1077: Analyzing 2025's Biggest Hits

**JJ Zachariason** (0:02)
This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.
What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode 1077 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Last week, you heard me go over the big misses of the 2025 season. I talked through what went wrong, why it went wrong from a process standpoint, and then explained some process-oriented things that I might want to take into the 2026 season and beyond. Today, we're looking at the things that went right. It's really important to be objective when you're evaluating this side of things. It's human nature to say that you got something wrong because of bad luck, and then you got something right because you were just smart. You had the right process, you knew what was going to happen, and you predicted it right. But to me, it's really important to not get carried away with your own brilliance. Yes, as a fantasy analyst, I'm going to nail some things, but more often than not, getting something right is more just about getting something directionally right. I use this example all the time, but I was in the Pooka Nakua during his rookie season. He was a late-round dart throw in the draft guide. He was something I was buying into heading into that year. But never in a million years did I expect him to post one of the best rookie wide receiver seasons of all time. Directionally, I was right to be in on him. But it's not like I nailed that projection. That's sort of what today's show is all about. How lucky did I get and what's repeatable here? Because obviously, if I got things right, I want to repeat that process. So with all that being said, let's dig in. My go-to late-round quarterback this year was Drake May. He ended up being my highest roster player in redraft and in best ball. I had him rank QB9 in my season-long rankings when ADP had him at QB16. Needless to say, that worked out. When you look at average draft position expectation and actual results, May outperformed his expected points per game by 4.6 this past year. The only quarterback that was better was Matthew Stafford. That's because he was more of an afterthought in drafts because of his back injury. Fortunately, with this one, I think there's a lot of repeatable process points that we can use in future seasons. Something that's been pretty evident in my research on quarterbacks is how second year passers, they're usually good ceiling bets in the later parts of your draft. If they're being drafted, it means they likely hadn't okay enough for rookie season. Meanwhile, they'll usually be pushed down draft boards a bit because of the unknown. Now, that's not the case for all year two quarterbacks like Jaden Daniels this past year. And that's just because those guys had elite rookie seasons. But, for a player like May, he showed signs as a rookie, but not enough signs to make the consensus feel great about him. You guys might remember, you might not remember, but I did an entire episode on how 2025 was the year of the sophomore quarterback, with Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, Drake May, Bo Nix, and maybe JJ McCarthy and Michael Pennex stepping up. It didn't guarantee all of them would hit, but we were bound to see a hit or two from that group, just based on history. And Drake May was the biggest one. It wasn't just his second year status that made him an obvious target either. Mobility was there too. May as a rookie averaged more rushing yards per game than Josh Allen did. There was this natural progression that we could see from him as a passer. And then we knew that the floor was there because of his rushing production, because of his athleticism. It just really, really came together because Drake May showed everyone that he's an awesome, awesome passer. May's an elite deep ball thrower, but there is some chance for some regression in 2026 and beyond. In other words, yeah, maybe he overperformed a bit with his 52% completion rate on 20 plus area yard throws. That's according to PFF. He was also second in yards on those throws, and he had 11 deep ball touchdowns tying for second. That's going to be hard to repeat year in and year out. But look, I'm recording this before the Conference Championship Games, because there's a big storm coming. I don't know if I'm going to have power early next week. Maybe Drake May had an awful Conference Championship Game. I have no idea, but I think he's the real deal. And there were at least some signals pointing to that fact before this season started. I genuinely think that this is a case where, yes, he hit a higher end outcome, but that higher end outcome was actually pretty predictable.