn up the heat. Dig into the crispy crunch of a McNugget, coated and seasoned perfectly, then dialed up and dipped in mighty hot sauce with added kick and a touch of sweetness. Grab some extra napkins and get going. Get them while they're literally hot at a participating McDonald's for a limited time. This is the Late Round Podcast with your host, J.J. Zacharysen. What's up, everyone? It's J.J. Zacharysen. In this episode 1118 of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. As a fantasy football analyst, you're going to want to know what's going on in your life. You can't be afraid to be wrong. And you can't be afraid to change your opinion when new information is presented. I think that goes for anything in life. We have some belief, we get more information about that belief, and then hopefully with that new information, our belief changes. I'm sure you've been to a restaurant before, you said it was the best meal of your life, and then you went back there and you didn't have quite as good of a meal. Or you went to another restaurant and you realized, no wait, that was the best meal of my life. We should adjust our priors when new information is presented. We can't be afraid of being wrong in this game. It's dynamic, it's filled with variance. We need to accept the fact that our predictions won't always come to fruition. When you accept that as a fantasy football manager, as a fantasy analyst, whatever the case may be, I guarantee you'll become a better player. And that's sort of what this episode is about each offseason. Back in May, I produced my first set of redraft rankings. My work isn't close to being done. I still have a ton of research to do. I still want to watch these players play. I want to read certain beat writer reports. Those rankings are almost vibes based. But by the time mid to late August hits, I'm feeling a lot better about where players are ranked. So on today's episode, I want to talk about players who have risen and fallen in my rankings, and more importantly, why. This is me basically saying, hey, back in May and early June, I was wrong about this guy. I actually view him differently now. And that's going to happen. Sometimes it's really frustrating when it happens. Sometimes you make a trade, you make a rookie draft selection or something that you regret, but you don't want to double down on a bad take when new information arises. That's what this episode is all about. Now, before getting to things, I just want to send another reminder to check out the late round draft guide. There's over 270 pages of content that includes game theory, strategy, ways to spot breakouts and busts, players to target, players to avoid, and more. You get cheat sheets with the guide, and that guide is now being updated twice a week. You get a Wednesday update where ranked players are ranked twice a week. The rankings are changed up, and then a Friday update where those rankings are updated again, but so are the targets, avoids, and dart throws lists. You can learn more about it over on lateround.com. Let's start today's show with probably the biggest riser for me this offseason, and that's Dajon Stribling. He's been crushing it in camp. He's been crushing it in the preseason. He has good length. He's a good athlete. He's certainly looked the part thus far. Now, I most definitely had my concerns with Stribling from a prospecting standpoint, as you know, the way I prospect is through looking at trends. Finding what's worked in the past has actually helped us tremendously in figuring out what's going to happen in the future. Now, of course, prospecting isn't easy to do. There's a lot of volatility to it. Even NFL teams get stuff embarrassingly wrong every single year, and they're not doing this from mom's basement like I am. I look back at the prospect profile for Stribling, and there were some serious red flags. He had a 31st percentile breakout score, which is really low, for an early day two pick. His career yards per out run rate in college ranked in the 20th percentile. I mean, I could go on and on here, but there was nothing production-wise that made Stribling really, really stand out. The one piece where I do wish I was a little bit more thoughtful about back in April, back in May, was his yak profile. He was above average in yards after the catch numbers and avoided tackles per reception. And that's the kind of profile that Kyle Shanahan and his system looks for. We saw that in a player like Brandon Ayuk and obviously Debo Samuel. But Stribling undoubtedly needs to be an outlier analytically to really hit. Now, I understand the draft capital argument. Trust me. I've been a draft capital bro for years now, pushing against people who don't factor it into their process. So let's factor it in here. Let's look at all top 100 picks. So this includes first round players too. All top 100 picks who had a breakout score below 40, which is about the 50th percentile, so a breakout score below 40 and a