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C
If you're looking for which rookies to draft in your rookie drafts and which year. Two breakouts to target in your fantasy drafts. Today's episode is basically going to be your cheat code. I'm joined by JJ Zacharyssen from Late Round Fantasy and and we are going to talk about his models a little bit as well as some of his favorite players to target. Jj, let's just jump right into it. Who is a rookie that you are happy to be ahead of the market on this year?
D
Yeah, look, right now I I'll start with a big gun and I'll start with Jordan Tyson. You know it. It's. It's kind of crazy to me in a way that he's not to say that I think that he's like far and away the obvious. I mean the model definitely thinks this way, but far and away the obvious wide receiver one in the class. I understand why there would be differing takes of Jordan Tyson or Carnell Tate or Makai Lemon who Like I get all of that. I'm just surprised that Tyson is, is in most rookie ADP that I, that I see is the, the wide receiver three in this class when the fantasy space and industry is usually pretty analytics heavy. And to me, Tyson has the best analytical profile of any wide receiver in this class. And it's not necessarily super, super close. You know, he has a breakout score, which is a metric that I use within the model. It's adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt. So it's adjusted for strength of opponent and for age. His breakout score is 95. That's a 99th percentile breakout score. It's a top 10 number in the entire model database. Breakout score. If you look at top 100 wide receivers since 2011, breakout score correlates to wide receiver performance in their first three years at almost as good of a rate, at basically the same rate as draft capital. So it's a very, very important metric that gets a lot of weight in that wide receiver model. If you look at first round wide receivers since 2011 with breakout scores of 90 or better. And again, Jordan Tyson's at 95. Mike Evans, Sammy Watkins. Okay, Watkins, not great. Amari Cooper, Corey Davis. That's a, that's a miss. CD Lamb, Jamar Chase, Rashad Bateman. That's a miss. Chris Olave, JSN and Malik Neighbors. I mean, it's all things Considered. And Bateman had way worse draft caps.
C
You called out the misses.
D
Yeah, there's misses, sure. But like, yeah, you called out the
C
misses, but I also heard a lot of superstars in there.
D
You're right, right. Like, like the thing with wide receiver is that there's, there's a lot more variance with first rounders than you're going to get with running back. Running back. If you're a first, you know, especially top half of the first round pick, you're in great shape as a back but you know, wide receivers are gonna get a little bit more variance. And really there's just Sammy Watkins, which he still did something, you know, at the NFL level. Corey Davis is probably the biggest bust of that list. Rashad Bateman's on there too, but Bateman was a late first round pick and I don't think Tyson, even though the medicals are a problem, you know, is necessarily going to fall as fall as far as Rashad Bateman went, He's 85th percentile when looking at yards per out, run from the outside or on the outside. Best season target share in the 95th percentile max season, adjusted yards per team pass temp 94th percentile. The one thing, two things that, that are the, the, the issues. One is he's not good at forcing missed tackles. That doesn't necessarily have a good or bad correlation though, with first round wide receivers. You know, devonte Smith and Chris Alabe were not great at that and they've been fine in the NFL. But yes, there are, you know, Jalen Ragers of the world who, who also weren't that great at that and they busted Johan Dotson's another one. And then the big thing though is the, the medicals is the injuries, right? But I go through his journey and I'm, I say to myself, is it as bad as people are making out to be? And what I mean by that is like, I think the production and the journey itself, it should outweigh this to at least some degree. And it shouldn't, it shouldn't bump him to like a tier below those guys or anything like that because what it's doing is just, it's just unfairly pushing him down draft boards a little bit. Starts at Colorado, leads the team in receiving as a freshman in nine games. Okay. Then he has a serious knee injury, misses the next season because of the knee injury, comes back as a junior off of that knee injury, has the best single season of any wide receiver in this draft class from an analytical perspective. And, and then he breaks his collarbone, which is pretty fluky. And then he comes back from that and he was great last year until he had that hamstring injury and then some of his numbers dwindled after that hamstring injury happened. And so, yeah, maybe you're a little bit afraid of the hamstring and how that's lingered a bit and how he didn't test and all of that. But in the end, I do think that Jordan Tyson from a ceiling perspective is the best wide receiver in this class. I think from a. And honestly, like when we were talking prospects, I think we get a little bit too bold with our opinions about floor, right? Because all of these guys have no floor, you know, like, like they could all bust. And, and so I generally am going to chase that ceiling and that, that higher end outcome. And I do think that Jordan Tyson has that amongst this group of wide receivers.
C
And you know, this was, we haven't even talked about this. JJ But Jordan Tyson, Jordan Tyson is my wide receiver one in this class as well. And it's just like I am chasing upside and when I see a guy with his skill set, like a guy who could play Inside or outside can win deep contested balls after the match. Has the prototypical size. Everything we want to see, like the ceiling here is a Justin Jefferson CD Lamb type of player. And I think Tate and Lemon and some of these other prospects can get there as well. But how much? And I'm totally putting you on the spot here. But you know, there is a consensus that forms where everybody kind of says like this is 1, 2, 3. And people are so scared to step out of line. How much of this do you think is like that? Back in February, you know, everybody just kind of assumed that Jordan Tyson was the wide receiver three in this class. And do you think that people are just scared to step out of line now for fear of potentially being wrong?
D
I think it's more so that, that it's a really hard thing to really weigh the. The medical side. Like there's no. And this is my problem with. And I've gone on other shows and I talked about this on my show. It's like I just, I genuinely do not know how much to weigh this because. And there's no, it's, there's no like database to, to say like I had Steve Palazzolo on my show that's gonna be dropping on on Friday late round Perspectives episode and he made the point that he wants to go back and listen to old shows or, or think about players in the in history who had these like medical related tags to them as they were entering the NFL just to see if like it ended up coming to fruition or not. Right. Because a lot of times guys are injury prone until they're not. You know, like there are some running backs especially that came out throughout our, our time and watching this game where everyone's like, oh, they get hurt too much. It's a dangerous position. It's a position where, where guys get hurt and wide receiver, it's really no different. And so I don't know how to weigh an ACL and how much. That's just unfortunate misfortune or actual like play style related collarbone. Seems to me like it's a pretty unlucky thing to have happen. Right. And then the hamstring. Yeah, like that probably concerns me the most of these injuries just because we know that that can linger a little bit more versus like an acl. Like he already showed the other thing. Jordan Tyson already showed that he recovered from the acl. So like, why are we using.
C
That's out of the picture. Yeah.
D
Like the thing that matters is the hamstring because it's still sitting in front of us as a thing that might be a problem. And you know, we've had like Christian Watson situations before where, you know, these hamstrings are not, you know, easy to, to fix and have, you know, be working and healthy. And so maybe there's something to that. But again, I just go back to, I think he has the best numbers by far in the class. And I say by far not to say that Lemon and Carnell Tate don't, or Casey Concepcion or whoever the case, like, they're all like, I think they're good prospects. It's just that like Jordan Tyson, this analytical profile is quite literally as good as most that we see come out. You know, like it's, he doesn't score as well as like a Jamar Chase or like a Malik Neighbors, but like he's a, from a strictly analytical perspective, he looks very, very good. And I don't want to move away from that so much based on something that I don't know exactly how to quantify. And I think that others feel the same way, but they are moving in that direction, you know, and that's that, that I think is the difference with why Tyson's being ranked where he's being ranked.
