The Show: Alarming Stats, Wide Receiver Hit Rates, and More

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. You're about to listen to the Late Round Fantasy Football Show which originally aired on YouTube. If you'd like to catch the show live this off season, you can head to the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel youtube.com/atlateroundFF. We'll be live each Wednesday at noon eastern. Without further ado, here's this week's episode. [Music] Welcome in, welcome in. It's the Late Round Fantasy Football Show's sponsored by DraftKings, David Kitchen here, alongside my pal. My friend, my employer, the guy that I am currently in battle alongside JJ Zacharyson. JJ, how's it going? Well, it's up. First off, I'm the one who just lost power right before the show started. And I think you have the wrong mic input right now. Okay. Well, so I would at least make sure that because it sounds like it's coming from your computer as opposed to the microphone right now. Okay. But no, things are hectic. There's stuff going on in work life. There's stuff going on in personal life that's just a lot. So bear with me as I navigate those things. If you're a member, if you're a listener, hopefully, you know, in a few weeks things are totally back to normal. But I know the podcast feeds, but looking a little bit different with the rewind episodes, all that kind of stuff. So bear with me. Yeah. We're, I mean, does sound good, okay? You sound good now. Yeah. I mean, we are just all over the place. And part of that is also because of this humongous project we call the draft guide that will release July 10th. So 24 days until the draft guide. And that gives a little bit of anxiety, but that's okay. We are breaking this down and starting. This is going to be unlike any other late round draft guide we have had in the past. We'll say that. And it's going to be really good. But also it means a lot more kind of brain power. And you know, it's stuff that we're doing that we haven't done in the past. We got Branga Dula helping us out. But thoughts on the draft guide. Yeah. So to give you guys an idea where I'm at, I'm hopefully going to wrap up the wide receiver section here soon and then move on to talk and some tight ends and working on tight ends. But there's also a whole brand new area of that draft guide where I'm going to be kind of using it. You know, in the past, I think we mentioned this last week a little bit. But in the past, it's been, you know, positional section. And then your approach to this year. This year, though, it's more so bringing that all together and having a more comprehensive approach to your drafts this season that brings together all of those different parts, right? And so like you said, it's like laid out a little bit different. There's brand new content in it, a lot new content. It needed kind of a refresh. And that's exactly what you're getting in this 2026 version. Okay. And with that being said, we also have the new website that you can go and become a member late round.com. Also, you become an all access member for one annual price and get both our draft guide and our rookie prospect guide that we do every year. And everything else that comes with our membership as far as the discord, the rankings that you get. So consider becoming an all access member if you haven't already. And we want to give a shout out to our sponsor draft kings. We talk about the dogo. I had someone message me the other day. I love dogo. It's another marketing guide for another company. Nice. And I said, well, we'll just run with it then. It's a draft one, get one promotion with draft kings. And so you draft one, you get a bonus entry. And you can find that link in the description of this podcast or video that you're watching. So just know that it's a $20 million contest this year. And we've got the becoming a best ball bro series that is kicked off. We've got the live streams. I'm actually going to be drafting a live stream tomorrow. And Thursday morning. So make sure you have notifications on for this. JJ, as far as the best ball scenes, we're getting some news that are kind of affecting some of these ADPs with best ball. Yeah, for sure. You know, we're still waiting on some guys to be signed and stuff. But yeah, I mean, like this is, in my opinion, like this is a really interesting time to draft best ball lineups. Just because you're going to find some good CLV, some really good value in guys you're drafting late, just based on there's still a month and a half before things like really get solidified or two months before things really get solidified. So right now you can definitely find some value out there. Hopefully, you know, like last year, you know, there was like the keen and Allen stuff that happened. And he rose, you know, I think Stefan Diggs right now is one that will eventually rise in ADP once he signs. But there's also some just like off the field stuff for theirs. You know, one player in particular who keeps posting on Instagram that we'll probably get to. But yeah, I mean, like I think it's a really interesting time to draft best ball teams. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, JJ, because we indeed have to get to some news and notes. Today's fantasy news. All right, start with some unfortunate news out of New Orleans last week about the Chris Alave blood clots. Again, a lot of these like some of these injuries is just like, all right, I'm not a doctor. Like and I don't, you know, I don't pretend to be one, but you do kind of look at people that are doctors to see what they're saying. But what's your overall take on the Chris Alave situation? Because his ADP is currently falling as well. I mean, it's serious stuff. Anytime you're talking, you know, blood clots or blood clot disorders or whatever the case may be. I mean, I think that the unfortunate side of this is that we do have to react in probably a slightly negative way. I was kind of below market with Alave. So I'll probably meet the market a little bit more at this point as a result of this. Because I think that, you know, this is one of those things where I feel like if it were a serious, serious threat to his playing time, it would be a bigger story and a bigger deal. And that would have been like released in some way. But it doesn't seem like that's totally the case. This is a bigger, but this is like one of those injuries. It's like, okay, like yes, it sucks whenever these guys like break their ankles and stuff. You know, or like have like a really bad, you know, ACL tear or something like that. Like this is like one of those injuries parts. It's not really injury. It's a bigger, like just deal to his livelihood, you know. Like obviously, you know, I'm not diminishing what happens to an ACL tear or anything like that. But this is one of those things where it's harder to speculate on because it's not like we see this happen as like a football injury. So my general thoughts are, I hope Alave is good. Hope he gets well. You know, he went through the concussion stuff kind of last year. Before the season started, you know, he stayed healthy, which was great. And he ended up being a fantastic player for the Saints last year. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping for the same result this time around as well. Yeah. All right. The next one, uh, Rashi Rice freed. I almost went with the freed rice on this one, but 30 days, 30 day jail sentence has been served. So we'll, I guess we'll see now what happens as far as like, you know, he had surgery right before he went to jail. Did you see the video that came out? No. So there's a video of him leaving jail and there's cameras everywhere. Right. There's people, a couple people like on camera, right? And he ran from them, which, hey, hey, he's a good sign. Right. You know, like, like, you know, he seems like he, you know, he, uh, he's going to run a little out route against the, the reporters or the camera people there and, and just bolt it into a black SUV and he drove off. But, um, yeah, I mean, like, hopefully everything's good. I, I've admittedly from, look, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I have to be a fantasy analyst. I have to see what's going to be best for our fantasy teams. I do think that in a bestball environment, the dip has been substantial enough to draft Rashi Rice. Uh, just because, you know, we've, we've seen them use players in the past that had questionable background slash he himself did. Uh, I don't think that the newest issue of what happened given what it was. We said this whenever he was, he was arrested again. It's like the, the, the thing that we're concerned about is just like the, the, the mental state you got to be into, like, make that mistake, right? And then we said, to do that into, to, you know, use weed and, and, and like when you know that you can't, like you just cannot do that. It's not really the thing that he did. It's, it's doing that when you knew that, uh, you were on probation the way that you were, with that being said, the actual crime for this is not something that the NFL is like hammering down on at this point. So I don't know if anything is really going to come of that. It's an original reason that he was on probation is horrible. But, um, you know, what he did this time around wasn't, wasn't as like bad from like how, you know, the NFL might view things, yadda, yadda, yadda. So with that, I do think that he could just end up playing. He served his time. You just got to hope that the rehab was okay if you are drafting for XiRai's. Yeah. You know, his ADP has fallen a little bit as well. One of those guys, I wonder if it will start climbing back up. Also the chiefs, this is not on here, but the chiefs extended Patrick Mahomes to more years. The thing he's playing until like 2050. Yeah. And Patrick Mahomes is never going to retire. Half a billion dollars. Yeah. The R XiRai stuff, I think, is different. We're getting LOSO and chat asking about, you know, when is the discipline issues becoming a thing, a super concerning for Dynasty? Agreed. If you want to get rid of him in Dynasty, especially because I think in Dynasty, you have kind of like a closer connection to players in a way where it's like you root for them more. If you don't want to deal with this, don't deal with it. You like, you know, like sell them 80 cents in the dollar and just kind of take your loss and kind of move on that you didn't sell them at the peak of where rice was. I do think that there's a very real chance that it improves and where he's at currently in the Dynasty landscape improves. But if you don't want to deal with it anymore, don't deal with it. I don't think that's like a unreasonable way to approach your own Dynasty roster management, you know. But I do think that he's going to play this year. And you know, I think that Rishi Rice is probably an overrated player when you look at his production and what he's done in Fantasy Football versus how good he is as a player. But I think that he's still in this system that just is very beneficial for him to score fantasy points. And so that's how I'm treating it. And so with him, like realistically, if there were no question marks about Rishi Rice, he'd be a very firm middle round to pick very maybe even early round to. Yeah. And right now on draft Kings, you can get him, I mean, he's fallen to the late third. He's definitely. So because like that's a lot of equity for what's been going on right now, which is why I've been more okay drafting him on my but might bite me. But I do think that it's at least logical. Okay. Next, we have supplemental Soresby, Brennan Soresby after all that commotion, after all that drama. He's now back to entering the NFL's supplemental draft. We haven't seen a guy like him since who was Josh Gordon and somebody else. Tyrell, prior, I think I think I saw that I. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And so I think I saw that on Ryan McDowell, he wrote an article about this because this is putting the NFL in flux. It's also putting all these dynasty leagues that have already drafted in flux too. Like what do you do? I mean, I think that if you, because like 90 plus percent of dynasty leagues, I would imagine already had their rookie drafts, right? Right. I'm a commission a couple of leagues. And what I'm doing is I am saying no one can have Soresby this year. And he can just be added to the player pool next year. Now, look, that might mean that he's the one of three. It might mean that he's the 409, you know, that he just doesn't matter at all in drafts next season. But the reason, so I've seen a lot of people talk about having him just be a blind bid player right now. And the issue I have with that blanket statement is that there's a lot of deep dynasty leagues out there where multiple people will blow all of their free agent budget on that singular player. And I don't want the reward to be the tie break, which is just waver order, you know, to be able to claim that guy. So instead, the way that I'm handling it, people might disagree. And that's fine. I don't think there's a right answer. There's not a right or wrong way to be. Right. So I know that people are like, oh, this is stupid. You should be able to bid on them. Fine. If you want to do that, I don't have a problem with that. I'm just letting you know my logic. I think that you wait till 2027. And yes, you're going to have a year of knowing how good