The Show: Rookies to Target in Redraft, Malik Nabers' Injury, 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 to Late Round Fantasy Football Show sponsored by Draft Kings. David Kitchen here alongside JJ Zacharyson. JJ, how are you? I'm kind of everywhere. I had a little camera trouble before we hopped on. Then I realized I had to go to the bathroom real quick so that you guys didn't get a hurried version of me throughout the show. Now I realize I've got to turn my fan on so it's going to be sweating by the end of this. But fortunately it's not too hot. Hey, go turn it on. Go turn it on and I'll give some problems. The last time I got, look, the last time midstream that I got up to do something was last summer on a baseball stream. Do you remember this? I got up. I remember, yeah. Blow my nose. Okay. I didn't know that people could hear it. And then I sounded like an elephant. It was a trumpet. It was my bathroom. Yeah. Because my bathroom was right behind this wall. I have like a bathroom in my office. And I came back. But I also, when I got up, I was wearing like bright red shorts. And so everyone just made fun of that too. So you know what? I'm not going to be working on this thing. He's not wearing pants. So you know what? Okay, look, I'm going to do it. You carry this for a second. Yeah. That's a benefit of doing it. I've catch this show live is that you never know what's going to happen. I do want to say big news. Because like JJ's room, you know, we've got some big fans out there. And you can come to late round.com to get a whole new experience. You know, we rolled this out last week a week ago. And things are going well. Lots of lots of good stuff. Lots of good feedback. We're still continuing to make some changes. I'm still doing customer service. You know, customer support. Emails. I still, I think I have like 20 emails that I still have to get to. I will get to them today. I promise. I promise. So JJ, how are you feeling about the new site? I love the new site. You know, I know that you're working your butt off right now with all the, the migration and the changes that are going on. It's just the nature of, you know, we knew this going in that there's going to be a lot of stuff. Yeah. That we're happening from a customer service standpoint. I'm excited because, you know, the, episode that I did yesterday on market score is something that I think is a really good like taste of what we're trying to do more with the site. Yeah. I can't promise how it's going to be displayed or what it's going to look like exactly. But the plan in general is for some of these metrics to be able to be seen in the members hub. Right. Yeah. So this is not like, like I said last week, this is not a situation where we're trying to become a data provider or we're trying to chart things or do anything like that. That's not the case at all. But what we are trying to do is give you guys some proprietary metrics that we think can help with your fantasy drafts with your in season stuff. All that, all that good stuff in, in branding, a duel is working diligently on some of these as well. So I'm very excited about what's to come. Like I said last week, I won't talk about it for 12 minutes because there were some people who. Yeah. Do you want to just real briefly talk about market score? Why you wait? Someone miss the episode on Tuesday. Yeah. I mean, look, so so market score is something that I've kind of had in my mind for some time now. I kind of alluded to that on the episode, but essentially, you know, I've been doing zap scores for a while now where if you really think about it, zap score is taking draft capital out of baseline and telling you kind of when to pivot off of draft, off of draft capital. Now you get a score for a player that's zero that's scaled from zero to 100, but there, you know, there is something like draft capital delta, for instance, which, you know, looks at a player's overall score. It looks at his draft capital and says, oh, the model likes this guy more or less than what draft capital is saying the difference with draft capital and what's. So basically I said to myself, let's try to do this same thing, but instead of draft capital, we're looking at average draft position, right? For season long leagues. Now, I think the difference between average draft position and draft capital is that average draft position is just for that one singular season. You know, it's more intuitive to say, I know how many, you know, to understand expected fantasy points based on that. ADP versus expected fantasy points based on that draft capital because draft capital, since we're using it for dynasty is for, you know, three years for five. You're like, how are we measuring what that draft capital expectation would be? Whereas with ADP, you can easily do some regression analysis and find what you would expect a player to score at a certain overall ADP. Right. And so the idea with market scores is to say, okay, this wide receiver is drafted 50th overall historically. That's let's say I don't have the number in front of me, but historically based on the what what we've seen from 2014 onward, that would provide typically 13 ppr points per game. But based on all these inputs, his market score might be plus one, which means yes, hypothetically, he would be projected to score 14 ppr points per game. But I don't want this to be a projections model from that perspective. Like I don't want people to walk away from market score and say, this is what JJ's projecting this player because projections are a different methodology is a different approach. This is saying that based on these inputs that we've tested. This is how many points above or below that 13 mark, we would expect that player to score. So a player, you know, I use the CD lamb George Pickens example, you know, on the show, it's not to say that I'm going to love the players that market score loves or what have you. It's just a tool for us to get to a better conclusion and to be a little bit more accurate. But you know, market score really does not like CD lamb right now and it really likes George Pickens, which I think intuitively makes a lot of sense. There's a discussion about this on discord earlier this week. I guess yesterday and the discussion was basically like, why does market score like George Pickens and why does it not like CD lamb? Well, it's using previous season numbers and we tested seasons before previous season and previous season numbers got by far the most signal. And so that's why they're going to get more weight. And if you look at George Pickens 2025 and CD lamb's 2025 and then you look at the discrepancy and draft capital right now in 80 p, I understand why CD lamb is going well ahead of George Pickens because we as fantasy managers intuitively know that that CD lamb has had this backbone and we feel more comfortable with them. And there's that side of things and George Pickens might hold out like there's a lot of stuff going on that makes sense as to why there is that gap in 80 p between the two players. But if you really like look at what they did last season, it's it's not surprising that market score says CD lamb and George Pickens should be closer together than than what their 80 p suggests right now where it likes George Pickens, it doesn't like CD lamb and that's that's the main reasons because it's looking at previous season numbers. But again, I layer on my own analysis, I'm just using this as like a baseline and to me it's similar to Zap scores from the perspective of like, I mean, I'm probably tied to Zap scores even more than I