C
Yeah, and, and I'm very much so, like, I think injuries are impossible to predict, so I try not to even factor them into my analysis. And yeah, he's had some bad luck in his college career. But you say it, I, I forget it. But what I've heard before is like, everyone's injury prone until they're not. And like we see this, these players that consistently pick up injuries, Christian Watson, everyone was scared last year. I'm mentioning him because you talk about that with the hamstring. He comes back from an ACL, he's off everybody's draft board last year, looks 100 and puts out his best NFL season. So I try not to get hung up on the injuries. We'll talk about some other players later in the show that might have some injury concerns as well. But before we get into the rest of the show, if you're watching on YouTube, help us out. Give us a thumbs up that'll help other people find the show. If you're watching on YouTube and you haven't subscribed yet, which we know about 80% of the viewers watching are not subscribed. Please subscribe. Hang out with us for the rest of the off season and going into the season as we'll be talking about fantasy football non stop. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, do us a favor. Leave us a review. Best way to help this show grow now, jj, let's get back into it. And you were throwing a lot of terms out that I think if people aren't familiar with your work might be going, what is all this like. Like breakout score and missed tackles force? You're throwing a lot of data out there. So I want to peel back the curtain a little bit and kind of talk about your ZAP model a little bit. Now, this is really heavily weighed by college production because you are of the belief that college production is going to translate to NFL production, but there's a lot more that goes into this. So I'm going to ask you a few questions to kind of learn more about the ZAP model and also ZAP score and also help the audience learn about it. What is something that you think Zap catches that fantasy players just consistently miss in their analysis?
D
Yeah, you know, I developed the ZAP model mostly because I didn't. I found myself, again, kind of going back to the. The thing that I just talked about with injury proneness. I found myself not knowing exactly how to weigh certain aspects of prospect evaluation. And, you know, the inputs that we look at, you know, we. We all can pull up PFF and look at yards per hour, run rates. We all can look at receiving yards per team pass attempt and calculate that or find a website that has that. The difference is that how much do we weigh this thing? Like, how important is this factor? And I think a lot of times people take single metrics, and I used to do this, too. Plenty where you take single metrics and you say, oh, this guy didn't hit this threshold, therefore, I'm going to fade him. But really, it's. It's all of these puzzle pieces that come together to formulate the story and narrative about a player. And so with the ZAP model, it's taking all these different inputs. You know, there's different inputs at running back than there are at wide receiver, you know, running back. Both. All of the models, running back, wide receiver, and tight end, are looking at a baseline of draft capital. And the best way to describe it is that the model is saying, okay, this is this guy's draft draft capital. How much should we deviate from that when we're making our selections in fantasy football? And what the models are aiming to do is project the first three years of a player's career. And I measured that via what I call B2s, which is the best two seasons of a player's career, and PPR points per game average together. So I'm looking at B2s. I'm trying to figure out who, who looks best based on this model, based on all these inputs. And again, I think that what allow what, what this model allows me to do is to be grounded in a way right where I'm not taking something too far. I'm not, you know, overweighing the fact that this guy's too small. Like small players can be good in the NFL, large players can be good in the NFL. Like players with bad yards per out run rates are sometimes good in the NFL. You know, the, the general idea though too is that, and I always say this as well, is that when people hear, you know, an analytical model and they hear college production and they think, you know, yards and receptions and touchdowns and these are not those kinds of metrics. These are very market share focused metrics. You know, receiving yards per team, pass attempt or you know, reception share, stuff that, that is not influenced by the, the team style and the type of environment that that player is in. It's all within that environment and captured within that environment. I think that's really important. And so, yeah, I mean, like I, I think that it's just, it's, it's necessary to be grounded in some way with these metrics when I think a lot of times, you know, people are just not and they, they take some of these metrics a little bit too far. Not by, you know, they're not doing it on purpose. It's just there's not an easy way to sort of capture all of those things. And the model at least is attempting to capture those things.
C
It does feel like every off season there's just like one new model, like one new number that everybody just grasped onto and like, yeah, yards per route run is Gallus gospel or Target chair is gospel. And like really like it is the full picture. So you already answered a few of my follow up questions just with that intro question there. But you talk about target share and you talk about like the production compared to what a team is doing overall. Now a lot of people are just going to look at the raw data and see a guy like Taj Brooks last year who had a lot of rushing yards, but you know, there were some underlying metrics that weren't as exciting. So why is it that you look more at the shares rather than like the overall production? Do you find that to be a little bit more stickier from college to the pros?
D
Yeah, I mean, it's the same reason why we look at it in the NFL, right? Where we're looking at target share, we're looking at attempt share, we're looking at, you know, all of these market share related metrics because we intuitively know in the NFL that one team is going to throw the ball a lot more than another team. Now multiply that by a hundred. And there's even more extreme examples. In college you get teams like Navy and then you get other teams that are throwing the ball 700 times in a season. And it's not fair to compare those raw numbers from one player to the next. So a lot of those market share statistics are going to be a lot stickier from college of the pros. I think it's just really important to recognize that. And I say this all the time, but collegiate players who move into the NFL, productive collegiate players are not automatically productive in the, in the NFL, but productive NFL players are almost always productive in college. And that's why these metrics can matter, right? So when you sit there and you're like, well, this guy was productive in college and he's not very good in the NFL, number one, that's going to happen. But number two, okay, did he get drafted high? You know, is he getting opportunity? Was he actually talented? Was he like there's, there's all these different factors that can help you recognize whether that production is important or not, whether you're adjusting for age, which is very important, whether you're adjusting for program strength, which is really important, and schedule. And so yeah, like, there's a lot of nuance to it all. You know, a player, I use this example all the time too. A player playing at Ohio U. And no offense to Bobcats out there. I have to always throw that Caveat. But any, a wide receiver playing at Ohio uh, should dominate his offense in that game more than a wide receiver playing at Ohio State because competition is weaker. He's playing against other recruits to Ohio University, which is not the same kind of football program as Ohio State. Whereas Carnell Tate's playing with Jer, with, with Jeremiah Smith and, and had to play with the guys who came out before Mecca Buka and such, right? Like really talented, you know, first round wide receivers. And so it's important to tell that story as well. That's actually something that we could have talked about with the other question about, like, what does that model really helps with, you know, going back to, you know, these metrics that people get like really fascinated with and attached to something like yards per out run can be very influenced by the strength of competition. You Know, like, like you have players in this class who played at smaller programs, they should have higher yards per out run rates than players who played at a Big Ten program, you know, and so the ZAP model is trying to adjust for all of that as well. But, you know, to your question about, you know, these market share numbers and how they translated from college of the pros, they're just more important than the counting statistics because there's such a difference in the type of offensive styles and schemes that are out there in college versus the NFL.
