1079: Buy Candidates

**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 1079 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Over the next two weeks, I'll be doing one show on buy candidates in dynasty leagues, and then one episode on sell candidates. Essentially, players to trade for, and players that you might want to trade away. Now, obviously, just like the 15 transaction show that I do during the season, there's no clear cut process for finding these players. For your specific league, a buy candidate may not actually be a buy candidate if the manager with that player has an unreasonable price tag on them. But this is just generally how I feel about these players based on what I'm seeing over on keeptradecut.com. It's not perfect, but it at least gives us a baseline of market sentiment. From there, I just compare my dynasty rankings to where the market has these guys to get some players you might be able to trade for or trade away. Today's episode, though, it's on the guys you should be trading for, or at least looking to trade for. Before I get to those players, though, I just have to let you guys know that the LateRound Prospect Guide is officially available for pre-order. And this year, not only are the models improved, and not only is there some new fun scoring stuff in it, some nerdy stuff, but we're bringing tight end profiles, full blown profiles for relevant tight ends. The Guide is bigger and better than ever. And it's for the exact same pre-order price of $14.99. To pre-order right now, head to lateraound.com. Okay, now let's get to these buy candidates.
It's harder to have huge discrepancies in my rankings versus the market with quarterbacks. There just aren't that many of them. It's a little bit more obvious as to who the good ones are. One player I'm a few spots higher than the market with right now though, is Kyler Murray. I know, I know, he sucks. Jacoby Burset's better. He's got accuracy issues. For what it's worth, Kyler's expected points added per drop back was actually plus 0.04 this past year, when Burset was at minus 0.04. Burset had a better completion percentage over expected and Arizona went with a really passive approach with Jacoby Burset under center. But I also think there's a chance that Burset just fit what they wanted to do a little bit better. I mean, given those results as EPA per drop back numbers, I don't even know if that's the case. The fact is, the NFL continues to have more quarterback spots open than actual viable quarterbacks in the league. Chances are in the short term, as long as Kyler Murray is in the league, he's probably going to be a starter somewhere. And when he's been a starter, he's flashed upside in fantasy football. Now Murray was only at 15.6 standard fantasy points per game last year. He was just shy of that 17 points per game mark in 2024 He's had back to back kind of mid-seasons. He's also been above 18 points per game, though, in his four other relevant years. And for what it's worth, his peripherals looked a lot better in 2024 than in 2025 His fantasy production was a little bit better, but the passing numbers were a good bit better. But look, I won't lie, this is just a cosplay. You can get him at QB27 right now, according to Keep Trade Cut. He's a 28-year-old scrambling quarterback who likely is going to get another shot with a new coaching staff in what will be a new offense, whether in Arizona or elsewhere. So I'm fine with trying to see if I can take a swing on Kyler Murray at a low cost right now. And more broadly, I think the strategy I'm going to go with this offseason, at least in Superflex leagues, is to throw darts at some of these guys who we just can't imagine being a QB1 in the NFL for an NFL team. Like Kirk Cousins or Will Howard. Take a chance with a super late rookie pick, or someone just sitting on your bench. Having a starter in Superflex leagues can give you a lot of leverage.
Now that's my only quarterback on today's list, because like I said, it's a tough position to really buy and sell, given how tight rankings align with general ADP. I don't want to just go position by position today though. I'm going to jump around. So let's start with Quinton Johnston. I've never been like a huge Johnston truther, to the point where I had very little this past season, almost to a fault, and almost ruined me, because he got off to a really good start. But fortunately for my sake, he slowed down as the season went on. There are so many reasons to be bullish on the Chargers right now. And I think Johnston in particular is really interesting. I have him a few wide receiver spots above where the market does. First off, we know the Chargers offensive line was terrible last year, largely due to injury. But according to PFF, the Chargers ranked 31st in pass block rating this past year. Rashawn Slater was out all year though, and Joe Alt, he only played six games. In those six games, Justin Herbert averaged 21.1 fantasy points per game. When Joe Alt was out of the lineup, that number dropped by over five points. And keep in mind, Alt didn't even have significant snaps in a couple of those contests. Regardless, you can see the impact, even if it's not all him. You can see the impact that a key offensive line injury can have in an offense. And that naturally has a trickle-down effect. Most players in that Chargers offense had better production with Joe Alt. But Quentin Johnston was over 15 PPR points per game with him, and below 10 without him. Now, of course, other factors like injury and matchup, all of that come into play here. But it also makes sense that a worse offensive line wouldn't allow plays to develop for a player like QJ, who can generate some of those down-the-field plays. The offensive line should be healthy next year. They're going to see an insane improvement from that just naturally. And then they get Mike McDaniel as offensive coordinator. And I am so unbelievably excited for that. McDaniel's historically used a ton of motion in his offenses to scheme open his wide receivers. Miami was first in pre-snap motion last year according to fantasy life data. They were second the year before that, and then they were first in 2022 and in 2023 So he was first in the NFL in his use of motion and three of his four years as Miami's head coach. And his team was second in the one year that they weren't first. Quentin Johnston has his flaws, but if you can get him open in space, he can do a ton after the catch. Despite not performing like a top 30 wide receiver all the time, he's been top 30 in yards after the catch over expected across the entire league in each of his last two seasons. That's according to next-gen stats. This just has a chance to be one of those transactions where you can get a bump in value year over year. But you should also get decent production from him too. This isn't strictly a value play. You can gain that market value while also gaining production on your team. I'm not expecting the world, but I'm really into buying this Chargers offense, whether it's Justin Herbert himself, QJ, or even someone like Trey Harris.