would be this, but it's similar in that it's something that keeps me grounded, you know, if there's a player that market scores like stay far away from this guy, but I like him in some way, I might still like him, but I'm probably going to like him less, you know, I think that that's a rational thing to do when you know that you have a process oriented. Metric that's going to capture things that you know, you might not be capturing and so that that's what metrics are for you know, that's what analytics are for there there to help us make better decisions and in the draft guide this year market scores going to be featured pretty heavily where I'm doing a lot of the analysis that I did on that show very briefly on that show, but I'm talking more like, you know, the stuff where I said, you know, if a quarterback had a score of minus 0.5 or worse than this was his hit rate, but if it's one or better than it's similar to other. Stuff that you've seen in the draft got before with other metrics, but it's specifically with market score so market score is going to have a section in the draft guide for every position for quarterback running back wide receiver tight end and then in that I can say here are your red flag players with market score and here are your green flag ones and then the one thing out the last thing want to say about market score is you know I mentioned that ADP is dynamic so market scores will and like they will they will change throughout the summer because ADP changes right. The one thing that you know I've gotten some feedback where people are like well you could do this you could do this. Yeah what what the plan is is to say what break even market score would be right where where it does market score say this player should generally be drafted at right and then from there because every draft is going to be so different. You can say oh I'm getting this you know the market score says it is a decent pick at 30th overall is a break even I'm going to get him at 35th overall so then therefore he but you know and then I'll show is ADP as well what the market score is based off of so if the if the market score is based off of an ADP of 40 and then his break even ADP is 30 and you're looking at him at 38. Then you can say, yeah, market score would think that this guy still a value because he's still, yes, his ADP is a little bit higher, but he could go even higher than that before we start to get into red flag territory. Right. So that's sort of the way that I'm thinking about this right now. There's a lot more to come. You know, there's a lot more like we're still testing some stuff with market score. You know, I had a meeting with Brandon yesterday and and Gidula is doing some testing with some metrics. You know, that we want to add in layer on top of what we've already done. So it's still a work in progress to a degree, but we're going to finish that up here very, very soon for at least this season. And I think it's just going to become another one of those things that I'm iterating each year similar to to Zap score. Very nice. I like how we say we weren't going to do 12 minutes promotion. And now we are up to 11 minutes. But this is football talk. Okay. The other thing they were mad, they were mad because we were talking about the website for 10 minutes, which is obviously just brand related. This at least is going to help you guys when you're, I mean, technically around.com should be helping you guys. I'm teasing. It's what I do. The girls maybe watching episode of blue last night was that's about teasing when the dad teases. And I dad, this is you. This is so. So that's what I do at I tease. I never speaking of teas. We have the pre drafts or the pre order for the draft guy to be able on the site. And then we'd like to shout out to our sponsor this year. Draft Kings running it back for the second year in a row. They've got draft one get one. So use promo code late round or use the link in the description for the best ball millionaire maker. Three millionaires this year. It's going to be huge. If you haven't already after this episode, go back and listen to the first episode of becoming a best ball bro that was released this morning. And again, shout out to our sponsor, draft Kings. We'll be doing more live streams as the season progresses as well. It's super excited about that. They have a best ball week promotion, where every week they have promotion on draft Kings. So good stuff there, JJ. With that being said, we do have some stuff to talk about. We actually have news to talk about. And that's coming up next on today's news today's fantasy news. Brace yourself, JJ. AJ Brown reportedly traded to the past. I think it's soccer. I didn't I just didn't see it coming. I'm just crazy. I'm just crazy. I'll talk that this that this went down. The craziest thing is that people knew this was happening. Like everyone knew this was happening. And yet as soon as it happens, he magically starts just racing up best ball draft boards. That's what I'm most. I'm really so like I was talking about the NFL 10 of death last week. And I drafted Devante Smith over AJ Brown mostly because I it's a league where I just want to make a stand and just say like I like to Montaix Smith, you know, whatever. Something. Yeah. Um, but I I will say immediately when I saw the market reaction to AJ Brown, I regretted making the talk to Smith. I wasn't I wasn't taking Smith over AJ Brown in my like, you know, mille drafts or anything like that. And I, you know, if you guys look at my rankings over on latrown.com, uh, AJ Brown is a tear ahead of Devante Smith. But it is shocking how this always happens. And this is exactly why in my opinion, the Brandon I yukes, the Stefan Diggs, especially Diggs, the, uh, you know, the K. Sean booty, even to a degree, I think those players are good best ball clicks right now because we're probably going to see some CLV based on them. Probably moving teams or you know, shifting, at least like at the very least Stefan Diggs, you know, Diggs is like a 12/13th rounder and, you know, he's more than likely going to see a boost no matter where he ends up going. Um, but yeah, AJ Brown to the Patriots is, you know, I, I, I mentioned this on a, on mailbag episode a handful of weeks ago, a couple months ago, and someone asked about AJ Brown. He had it down year, but it's pretty crazy when you look at his per out run numbers. How this is the first year that he was below it too. And, and yards per out run, which yards per out run, if you're over two, you're in like 80 plus percentile territory, if not higher. I don't know the exact percentile. That's usually like a baseline where we're like, this is the elite players. They usually get to that mark. And he was barely below it. I think it was at like 1.94 or something, or in a PFFs data. And, uh, but it was a down year form, right? Like even in, in expected fantasy points per game versus versus what he actually scored, he was like less than a point from expectation last year. Like he, he didn't have that, that bad of a year. Now, if you want to make the argument that you don't want to invest in what a 29 year old wide receiver who, uh, you know, has had some off the field stuff, you know, to at least get to this point, you know, I, I think that that AJ Brown's a little bit misunderstood probably, but, um, you know, to get to this point and that, you know, there's rumors that the Rams were in on him, but they didn't want him because of medicals, I saw. Uh, you know, if you want to fade from the demographic perspective of AJ Brown, that's fine. I'm, I'm kind