C
Yeah. And, you know, you talk about yards per out run, and I can't help but think about some guys who are like, great with yards per out run in college, like Trey Harris last year, because we were looking at Ole Miss offense was just scheming him up touches, so his yards per route run number numbers were off the charts. Levisco, Chenault, it was the same thing when he was in college, just getting these scheme touches that would really inflate his numbers. So I think looking at all of these metrics in a model is the best way to do it. But one thing you mentioned there is, like you said, like, when I'm looking at this guy, I'm asking myself other questions, like, was he drafted high? And I know people bristle when they hear that because people are so quick to point out the outliers and say, well, what about Antonio Brown and Tyree Kill and Stefan Diggs and these day three wide receivers. Jj, I'm very much so with you. Like, draft capital is one of the most important things that I'm looking at when I'm analyzing these prospects. This is something Jeff Bell and I talk about a lot. We want to learn as much as we can about these guys so that leading up to the NFL draft, we can kind of use the draft capital as our guiding light there and then make little deviations after. Why is it that draft capital is so important?
D
Yeah, I mean, it's. It's crazy that, that all that people also try, in my opinion, that people are trying to model without draft capital, like it's some badge of honor that they're able to predicts how well these players are going to be better than draft capital. And I only say that because 99.9 of rookie drafts, maybe a little bit less, are happening after the NFL draft happens. You know, so, like, if we're looking at using the metrics that we have available to us to be the best dynasty managers or just regular redraft managers that we possibly can be, why would we not Factor in draft capital, because a few things are happening. Number one, Draft capital itself is embedding a film evaluation from a modeling perspective, right? Because these front offices are spending millions and millions of dollars and they're saying, hey, round two, pick 40. This is the player that I really want. And we did all of this work, all of this analysis with multiple personnel and people working on this that say, we want to get this guy. NFL teams are wrong all the time. Don't get me wrong. But it is a signal like it does matter. Not only that, but you also get a player going to a team that probably has some sort of use for that player. Right. And some sort of intent for that player. And so if you're not adjusting your priors based on, you know, certain draft capital stuff, I mean, it's, it's, it's really important to. Now there's really good mock draft data stuff out there that, you know, NFL mock draft database is always what I reference. And I've actually tested that data and it's actually pretty good. Like, you can, you can get pretty close to the real thing with mock draft data. Not only that, but there's a lot of research that I've done that shows that like when teams reach for a player based on the mock draft data, that player ends up underperforming versus expectation at a higher rate. So there, there is something to the wisdom of the crowd's idea with draft Capital as well. Now, I do want to say though, you know, it's easy to overstate draft capital. There's a balance here. Like, right, there are some people that say, just go off of draft capital. You're not going to beat it. And I disagree. Because if you'd use draft capital as an input in like a model, for instance, and then you understand the inputs that can, can enhance your ability to project early career production, then, then you can do that and you can beat draft Capital, my model beast, draft Capital, by a decent margin because it's utilizing draft capital and then it's also using all these other metrics. So yes, it's better than draft Capital. So I wouldn't be like, so, so strict with draft capital. What I would do though, is that if you're in a rookie draft, let's say, and you really like a sixth round running back, don't draft him over a second round running back. Like, generally speaking, it's just a horrible, horrible idea. But I do think people would be a little bit surprised by the lack of correlation in certain parts of the draft. Like, you know, for instance, top 100 wide receivers, when you look at the correlation between their B2s of the first three years output and their draft capital, it's, it's only 0.14 the R squared. It's not strong at all. Like, it's, it's really not that fantastic. And breakout score is just as good as that essentially. But, but again, when you look at the larger sample, that's when the draft capital stuff really starts to shine. Because, you know, day three picks are, are not hitting at a very high rate. And that raises that R squared. It raises the, the predictability of what draft capital does. So don't be too strict. Like, if you really like a round three running back more than a round two running back, be my guest. Like, it's fine, you know, it's more. So just kind of being ground again, going back to what I was saying earlier, being grounded and understanding that, you know, these teams are wrong a lot, but this is a game of high variance, this prospecting stuff. And you know, you gotta, you, you gotta use the information that's out there for you and the teams are, are objectively better than a lot of the resources that we have.
C
I also think that there's some causation there as well, that like guys who are drafted high in the NFL draft just get a little bit different of a leash than some players who might have fallen into round seven. Like Sam Darnold. If you look at what he did early in his career, he didn't deserve a second opportunity, but he got a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth opportunity. And I think a lot of that is because he was this highly sought after prospect. And I've done this like, it's not even down to the round. Like, I went down to like the pick numbers in round one, seeing how much that correlates to fantasy success. And like the higher you're drafted in round one directly correlates how your NFL career is going to end up playing out. So I mean, it is a really important factor and it's something that for the longest time when I was like early in my career, I just refused to admit I was always trying to seek the outliers. And then I realized that when it comes to the NFL draft where these players are getting selected, they do know what they're doing. Now you talked about breakout score being something that correlates closely to draft capital as well. This is the last question I have kind of asking about your model here, but why does breakout age, breakout score, as you call it matter so much.
D
Yeah, I think that there, it's important first off to, to talk about the difference between breakout age and breakout score, because I actually have a decent amount of problems with breakout age and the way that, that people use breakout age. So breakout age looks at Dominator rating, which is basically market share statistics brought together to say how much a player dominated within his offense in a given season. And then it adjusts that. It looks at age, the age in which he did that, to say, okay, he was over this threshold at this age. That's the breakout age. Okay, he, he hit that mark. But if he's below that threshold, then he didn't have a breakout age that year. So it's very binary metric. Like, that's what I was gonna say.
C
That's just a pure black. I didn't even know this. Like you're. I'm learning this right now so that I didn't know the difference there.
D
So breakout age is really binary in nature. So it's saying like, did break out this year or did you not break out this year? Okay, we're gonna go on to the next year. Right? And so there's a problem with that inherently, obviously, is that there's no gray area whatsoever with the way. I mean, you can use thresholds differently and you could say, okay, 20 dominator or 30, whatever the case may be, to, to calculate your breakout score or breakout age. But breakout age is, is just telling you the age in which that player broke out, and that's just one singular number based on that one singular year. So like, the degree in which the breakout happened isn't necessarily important. You know, you could just miss the threshold and then you're screwed. And that's the issue that I have with breakout age. Not only that, but Dominator rating isn't, isn't as predictive as I, I think people believe. But what breakout score is, is it looks at receiving yards per team pass attempt, at wide receiver and. And tight end as well. And it adjusts that for the age in which that player did what he did in receiving yards per team pass attempt. And then it also adjusts for strength of opponent and strength of schedule. The difference between how this is being calculated and how breakout age is being calculated is that there's a spectrum, right? It's saying, okay, if you were at 1.80 receiving yards per team pass attempt, which is not that strong of a number. If you were at 1.80 and you did that as a freshman, that's. That's pretty good. You'll get X score for that at this age. Like this is where, and then you can improve on that as the, as your career goes on. So like Jordan Tyson, you know, when adjusted for everything as a freshman, had a great breakout score because he had freshman production. And then he also had a monster season as a junior after he came back from that knee injury. Whereas, you know, someone like Xavier Leggette, you know, it took a little, took a minute for him to, to really do anything. And so his breakout score wasn't that good. Even though he had a monster season later in his career, he got credit for somewhat of a breakout score, but it wasn't super, super strong because when that happened was late in his collegiate career. So it's a, it's a good predictive metric and it matters because, you know, generally speaking, when people are young and they're able to do things at a really high level, that's telling us that they are talented. You know, like if you're, you know, my, my daughter is a dancer, right? She's seven years old, she loves dancing. If she's an elite dancer right now, then chances are if she stays with it, she will be an elite dancer when she's 18 years old. Whereas someone right now who might not be as good, there's probably a less likely chance that she would be as good as my daughter or vice versa. You know what, I don't want to just make it seem like my daughter is the greatest dancer in the world, but I'm coming fresh off of a dance competition and she kind of crushed it. So very proud of her. But yeah, so like, you know, it's just one of those things where if, if a wide receiver at a young age shows us something early on that is very telling for how well that player is going to perform not only in college, but then in the NFL as well.
