872: How Rookie Quarterbacks Appreciate in Value

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 872 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. Thanks for tuning in. I say it all the time, but when it comes to Dynasty Fantasy Football, you're really playing two games. You're playing the production game, and you're playing the value game. Simultaneously, you're trying to achieve two goals. On one hand, you want to win a championship. You need production. You need to play that game. On the other hand, you really need to accumulate value. And by value, I mean the overall worth of your team based on what the market is doing, based on what you could hypothetically get in return in a trade. Production is good and all, but if that production is only coming from old players who are past their peak, you're in trouble.

Achieving those things at the same time, it's not just how you win championships, but it's how you build powerhouses. It's how you win year in and year out. When we make selections in our rookie drafts, we're obviously concerned with how that player is going to perform. And that performance has a strong tie to player value, right? If someone does really well during the rookie season, that player is probably going to see a nice boost in value. But it's not always that clean. Most of the time, players have okay enough rookie seasons. And those okay enough rookie seasons lead to wildly different evaluations from one fantasy manager to the next.

Just look at, I don't know, Will Levis right now. One person might believe that he's a true franchise quarterback. Another might be thinking that he's going to lose his job in week 7 Because there were some things that you might have liked from his rookie season, and there were some things that you might have not liked.

With all that being said, the market generally moves in certain directions when it comes to year 2 players, or players who finish up their rookie season and are heading into year 2 And as a result of that, we can approach our rookie drafts in a very specific way. Now I've done an episode like this in the past, where I looked at how rookies appreciate in value just in general. I didn't do that much on the quarterback position though, and with this year's draft class looking the way that it's looking, I thought focusing on the position might be helpful. So that's what I did. I looked at and analyzed how rookie quarterbacks appreciate in dynasty value from year 1 to year 2 of their NFL careers. Now before digging into the study, don't forget to check out Underdog Fantasy. I've been drafting over there over the last month or so, and it's giving me a nice early prep on the fantasy football season. I've got tons of slow best ball drafts going on at all times, where I've got an 8 hour clock with each pick. If you haven't played best ball before, the idea is simple. You draft a fantasy football team, and you can do it in minutes. There are no waivers, there's no trades, there's no lineup setting. Your team is optimized for you in season based on how players perform. Drafts are happening right now over there, and you can use the information that I share on here or in my prospect guide to help you draft. If you're new to Underdog and you want to check it out, make sure you use promo code Late-Round when you sign up, and you'll get a deposit match up to $100. That's promo code Late-Round. Head to underdogfantasy.com or download the Underdog Fantasy app to sign up.

One of the reasons I'm interested in sharing information on this rookie quarterback topic is because I don't have a quarterback model. So understanding how these guys appreciate and value from one year to the next, it's super helpful when trying to tell you who to draft. Another reason I'm kind of interested in this topic though is because of Jaden Daniels. It seems like his evaluation is all over the place right now. If you look at certain data points, he definitely seems to fall into the wrong buckets. He's not great at avoiding sacks when pressured, and he's an older prospect too. On the flip side, his 2023 was ridiculous, and he can make things happen with his legs.

But knowing that it's a relatively volatile profile, wouldn't it be nice to know what would happen to his dynasty value if he really tanked in year one? Well, let's look at history. I used Dynasty League Football's rookie draft and startup ADP to help me out with this exercise. Their data doesn't go back to 2011 like most data that I work with does. Instead, I'm only looking at all quarterback draft classes since 2018 That gives us 6 classes to work off of. I wish the sample was bigger, but this kind of data isn't everywhere. In order to find out how rookie quarterbacks appreciate in value, I first looked at all rookie quarterbacks who were selected in rookie drafts over this time frame. And that led to 40 passers. That's according to the data. This data set that spans 6 years has 40 quarterbacks in it, giving us 6-7 quarterbacks taken in rookie drafts each year. From there, I associated each of these rookie quarterbacks with their startup ADP in Superflex Leagues. And that's their startup ADP before their rookie season. And for the record, I'm looking at Superflex Leagues here, because it's going to give us more detail about how a player changed in value from year 1 to year 2 Most people care about this kind of thing for Superflex Leagues anyway, because rookie quarterbacks matter a whole lot less in single quarterback formats.