of, I would be nervous to do that full, full blown, you know, with, with him going to a Patriot team that should put up a lot of passing yards, you know, from a projection standpoint, they're going to comfortably be top 10 in projected passing yards. You know, it's a totally different environment from what he's been used to with Jalen Hertz. Um, and while Drake may has historically kind of spread things around, you know, I don't think that he's number one in the NFL had a player like this, but also, um, you know, I, I think that if you make the move like this as New England, you know, you're making him the focal point of your offense. So I understand why he's risen in ADP. I kind of regret the way that I've approached AJ Brown this off season because, uh, I wasn't quite bullish enough on him. You know, I think I'm at like nine or 10% or something like that in Bestball. Uh, and now, you know, I've seen some people say that they would take him over like Drake London. I'm not there. You know, and so if that, if he keeps creeping up, that's, that's the fear. I think that he probably belongs in that like Nico range, you know, like I think Nico's at the top of that tier and AJ Brown closer to the bottom of the tier. But I really like Nico too. You know, like that's part of the, like I think he's just an undervalued player in general. So, uh, you know, good move all around for fantasy, Devante Smith gets a nice bump. He's had some pretty good splits when one of Goddard or AJ Brown, I've been out. Um, I'm still relatively bullish on, on Sean Manion being the offensive coordinator in Philadelphia. And, you know, I think that we're still downplaying how bad Kevin Petoulo was for them last year. So I, I still like Devante Smith a whole lot. Uh, I think that he's, you know, should be going in early round three, uh, if AJ Brown's like late round two, something like that. Uh, so, so yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a big one for fantasy football, I think in general. Drake Meg gets a boost, you know, maybe a little bit of a doc on Jalen Hertz, but Jalen Hertz has been going later anyway. Like that's the weird thing is that I don't think Jalen Hertz is ADP is going to change based on this, but in bestball, but AJ Brown's is, right? Yeah. So the market was factoring this in for Jalen Hertz to a degree, but it was in with a, some degree, uh, he has fallen because like the Jalen Hertz, the Jalen Hertz ADP makes no sense to me. Well, and he apparently threw, you know, interception first pass, you know, and so, but our ranks are best ball ranks that available on late round. I've been them imported past two drafts. He has been falling relatively to, so I have to see where the ADP is at the top of, he's at the top of the list for you. He's at the top of the list. Yeah, when it comes to, but again, I mean, he's like in the mid 70s. It's a, it's a really good click. Hopefully we'll talk about, um, a Kylin in a second. I want to, I want to address something really quick going back to market score, totally switching topics because someone, yeah, someone mentioned this in the comments. This is an interactive show. Yeah. Um, Tray says interesting to think about how we assess market score after the fact when thinking about late round picks where losses or small wins don't count for much, but big wins matter a lot. I do want to say with market score, I don't think we're going to publish scores for guys past like round 10 for this very reason, right? We are not attempting to look at floor outcomes at all for it. Obviously, this is a, an expectation type metric, right? And it's more of a projection type metric. So I'm really looking, and with this metric, I'm looking at the extremes. Like I'm really going to try to see like who it really hates or who it really loves. And, you know, based on that analysis, you can really find some, some gem similar to what you guys have seen in the draft guide in the past, with like really, really bad middle round running back yards for our run stuff like that, right? Um, and so, and yes, it's going to capture some of those metrics too within market score. But when it comes to late round picks, I don't think that we're going to be publishing those, uh, because there's just so much volatility, like even middle round picks, you could argue is too much volatility for something like this. Whereas the early round ones are definitely where, you know, you can just because there's, like you look at ADP versus actual result and the correlation in the middle rounds, uh, each year, it's not very strong. Like it's, it's not very good at each position. But once you get into the early rounds, it's, it's fairly strong. Um, so it doesn't mean that ADP is worthless. It's a very usable tool, especially when looking at, you know, how to, how to extract as much value as possible in your draft. But, uh, with late round picks with, with market score, they're, they're probably, it's probably not a metric for those guys. It's, it's not a metric that we should be that concerned about. All right. Um, let's talk about it's really the big story. And that's some elite neighbors, Balky knee. I don't know if Balky is a big story. I see, you don't have, I don't, I don't think there's even a, uh, Miles Garrett thing on here. I didn't know if we wanted to, is it fantasy relevant? I mean, I guess for Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson may be, it's a big but. Here's the miles Garrett trade might be the biggest is it the biggest trade? Well, it's one of the biggest trades in NFL history. Okay, but it's a defensive player. I mean, I love that. I mean, I like you're going back to your IDP routes. Uh, I mean, I'm not going to analyze it from like an IDP perspective, but I do think from a real football perspective, I think it's a win-win. I'll just real quick. Yeah, I think it's a win-win for both teams. I see the logic for both teams. And I want to say this two things. Number one, the way this trade was formulated, I think is the way that dynasty managers can think about any of their trades for a big name player, right? If you're going after a Josh Allen and Super Flex or whatever the case may be, try to get a tear down or two in return of a proven asset while also getting that draft capital instead of only getting that draft capital. So I that's why I think them getting verse is interested. Now, he's not in the same universe as Miles Garrett, because no one is, but he's a very young productive, you know, pro bowl caliber, you know, all pro potentially caliber player that, you know, it is certainly a good return as an asset. And then obviously they get the picks on top of that. So that's the first thing. Think about that with your dynasty. I almost said it's a great dynasty trade. Like, yeah, it is. It is. The second thing I want to say is I've seen a lot of talk about the Thai Simpson pick. And people have said, this makes the Thai Simpson pick look worse after the fact to me, it makes the Thai Simpson pick look better because they knew or they, you know, they know at least now, or maybe they had this idea who knows what they knew then, but they don't, they don't, they don't need the capital in next year's draft to get a quarterback because they got their quarterback this year and they were in a position to get a quarterback this year. No, say what you want about them reaching for Thai Simpson, whatever, you know, I get all that. But if their evaluation said this guy is really good and we can get him now, while also at that point, not having that contract with Stafford, and maybe not knowing as much