C
And I love that this is all learning to me. Like, I didn't know the difference between breakout score and breakout age. But I think this just like perfectly encapsulates what you do in this industry is you take a good idea and then you just build off of it and make it a great idea. And it sounds like that's what you've done here with breakout score. Now, jj, I lied. I said one more question. I, I, I actually do have one more question now. All this time that we've been talking about all of this prospect modeling, I haven't heard you once talk about a 40 yard dash, a three cone, a vertical, anything like that. How much do you care about Athletic testing.
D
So I'm not going to give you this, like, very straightforward answer of I don't care because technically, you know, you could say that there's an inverse correlation, for instance, with wide receiver 40 time and where they're drafted and how well they perform. Right. So like, for instance, a wide receiver goes to the combine, runs a really fast 40, his draft capital says X, that draft capital goes from projected, draft capital goes from X to X plus Y. Right. Because he ran that fast 40 and they shouldn't be accounted for.
C
Already, you're saying?
D
Yeah, I mean, like, basically, basically teams are over counting that 40 time. With that being said, if you're using draft capital as an input in a model or your process, you can't say that the combine doesn't matter at all because you do not know exactly how much that combine is influencing the draft capital. Right? So like a player might go to the combine and bomb it and be terrible, but we don't know what, what a team, where a team would have drafted them before that versus after that. You know, like, we can look at mock draft data, but there's no easy way to really measure that. So to me, the, the combine matters because it influences draft capital. It objectively influences draft capital. But there are no direct inputs in the wide receiver model outside of height and weight that, that are from the athletic testing of the combine. The only thing at tight end and running back are speed scores. So tight end, we do height adjusted speed score. Running back is just speed score. That's weight adjusted 40 time. And even that, it's not like, you know, a dude runs a slow 40 and he's just completely off the board unless, you know, he runs like a 4, 7, 5 or something, then he's going to be off everyone's board because draft capital is going to follow that, you know, so generally speaking, it's not that important. And I think a lot of people think about models and analytical models and they say, oh, you must love and care about athletic testing. It's really not the case. I mean, I, I care only from the standpoint of like, okay, Mike Washington just crushed the combine. What does that mean for his draft cap capital? You know, there is an input in the model for speed score. It's just not weighing him. It's not like he's going from like, you know, a score of 50 to a score of 75. He just goes up like two points. You know, it's not so, so significant. But it is something because I do think it influences draft capital. Yeah.
C
And I think you're spot on that, like, it's already accounted for. Like, Mike Washington went from like, this could be a fun day three pick to like almost locking himself into round two. So it's accounted for already now. Jj, the reason I had you on today, you just came out with your prospect model. And I think anybody listening to the show so far that isn't familiar with your work probably thinks that you are just like a pure numbers guy, but you really are so much more than that. You have a numbers first approach, but you also have just a deep understanding of football and context and nuance and like, you use your eyes more than I think people would understand on this show listening right now. And, and that's why I wanted to have you on because you do take a different kind of first approach with this, with the numbers first approach. So I think that our rookie guys, like what we do here at football guys, we come out with our guide early. We want it to be a crash course to kind of help everybody familiarize yourselves with this class. Yours goes on a much deeper numbers process. It almost reads like a book. Like, you go so deep into your methodology there that it does feel like you're just like reading more of a book than you are just like a prospect guide. So the floor is yours real quickly before we talk about some more players. Let people know where they can download this, where they can get it, what you've got coming out over the next couple of weeks, all that good stuff.
D
Yeah, the, the lay round prospect guide you can find on late round dot com. You know, like you said, it's the, the first 20, 25 pages. I try to be completely transparent with what goes into these models. I think it's really important for people to know that, like I'm testing this, these are the things that are going into it. I'm not telling you the exact weights of everything because that's proprietary, but I'm letting you know that these are the metrics that are being fed in and these are the metrics that I care about. And I iterate every year I, I try to think of different ways to maybe approach the model. I think that's important to always just kind of be like looking at new metrics and stuff like that. So all of that is in the guide. And then there's prospect profiles for every running back, wide receiver and tight end who are at the combine. And then there's also the year two section, which is, I look at all relevant year two guys. So guys who played one year in the NFL already. So second year players and I have a model for that where I look at their year one production and some metrics and then I combine that with their ZAP scores, their prospect scores to kind of try to project how well they're going to do in years two through four. So you get both of it. It's 172 pages long, I think. So you shouldn't be that bored and especially if you like numbers, you won't be bored.
C
Yeah. And I don't know, I can't speak for everybody watching the show, but I know before I was creating content when I was just a consumer, I wanted to take in as much as possible. So like if you've already downloaded the Football Guys Rookie guide@footballguys.com Rookie guide Add JJ's into the mix Next week I've got Matt Harmon join or Matt Waldman joining me and we're going to talk about the rookie scouting portfolio. Take it all in. Like the more information the better. Just preps you better for this upcoming season. So definitely check out JJ's prospect guide. Now let's get to the fun part and talk about some players. I know this is what people really want to hear about. We already talked about Jordan Tyson is a guy that you are content to be ahead of the market on. Give me another rookie that kind of fits that same old a guy that you're willing to be a little bit more bullish on.