career yards per out run rate below two yards. And we'll look back to 2018 when this data is most reliable. For the record, Stribling is well below both those marks. That leaves us with 20 players and hilariously, five of those players are from this year's draft class. You had Jacoby Lane, Antonio Williams, Caleb Douglas, Stribling, and Zavian Thomas. The remaining 15 players are as follows. Dante Pettis, Jalen Hurd, Miles Boykin, Terry McLaurin, Van Jefferson, Amari Rogers, Valus Jones, Michael Wilson, Adonai Mitchell, Xavier Leguette, Jalen Polk, Ricky Pearsall, Matthew Golden, Savian Williams, and Jack Besch. It's also very funny that Dante Pettis, Jalen Hurd, and Ricky Pearsall were all drafted by Kyle Shanahan's 49ers. But look, it's a pretty brutal list. And I do think it's relevant. Breakout score is just as predictable as draft capital for top 100 wide receivers in terms of how well these wide outs are going to perform during the first three years of their NFL careers in fantasy football. And career yards per outrun is not a nothing burger. This is why Stribling was the wide receiver 10 for me post-draft. Right ahead of him were wide receivers Denzel Boston, Jeremy Bernard, Antonio Williams, and Chris Bell. Behind him were Zachariah Branch and Jacoby Lane. Now when those rankings were done, we had no idea that Ricky Pearsall was going to be out for the 2026 season. Had I known that, clearly he'd be ranked higher. But the wild part is that my Stribling ranking was either the same as the market according to sites like DLF, and it was ahead of the market according to data of real drafts that were happening post-draft and through June according to Dynasty Data Lab. I only say that because it's wild. Because it's clear that the ZAP model did not love Stribling. The market was just way out on this guy. And that's why this is going to be so interesting. For me, I'm fine with adjusting with all this new information while obviously trying to not get too carried away. But I said it before and I'll say it again. This year's wide receiver draft class had a lot of guys with good draft capital, but the profiles were generally lacking across the board in my opinion. I liked the big four. Tyson, Tate, Lemon, Concepcion. And then there were serious red flags with all the wide receivers after that. If I were to rank Stribling today, I would have no problem leaning into this outlier case and putting him after Casey Concepcion. So ahead of Denzel Boston, ahead of Omar Cooper. Because I didn't think their profiles were undeniable. The thing is though, in redraft, Stribling is still way too undervalued on most platforms. People care far too much about a player's floor when they're in round eight, round nine of their draft. Go for the ceiling. Go for the outliers. And I think Stribling belongs comfortably as a top 50 wide receiver at this point. I'm about 10 to 15 wide receivers spots ahead of where he goes on these major platforms. Now in Dynasty, the investment's different. I wouldn't be going out there and getting Stribling for a 2027 first. This is still a volatile situation. And keep in mind, a lot of these players in this 49ers offense, they're not playing in the preseason. But there's no doubt I've gotten more information, I've internalized that information, and I'm now moving forward with a new way of looking at Dejan Stribling. Because I think that's what a good analyst should do. We should probably talk about more of those rookie wide receivers since we're on the topic. I have Jacoby Lane, Caleb Douglas, and Cyrus Allen as risers as well. I really want to reinforce this idea of just not caring about a player's floor when you reach the late routes. And in my opinion, that sort of flip should happen far earlier in drafts than it typically does for people. I have plenty of concerns about all of these players. Jacoby Lane was an early declare, so his collegiate numbers need that context. And I think that's why he didn't play that additional year. With that being said, his breakout score was more average in the 44th percentile. He had some below average marks across the board. One area where he did look good though is career first downs per route run. He was reliable in college. And I think that catch radius is a reason for that. And we're already seeing that on display in camp videos. I do think that Lane is going to have a hard time seeing tons and tons of volume in this Ravens offense, depending on what happens to Rashad Bateman. Because there's some off-the-field stuff going on with him. And look, Lane's one of the most acrobatic players. in this year's class. I'm not super surprised that he's looked good in camp, but I do think he brings a red zone element that this offense could definitely use. It looks like he's definitely the one that you want versus Elijah Surratt. Now, Caleb Douglas legitimately was one of the worst day two prospects that the ZAP model had ever seen. You could squint and kind of get there