or bad he is, what teeny's on all that kind of stuff. But at least there's an equal chance of anyone wanting to trade up to get him or, you know, just drafting him straight up, whatever the case may be. It's just a cleaner way of doing it in my opinion. Another solution, this was why I was reading the Rhyme Adele ad is or article is because he talked about like a not just a blind bit system, but a future pick. So just like the NFL will sacrifice a future pick. Yeah. What? McDowell, whatever that art, like I'm sure he's retweeted or something. McDowell is the king of this kind of stuff. Yeah. He gives three, he gives three possible solutions. That was number one. Yours number two. Okay. Okay. Was number one, was number one the free agent budget just like being able to bid on him as an order number one? No, number one was the, you supplement with like your draft picks. So someone could say, all right. I will give up my third round draft pick next year for this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's a, there's a lot of ways to do it. But I would, I mean, look, McDowell's awesome. And McDowell is now full time DLF. Yeah. Congrats to him for the retirement from his teaching job. And now he gets to be full time DLF. Yeah. And so, I mean, we love McDowell. He's a friend of the show. And so him, you know, he's someone who's done commissioner stuff for years and he's a little bit deeper, he's deeper into those kind of dynasty weeds and I am. So I'm sure he has better solutions than me. But the, the one that did pop the mind for me because it's the easiest as a commissioner in my opinion is just be like, nope, we're waiting till 2027. Yeah. Too bad. This is just the way we're doing it. And like the you and I are in, I got notification in the chat from the siege. Oh, shocker. Yeah. DFF formal DFS player. And he was like, so are we doing a supplemental draft? Like the NFL doesn't. And I'm just like, as the commissioner, I'm just like, I don't want, I'm just like, I just don't want to deal with it right now. You know, just take the deal. But there's also, I wonder like that solution, you know, of course you can say like I put up a third, but how, what if someone else has a third? Like how do you rule the time? Yeah, then you get, I guess, into figuring out, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. That, that solution is. But there are teams that are also doing this. So you've had, you know, people thinking that the Browns should do it. You know, Browns head coach is saying, not really something I'm interested in. Our GM might feel differently. Some people are saying the Eagles should with all their picks that they have. Yeah. So one I saw. Jets. Yes. So it will be interesting. I bet the Jets are favorites right now. If I were to look at, I don't know what a sportsbook has. If like DK has the odds or anything like that. But I don't know. It's going to be interesting from, from my perspective, it seems like, like, look, the one thing I cannot stand are the people who are like, he could have been QB1 in this class. Like let's, let's slow down. I don't think that was going to happen. But could he have been QB2 in this class? You know, like is that a reasonable thing to, I mean, maybe, but probably not because Simpson went pretty high. But QB3? Yeah. I mean, he could have been a day to pick without the off the field. Okay. We avoided some drama with George Pickens, reportedly reporting for mandatory mini camps. So good on George Pickens. And we can just put this to bed right now, right, JJ? I don't know about that. We'll see what goes down with all that and how much he practices, et cetera, et cetera. I will say a lot of the trend stuff that I'm working on for the draft guy does like George Pickens. I also want to tease something else. And that is, I talked about market score on a podcast episode a couple of weeks ago. I've gotten a lot of feedback from people about how we're talking about market score and how we're displaying market score. And so next week, my hope, again, there's a lot of stuff going on. So things can change. Don't hold me into this. At least this next week or the week after, there's going to be a new market score episode. We're changing the way that we're kind of approaching market score in multiple ways. We have a little bit different inputs. You know, I kind of introduced the idea and said, this is kind of evolving. And it is involved a lot based on your feedback because I think the way that people were consuming market score was not necessarily the way we wanted people to consume market score. So our solution is to really approach this similarly as a ZAP score. And that's what we're going to be doing. That's the same zero to 100 type scale and such. But I'm going to be doing an episode on that. That we're all on the same page with market score. And I bring that up because market score really liked and still does, I believe, George Pickens. And in a lot of the trends that I'm looking at for early, round wide receivers, also like George Pickens because it's based on previous season numbers. It's not foolproof, of course. But last year, he was really good, like very, very good. So we need him to play because I do think that he could be a value. If we knew for sure, everything was going to be perfect for George Pickens. And we haven't had this like very small sample, yes, but like bad results of these players who are holding out and such. I do think that that Pickens would be a very easy click. Right now, there's just some ambiguity. Okay. This was probably the biggest news they call us by surprise. Luca Evans, beer reporter for the Broncos Denver Post got some posted a few nuggets. Denver pun for you. But one that's RJ Harvey suffered a torn labor in that playoff game. against the Patriots and had surgery. And the other was that JK Dobbins nearly had a deal. JK Dobbins had a deal with the Jags and Free Agency near Dunn's or said before Denver resigned him. So I want you're just your take on how this affects this murky roller coaster filled Denver backfield. - So I believe it was Jeff Mueller and if it's not, I apologize to whichever to whichever I read, I read what Jeff posted. He put RJ Harry where the shoulder labor and was repaired versus debrided. It shouldn't negatively impact his receiving ability. - Okay, there was another Twitter doc I believe that was mentioning that we're all sitting here talking about Bucky Irving and the issues that he's had with his shoulder. But really this could be more concerning from a timeline perspective than Bucky Irving's timeline, which I think is kind of interesting in an interesting juxtaposition based on the way that things have gone for Irving. So yeah, I mean, like I