D
Let's go Casey Concepcion. And I'm saying this because I think a lot of people will have Concepcion especially post draft just given where draft capital might end up. They might have him in the same more in the same tier of like a Denzel Boston and Omar Cooper depending on where they end up getting drafted. I think he's in a tier of his own above those players. He, he just, he has a really good age adjusted profile. He didn't have a single season in his three years where it was, you know, Jordan Tyson, third year in the in college or you know, the year coming off that knee injury. But he did have really consistent production. He produced right away as a freshman. Which is why, you know, again going back to what we talked about earlier, you might see tweets and analysis saying oh, he didn't have a good enough yards per team pass attempt number. Casey Concepcion didn't and therefore we shouldn't really be drafting him. But you have to keep in mind. So like this is a little bit nuanced and but I think it's important. It's detailed but there's early declare status as something that people and I, I do worry about and are concerned about from a modeling perspective. So early declare status being okay, the wide receiver left college early to go declare for the NFL instead of staying in college. And these days it's changing a little bit. We have way fewer early declares, whether it's because of nil transfer rules, whatever the case may be. We have fewer early declare wide receivers. But early declare does get signal in the model for two reasons, I think. One, if a player is declaring early, it's telling us that player is probably talented because they know that they can get drafted high other otherwise why would they declare early, right? So there's a talent signal with it. But the other piece that kind of goes like unspoken about and this is where, you know, you see the, the threads out there on Twitter and the analysis on like, like this guy didn't hit this threshold or whatever the case may be. They didn't play as many collegiate seasons as the other players did. So it's going to be harder for them to be able to hit those thresholds. You know, Casey Concepcion, imagine he just goes back to Texas A and M next year, right? Like, what if he just goes back and plays another year? He would probably blow all of his numbers out of the water versus what he's done the first three years of his collegiate career. So we have to weigh that in to some degree. And so breakout score will do that because it's looking at age adjusted production. But we still have to factor in, oh, this guy only played three years. This guy, you know, Bryce Lance or whoever, whoever the case may be, played five years or some C.J. daniels, six years in college, right? He's playing twice as much as Casey Concepcion. So you have to weigh that to some degree. So with Concepcion, he had a 78th percentile breakout score. He had a 79th percent. So people have kind of typecasted him as like a slot guy because he played the slot a lot in NC State when he started last year, he was only at a 34 slot rate. And his yards per out run in the perimeter throughout his career was way better than his yards per out run in the slot. He actually had a 79th percentile perimeter yards per hour run, yards per hour run rate. So he was great on the perimeter. He can line up everywhere. And then another thing, the model and that I look at is were they deployed in interesting ways that were not traditional wide receiver ways because that's a signal that the team is trying to get that person the ball in A in a more unique way, as much as they possibly can. And with Concepcion, he had rushing production throughout his collegiate career as well. So there's just a lot of favorable, good signal with Concepcion. I still have him a tier below the other three because again, he didn't have that elite season in college. And then on top of that, I don't think his draft capital is going to be as strong as those other three guys. But I like him a lot. Like I, I, I, I definitely have him. And like, I think he's better than Omar Cooper, I think he's better than Denzel Boston. I will put him almost definitely ahead of those guys. You know, post draft when I think we're going to see a little bit more of a mix within the dynasty, you know, world.
C
You know, it's funny because like I said, we take very different approaches to how we do this. You take a numbers first approach, we kind of take a film based approach. But me, Jeff Bell, Mike Kashuba, the three guys that all worked on the rookie guide, we've had this exact conversation. He is wide receiver four for all of us and we all have him kind of in this mini tier ahead of the other guys. And you talk about the versatility. He did get kind of pigeonholed into this like idea of just being a slot receiver. And Jeff Bell pushed back hard on that. In his scouting report he actually comped him to Stefan Diggs saying like this guy can beat man coverage outside, something that most slot receivers can't do. And then I'm just doing my, my mock draft 1.0. I have him go into Houston at the end of round one. I think that would be a great fit. Can do a lot of the same things. Tank Dell was another player that, you know, because he's a little bit small in stature, people said he was a slot receiver, but he could play out wide as well. I think that Casey Concepcion can kind of be that. If Tank Dell doesn't come back, they can get a similar type of player with arguably a higher ceiling because of the athleticism. So I love that. Give me one more rookie. You want to talk about that? You are okay being ahead of consensus on?
D
Yeah, let's go running back just because his class is terrible and it's just fun to throw a guy out there. And you know, I, I, I'm very, very open to this changing and switching around. He's my RB2 right now. In this class it's Emmett Johnson because
C
you don't care about athletic testing. We covered this 10 minutes ago.
D
Yeah, but this is the thing too. Like, so, so Emmett Johnson goes to the combine, he runs a slower 40, but if you watch him, he's not a long speed guy. That's just not his game. Right. And so he runs a slower 40. His, his speed score is like 93, 94, which is like Kyron Williams territory. A little bit better than where like Kyron Williams was at. But his receiving profile, so does that model looks so heavily at receiving stuff? Because generally speaking, draft capital seems to capture a lot of the rushing production. But not only that, the way a running back kind of differentiates himself in a lot of ways is through receiving, where in college, if he's being used as a receiver and a rusher, that's telling us that more than likely, again, the team is trying to get him the ball in some way. And that's good. And then also in the NFL, we know that pass catching is just unbelievably important at running back. And so we want receivers and guys who are like, it's very rare to see a player who wasn't a pass catcher in college to become a pass catcher in the NFL. Usually the past catching running backs in the NFL were pass catchers in college. And if you look at Emmett Johnson's profile, the three metrics, the three production metrics that the model looks at are best season, prorated reception share, adjusted yards per team play in their best season, and adjusted yards per team pass attempts. Okay, so the adjusted pieces, those are for schedule and for age. Emmett Johnson, reception share, 94th percentile. Adjusted yards per team play, 95th percentile. Adjusted yards per team pass attempt, 89th percentile. You look at the so. So all the model inputs, love them. Right. So we'll see where draft capital ends up. He's a little bit smaller, you know, 202, again, doesn't have the best speed score in the world. His advanced metrics aren't very strong. You know, his explosive run rate was weak. His yards after contact per attempt was weak. Yards before contact per attempt was a little bit better. And you know, Rich Rebar had a really interesting nugget that I threw in the prospect guide where Emmett Johnson, when he wasn't hit behind the line of scrimmage, he was able to gain positive yards at the best rate in the class. So like when he was given what he was given, he was actually pretty good at creating. And so, yeah, I mean, like, I, I just think Johnson has a pretty well rounded profile. If you want to think this wasn't one of his comps in the model. But if you want to think about like archetype ceiling, I think we could see like an Aaron Jones outcome with Emmett Johnson. If you want to think about a median outcome, probably like like the three in the guide were Michael Carter, Kenneth Gainwell and James White. Right? James White's probably not James White if he's not on New England. Let's be honest. I mean he's a great pass catcher, but like he found the exact spot. Maybe Emmett Johnson finds the exact spot as well. But that's, you know, we're more than likely looking at a pass catching back who can maybe in a spike season see a lot of work on the ground. But what if he finds a McVeigh type and he, you know, his coaches falls in love with him, they're like, hey, we'll use him like Kyron Williams, you know, and we just want to go that route. Like I think that's sort of the type of player that we're looking at here with, with Emma Johnson.
C
So I don't want to pat myself in the back too hard, but I was very proud of my pre combine comp four because I did all the running backs in the guide this year and my comp was Ahmad Bradshaw. And if you look, Ahmad Bradshaw had a 3.85 relative athletic score. He totally bombed the combine falls to day three. But he's just a vision based runner. Good footwork and the pass catching chops is something that we want to see. And he caught a lot of passes in college, went on to catch a lot of passes in the NFL as well. So yeah, Emmett Johnson, I think people got so hung up. Like if you watched Emmett Johnson play, anybody who's expecting him to come out and run a 4:3, I don't know what they were watching in Nebraska. That's not the type of player he was. But he has a skill set that can absolutely translate to the NFL. Now we're going to come back, we're going to talk about some year two breakouts and your year two model a little bit. We'll be back in just a second.