about what's going on with Stafford, to me, it makes more sense that they would be doing this because of that Thai Simpson pick, as opposed to, oh, they could have had someone in win-now mode right now and blah, blah, blah. Like, I think that they're doing the right thing to win now. And also win in the future. Yeah, doing the old Patriots saying having their cake and eat it too. Yeah. Okay. Can we get to Malik Nehru's now? Yeah, let's talk about Malik Nehru's. His leg does not, his knee does not look good. There's the big thing was hit was at a charity softball tournament. Yeah, when I saw that, like, man, he just does not look comfortable on that knee. I haven't touched him. Yeah, the pivot. Yeah. Because you were drafted him a little bit before. Yeah, Malik Nehru's. Yeah, he's fallen into the second round, beginning of the third, and now it's like, no, he just can't. I'm not going to catch that falling knife now. I'm sometimes, I just don't think it's worth it. I get the logic of, you could easily get a value here. And same thing with Rishi Rice to a degree. You can get this value, but there's so much up in the air that, that I just don't see it as necessary because the, like, even if you get 80 to 90% of that player with another player, right? Like, you're getting, you know, Devante Smith instead of Malik neighbors, let's say that 80 to 90% in the right, like, you can number one, still advance very easily in basketball. Right. So, you know, if you're getting 80 to 90% of that, like, peak production from the other guys, but then on top of that, in the bestball playoffs, you know, there's a bunch of variants where one guy can outscore the other one pretty easily. So why are we forcing this issue when there's already this known problem, you know, with, with that player? So, I, you know, the opportunity, I don't know where it would need to, he would need to fall for me to, like, want to make the click. That's a, that's a question that I probably would need to, like, sit down for an hour and, like, think about it while I'm, you know, zoned out and just like, only focused on that one question. But I, I think the answer is just like, generally speaking, I'm not going to be drafting a player like neighbors right now. And look, if I'm, if I don't get that value, you know, that it's CLV from him, you know, as this, as the season, as the summer ends, I don't think it's the end of the world because there are other good players that are being drafted around them. Yeah. I don't know if this is smoke or not, but the giants, the giant unks, they have signed now, but they'll back them. They've signed jujusmiths, justers, shoe, and Braxton burials. Yeah. I made the joke that, uh, in chat and discord, uh, that Malachi field, they see a week of Malachi fields and are already going out and, right, and, uh, signing other veterans because the model didn't love Malachi fields. But all jokes aside, it's clearly, uh, you know, to me, they need a little bit more depth. They need something that veteran presence. If Malik neighbors isn't going to be ready to start the season, uh, you know, should they have gone after OBJ? I mean, OBJ has the Harbaugh connection a little bit. You know, he coached him for a minute there in Baltimore. Um, and then obviously there's the giants connection with OBJ. Uh, you know, jujusmiths, juster played in the same division as Harbaugh. Like there, there's always those connections when teams make, make moves, uh, and to, like, head coaches and staffs and stuff like that. I don't know. We'll see what ends up happening. I'm not really that, uh, that into, I mean, I wouldn't be drafting either of those guys from a best ball standpoint. I still, I will say I've been drafting a decent amount of Darnell Mooney just because I, I'm, I think I'm a mooney truther, uh, based on last season and the way that, uh, some people were coming after me as, like, recommending him as a, as an ad over and over again throughout the season. It was an L. I was wrong. I do think that like he fits a, a, a mold here that, that the giants could at least give like a 15, 17% target share or something at least early on in the season. Okay. We're going to switch to, uh, brand iuk not being subtle. This is, look at these visuals that you're bringing up in his, his Instagram account. I want you to see who he's following. The biggest brand, which is his own brand, Adidas, his wife. And then the only other two accounts he's following, the Washington commanders and Jadon Daniels. I mean, he's, he's, he's just putting it out there in the universe, man. I mean, it's, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I think that, that it could very easily happen. You know, they've, they've already gone, you know, there's like Rashad White who they, they signed, you know, if they, if they get iuk, uh, they could have this little little airs on a state reunion going on. Yeah. And, uh, and Washington. Uh, I, you know, we've talked about this. I think iuk would fit really well. I think booty is someone that could fit well there too. If they wanted down, you know, not go to like that extent, but I would imagine if they think they can control what's going on with Brandon, Iuk and bring that in a little bit. I mean, Iuk's a great wide receiver when he's healthy and, and, and, and, and active. Um, so he would work really well in tandem with, with Terry McGloran for sure. I just, you just never know. It's a volatile situation right now. All right, you mentioned trade and this guy is a trade candidate. This could be fun. Come on about L potentially a trade candidate. I didn't look into that report. Uh, was it a beat writer? Do you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like in situations like that, it's often like, oh, they signed another part. This makes sense. Yeah. Like, this is a, this is a logical thing to do based on what he did last year. Okay. I mean, I think that's a good thing to do. I think that's a good thing to do. The chargers would not be willing to do that as much as what a fan or a beat writer might think. Because Amari and Hampton already was banged up last year. I mean, he's going to carry a big workload this year for sure. But he was already banged up last year. Keith Mitchell is not a big dude. Like, I've been drafting a ton of Keith Mitchell. I called him out on becoming a basketball bro is one of the guys that I have a lot of exposure to. I'm going to be a big guy. last four years. And when that's the case, wide receivers tend to get more hyper targeted in those scenarios because they're competing for targets with other tight ends or, you know, non wide receivers. And that just boosts their overall efficiency and effectiveness. It's part of the reason, you know, Drake London's a very, very good player. But I use this example all the time when he played with Arthur Smith, a heavy personnel, you know, coordinator. He was seeing really great yards per out run numbers immediately in his NFL career because he was the only viable wide receiver oftentimes that was on the field for Atlanta, right? And so you can look at it at a high level for sure. And say, oh, by the way, this is DAV for Devante. Adam. So I'm going to fix that one real quick. There's the Adams to Vante Parker. And I know there's a lot. That was that was the Devante Parker spell. Yeah. Almost capitalized the B that there's another one. Yeah. But yeah, like like this right here, you could say they're going to play the roles, you know, like you're going to have Marvin Harrison Jr. be the X. Okay. That's what the Vante Adams plays. You're going to have Wilson