1097: Mailbag - Tyler Shough, 12 Personnel, and More

**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 1097 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast.
Thanks for tuning in. We've got some great questions this week, and we'll get to them in just a second. First, remember to check out The Late-Round Prospect Guide. It's all finished up, and it's been finished since the draft ended. There's well over 170 pages of content, updated player write-ups with their draft capital and landing spot in mind, updated ZAP scores, rookie rankings, and more. You can get it over on lateraound.com right now. Now, let's get to these questions.
The first one's from Matt on Patreon. It says, JJ, you touched on a couple of specific tight end situations in yesterday's episodes, Sadiq and Stowers, and on past episodes, you've talked about the uptick of 12 personnel that we should expect to continue this year as offenses respond to smaller defenses. For example, you've talked about Terrence Ferguson on the Rams as McVeigh likely being a year ahead of the trend. But then the Rams took Max Clair in the second round. With 10 tight ends taken in the first three rounds, which do you take as a bad sign for the incumbents on those teams versus teams just wanting more tight end depth to be able to run more 12? Curious to unpack the situations that these guys got drafted to. So I think this is a really important question. It's one where each individual team is going to have a different answer. But what I'm seeing in a high level bird's eye view is teams trying to move heavier. James Gladstone, the Jags GM, he even mentioned how heavier tight end sets are a trend in the NFL, and that led to their rationale for some of their selections.
So clearly, more and more teams are hopping on to this bandwagon. The Jags last year, according to Fantasy Life data, they ran out of 11 personnel at the 6th highest rate in the league. Even though I think their current wide receiver room dictates that that should continue, their draft says that it won't continue at quite the same rate. And we know league wide, we're seeing more 12 and 13 personnel.
Now, I do think this is one of those places where reality doesn't have to equate to fantasy football. Teams are often doing things that are in the interest of their team as a whole, not scoring fantasy points. Some tight ends, they're going to be better at blocking and they might not be pure receivers like in Eli Stowers. So just because a tight end was picked with decent draft capital, it doesn't mean that that tight end has more fantasy football upside than one of the tight ends already on the team. Like in Jacksonville, I actually think their 5th round tight end has more fantasy football upside than their 2nd round one, and the Zat model actually agrees.
So yes, the amount of tight ends being drafted early and how teams spent their capital on the position definitely signals an uptick in heavier personnel use. Gladstone even said that. However, we shouldn't treat all these tight ends the same. I know we all know that, but tight end can be difficult to evaluate for this very reason, because some of these guys are made for blocking, while others are made for pass catching. And in fantasy football, sure, we want a well-rounded tight end because we want them on the field. We want them on the field a lot, but we want the pass catcher.
And then on top of that, anytime a team makes a draft selection, you have to look at their future situation. The Rams taking Max Clair accomplishes two things. Number one, they get more tight end depth because they are running out of a lot of heavier personnel. But number two, smart teams think ahead. The Rams historically have not really used their rookies on offense under Sean McVay. And look at what's happening in 2027 Next year, Colby Parkinson, free agent, Davis Allen, free agent, Tyler Higbee is signed through 2027, but he's 33 years old and he's not making a ton of money.
Max Clair is a good prospect who can play a receiving role, but he's also someone who profiles more as a 2027 player than a 2026 one. Now, look, if I'm being totally honest here and I'm giving my more amateur take on this tight end Renaissance, I also would imagine that some teams just aren't thinking about this properly. The beauty of what the Rams are doing is that they have flexibility. Having a player like Terrence Ferguson can be hypothetically beneficial for them. And I say hypothetically because we just don't know right now. But I definitely see the vision. Ferguson is more of that tweener type. You can get them out there in these heavier packages, but you can shift them to the outside and let them play the X receiver at times. You can get really, really creative with a tight end like Terrence Ferguson. Now, some teams may not have the same offensive genius that Sean McVay does to really pull something like this off. Like, he can run tight ends out of 11 personnel effectively. He did that last year, which is why it's extra important to remember to still focus on the things we know matter at tight end for fantasy purposes, which is athleticism and receiving production. Some of the tight ends selected earlier in this year's draft, they didn't really have those two things. Some of them did, like an Eli Raritan, who I still think is really undervalued in rookie drafts right now.