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C
I'm back with JJ Zacharies and we already talked about the ZAP score and some of JJ's favorite rookies to target in drafts. Now we're going to talk about some of the Year two guys. We don't have to go quite as in depth on the year two model as we did on the zap model, jj, but how much of this, your year two breakout model, would you say is just kind of an extension of the ZAP score that you're giving these guys going into the rookie seasons?
D
Yeah, so one of the cool differentiators I think with the Year two model is that it it uses ZAP scores as an input of one of the inputs for the player. So for instance, just to give you an example at running back, if you look at year two to four PPR points per game and you look at the best two seasons across those three years and you find the correlation between that and first year PPR points per game. So you know, running back finishes their rookie season, here's their PPR points per game and you correlate that to how well they do in years two through four, Right. The correlation is actually weaker than just their ZAP score as a prospect. So that's saying like how they looked as prospects is more predictive of year two to four success than how well they performed in year one. And part of the reason for that is a lot of times when we see the day three running backs emerge and do something in fantasy football, they usually do. That's usually their best season in football and from a fantasy perspective, at least across their first four years of their career and so does that model itself is predictive and helpful in that it's not as strong at wide receiver because why year one numbers at wide receiver are pretty predictive. But at running back, they're just not. Usually. It's, you know, some of the stuff that I look at at running back is like weighted opportunity stuff and, you know, stuff that, like, are they being used? Cool. Okay, now how good were they as prospects? Okay, cool. Like, Ashton Genti was 100 prospect coming out. He's still basically a 100 year two player because his prospect score was so good and he was just used a lot. Like, we shouldn't worry so much about the efficiency side of things. So that's really what the year two model is looking at. It's. It's looking at how well these guys are going to perform in year two through four of their career. And they're looking at both zap score and, you know, their year one inputs.
C
Can I selfishly ask how much this carries over into year three? As a guy who still has a lot of Jonathan Brooks and Trey Benson on Dynasty rosters everywhere, I know they scored well. And it's just been injuries so far. Like, can we still have hope for those guys?
D
Yeah, I mean, I wasn't the biggest Benson guy in the world, and then, you know, obviously it didn't look good after year one. No, I mean, like, I, I haven't. You know, that's the thing is, it's really funny because people are always like, are you gonna do like a year three model? And then I'm like, what, do you want me to just do one? Like a year seven model? Like, just keep going.
C
Might as well keep going.
D
You know, I think based on what
C
we saw from Cordell Patterson a couple of years ago, you got to at least go out to year nine.
D
Yeah, Year nine. The year nine model. Yeah, but, yeah, so, so, you know, there, there is a lot of predictive power and how well they performed after their first two years. You generally know, you know, what they're, what, what you're dealing with, what you're looking at. At least with Jonathan Brooks, you can make the excuse of this has just been completely different than any other player that we've seen.
C
Let's talk about a couple guys that you like in your year two model. Who's the first guy that kind of jumps out as somebody that you want to target in drafts this year?
D
Let's talk about Luther Burden, man. Let's do it.
C
Oh, my God. Love it. Yes.
D
I'm a ceiling drafter, right. I, I care about ceiling. I think that we have to all recognize that the floor is certainly there. Like, he didn't hit a 70 route share in a game last year. He had 8.6 PPR points per game. That's a little bit concerning the year two model. It dates back to 2011. Only 20 wide receivers in the database who average fewer than 10 PPR points per game as rookies went on to have 14 or more people points per game in one of their seasons in years two, three or four. So that's out of hundreds of wide receivers. So in order for Luther Burden to really hit, he's gonna have to be somewhat of an outlier. But he kind of already is somewhat of an outlier in the way that these advanced metrics see him. 2.69 yards per hour run rate last year. That's the third best rookie mark among 100 plus route receivers since 2011, trailing only Martavis Bryant, Nodell Beckham. And that combination is just not very common. Even look, I've, I've tweeted about this. I've, I've thrown the yard per out run stuff out there with Luther Burden before. And he's amongst, you know, Pukinakua and Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson and all these really good wide receivers. And then the common response is, but those guys had more volume. Totally agree. I'm not saying that Luther Burden is as good as Jamar Chase, otherwise he would be a wide receiver too in Dynasty right now. You know what, what I'm saying. The thing is, even when you kind of condense that and only look at players who ran like 100 to 300 routes in their rookie season, you still get a lot of hits with those players. It's not just the high volume guys that we're talking about here. And then obviously, you know, you're looking at a player who should get more opportunity with DJ Morgan. You know, the zap model, you know, admittedly so I again, I iterate the zap model every year, even with draft capital factored in, because that's a huge part of the zap model. It liked Luther Burden more than any other wide receiver in last year's class, including Tedrell McMillan. I didn't rank it that way, but it loves and loved Luther Burden as a prospect. So that is definitely freshman and sophomore year.
C
He was like a bona fide wide receiver. One like he was one of the most productive receivers in college when he was 19 years old.
D
Yeah, his pro, his age adjusted production in his sophomore season last year was akin to Jordan Tyson's third year this year. Like that. Those are the two big seasons that, yeah, and so like his year two score, it's, it's right in Line with a Mecca Buka right now, it's, it's, it's very, very similar to a Buka. And when you look at the dynasty market, there is still a gap between those two. And so I, I think Burden is a, again, understand there's a floor. I, I don't think that this is a flawless situation because there is a precedent where this kind of profile, just from a PPR points per game perspective doesn't hit, you know, in years two through four. But I will play the high variance game and I will go after Burden because I think in this environment with this coach and with the, the quarterback situation, there's a lot of upside here.
C
It feels to me very reminiscent of jsn and I hate to make that count because it's such a high end comp. Like JSN gets drafted to a team with good veteran receivers ahead of him. He was coming off of the broken wrist that kind of stunted his training camp a little bit. Luther Burden gets drafted to a team with Roman Dunes, A Colson Loveland, D.J. moore. He's dealing with a hamstring injury throughout training camp. Like, I just see the parallels there and that's why, like I said, like, you are a numbers guy, but you understand that context as well and you're able to look at the situation, see that DJ Moore is gone, that the opportunity should be there. So I love that. And the one last thing I'll point out is, you know, people talk about the number of routes run another one that I've heard to disparage Luther Burden as well. His yards per route run are skewed because of that flea flicker against Dallas. Even if you remove that one play, which you shouldn't, you shouldn't remove good plays from good players. But like, even if you take that flea flicker out of the equation, he still was top 10 in yards per route run last year. So completely with you on Luther Burden
D
and do that, do that for everybody. If you're going to remove that play, you know. Right. You gotta, you gotta keep it unison with everybody.
C
Right. And that's what I'm saying. Like in a sample that is strategically stacked against him where we're taking away his best play and nobody else's, he's still a good receiver. So yeah, I'm completely with you on Luther Burden. And next week when I have Matt Waldman on, I will assure you we're probably going to talk about Luther Burden some more. But jj, give me another guy in your year two model and we can wrap up on this One, just give me another guy that pops in your year two model.