think this should impact things. I've been right when I start buying more in RJ Harvey's. - I know. - Like right when I start drafting a more and I'm like, oh, I can see this. I just, man, I love how big he was backfields. Don't get me wrong. I still think RJ Harvey has the most upside in that backfield in general, which is why he should have the highest ADP. I don't buy the narrative out there from people who are like, JK Dobbins should be straight up drafted ahead of RJ Harvey because what that misses is you're doing that based off of a median outcome, a median projection, which sure, you could probably project JK Dobbins to score more points in RJ Harvey this year. I think that's, you know, I think you'd probably still wanna project RJ Harvey. You can't just look at last year and say that's gonna happen this year when RJ Harvey was a rookie, you know, and not only that, it was the first part of his rookie season. We didn't really see the full blown tandem and what it would look like when JK Dobbins was fully, fully healthy. And so like I just don't think that this is a simple like, oh, just look at what happened last year, therefore it's gonna happen this year. So I can understand from a projection standpoint why you might like Dobbins more, I would disagree still, but sure, if you wanna go that route. But saying that Dobbins should be drafted straight up ahead of Harvey before this injury stuff, and I even think after the injury stuff, I'm still gonna have Harvey ahead, it just misses the ceiling point and misses the point of like, you're in the later round mid to late rounds where you should not be worried about floor nearly as much. JK Dobbins is not a pass catcher. He had a 4.2% target share last year and he was really bad per route run. It's not like he had a 2.0 yards per route run rate but he just wasn't being used enough. He just was not good as a pass catcher. And quite frankly, he hasn't been an outstanding pass catcher in the NFL from an efficiency standpoint and from a volume standpoint. And so RJ Harvey was pretty good as a pass catcher last year at the very least, not very good as a runner, but good as a pass catcher. And that's what we should be really aimed at and focused on when it comes to that point in the draft and looking for upsides, especially in these half and full PPR formats. So to me, like Dobbins is just not someone that I've been clicking very often. Like I mean, it's a really, especially on best balls, a really hard time to go after a player like that when there's really good quarterbacks still available. You can make the case for other running backs, like Rashad White types. I'd rather just straight up take a chance on Rashad White than JK Dobbins at this point. And so I just have a hard time with Dobbins. I had the opposite problem last year as drafting Dobbins everywhere. But we now have a year of data of him not being deployed consistently as a pass catcher and RJ Harvey being really efficient in that role. So I think that Harvey's ADP will fall and it should fall a little bit, but I'm probably still gonna have a Harvey ahead of Dobbins from a rankings perspective. - Okay, what about the news that the Jags are trying to sign JK Dobbins? Does that impact your all roads lead to Bay Shal-Tuton? - I think it's a bigger indictment on Chris Rodriguez because they did go after the early down guy and it was Rodriguez and clearly he was not their first option when the whole narrative behind Chris Rodriguez was that he was a Liam Cohen guy. - Oh, I like this. - Yeah, I like it. - If he's such a Liam Cohen guy, then why did they not have him as their 1A choice? You know, that's my big problem. I think Bay Shal-Tuton is still a very good pick in the fifth round. - Okay. All right, Brenna Yuc-Wayzen, as we have a weekly Brenna Yuc kind of wears. We should probably put him on the available 'cause he's available, but we talked about a few weeks ago about the people that were taking these pictures of Yuc and blowing them up and making him look like really overweight. Well, he weighed himself and he put a picture of his weight. He just wants people to know. - Yeah, he just wants people to know that. - Hey, let me guess his weight. Do you have his weight? Do you know his number? - I think I remember it, yeah. - It's gonna start with a two. - Okay. - Yeah. - But it's gonna be low. 'Cause he's a thicker, he's a thicker wider. When he came out, he's like a yak guy, right? Like he's a, so I'm gonna say he's 209. - You're really close. Like you're a pound. - Okay. - Over, it's 208. - Okay, yeah. I can believe that. I mean, that's shocking to me, that he would be. 'Cause he runs the risk if he's too small in posting that, right? That was my logic. He's not gonna post like I'm 230, 'cause then everyone's like, oh my God, you're so out of shape. And then if he posts like I'm 189, then that just means that he hasn't been lifting and he's not. - And he did have sandals on in this. And he posts, it's a video. And so he posts, like you can see his physique in the mirror and then he weighs himself. So, could be 207, but he looks in good shape, basically. - Well, that's good. Good for him. - Look, he's living his best life right now. - Brennan made it. - Apparently. - All right, we got more Brian Thomas, steam speed reporter saying that he was the MVP of Jags practice is so far. And I don't know, man, it feels like there's a flippin' in coming with him in Parker, Washington. - I had the thought earlier this week. This is the show where I get out my like, intrusive thoughts about it. - Yeah, we're here for it. - I had this thought earlier this week of like, you know how there's been rumors of them trading Brian Robinson for like a year now? Like maybe not a year, but at least like, you know, eight months or so. - Brian Thomas. - Brian Thomas, what did I say, Brian Robinson? - Yeah. - Yeah, Brian Thomas. - You're still stuck in running back territory. - Yeah, sorry guys. I had the thought that like, what if this is just steam for a potential deal? Like what if this is, I don't believe that. I don't actually believe that guys, but I'm saying like, what if, you know, if we want to be a little dramatic about this? - Yeah. - What if this is just like the Jags doing some favorable PR to get them off the team? I think he's a good player though. I mean, I liked him as a prospect. I liked him after a year one. I didn't, I wasn't like in love. I remember going back in my rankings. I actually was like one or two spots lower than the market last year with Brian Thomas, but I still had him as like a one two turn guy. My issue with Thomas is that I really do like Parker Washington. And a lot of the trends do like Parker Washington, most of them, certainly more than they do Brian Thomas. And so, you know, I'm drafting both. I think that you just throw darts at this Jags. Like in my opinion, you get exposure to the Jags, wide receiver room through Bestball this year. And like if you're, you know, a lot of people listening right now are playing both Bestball and Season Long. And then in season long, you just draft Trevor Lawrence. Like that's your exposure to capture all of that stuff. And maybe that's a cop out, but I think it's a pretty reasonable approach. Yeah. I still, this was an article written by John Shipley, who's been crushing it. And he has crushed it for years for Jack. Yeah. People are just now kind of starting to know who he is. So shout out to John Shipley. But he was saying that the MVP, he said really all of them are doing great, but the MVP has been Brian Thomas Jr. That's why I think if they're continues to be steam, they're right now, they're going really close like on draft kings. I could see they're being an eventual flip. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I think I also think that Brian Thomas's game is maybe not in DK as much, but you know, because it's full PPR. But I do think that his game is pretty conducive to Bestball as well. All right. On the flip side, getting some rough, rough practice reports out of Titans practice. You can't be shocked by this. Yeah, I'm a little shocked. I'm a little shocked. I thought that it would be a little smoother. However, people have pointed out that we are doing the same sort of Monday morning quarterback analysis last year with Drake May. And Caleb Williams, too, was that? Caleb Williams as well. I remember sending a tweet in late July or something that said, like, you guys can all say, like I'm still drafting bears is what I basically said. But yeah, I mean, look, Cam Ward, you gotta, this is very much a, like if you take the extremes on the film versus analytics debate, like the analytics people are gonna say, Cam Ward is terrible and the film people are gonna say, no, no, no, no, there's definitely traits here, right? Yeah. I think that if his costs were higher, in Bestball and Season Long, I would be out. I think I'm more out than in from a dynasty perspective, but I don't think that his cost is that agree just to have a strong opinion on what's going on with Camoron. That being said, I don't think the expectation should be that he's gonna be phenomenal as a quarterback, just because simply because his year one numbers were really, really bad, like completely objectively, his year one numbers were bad, right? You're then using situation, coaching, et cetera, as the excuse, which, you know, it's funny that I published the gray area fantasy football episode today because it's exactly what I was talking about with Roman Dunesay last year, right? Where you're not dismissing, like this is, you don't have to take a stand of like his metrics or all that matter and forget context, we're only gonna look at his metrics, but then you shouldn't take the stance that and say, oh, we just dismiss his metrics because he's in a bad situation because there's been a lot of rookie cornerbacks in bad situations that have done well, you know, that have not posted horrific numbers in year one and it is generally telling us to how good that player's career is going to go. So that's why I'm looking at this with a very, in a very nuanced way, I'm trying to not overreact to what we saw from the numbers perspective, but I do know that they still matter, you know, that it's still some substance there. I like what they've done in adding the pieces that they've added, like I think that, the cohesiveness of that wide receiver room is very much there and it's better than what they had, like way better than what they had last year. But yeah, I mean, like I think that there's definitely risk involved with Camp Ward. I think he's so fine in Bestball, I'm drafting him in Bestball, Dynasty, I'm a little bit if you're on just because, you know, some people really like him, but I'm not like shocked by the reports that are going on. - Jobo Boni says, oh, careful with your gray area talks, JJ. - Yeah. - I'm talking about last year and the whole gray area, some people don't understand the whole. - People don't like the, yeah. - They don't like the nuance. Matt says he's here for the hot takes. All right, the opposite of hot sprows and Jaden Reed, I just want just to get to see if you are nervous at all about this. - About Matthew Golden is playing in two wide receiver sets? - Yes. - I think that's the expectation. That's why I've been saying I've been drafting Matthew Golden. You know, I like Jaden Reed as a potential breakout though, because so the difference between Jaden Reed and Josh Downs, for instance, is, you know, if you want to just group them together except been grouping them together all off season. Josh Downs doesn't have anyone truly difficult or potentially difficult in his way in two wide receiver sets this year, right? It's Nick Westbrook, Kikine, and Alec Pierce is hurt. We talked about that last week. So Josh Downs has a lot of opportunity. Not in as good of an offense, you would argue, because Matt LaFloric consistently has been giving them good offense, a production in Green Bay. So that's a little bit of a downtake, but yeah, Josh Downs in a better spot than Jaden Reed to play those two wide receiver sets. My argument with Jaden Reed is the fact that he's been very, very good per-rout run throughout his career, and now he might get more opportunity to play on the outside because Matthew Golden didn't show us that much his rookie year, right? So there's a, it's a more climbable depth chart than what Jaden Reed has experienced in his history, right? I don't think that's a lock or that means that he's definitely going to be playing in two wide receiver sets, and this is why I'm fine in redraft, where his cost is very appetizing still. Matthew Golden and Bestball, my gosh, you can get him still in the double-digit rounds. And that's when, like, I think that's a great price for a player like Golden, who we've seen some guys like not do anything as rookies and still give you like wide receiver three, wide receiver two production. I just don't think that the ceiling is going to be there for Matthew Golden. But that's fine in this kind of environment, and in a Bestball environment, given his cost, right? So all of those Packers, wide receivers in my opinion are draftable right now. This doesn't really deter me. I hope it lowers Jaden Reed's ADP because if the opposite report were happening, Jaden Reed would be like a seventh round pick, pretty comfortable, like a very firm early seventh, like six, seven turn type player, you know? Yeah, oh, my