be sort of that move piece and be the Z with what which is what Puka has done. But Puka, Nuku is a special talent. Devante Adams is a special talent. Marvin Harrison Jr. is not proven that yet. And Michael Wilson definitely hasn't proven that yet. You know, despite what people think in the fantasy space because he got a lot of volume last year. You know, we haven't seen that from these wide receivers. And then you don't have Sean McVeigh and you don't have Matthew Stafford. You know, it's like we can't just make this a one to one thing that if Michael Wilson's playing the Puka role, that's going to make him more valuable in fantasy football because he's playing this role that that player was really valuable. And guess what, guys, Puka, Nuku is one of the best wide receivers that we've seen in the last two decades. You know, you can't just assume that Michael Wilson is going to be able to do that. I think Michael Wilson is a good player. I think Marvin Harrison Jr. has a lot of upside. But I would not use Puka Nuku and Devonte Adams to justify my stance with those players. Okay. We get more of this Chris Rodriguez smoke with this injury. There is a guy, E_Dilla, who is a big Jags beat. And someone asked about trades and he said the only trade I could see, I mean, the only move I could potentially see coming is for running back since Rodriguez foot is messed up. Yeah. We haven't really seen too much about we've had, you know, go and talk about just wait for the injury report to type deal, but we don't know what's going on there. And excuse me, if I'm a little hesitant to draft a running back with foot issues after the whole mix and the buckle. As I've been saying for the last year, kitchen, all roads lead to Bay Shaltuiden. Yeah. No, I mean, look, it's a, we're looking down. I could see, I could see them trading for like an Alvin Camaro. Like I think that's, that's in the range here. The problem though is that I think they really like the three that they have went healthy. Like the, the Tutan Chris Rodriguez, LaQuin Allen trio. This to me helps Tutan tremendously. Like more than LaQuin Allen, I talked about LaQuin Allen on the mailbag last week, you know, mentioning how he just hasn't been a, you know, he was not used as an early young guy at all last year. And that's why the upside isn't the same as a player like Tutan. I like the Quin Allen. Does that model love the Quin Allen? It's just also like Bay Shaltuiden a good bit. So yeah, this is, this is something that we have to monitor for sure. You don't like these random injuries that are kind of vague. And we don't know a ton about this time of year. Definitely got to monitor it. And hopefully it doesn't change, you know, Bay Shaltuiden's ADP. And then I would probably at this point be pushing Chris Rodriguez down at least a couple rounds, you know, if you're, if you're doing basketball drafts right now, he's already not, you know, he's not the most sealing player that you're going to draft. So okay, we've got to move on. I just want to note that McCye, Lemon already being held out with the hamstring injury appears to be okay. Pickens hasn't reported yet to pickens might be this might be a up to the season type situation with Pickens. Then I'm a little bit nervous about that. That's the kind of stuff that market scores is not going to be able to capture. So actually mention that in the chat that there is no, you know, there is no like Pickens column for right, right. And then Drake London got the bag. Good for Drake London. He's a, he's a late round guy, you know, in terms of, of, I feel like I've touted him basically every year that he's been in the league. So good for Drake London. I'm proud of him. He was a good prospect and he's been, he's been pretty dominant in the NFL today's data. Got some quarterback hit rates by previous season rushing points per game. Yeah, this is something that I had in the draft guy last year, but I've kind of refreshed the numbers. And I'm looking at it a little bit differently. And I think it's just such a glaring and insane. Not like they're just, it's just such a, a crazy way to look at this and to like wrap your head around this that I wanted to share. Okay. So what this table showing is points per game threshold. So 18 19, 20, 21 and 22. And then it shows how frequently these two different buckets were able to hit those points per game thresholds. Right. So the one bucket is QB 1 to 6 by ADP when their previous season rushing points per game was two or fewer. Okay. These are pocket passer quarterbacks who are drafted QB 1 to 6. I'm not looking at this versus ADP expectation. I'm looking at this as purely how well they performed regardless of cost. Okay. Now you look at QB 7 to QB 18 by ADP. Okay. So these guys are going getting drafted in the double digit rounds often. You know, some of them in the in the single digit rounds. So these are QB 7 to QB 18 since 2014 with four or more rushing points per game in the previous season. So one bucket is top six quarterbacks by ADP with less than two rushing points per game in the previous season. The second bucket is QB 7 to QB 18 with four or more rushing points per game in the previous season. The players who were drafted later tremendously later have higher ceilings. They hit 21, 22 points per game at a higher rate than the QB 1 to QB 6 pocket passers. Right. And then if you look at 18 to 20, the numbers really aren't that far off. I mean, it's a very similar looking profile. So what this says is essentially if you're looking at a QB 2 high end QB 2 in that range who has mobility who in the previous season proved to hit that like four plus point per game mark with his legs. He is a better bet or just as good of a bet, I should say, as the quarterback who didn't do that who was not mobile the previous season, but is being drafted in the top six. Now obviously quarterbacks were drafted in the top six these days. The market's getting smarter. There's not as many, you know, I guarantee you in 2018, Matthew Stafford this year would have been like a what have been like the QB 5 right by ADP, but you know, he's more like the QB 13 to 15 or something like that. And so the market is getting smarter. But if you run into these situations, you know, we've run into it before CJ Stroud had a really high ADP, you know, a couple of years ago. I think Joe Burrow consistently is a little bit like just a little bit too high from an ADP perspective. It's different in best ball with Burrow because you're stacking and stuff like that. But he's fallen like 17 spots since last year, too. Right. Right. So like I think people were catching onto that as well. But again, if you're in a, you know, home league where people are going to undoubtedly reach for Matthew Stafford, I think Stafford is this year's like Baker Mayfield for me, Jared Goff for me, you know, where last year those guys were just screaming regression candidates and, you know, Goff lost two points per game year over year more than two. Baker Mayfield, you know, you could say it was the injury, but he was never going to sustain what he did the year before that. And he certainly didn't. And Joe Burrow even, like Burrow was another regression candidate. And while his touchdown rate didn't really regress, he did see fewer points per game. Now he got hurt, obviously. So it was all kind of a weird season for him. But I do think that he would be like one of the call outs, you know, in this group. And I'm honestly, pardon me, it's still worried a little bit about Drake May, but he has more rushing to his profile than a lot of these guys