D
Yeah, so I wanted to get a little bit weird with this next one because, you know, I want to get a little bit deeper and I, I don't think that now, by no means do I think this player is like a cornerstone piece in Dynasty or anything, but you can get him as a trade throw in essentially at this point, like for, for not a lot of it's elic Iron Manor. Right. If you, if you look at what he did year one, you know, none of his numbers, like really, really stand out from a efficiency standpoint. You know, points per game standpoint, you know, 18 target share was respectable, but it wasn't like unbelievable. And then if you kind of even look that, look into that further, you know, he, you know, players who had like a 15 to 20% target share throughout their, their rookie season with a yards per hour run rate below 1.2, horrible, horrible players. It's just a really, really bad sample of players. With that being said, with that being said, Iron Manor was placed in a pretty rough situation overall. You know, poor quarterback play and some of his journey comp. So I have this thing called journey comparables in the year two model where it looks at a player's zap score and then it looks at his year two score. So these are not stylistic comps. Right. And it, and it brings those together and says which players went on a similar journey from zap score to year two score? That's it. And funny enough, I actually think the two of the guys, two of the three. So the three were Kenny Stills, Taje Sharp and Darnell Mooney. And I kind of thought Stills and Mooney were interesting because I think Iron Manor's kind of career trajectory could go in that similar manner where he's a deep threat, he can get down the field, play on the outside. And if you look at what they did this off season so far with Wandell Robinson, he's not as much of a threat to Iron Manor as he is Chimray dk. Just as a, from a, from a play type player type situation and standpoint. And so I think Iron Manor, you know, he's like keep trade cut like wide receiver 67 right now. He was an early declareer. He only had, he only had a couple years in college. And his production profile wasn't egregious. It was fine. And he was an early declare wide receiver. And you know, he slipped in the draft further than I think a lot of people thought. Like he was projected all off season to be more of a day two player and he just wasn't in the draft and you know, I thought that he was okay enough as a rookie, so I'll throw him out there. As a guy the model likes more than what people would probably imagine. Like the model right now, the year two model likes him straight up more than Matthew golden. Which is. Which I wouldn't rank it, I wouldn't rank it that way. But the model is saying that again to guide us and ground us and to say, oh wow, like maybe there's a little bit something there that, that the market's just not recognizing.
C
Well, if Tennessee doesn't take a receiver at 4, I might be ranking it that way. There's not a lot of promise from Matthew golden that, that gets me too excited here. But you know, talking about Imanor, let me, let me ask you that real quickly. Like if they do draft a wide receiver, does that change your outlook or are you trying to look at this like as agnostic from the situation as possible?
D
Yeah, I mean, look, it's got to change your outlook a little bit. But I'm trying to, especially a wide receiver, I'm trying to focus on talent and what that profile just generally looks like. And so, yeah, I mean, like the thing is that if they draft Carnell Tate or something, then all of a sudden the dynasty market's also going to push Iron Manor down, you know, and draft like he's going to be wide receiver 75. Then at that point he's just a total throw in in trades and so why not? You know, again, I'm not saying this thinking that he's going to light the world on fire, but I do think that there's at least an outcome here where he could be like a wide receiver 3 or 4 in fantasy football and that's still valuable to dynasty team.
C
All right, jj, you mentioned Matthew golden, so I want to ask, you know, this year two model helps us find and identify players to target going into year two. Can you kind of inversely use it as a way to avoid certain players going into year two?
D
Yeah, I mean, look, the, the zap model did not like Matthew golden very much. There, there wasn't great production from him aside from that like five game stretch during his final season. He wasn't early declare players. There was a little bit of excuse making you could make, but the overall profile had red flags littered throughout. And then when you see what you saw in year one, you know, 1.35 yards per hour run rate, not horrible for a rookie but definitely not good. You know, he was sub seven ppr points per game. I think he was at like five something. It's just, it just was not a good rookie season for Matthew Golden. And when you kind of combine all these those factors, you just get a bunch of players who have not hit, you know, among all year two wide receivers. Year two model wide receivers who failed to get to seven PPR points per game as rookies. Only seven of them averaged at least 14 PPR points per game in one of their next three seasons. Two of those wide receivers were Randall Cobb and Chris Godwin who both had elite yards per out run rates as rookies. And so their, their peripherals kind of supported that future production. So that leaves us with Devonte Adams, Corey Davis, DJ Chark, Nico Collins and Jameson Williams. Davis and Shark, they were never consistent wide receiver twos in fantasy football. Jameson Williams was injured. So it's really coming down to Devonte Adams and Nico Collins here, which, you know, not only is Matthew golden not really exactly those kinds of wide receivers, but that's just those, they're outliers, buyers, like they're just not, it's just not something that we really want to want to bet on overall. And you know, you look at his journey comparables, it's just, it doesn't reinforce any of this, you know, it doesn't make you feel any better. Journey comps right now are Justin Hunter, KJ Hamler and Adnai Mitchell. And even if you want to dig deeper into that, that complists because you know, I only published three of them, but there are more of them. Zay Jones, Cordero Patterson, Anthony Miller, Marvin Mims, Dante Pettis, Sky Moore, Paul Richardson, like, it's just bad players you listed,
C
they all had like off the field issues too. Like that's just not a good list of players.
D
It's not, it's, it's not good. So like yes, you can sit here and squint and say this could be Devonte Adams, right? Like you could realistically, like that's, we gotta recognize that that's a possibility because like a lot of this stuff does align with someone like Adams. With that being said, I just don't want to bet on that. You know, I, I don't think that's a smart idea to put, you know, your, your chips on, on that outcome when we know that it's not a likely outcome to happen. So I'm just not very high on Matthew Golden. And even still today, you know, I say that and people are like, well no, One's buying Matthew. I mean, if you look at his adp, it's still relatively high in Dynasty. It's not, of course, it's not nearly as high as it was last year, but like it's still not super, super low. Like you can still get something in some leagues for him. There's probably Matthew golden truth throughout there. I'd wait probably until, you know, post draft or something and if they don't get a wide receiver or some, you know, positive fluff piece about golden and try to flip then. But I am not optimistic about what's to come with Matthew golden.
C
And I don't want to mischaracterize any of the studies you've done, but I, I think it was last off season you did something where you were kind of showing that like Dynasty markets aren't as reactive to these dud players as they should be. So what you're saying is that like there are still people holding on to hope.
D
Of course, yeah.
C
I mean like basically Romeo Dobbs is gone. He's a former first round pick. So there are people hold down to hope and you're saying like, no, this is probably your time to get out before his value crashes.
D
Yeah, I mean, look, the more the way I approach fantasy football is that like, if I have to make excuse after excuse after excuse, there's probably a reason for that. And that's, that's the scary part with Matthew golden right now. But again, I also play fantasy football in this very large gray area where I fully recognize this could go south, you know, and it's fine. Like that's the way that people should, you should not have a black and white way of thinking in my opinion, like recognize that this could end up being a pretty good outcome. But you wreck, you think of that outcome as happening at a, at a lower rate than what your league mates might. Right. But if you're at the same rate, if everyone in your league is like, no, like Matthew golden is not going to do anything, then don't, don't sell them, you know, you shouldn't because there's still that possibility.
