1102: Mailbag - Stafford's Touchdown Regression, Superflex Rankings, 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 1102 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in.
Some of you may have heard about it already, but Late-Round Fantasy Football has a brand new website. We're shifting off of Patreon, and we've now got a members hub for all Late-Round members. We can get rankings, data dumps, Discord access, and more. And the site itself has more information too. Prices aren't changing, but if you're a patron and you want access to the new site, you should have received some communication via email already. If you haven't, you want to make the switch, email david at lateround.com and David Kitchen can help you out. There's going to be a transition period here, so bear with us. The new website is seriously awesome. And on that site, you can now officially preorder the Late Round Draft Guide. That guide is going to give you everything you need to crush your season-long drafts this year. There's game theory discussion, player analysis, targets and avoids, rankings and more. You can check that out on the new lateround.com site right now. That's lateround.com.
The first question this week is from Kobe on Patreon. He says, Hey, JJ, are there any big picture dynasty strategies that you consistently live by to keep a roster healthy and competitive long term? For example, in a start three wide receiver PPR league, would you generally lean toward elite wide receivers like Chase Puka and JSN over elite running backs like Gibbs and Bijan if they're in the same tier because of the longevity and roster building advantage? The deep late rounds of a startup are high upside players who may never pan out better stashes than handcuffed running backs and sacrificial X wide receivers that we don't expect to hold much standalone fantasy value. So I don't have one singular answer here because every roster needs to be approached differently. Like if I'm in win now mode, I might hold on to less of those project wide receivers who need some time to develop. I'll opt for backup third string running backs. It all depends on where my roster is at. I don't think there's some clear cut answer with whether you go with Chase or Puka or JSN versus Bijan and Gibbs. I can tell you that I tend to build with wide receiver and non-running backs and usually dress running back last. I do that for two reasons. First, if I have a higher end rookie draft pick, I can get more of that immediate production at running back in a lot of classes, like Jeremiah Love this year. But even last year, we had a handful of year one impact type players at running back. But then second, if I'm competitive or borderline competitive, my biggest need is at running back. It's a position that teams are typically more willing to part with mid season. Non-competitive teams, because players like Derek Henry, they're at the tail end of their career and managers know that. If they're not competitive, they'll want to cash in before being the ones holding the bag. From just a perception standpoint, it's not quite the same at wide receiver. The overarching approach and philosophy that I have with Dynasty is to draft for value and trade for need. I'm rarely jumping tiers for need in rookie drafts early on in rookie drafts, unless it's a league that doesn't have a lot of trading. But in an active league where I know that I can get a deal done, I won't reach for a need. I want to first accumulate that value, and then I can address it later. And when I address it later, I have a larger player pool to choose from, not just rookies. It makes doing a deal easier because I have more options.
Hopefully, that answers your question though. I think the beauty of Dynasty is that every league has different dynamics, and every league is going to force you to have somewhat of a different approach. The best players, in my opinion, they are the ones who are able to adapt to that specific league environment.
Now, speaking of adapting to your league's environment, the next one is an email from Corey. It says, Hi, why are quarterbacks generally prioritized so heavily in SuperFlex leagues? I draft primarily on replacement values, and for a 10-man league, so replacement starter is the 20th ranked quarterback, those values say that only Josh Allen should go in round one. Most SuperFlex mocks and rankings have five or more quarterbacks in round one.
So if I'm being totally honest, I cannot stand SuperFlex rankings. I despise them. Because if you're not reading the draft room, reading your individual league's draft, if you're not doing that in a SuperFlex league, you're doing it totally wrong.