do. So you don't have to be that that concerned. But it's still interesting nonetheless, even if it doesn't apply as heavily to this 2026 season. The late round main event. All right, rookies to target and redraft. That's the, uh, meet and potatoes of this and starting with Jordan Tyson. Yeah. Jordan Tyson, shocker, you know, highest zapscore a wide receiver this year for me. Uh, I think that he's a very good player. Uh, the, the injury concerns are certainly there. So we have to be a little bit worried. But, there have been 10 wide receivers drafted in rounds five to 10 as rookies with zapscores above 90. That's the news app, you know, the, the new iteration of the zap model with the, the scaling of the scores six of those 10 outperformed ADP expectation. Okay. That's good. And like it, at least, is better than average four of them outperform ADP expectation by three or more PPR points per game, which is insane. That a 40% rate of doing that is pretty crazy. Uh, the average wide receiver in that group outperformed expectation by two PPR points per game. So based on where he's going right now, his market score is very strong for what it's worth. Um, I think he's a really good pick. You'd have fast paced. Kellen Moore offense, the only wide receiver in his way is Chris Alave. And I think, like I've been saying, I think he works well with Alave. Alave is good against man. I think we're going to see a little bit deeper route tree from Alave this year while Tyson is able to kind of kind of work the shorter and intermediate areas, which could end up being like a PPR scam. We'll see what happens. But I think that's in his range of outcomes and that seems offense. Slance Thomas the point 2.0. Yeah, we'll see. All right. Last week we had Pollard fall on the avoids list made up for it because Nick Singleton is the next rookie target and redraftly. I really feel like I'm on an island with Tony Pollard, by the way, because I've seen a lot of analysts say that he's got like league winning upside and et cetera, et cetera. And like I, I just want to told you last week it made me nervous. But I also respect that you're putting it out there because you want to target those type of guys. It's just not from a process standpoint. I don't think he's that great of a pick. Like I don't think and I have a feeling that his ADP is going to steam up as we get more and more reports of like him being the clear lead in that backfield. You know, like really the Titans offense like being good. I mean, it's going to it's going to make Tony Pollard fall more in that like Travion, Bay Shaltouton range than he is right now. That's that's what my fear is with Pollard. But and right now I don't think it's like, you know, it's whatever. I'm not necessarily going to have to Pollard that much, but I don't think it's like that big of a deal and best ball. But I'm just worried about what it could look like in season long later this summer. I do like Nick Singleton though. Like he's he's he's third on that depth chart. You know, you have spears in Pollard ahead of him. But Pollard, like we said last week, poor previous season yards for our run. He was below average and yards over expected per rush. He's 29 years old. Taj A spears can't stay healthy. He's not doing much on early downs. And then you have Brian Dable as offensive coordinator. You know, you could say what you want about Nick Singleton being a day three pick. But Brian Dable the last two years Tyrone Tracy and Cam Skataboo. He's used two day three running backs as, you know, not necessarily like, you know, Tracy wasn't like an insane bell cow. But you're seeing a lot of work like he gave him a shot like a, you know, there were some injuries that allowed some of the stuff to happen. But I do think that they're going to have an open mind about Nick Singleton. Like if he's if he's got it, right? Then they'll then they'll end up using him. I thought Singleton was a good prospect. He had a low risk draft capital delta, which means the model liked him a lot more than where he was actually drafted. He had a really strong receiving profile at a good size. And with athleticism, I do think that there is an out here where he's like CJ pro size or like, you know, maybe a little bit more favorably tevon Coleman, like that kind of player where the athleticism is crazy. And the past catching chops seem to be there. But it just never clicks for that player. You know, like the the game isn't as natural for those guys as it is for some other guys that have, you know, lower numbers that worse receiving work or, you know, aren't as athletic. But I'm going to chase the upside with a player like Singleton. I just think that he's a like he had good age adjusted production throughout college, shared a backfill with another day three pick in K. Tron Allen. I'm intrigued by what Nick Singleton might be able to do as early as year one in this Titans offense. Yeah, I love Taj A spears, but keep in mind the guy does not have an ACL in one of his knees. He's been hurt a lot. Yeah. So all right. So now on to Antonio Williams. Yeah, I mean, like obviously Brandon I you or someone else could go to Washington and kind of hurt Antonio Williams. But I think at the very least like if you're getting him, you know, in around 15, around 16 to best ball or last round of a season long league, you know, like a regular home league, whatever. It's not a situation where like he's going to be a zero for you. And we're only drafting best ball at this point in the season. So, you know, I don't think that even if they get someone that Antonio Williams will all of a sudden be a zero, right? It wasn't an incredible prospect, but remember earlier this off season when we did the rookie stuff and looked at rookie best ball ADP. He was the one that was most different from ADP to my rankings at that point in time because the market didn't realize he was going to be a day to pick in my opinion. I think that's that was the reason for that. But he's also like not a bad prospect. He was, you know, his top comp was Lad McHonkey in the in the Zat model. You know, the production was good from an age adjusted perspective. It just never like really peaked, but he was using a lot of different ways. He's really versatile. And they're already talking about him being both, you know, the slot and the Z, you know, in that in that offense. And, you know, I'm I am a fan of maybe it's a maybe it's a Josh Johnson bias after talking to him about this about the coordinator stuff. But I'm I'm like liking what I'm hearing about from David Blow about how they're going to be under center more, you know, more play action, more movement at the line, just the stuff that we know works like just the basic stuff that we wish other coordinators would just do because we know that it's effective. And so I, you know, this, this team in general doesn't have a lot of solid solidified players and playmakers other than Terry McClurren, which is why I like McClurren a lot. Part of the reason. I think Antonio Williams could surprise and be like a decent PPR option. And so I like him and you know, where he's he's going right now. I'm sure if you're using the late round rankings for best ball, then you're getting a decent amount of him in your drafts right now. Yeah. All right. The Eagles get rid of AJ Brown. And so you have Mikhail Liman on this list. Yeah. I'm not there. There are some people out there who are like obsessed with Mikhail Liman like that. He's the clear wide receiver one in this class. I'm not there. I think I think Tyson and Tate are better than Mikhail Liman, but I