gosh, my, my, my, (laughing) I thought we were over this. I thought we were over this. I thought this was done. Anyway, that's where I'm at with the Packers, why does? All right, six, seven, many CV eights said, "Agbooka's going higher than a dude's and drafts since your JJ remains on top." That's not what that episode is. (laughing) No, I know. Okay, lots of water, see for talk, and we're not gonna stop now. It's today's data. Today's data. Yeah, this is a chart directly from this year's draft guide. About early round wide receivers, top 18 wide receivers, and looking at their previous year first downs per out run rate and seeing how well they, so this is what's gonna be different in this year's guide also, is that I'm looking at players who underperform versus expectation and not just overperform. So I've always done greater than zero points per game above expected, greater than two, greater than four. I did greater than six last year. I'm just doing up to greater than four this year, but I'm also looking at how well they do in terms of floor outcomes. And that matters a lot more, especially in these early rounds, where we're more concerned about the floor outcomes. But this is a really nice linear relationship of the higher the first downs per out run number, the better the hit rate, especially if the previous year first downs per out run is above 12%. Yes, it's arbitrary. You can bucket these and bend these in a lot of different ways, but you have pretty comparable sample sizes for the most part aside from that smaller group, or they're less than 8%. So this says 12% or more of their routes run resultant first downs. And you can see the average difference against ADP expectation for the guys who have a 12% rate or higher is 1.15, which is fantastic. It's really, really good. The other groups are below zero, which means they play below expected on average. The group that has a really high first downs per out run rate, the previous season, play well above that expectation. Now, unfortunately, there's only three guys who were above that mark in the top 18 this year. Could be four if people just liked Terry McLean a little bit more of this. Another, I think, not shined a favorable direction for Terry McLean, but the three wider receivers are Jackson Smith and Jigba, Pukinakua and Amin Raus St. Brown. So it doesn't really help you find values per say, but I do think from an ARSB perspective, it should make you feel more confident that he's at least the wider receiver four in drafts this year. That you should, like I don't think-- Solid first rounder. Yeah, I would not be draft-- just because of the safety, like what we saw from Justin Jefferson last year was scary enough for me to just say, look, I think ceiling-wise, Amin Raus St. Brown is not that much different than Justin Jefferson. And Amin Raus St. Brown has the stability. We just have this predictability aspect with him that we just don't have with Justin Jefferson right now. I would not be draft and Justin Jefferson over Amin Raus St. Brown. But Amin Raus St. Brown, I think, is still, like, I've taken him plenty over Jonathan Taylor in some of these basketball drafts. Just that if I wanted to get wide receiver heavy, and get a different kind of build. So I think ARSB isn't really good spot. And this is just one of those metrics that helped show that. All right, let's get on to the main event. The late round main event. All right, JJ. We're talking alarming stats from 2025, starting with DJ Moore. Everything from DJ Moore's 2025 is alarming, realistically. The one thing that's not and that has nothing to do with 2025 is that he's in a new environment and he could thrive in that environment. For sure, I've talked about this before on the show. He's a guy who's better when the play breaks down and that's exactly what the Buffalo offense kind of thrives in because of Josh Allen being their quarterback. But if you just look at the numbers, all of his previous season numbers are so horrifically frightening. OK. The one that I'm calling out here is his 1.22 yards per out run rate. Among top 40 wide receivers by ADP since 2014, with a yard per out run rate below 1.5, which is significantly higher than where DJ Moore's at. They underperformed versus expected. I realize that copying and paste underperformed twice hearing that spelled incorrectly. So that's cool. But this is why we do the show the way that we do, right? I'll get it. I'll get it. OK, kitchen will fix it. They underperformed versus expectation. The guys who are below a 1.5 yards per out run rate drafted as top 40 wide receivers by 1.2 ppr points per game. The guys who were below that were in the top 30 and below that mark. So again, top 40, you're getting some of my questionable wide receiver profiles in general. And maybe sometimes they don't have very good previous season numbers. But the market is boosting them into the top 40. And they're doing that for a reason. But then if you're in the top 30, if you're in the top 20, et cetera, et cetera, these numbers become even more important because the competition within that range is greater, right? And so when you look at top 30 wide receivers by ADP and guys who are below that 1.5 yards per out run mark, they underperformed versus expectation on average by 2.8 ppr points per game, which is horrifically bad. It's very, very bad. We're talking like if DJ Moore is expected to score 13 ppr points per game, he's going to score 10, right? Based on what that's saying. So it's just another reason why I'm just nervous about DJ Moore. I think situation can only take him so far. He's just a very, very scary pick right now. OK, let's go to someone who had a really good year last year. And his ADP is pretty high this year. Matthew Stafford. Yeah, I wanted to throw this one in there because you're going to see that Matthew Stafford at a 17.7% touchdown rate. And you're going to say to yourself, well, That's not a bad thing. Well, it is when you look at it versus expectation, the following year. There's been 16 quarterbacks since 2014 with a touchdown rate in their previous season above 7%. Those guys are about underperformed wrong again, huh? - No, spelled expectation wrong. It's all right. We're good. - Look, I've had a rough one the last week. They've underperformed versus expectation by 1.7 points per game. There's only been four of them in the previous season who had less than two points per game via rushing. Because we know Matthew Stafford's not gonna do anything on the ground, right? He had like 0.05 or something points per game rushing. Two of those four played five or more points per game below expected. Now, Stafford's ADP, because the market has gotten smarter, is not as high as it