888: Mailbag 6/14/24

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, 888 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog Fantasy.

Thanks for tuning in.

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The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from NikoTV17. It says, hi, JJ. Love the show and your content. Thanks. In your episode 886, you talked about how RB1s hit at a very high rate compared to ADP expectation and versus later round running backs. I was wondering if this year it makes sense, from your view, to go running back running back in round 1 and round 2 in redraft. Since the round 2 wide receivers are so uncertain and there's a lot of depth at wide receiver, and especially in a position in the draft around 7-9 where it's very possible to get Breeze and Bijan in round 1 since everyone is going wide receiver at the top. Thanks.

So, I do want to be clear here at the top that round 1 running backs aren't necessarily better at exceeding ADP expectation because their expectation is much, much higher. But round 1 running backs are definitely better at giving you high-end fantasy seasons. And my research has shown that if you have a high-end RB1 in fantasy football, it's arguably the biggest advantage that you can get. Now, can you go RBRB or should you go RBRB? I think one thing to remember is that our re-draft leagues this year won't be going exactly how best ball drafts are going. Like, yeah, you might see Bijon, Breece Hall go in that mid-first-round range. But the people who aren't sick for this game and just draft in August every year, they love their running backs. Players like Kyron Williams, Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Taylor, maybe even Derek Henry, they're bound to go higher than they're currently going on underdog.

So your opportunity cost equation is changing. Maybe instead of choosing between Saquon Barkley and Deebo Samuel, we're choosing between Saquon Barkley and Puka Nakua or Garrett Wilson. And if that's the case, I'm going to side with those wide receivers.

And in most cases, I'm going to still side with those wide receivers. Just because there's some ambiguity in round two this year doesn't mean there won't be hits from that area of the draft or from some of those higher end wide receiver twos. And let's be honest, there's a lot of ambiguity with the running backs after Breeze Hall and Bijon Robinson fall off the board. Jumeir Gibbs is a safe bet for a floor, but is the ceiling as comfortable as we want it to be with David Montgomery in that backfield?

Kyron Williams had a bad prospect score. We know that's predictive. He also has Blake Corum to deal with. What if Devon A. Chan splits that backfield more than we expect? And Saquon Barkley and Jonathan Taylor, they're dealing with mobile quarterback threats, who, number one, may not dump it off as much and, number two, might seal some touchdowns.

So yeah, the wide receivers in round two are definitely up in the air, but so are the running backs. That's why I don't think it's necessary to just zig when others zag. But at the end of the day, your league type, the structure, the scoring, that should dictate a lot of this. Can you get away with a running back running back start this year? Sure. It's not some wild idea. I get this question a lot and people are acting like it's some crazy notion to go RBRB. But is it the way that I'm going to be drafting most frequently? Almost definitely not.