C
And I will say too that like when you're trying to make a case for a young receiver and you're pointing to devonte Adams or you're trying to make a case for a young quarterback by pointing to Josh Allen. Yeah, that's usually the end of the road for that player. I mean, it's very rare that we see, we remember Devonte Adams because he is the outlier. Well, jj, I can't thank you enough for your time. This is always a pleasure getting to talk to you. I feel like I leave every conversation with you just like two IQ points smarter than I was beforehand. But before we log off one last time, let everyone know where they can get the late round prospect guide. Let them know where they can find your podcast website. All that good stuff.
D
Yeah, everything's on Lateround.com you can subscribe to the podcast, check out the Prospect guide and if you get the prospect guide, there is an updated version that will come out with new blurbs and such the night that the draft ends. I can't get it out immediately after the draft ends. Like last year, people after an hour were like, where's the guide? Where's the guide? It's usually like two, two and a half hours after the draft ends. You will have a fresh new guide with new rankings, all that stuff. Check it out.
C
Lateround.com I'm pretty sure I was adding you on Twitter like 30 seconds after the 40 yard dash asking where the size adjusted speed scores were. So yeah, I mean you, you set yourself up for this, jj. You've done such good work that people just expect the absolute best from you. But once again, wanted to thank you for the time. I'll be back next week. Joey Wright on Monday, Jeff Bell on Wednesday, Matt Waldman on Friday. We're bringing you three episodes a week every single day or every single week here on the Football Guys Fantasy Football show. So thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you next week.
D
Foreign.
B
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Episode: JJ Zachariason Reveals His Breakout Model (League-Winning Picks for 2026)
Date: March 26, 2026
Host: Dave Kluge
Guest: JJ Zachariason (Late Round Fantasy)
This episode features an in-depth, data-driven conversation between host Dave Kluge and renowned fantasy football analyst JJ Zachariason. They unpack JJ’s innovative "ZAP model" for rookie prospect evaluation, explore its key metrics (like breakout score), and highlight actionable breakout player picks for both rookies and year-two NFL players. The show blends deep statistical insight with pragmatic, league-winning fantasy football wisdom.
Intro to JJ’s Approach
JJ emphasizes grounding prospect takes in advanced analytics, focusing on ceiling over perceived floor:
"When we were talking prospects, I think we get a little bit too bold with our opinions about floor, right? Because all of these guys have no floor, you know, like, like they could all bust. And, and so I generally am going to chase that ceiling and that, that higher end outcome.” (06:23)
What is the ZAP Model?
The ZAP model is JJ’s proprietary composite metric system integrating market share stats, draft capital, early declare status, and advanced age-adjusted production:
“It’s all of these puzzle pieces that come together to formulate the story and narrative about a player… The best way to describe it is that the model is saying, okay, this is this guy's draft draft capital. How much should we deviate from that when we're making our selections in fantasy football?” (12:22)
JJ breaks down why “breakout score” is more predictive than “breakout age”:
“Breakout age is really binary in nature... there's a problem with that inherently, obviously, is that there's no gray area... Breakout score, is it looks at receiving yards per team pass attempt, at wide receiver and tight end as well. And it adjusts that for the age... and for strength of opponent and schedule.” (24:12)
Memorable analogy:
"If my daughter is an elite dancer at 7, chances are if she stays with it, she’ll be elite at 18… If a wide receiver at a young age shows us something early, that’s very telling for how well that player is going to perform." (26:30)
“Draft capital itself is embedding a film evaluation ... Not only that, but you also get a player going to a team that probably has some sort of use for that player. … But, if you're in a rookie draft... don't draft [a sixth rounder] over a second round running back.” (18:39)
“Collegiate players who move into the NFL ... productive NFL players are almost always productive in college. And that’s why these metrics can matter ... productive in context, not just counting stats” (14:56–16:40)
"The combine matters because it influences draft capital… But there are no direct inputs in the wide receiver model outside of height and weight." (28:13)
“Everyone’s injury prone—until they’re not.” (09:51)
“The ceiling here is a Justin Jefferson/CeeDee Lamb type of player.” (06:29, Dave Kluge)
"I think he's in a tier of his own above those players. He has a really good age-adjusted profile." (32:50)
“He can line up everywhere ... 79th percentile perimeter yards per out run.” (34:59)
“Emmett Johnson, reception share, 94th percentile ... What if he finds a McVay type [coach] and we just want to go that route? I think that's sort of the type of player that we're looking at.” (40:38)
“Only 20 WRs in the database... who averaged fewer than 10 PPR points/game as rookies went on to 14+ PPR over years 2–4. ... But he already is somewhat of an outlier... Third best rookie yards per route run since 2011.” (45:47)
"You can get him as a trade throw-in … [the model] likes him more than Matthew Golden right now. I wouldn’t rank it that way, but the model’s saying that." (49:59)
"The zap model did not like Matthew Golden very much ... there wasn’t great production from him aside from that like five game stretch ... his journey comparables: Justin Hunter, KJ Hamler, Adonai Mitchell… Zay Jones, Cordarrelle Patterson, Anthony Miller, Marvin Mims, Dante Pettis, Sky Moore, Paul Richardson, like, it’s just bad players." (53:48–55:38)
Caution on betting the “outliers”
“If you’re trying to make a case by pointing to Devante Adams or Josh Allen ... that’s usually the end of the road.” (57:48)
On groupthink and industry consensus:
“There is a consensus that forms where everybody kind of says this is 1, 2, 3. ... People are so scared to step out of line now for fear of potentially being wrong.” (06:29)
On overemphasizing downside:
"I play fantasy football in this very large gray area… If I have to make excuse after excuse for a player, there’s probably a reason for that." (57:07)
On modeling and humility:
"I also play fantasy football in this very large gray area where I fully recognize this could go south … don't have a black and white way of thinking, in my opinion." (57:40)
| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|---------| | 02:04 | JJ on Jordan Tyson—why the model is so high on him | | 11:28 | Explanation of the ZAP model and its unique features | | 18:39 | Draft capital: role, importance, and how to use it | | 23:28 | Breakout age vs. breakout score, what matters for projection | | 27:40 | JJ on how much (or little) athletic testing matters | | 32:50 | Casey Concepcion’s sneaky profile, slot vs. perimeter usage | | 37:41 | JJ’s RB2: Emmett Johnson, pass-catching metrics and upside | | 42:59 | Year two breakout model and implications for dynasty | | 45:42 | Luther Burden as a year-two ceiling play | | 49:59 | Elic Ayomanor as a deep, model-endorsed stash | | 53:48 | Why to fade Matthew Golden, the “danger of chasing outliers” |
JJ Zachariason continues to push the fantasy football analytics space with nuanced, tested models. This episode is a masterclass on prospect and year-two evaluation—and actionable advice that’ll help you draft and trade with confidence in your dynasty and rookie drafts.