could have been based on what we've seen historically from these types of players. But with that being said, I do think that Stafford's one of the big callets, 'cause in Bestball, it's a little bit different. Like he's not, like I think his ADP's fine enough. Like it's whatever and you're stacking as just a different environment. But I would almost guarantee you that when you do your homelage drafts and your office drafts and stuff like that, this August, Stafford's gonna be a fringe top 10 guy, if not a top 10 guy. And that's when you know that you should probably be avoiding him. All right, next, we have Kyle Pits. So Kyle Pits, I feel like we remember, I mean, I certainly remember him for his playoff performance last year because it got me into the final of the DK final. - There you go. - Right. So Kyle Pits forever in my heart. But we can't deny the Drake London being sidelined was very helpful to Kyle Pits' overall outcome. He had 9.6 PPR points per game before Drake London's injury, which is nothing to write home. You can do that via streaming, right? During that split, 21% target share, good, not fantastic, not like amazing, 19% targets per out run rate, which is, again, just fine. And then from week 12 on, when Drake London was out, Kyle Pits averaged a 27% target share. He had a 24% targets per out run rate and 16.3 PPR points per game. One of those was 45 points, which definitely, excuse us a little bit, but he was way, way better without Drake London than with Drake London. And I think we gotta keep that in mind as we're drafting him this year. All right, on to Kenneth Walker. So Kenneth Walker had a spike two years ago on receiving work. But every other year of his career, he's been sort of a subpar receiver from a volume perspective. Right? And so last year, he had three and a half receiving points per game. And if you look at top 18 running backs historically, who have scored between zero and four PPR points per game in the previous season, four to eight, eight plus, this is in the guide last year, but it's in the guide again this year. The guys who are in the zero to four range have underperformed versus expectation by far at the highest rate. And they also have shown by far the lowest ceiling, only 6% of them have outperformed 80P expectation by four more points per game the following year. Right? The crazy thing is that in the next table that you guys can see here, if you take out Jonathan Taylor and Derek Henry from this data set, which there's six of these instances where those guys have been part of the data set then in the zero to four group, all of a sudden you realize, oh, this is actually just way towards Derek Henry and Jonathan Taylor to the most prolific rushers that we've seen in the NFL in this recent era. Right? So basically Kenneth Walker, in my opinion, I've cooled off on him a little bit over the last month because I do think there's a chance that they use like an Amari Di Mercado and Emma Johnson, a whomever to play a little bit of a receiving role. And there's reason for that because he's gonna get a ton of work on the ground and I just don't know. Like it might be a better thing for real football than it is fantasy football. - You also continue to be cautious with this next player, Michael Wilson. - I don't get it, man. I just, I don't get Michael Wilson. I mean, he could certainly just be incredibly good and just ruin me and make me look like an idiot. But in a split, there's been three games last year with Jacobi Berset and with Marvin Harrison Jr. running at least 80% of the team's routes. In those three games, Michael Wilson average 7.8 PPR points per game. He scored seven, 9.1 and 7.4 PPR points in those three games. He had a 14% target share in those three games. That is not usable fantasy production. It's just that when Marvin Harrison Jr. was sidelined or when he wasn't playing a ton because of the appendicitis stuff and him coming back here that like foot, I think last year, that's when Michael Wilson thrived. So Marvin Harrison Jr. is seemingly back and healthy and that scares me about what we could see with Michael Wilson. The difference between Michael Wilson and Parker Washington in my opinion is that the injury for Marvin Harrison Jr. allowed Michael Wilson to see a lot of volume. But he wasn't that efficient with that volume. Like his yards for our run was 1.59 last year. Parker Washington, when Travis Hunter got hurt, got more opportunity. But I think it showed the jags that he's actually really good because he was incredibly efficient while playing alongside Brian Thomas and Jacobi Myers. And so I think that's the main difference between Parker Washington and Michael Wilson aside from the environment. - He scored a bet. - He's not in the court. - Yeah. - That's the thing with Michael Wilson. Like they could be starting Carson Beck at the end of the year very easily. - It could be an anemic offense potentially at the end of the year. - So I think that this split should make you feel less confident about Michael Wilson next year. - Let's get on to this guy. It makes me a little bit nervous. Javante Williams, a cover boy for today. - Yeah, so Javante Williams, like I'm going through all of the early round stuff for these running max and looking at trends. And there's one trend where he looks okay. And you guys can see that in the draft guide. But a lot of them, 90% of them, it's like, 'cause it's so receiving focused. He just was not a good receiver last year. He had 0.4 yards per out run. 17 running max ranked outside the top 12, but through RB36 had less than a 0.6 yards per out run rate since 2014 with a minimum of 50 routes run. So you're looking at RB13 through 36. There's been 17 guys who had a previous season of the yards per out run below 0.6 with at least 50 routes run. Only one of them outperform expectation by two or more PPR points per game. The average underperform by one and a half PPR points per game. Now, I think that like if we're being completely honest about Javante Williams and you could maybe argue David Montgomery as well with this argument. But if you're being completely objective, people are drafting both of those players simply because they're projected to see a lot of volume. I don't think they're drafting them because they're unbelievable talents at the position. And historically, sometimes that works out, but more often than not, it doesn't work out to the degree in which you wanted to work out. I think that Williams is a safe bet to match ADP. I just don't think he's an easy bet to say he's going to be a top 10 running back in fantasy football. And in that range, there's a lot of good wide receivers. There are some other really good high end running backs to some