with Stribling, but Douglas had a 25th percentile breakout score, a 28th percentile career yards per outrun, and a 23rd percentile first downs per outrun. Now, with Douglas, I'm definitely worried about his long-term viability, but I do think that he can be a deep threat for an offense in the NFL. He had an 81st percentile deep ball rate in college, and Malik Willis, he has the arm to get him the ball. And this is the thing, given the competition there, he could just be force-fed more looks underneath and may not just be used down the field. I'm still nervous about Douglas and Dynasty. I think it's fine to react to camp reports, though, and just see what we have in Douglas from a redraft perspective. Now, I've said this on the late round show, but I think Cyrus Allen has kind of an intriguing enough profile for a day three wide receiver. I didn't get to do a prospect profile for him because he didn't get a combine invite, but I did rank him in my top 48 post-draft. He had a 42nd percentile breakout score, which is not that bad for a day three pick. And he had an 88th percentile career deep ball rate, playing both inside and out. I think the Chiefs could, in a hypothetical way, get him the ball. But I don't think they could. I think the Chiefs could, in a hypothetical world, use Cyrus Allen all over the field. And they need something more than what their wide receivers have given them. So I'm in on Allen as a late round dart throw. Let's look at a father now, and that's Alec Pierce. I was starting to get intrigued by Pierce after the Colts did nothing with their wide receiver room this offseason. But then he just couldn't find the field. He has this ankle injury that's just not going away. It sounds like things are finally moving in the right direction, but there's still a lot of uncertainty there. And I think it's a huge reason they went out and they got Keenan Allen, who's been someone that's taken a decent target share in his last two stops. He was by far the number one wide receiver in the Chargers last year and targets per outrun at 26%. Ladd McConkie was at 19%. Quentin Johnson, 17%. And then in Chicago the year before, his targets per outrun rate was 25%. DJ Moore, 23%. Roma Dunzey, 18%. This isn't to say that Allen's going to be the best fantasy option for the Colts. He's going to play fewer snaps than both Pierce and Josh Downs. But Pierce was already fighting somewhat of an uphill battle when it comes to target share. We just haven't seen him be a high end volume earner dating back to college. His highest target share in college was 22%. That's a 29th percentile number among the guys in the ZAP model database. His highest in the NFL is just 18%. Now, I do think that Pierce has gotten a lot better as a player since he's been in the NFL. I was actually drafting him earlier this offseason. But his injury combined with this signing, I'm scared off right now, if I'm just being totally honest. A player kind of going in the opposite direction of Pierce from an injury perspective is Malik Neighbors. Not much really has to be said here. A healthy Malik Neighbors is a player who has a shot to be one of the best wide receivers in fantasy football. Since 2016, his rookie season ranked first in targets per outrun rate, 10th in yards per outrun rate, and 10th in fantasy points per outrun. That's among 89 wide receivers with 300 or more routes run. There's a ton of upside, even coming off of this injury. And I was obviously baking that into my early summer rankings. The injury had him pushed down. Now that it's looking better for him in the early parts of the season, he's risen. Though I'm still not at the point where I'm taking him by where that big round two group of running backs goes. I'd still rather go in that direction. Who are fallers? The first one's Aranda Gadsden. I've mentioned before that MarketScore doesn't mind Gadsden at all. MarketScore generally likes him because it's working off of previous season data. And as a rookie, Gadsden was kind of incredible. We're talking like a top 15 rookie season production wise from a tight end ever. The issue with Gadsden is that we've got a new offensive coordinator in LA. And anytime there's a coaching change, new traits are going to be rewarded. Gadsden's more of that tweener tight end. And we're already seeing, you know, that not play into his benefit. David Njoku and Charlie Kolar are playing ahead of him in the preseason. Like flat out, it just seems like they want Gadsden to improve as a blocker. Tight end's a tough position to play because the position does so much. They're not just out there running routes and catching the ball. And that means there's more developmental time needed for Aranda Gadsden. Meanwhile, Eli Stowers. It's never a good sign when there's negative reporting with a player out of camp. Stowers had a pretty unique journey in college. He played quarterback and then he eventually settled in at tight end for Vandy. And his production