like Liman. I think that he's a really good prospect. I don't think the Eagles draft him in round one and where they drafted him, you know, to just throw him in the slot when they knew they were getting rid of AJ Brown. It just that just doesn't make that much sense to me. And they're a smarter organization. But AJ Brown leaves behind a 29.5% target share. You know, you have an improved offense without Kevin Pettulo, hopefully. So I think lemon has a legit shot to be the number two target getter. And then there's injury upside. If something happens, you know, Goddard or Devante Smith or whomever, it might be a little bit of a slow play, you know, likely he might might not get that much work to start the year, especially if this injury lingers to some degree. But I could see him being one of those like second half crazy breakout type wide receivers, rookie wide receivers. I don't know if you've seen some of the highlights coming out of Nashville. The car now. You've been filming it. You've been going, oh man, not filming it, but I've been consuming it. The one handed catch down the sideline and slow mo was a thing of beauty. But car now takes next on this list. Yeah. So he didn't quite get to that 90s app score. He was just on the cusp, but he was, you know, he was essentially like right there. So you can use some of the same, you know, logic with Jordan Tyson that I used earlier to apply to car now. I think the biggest question with Tate has been, is he going to be a high volume getter in the NFL because he wasn't necessarily that in college. But there's a lack of competition there. Wanda Robinson, I think, is a fine click in a good player. I've always had a soft spot for Wanda. But he's not like a massively high ceiling player more than likely. And so it's really that's his biggest competition there. You have question marks elsewhere. Calvin Ridley hasn't been himself for, you know, for X amount of years. You know, Gunner Helm, who knows what's going to happen with him at Titan. I think he's a good like guard throw, but there's still a lot of question marks there. And there's a lot of question marks with Cam Ward, you know. So I think car now take and be the wide receiver one and the biggest target getter in this offense this year. So that's great. Market score is also very high on him. There's been 17 rookie wide receivers with positive market scores in the top 100 since 2014. So top 100 by ADP. The average wide receiver in that group outperformed expectation by two people. And point one points per game. So you're looking at a player who market score is into and again, market score for rookies is driven largely by what the Zat model is saying and stuff. But and there's like competition stuff that's that's factored into that. But he is firmly in that range in that area where we have seen other rookie wide receivers hit in a pretty big way at that ADP. If he gets into like round four, no, you don't want to be doing that. But I think he's like, I think people are going to be scared off of rookies a little bit more this year, especially in homeligs inside. We're already seeing it. I mean, there's a legendary upside article or email that I saw this morning talking about where rookies have gone in the past compared like with their where they were drafted and where they've been going in the past, especially in bestball leagues to where this rookie class is going now. Yeah, I would look at image J a couple years ago. And yeah, I mean, I would be interested to see to like overlay Zat score on top of that to see because obviously this class is a little bit weaker. And so, you know, that's going to dictate some of that stuff. But yeah, I mean, like I anecdotally, I would say I agree. Like, but McCoy lemon carnal tape Jordan Tyson. To me, they're all going like around to early ish. You know, I think that once we get into our season long drafts, we're going to find that people are scared off of rookies based on sort of what happened last year. And we will see pretty good values for at least carnal tape and Jordan Tyson. I probably even bigger for probably just as big from a guy lemon because people are just going to be scared off of that offense and not giving in enough context and stuff. Okay. Another one kind of in the next singleton tier for me, Jonah Coleman. Yeah. I like Coleman's ADP. I think that like I said before, it's so strange. I've gone on this like roller coaster with RJ Harvey this off season, right? Where to me, he was a clear sell. And then I'm like, you know, his cost is falling a little bit. Maybe he's more of a buy. I still think RJ Harvey right now in that backfield has the most upside at least. for 2026. So he should have the highest ADP of the trio that's back there. JK Dobbins is in was was used last year primarily as an early down target get or early down player without getting much work through the air. Okay. He's a 4% target share last year. Now you could Joe to Coleman who's bigger. He's the biggest body that they have in that backfield who can pass protect and play a receiving role. Sure. But I think he's more of a threat to JK Dobbins than he would be to RJ Harvey in terms of scoring fantasy points and accumulating that volume in a really clear way. So I like getting Coleman because you're attaching him to an offense that should be pretty good. He's late. It's an ambiguous backfield. I was waiting for it. I was waiting for the ambiguous backfield because it really is like I mean really ambiguous. Yeah. I mean similar to Tennessee. It's an ambiguous backfield situation. So I'm 100% gonna throw darts at backfields like that. I'm not going after JK. I don't think I drafted JK Dobbins at all yet because of the target share stuff and I'm drafting on a full PPR platform especially making that more questionable. It's funny though. Last year Dobbins was one of our dudes where I had a ton of Dobbins. He was getting me through especially in the early parts of the season. But this year I just have a hard time thinking that adding Jonah Coleman is going to make JK Dobbins more viable in fantasy and he wasn't like the reason that we look at what Dobbins did last year. So favorably is because number one he was more effective than RJ Harvey. Sure. But number two is the cost. It was it was where we were drafting him. We're drafting him in like a similar-ish place. I mean he was even later I think last year at this point in the in the off season because he had just like gotten a Denver or whatever. But like I think we're in a situation now where all they've done is added Jonah Coleman and all we've gotten was more information that Dobbins is not is not being used as a pass catcher for that. Like his his route share wasn't that like 30 to 40% range consistently. That's not something that is league winning. So I'd rather go after a guy who's going later who we don't know what the upside really looks like because he's a prospect. That's fine. Throw that dart. I think he's going to be used at least a little bit too. So he's going to get you some production if you're if you're looking at this from a with a best volleyball. All right. Last but not least Elijah Serrat. Just a random Ravens. Yeah. Random random dart. Okay. Random last round dart Elijah Serrat. He had a very underrated profile. And what's really making me interested in Serrat is that Isaiah likely is out of that offense now. And so Mark Andrews an aged Mark Andrews is the biggest threat in the middle of the field for that Ravens offense. But Elijah Serrat was someone that number one comped very closely to Pat Bryant and Michael Thomas like