of the year two guys. And Josh Jacobs now who has fallen. Yeah, right. Josh Jacobs has obviously like that. I've had a harder time clicking Javante Williams because of that. Even though I fully understand, you know, why he's being drafted where he is. And I understand that there is at least a really comfortable floor and drafting Williams. Yeah. I'm just ready for Javante Blu to come in and just a year after we were all in, just ruin all our Javante Williams shares. I think that there's a possibility that like, if you're thinking yourself like, where could this go south for Javante Williams? Like, how could he not, you know, live up to expectation? And the way that he wouldn't is that they have just a guy like Jaden Blue who's able to take on some receiving work and just be like, get enough of that work that it hurts Javante Williams that much. You know, like if Jaden Blue is a 7% target share player, that ruins Javante Williams. Like I said, I just can't wait for it. I probably should just just draft some insurance shares of Jaden Blue just in case he does go off. You're like, okay, we're there. All right, last but not least, Lad Maconkey. So I like Lad Maconkey this year, but going through his numbers last year, looking at trends, all that. It's not the cleanest, like obvious, most obvious pick in the world. You know, there's there's some things, especially his first downspiror run rate, which was only 6.2% last year, that is very alarming. And we're looking at alarming stats on today's show. There's been 28 top 36 wide receivers who had 300 or more routes in their previous season with a sub 7% first downspiror run rate since 2014. They underperform versus expectation on average by 1.6 points per game. No player outperformed by more than 2.2 points per game. I think that was Debo Samuel in a year where he was getting worked on via his legs, right? Like he was getting rushing work done. And so like, it does scare me a little bit about Lad Maconkey about how not great his 2025 was. And I'm trying to ground myself within that context and not get too carried away with where I'm ranking Maconkey here in 2026. Like I think that there's a very real chance by the time August hits that the market is boosting him and boosting him to like, we see this every year with certain players. Like I think it could happen Luther Burton too, which scares me because I really, really love Luther Burton. But you got to stay grounded and not get too carried away with these situations and players. Maconkey was a lot easier to draft when it was like, you know, a lot of people just like not caring about him until like the mid late fourth round. But it's a lot of people who are not really good at it. He's now kind of at the top of that tier and it makes it a little bit more alarming and scarier because of what he did last season. - Okay, does the QJ stuff, it's making me a little bit nervous. - It's making me a little bit nervous too, because I think QJ, here's the thing with QJ. He's not a fantastic all around wide receiver, but when he came out and what he can do in the NFL is yards out for the catch. And I think that they're gonna deploy him in a way where he's gonna be able to maximize that skill set and potentially thrive and like be a really good pick himself. And then Trey Harris is sitting back there. - Yeah. - As a, you know, what if he gets a little bit more work? So like, I don't, like I think the lad Maconkey, the ceiling appeal is certainly there. But I do also think that there's a ceiling appeal for a lot of wide receivers in that range. And the floor is certainly a little bit scary from Maconkey too. - Speaking, just going back to Javante Williams, you just had some breaking news that Zameer White is working out for the Cowboys. - Well, that makes me like Javante Williams even more then. (laughing) Forget everything I just said about Javante Williams. (laughing) If Zameer White is his competition, then we're good to go, baby. - You're back to all in. Keep the chief, made fun of my pronunciation of Jaden Blue, I said J Don. It's one of those things where you have it said the name out loud in a while. - No. - Hey, we'll get it back. We'll get it back. Let's move on though. This is a good segment. You do need to get, you do need to be alarmed at these stats, but that doesn't mean that you're like, not in on some of these players or see like the upside. Like you mentioned with these. - Some of them definitely fading. And or at least like, like, I'm not drafting much Michael Wilson. I'm not drafting a ton of Javante Williams right now, just based on what we just said. Like Michael Williams is more of a fade than like Javante is for me. Like Stafford in a regular season long league, I'm not gonna be going after, I do in stacks, you know, if I get Puka or Javante Adams or something. So like, I would say that the majority of these players are more out than in, but there are some players like Maconky, for instance, where I'm still probably more in and out despite what we saw from his numbers last year. - All right, let's wrap this up. Again, if you haven't already, please subscribe to the late round channel and we value your feedback. So any comments after this video is posted, any comments on Spotify, we appreciate those. Another Banger Newsletter for Branding Kedula and is happening this week. We also have the regular Friday newsletters, more free content than we've ever had before. We got the new memberships on the site. All that, including the draft guide pre-order, which comes out July 10th, all that can be found on lateround.com, our brand new website, JJ. - Yes, check it out, lateround.com, we're proud of it. Still kind of going through some stuff like we said, but expect this schedule and everything to be back to normal like once the draft guide is out. It's just, fortunately, this is all happening when it's not really football season, there's not that much going on. And like I said, there's just been some stuff going on off the field for me that I'm handling there's stuff, you know, the draft guide just a lot of work. So bear with me during the next couple weeks. - You have tons of grace from us and just know that when this thing comes out, people will be appreciative of it and it should be a really good tool for your drafts this year. I appreciate everyone for tuning in. I appreciate draftings for this sponsorship again, promo code lateround. If you wanna do the logo, the draft one, get one promotion there. The link is also in the description. So we appreciate you all, we love you all. And we'll see you next time here on the late round, Fantasy Football Show. Thanks. (upbeat music) - This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. [BLANK_AUDIO]