profile was actually strong. We're talking 90th percentile breakout score, a career yards per out run rate in the 94th percentile. He's an older prospect, but as a crazy athlete, there was a lot to like out of his profile. Now the ZAP model did like Kenyon Sadiq quite a bit more, like a full tier ahead. But Stowers appeared to be a pretty decent prospect. It just seems like this might be a 2027 thing versus a 2026 one. It's probably not unlike what we're seeing with Gadsden to a degree. That's good for Dallas Goddard, but right now in your season long drafts, you don't need to worry about Eli Stowers. An obvious riser for me is Jonathan Brooks, though I was pretty high on him back in May and June anyway. It's just this Chuba Hubbard injury has allowed him to elevate a little bit more, as has the fact that Brooks himself hasn't gotten hurt. I had an anti-Chuba stance last year because I don't like spending up for running backs who are just projected to see a lot of volume when I don't necessarily think they're special talents, or when they haven't proved that for multiple seasons. Hubbard's never really been an efficient pass catcher either, so it made that fade decision even easier. Now I'm not really in the same boat this year with Hubbard because he's cheaper than where he was last year. And to be honest with you guys, in best ball specifically, because this is not happening in season long, but in best ball specifically, the gap between Brooks and Chuba Hubbard is kind of wild. It's been nice to get some Hubbard exposure, but I do like the fact that Brooks more than Hubbard. He's risen up my rankings. I think he's the superior pass catcher, and there's a lot of upside as a runner. We can't forget that he was a good prospect. According to the ZAP model, he was just out of the elite producer category with a score of 70.5. He had a best season prorated reception share in the 54th percentile, which is good enough, but his adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt was in the 83rd percentile. So both receiving metrics were pretty good. Meanwhile, his adjusted total yards per team play was in the 89th. And PFF, they pegged him as a 94th percentile player and avoided tackles per attempt. I mean, he was pretty legit across the board. There's obvious risk here though. There's just plenty of upside. And that's exactly what you want out of your RB3 or your RB4 in your drafts. Travion Henderson has fallen for me for all the reasons I've been saying on the show over the last month. There just isn't enough steam coming out of that camp to make me believe this backfield is going to be tremendously different year over year. And look, I like Henderson a lot. This is the archetype of back that I usually want to invest in. But this type of player doesn't always have a good running back next to him in the backfield. And that's the problem. Among qualified backs, Ramondre Stevenson was first in rushing yards over expected per rush last year. He was also first in catch rate over expected. Now that was weighed by the fact that he was really good down the stretch last year. He started iffy. But he finished strong. He dominated snaps and he dominated touches in the playoffs. And he's the guy who they trust in pass pro right now. I don't think that's nothing. New England ran the fewest percentage of their offensive plays last year while trailing. Their schedule this year should be tougher. Even if they're a good team, they're probably going to trail in more games. Stevenson played over twice as many snaps as Henderson last year in that environment when they were both healthy. I think there's maybe some chance that Henderson starts to dig into that as the season goes on. But I don't even know if that's a lock. So the more I've thought about this situation, the more I've read about this situation, I'm way more in on Ramondre Stevenson this year than Travion Henderson. And you want to talk about changing your views with more information? I was the opposite of this last year. I'm just trying to be logical and give the best advice that I can give. Sometimes that means admitting that old advice wasn't the best. I'm in on Parker and yes, he has risen in my rankings this summer for two reasons. Number one, there's a lot of chatter out of Jacksonville that Washington won't be rotated quite as much as the other wide receivers there. I mean, I don't blame them. Once they started using him more post-bye, post-Travis Hunter injury, Washington was far and away the team's most effective wide receiver. We're talking over 2.5 yards per route run, a 24% targets per route run rate, 0.53 PPR points per route run, coincided with the Jags essentially being a top three offense in football through the end of the year. We've seen slot players thrive in Liam Cohen's offense, but Washington can do more than that. He had a 3.17 yards per route run rate outside the slot down the stretch last year. That's bonkers. Now that was on just 115 routes, so