1106: Mailbag - Ladd McConkey's Outlook, Philadelphia's Offense, and More

**JJ Zachariason** (0:11)
What's up, everyone, it's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 1106 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Before getting to the mailbag questions this week, I wanted to remind you to check out the Late-Round Draft Guide. It's filled with game theory talk, ways to spot breakouts and busts, draft strategy for 2026, players to target, players to avoid, and so much more. It'll be out on July 10th, but you can pre-order now at a discount. Just check it all out over on lateround.com.
The first question this week is from Chris via the Late-Round Members Hub. It says, hey, JJ, the new site looks awesome. Thanks. My question is, why is Tyler Shuck ranked significantly higher in Redraft Superflex ranks than Dynasty? I know he's older than your typical second-year player, but that still feels counterintuitive to me. Thank you. So first off, I'll say what I've said before on this show about Superflex season-long rankings and note that I really don't like them at all. I don't think people should blindly draft off of Superflex rankings because every Redraft Superflex league is going to have a totally different economy and how they value quarterbacks.
With Dynasty, at least there's a market component that you're playing into. We can look at sites like Keep Trade Cut to see what the general market is for a quarterback. With season-long Superflex leagues, that really doesn't matter. More than anything else in those drafts and those season-long Superflex drafts, you need to be reactive to what's going on in that quarterback position. So if you're looking at my Superflex season-long rankings and comparing them one-to-one with Dynasty ones, I don't think that's a smart idea.
Just for those reasons alone. But people consistently ask me for season-long Superflex rankings, that's why I provide them. And I do my best to properly value quarterbacks, even though I don't think there's one single way to value them. But look, I have Tyler Shuck as QB 15 right now in season-long, I have him around QB 19 in Dynasty. Now I could argue him a little bit higher in Dynasty, but that's technically where my rankings have him right now. This has come up countless times in the show in the past with a number of different young players. But I don't automatically have a young player ranked higher in Dynasty vs. Redraft, because the cost to acquire that player is completely different in those two formats.
Like right now with Tyler Shuck, I think we'd all agree that he's not locked in as a starter for the next four, five, six, seven years. We're not quite there yet. I'm optimistic, I actually think he was better than Cam Ward last year as a rookie. But we're still talking about an older prospect who went outside the first round. He's got the system around him, he could put up some really great fantasy numbers, but it's no guarantee that he's the starter beyond this season. In Redraft, that doesn't really matter. I don't care about what happens in 2027 with Tyler Shuck, so I don't have to play the downside game or worry about the downside at all. The downside for Tyler Shuck literally doesn't matter when we're specifically looking at 17 games in 2026, technically 16 in the fantasy season. And I'm talking about career long downside. So that changes where I'm going to rank a player, because I'm trying to recognize the range of outcomes here. I recognize that Shuck could be really good, but it can also go south, and that balances out into his dynasty ranking. But I don't care nearly as much if it goes south and season long, because there are more ways to make up for that mistake, even in a superflex format. Season long leagues are shallower. There's more on the waiver wire. And again, we're not worried long term here. Shuck is probably going to be a decent fantasy asset, even if he doesn't really hit as a real life passer, because he has volume, there's a good environment there, and there's rushing potential.
It's like when Justin Fields was starting. I'm not saying that Tyler Shuck is Justin Fields, but hear me out. I was never ultra high on Fields and Dynasty because the passing numbers were always questionable, which means there was always a risk that he could lose his job. In Redraft, though, as long as he was starting, he was generally giving you good fantasy numbers. He was giving you a good floor-ceiling combo. I didn't really care about what would happen with Justin Fields beyond that given year.
Malik Willis is in a very similar boat right now, too. We genuinely have no idea how well Malik Willis is going to perform as a starter, but there's zero doubt in my mind that his Dynasty value is a lot more volatile right now than his Redraft value. His Redraft value in single-quarterback leagues is just a late-round pick. Even in Superflex leagues, it's not that bad from a season-long perspective. If it doesn't work out, you can just dump them in a single-quarterback league. In a Superflex league, if you're really worried about the floor, you can platoon him, get a third quarterback, get like an Aaron Rodgers type. In Dynasty Superflex, if you look at keep trade cut, you have to give up a player like Christian Watson to get Malik Willis. That's not insignificant, and it's a long-term deal. I remember the same conversation on this show about Gabe Davis back in the day. I had Gabe Davis ranked way higher in Redraft than I did in Dynasty after he came off that crazy playoff performance, after a second year.