these big slot players. So I kept joking with like Harman in the in the pre see before the draft started that that you know if Denver needed a wide receiver Serrat was going to be their guy because Sean Payton would be going after him. But you know alas they did not need to just duplicate Pat Bryant. But you think about like what the Ravens kind of need they get Jacobi Lane who is a perimeter guy will probably play on the outside. I don't think he's that great like I he's fine. But you know I don't love Jacobi Lane's profile. Zay flowers obviously they're stud they they they could very easily use Elijah Serrat who didn't get the best separation in college. But was really really productive like had a really productive career got better every year. There's already been talk about them using him in the slot. And I think that that he belongs in the slot as like a big slot player which could bring a lot of touchdown upside. Maybe that that allows him to play both inside out a little bit because he can plan the perimeter. He's a really intriguing prospect to me and as a as a last round pick and best ball and as someone that no I mean he's more of a waiver wire guy from a redraf standpoint. Someone to at least watch as the offseason you know are as the summer goes on and you're and you're thinking about who you're going to draft. Yeah we also need to clarify that we are coming up with this list on June the third. Yeah. And things are going to change. We're going to have injuries. We're going to have camp highlights. We're going to have trades. I should I'm going to trades. I should put an honorable engine. I'm I'm warming up warming up to a player I never thought I was going to warm up to. Oh boy. Zachariah branch. I'm more I'm warming up to it. Okay. Whoa. Okay. Just because you think he's going to get farther down than three yards. Just because the situation I hated the profile but he isn't early to clear. You know he is gadgety. They're they're like invest not like that in rookie drafts. I thought he was going to go so much earlier than he actually went. I think I was I was ahead of market on Zachariah branch in the end like with my rankings which was wild but maybe you dictated the market. Maybe you started this. No probably not. Yeah. But yeah I mean like I think he's a little bit interesting. I almost added him to the list. I should add him to like an honorable mention but you know there's at least traits that are different for him in a really just boring and annoying wide receiver class. Market score market mover right that does it for the here's the target and read draft leads. Let's wrap this up. All right. You guys have been awesome again. Like subscribe even after the video is no longer live. We will take your feedback even if it is Hey, why'd you spend 12 minutes on promoting the best thing that would happen? Yes. You can you can comment and say you hate my haircut. That's fine. Yeah. That's that's fine. newsletter. Brandon has a newsletter coming out very soon if not today. And tomorrow and also we have newsletter section on the new sites. But it's talking about touch on regression if you're into that sort of thing. And then we also have of course our membership prospect guide. Pruer of the draft guide on lataround.com from a code lataround if you're entering the draft one get one for your bonus ticket and the millionaire maker there on draft Kings and follow us on social. I think that's it from me. JJ you have anything. Yeah, we have one more question if we want to just get to it. Okay. What is it? This is from Ari who says I'm late on this but I don't really understand how market score is different than rankings. You can talk about a guy who's ADP is 30 and say you should be ranked at 40 or say he has minus one point. Yeah. It's it's it's not but this is a metric that's showing that right? Like rankings themselves are just a subjective way of people putting something like that together. And projections are different because projections are not factoring in what the wisdom of the crowds is saying. I think the cool thing about market score is that it's anchored to what the market is saying and what ADP is saying what the wisdom of the crowds is saying. Yes, you should follow my rankings before you blindly follow market score but it's a tool for us to look at and say oh, this is something that's completely objective. That's completely pulling in these metrics that are predictive and it's saying maybe we should lean into this guy a little bit more. Maybe we should fade this guy a little bit more. That's all it is the tool, right? We're not using market score to rank players. This is exactly why I didn't want market score to be a point per game projection. I didn't want it to be listed as points per game. I wanted it to be versus zero where zero is average because that way people can intuitively know oh, this is this is based on the market. It's not a projection of that player, etc. So hopefully that clears things up. He said cool gotcha that makes sense wanted to make sure I was understanding the idea. Yeah, I mean like it's just another tool. It's not it's not the thing. It's not the only thing I'm going to be looking at because we have this really cool formula that can spit this out. It's just another another metric that I think can guide us in the right direction. Jaybal says can we be from my first draft guide July first, right? It is around the first of July. We don't want to set up like a hard fast date because the season starts later. We've had this roll out. It's going to be probably sometime in that week though. Yeah, I don't want to give well, we'll have a date soon enough. I have some trips that are planned in here in June that were on for some of the more unforeseen that I had to do like my my daughters dance stuff. My gosh kids. You got to foresee that now. I mean, that's part of. It's part of dance. Like, you know, just stuff like that that I and I don't want to rush the draft guide too much. I mean, I've been working on it every night. So I worked during the day, do the content stuff then at night after everyone's in bed, basically, that's when I like kind of grind out an hour or two of the guide. And so it's just a lot of work. And I don't want to commit to something and not being able to hit that deadline. So more than likely July first, at least that week around that time. I'd like to get it out before the fourth of July, but you guys will know the exact release date soon enough. Okay, I mean, I mentioned in the newsletter, but Jay, Jay, I just talked you guys are awesome. Everyone's awesome that has been like so understanding of us as we launch this and encouraging as we launch this new website. So appreciate you. Even even when I'm doing customer service emails at 1230, I can't complain. I can't let's say it's like someone who is like, you know, ripped and jacked and just naturally muscular, you know, complaining about something. You're talking about yourself there, though. Exactly. You can play about anything. You got a great job. Right. You got, you got the naturally looks like you just got out of the gym physique, you know, gosh, the boss is just incredibly understanding and generous. So I mean, got it all going on. Why did I say smart guys in their kitchen? Huh? It was just our casement all. I'm just kidding. You are awesome. You are generous. Give me this job. That's why I can't complain. So we appreciate you all. We love you all. And we'll see you next time here on the late round fancy football show, sponsored by Drafties. 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