our sample size is clearly limited. A lot of this has some sample size problem, but Washington is oozing with upside. So I'm in on him and I think he's still undervalued. on most of the fantasy platforms. I started the offseason leaning towards Rashad White pretty heavily in that commander's backfield, but it seems clear that the commanders are trying to make Ja'Cory Kroski-Merritt a thing. They want to use him more as a pass catcher, or at least give him more of those opportunities. That's probably the biggest story of that backfield coming out of camp. Now, to be totally clear, I'm still skeptical that we're going to see that come to fruition. Bill was an older prospect, and despite that, he still only hit an 8% max season reception share in college. His age and program-adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt figure in the ZAP model placed him in the 21st percentile, and obviously last year, he only had a 25% route share. That ranked outside the top 60 at the position. Obviously, Rashad White's game is the pass catching stuff. Despite not being the guy in his backfield last year, he was top 20 in route share at running back. Now, one thing I'm really excited about for Bill is the fact that we're probably going to see the commanders under center a lot more this year. No team has run more plays out of shotgun at a higher rate over the last two years than the Washington Commanders. And look, this is a limited sample. We're talking about 53 rushes. But on 53 rushes when his quarterback was under center last year, Bill ranked first in the NFL in yards after contact per attempt. He was top 10 in first downs per rush. I've gotten to the point where I'm kind of just in on both of these guys. Even after the tonsil injury, I can see a path for both of these guys being fantasy relevant, and it is an ambiguous backfield. One that we probably want to target. So don't sleep on either Bill Krosky Merritt or Rashad White. Sticking with the commanders theme, I want to close today's show by talking about Stefan Diggs. I genuinely think that Stefan Diggs is one of the most undervalued players in all of fantasy football right now. To me, there's not really any signs that he's just complete dust. Maybe he's not peak Stefan Diggs, but I don't see a player who's dust. Diggs averaged 12.3 PPR points per game last year. He was basically fine at cost. He wasn't a league winner, but he didn't sink you. With that being said, among wide receivers with 100 or more routes, Diggs was top 10 in yards per route run. He saw a 90th percentile targets per route run mark. The problem was that he just didn't get a good route share. He had a 71% route share, which aligned close to Troy Franklin and Sterling Shepard. He can play inside out. He was actually good outside last year. He was 9th in targets per route run. Outside the slot, he was 8th in yards per route run. This isn't just a he's seeing great slot matchups thing. He also pairs super well with Terry McLaurin, who himself, despite his age, is coming off his best per route run season of his career. So Diggs has risen a ton since May because we now know that he's a commander. And I love the fit. I think there's a ton of potential for him in this offense and in fantasy football. Now, there were a couple of other situations I almost talked through on this show. Like seeing Terrence Ferguson, Pat Bryant, and Dontabian Wicks as risers. But hopefully this gives you guys an idea of where my head was at and where it's at right now. As always, you can get my thoughts not just on this podcast, but through the draft guide and through the website as well. I'm super active on Discord all the time with subscribers. That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you haven't subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are by searching for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky. At Late Round QB. Thanks for listening, everyone. Becoming a Best Ball Bro. That'll be out on Wednesday morning. We'll be live with the Late Round show on our YouTube channel. YouTube.com slash at Late Round FF. That'll be at noon on Wednesday. And then it will drop in this feed on Thursday. And then later in the week, we got a mailbag episode. Lots of content and even more content is coming soon once the season starts. Thanks for listening though, guys. I'll catch you tomorrow. We'll be right back. We don't know what next season is going to bring, but we know that we're all on the same team. Some people use ChatGPT to answer questions. Others use it to get real work done. With ChatGPT Work, you bring the goal. Plus real inputs like briefs, notes, files, feedback, data, and project plans. It can help turn them into an analysis, tracker, deck outline, prototype, or workflow you can review and keep. You stay in control, giving direction and choosing the final output. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode. Available on Plus and Pro plans. Guaranteed human.