968: Analyzing 2024's Biggest Hits

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up everyone, it's JJ Zachariason, and this episode 968 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog. Thanks for tuning in. Late last week, you heard an episode on some of the bigger things that I got wrong this past year. I talked about the item that was wrong, and whether or not that item was actually predictable or not. Or if I used correct process while making the decision that I ended up making as an analyst. Today's show is the opposite of that. It's the things that went right. I think a lot of times when things go your way, you just assume that they went your way because of course they did. You were smart. You did something correctly. You don't need to go any further. You were right. But it's still really imperative to see if luck played a factor, or if your process was wrong. Because there were some instances this year where the result definitely went my way, but I wasn't predicting the why correctly. And to me, that's just as important as predicting the end result correctly. So we'll talk through some of those bigger things that went my way this year. I tried to come with a variety of things just to cover everything. Now before getting to the items today, do you guys know that the 2025 best ball season is already underway over at Underdog? For real. You can join Big Board Contest right now over there for all different entry prices. You could really have an edge in your competition right now if you understand prospects better than the market, and I know some of you do. That's what helped me get into the Big Board Final last year. Now I haven't created rankings for it yet, but I will soon enough over on the Late-Round Fantasy Football Patreon. To get ready for that, make sure you sign up on underdogfantasy.com and use promo code LATEROUND when you do sign up. That will get you a nice deposit bonus up to $1,000. That's promo code LATEROUND. And also the Late-Round Prospect Guide is available for pre-order. Just head to LATEROUNDCOM to make the purchase. It will give you everything you need to crush your rookie drafts this year. But the information in it can definitely help with season long too. You can see samples of what you get over on LATEROUNDCOM if you're still deciding. The price for the Prospect Guide is currently $14.99. It's going to rise to $19.99 once it launches on March 10th. Then it's going to be updated after the NFL draft happens. You get all of that for just a $14.99 pre-order. That's all on LATEROUNDCOM. Check it out.

A good place to start this show is probably with Brian Thomas Jr. For those of you who listened to Becoming a Best Ball Bro, that series over the summer, you might remember that Brian Thomas was my highest rostered wide receiver in best ball last year. Anyone who listens to my friends over at the Fantasy Footballers for their MVP show, Brian Thomas was my preseason submission as this year's fantasy football MVP. Needless to say, I was really high on him entering the season, and this is a case where the result was even better than I anticipated. But I think the process was also spot on. One of the reasons I love having my prospect guide, my draft guide, is that I can look back and easily see how I was feeling about a player or a situation before the season started. I of course enjoy spreading research and getting my thoughts out there to the masses, but I selfishly love having these almost like journals of my thoughts entering a season. Brian Thomas was a volatile prospect because he didn't have multiple huge seasons in college, but the ZAP model liked him more than most did. But what's important for today's discussion is what I said about him in the draft guide. In this year's guide, Brian Thomas was a player to target, obviously. And in his blurb, I wrote the following, quote, Thomas' prospect score was 94.5, a number that typically yields good fantasy results. Which by the way, with some adjustments that I made to the model this offseason or over the last few weeks, that score actually now looks even better. More on that in the prospect guide though. But I continue and I say, since 2014, we've had 23 rookie wide receivers get selected in the wide receiver 40 to wide receiver 60 range with a prospect score above 90 Those players on average outperformed ADP expectation by 1.4 PPR points per game. And a crazy high 39% of them finishes a moderate breakout. And remember, rookies will typically perform better during the back half of the season compared to the front one. I then went on to write and say what you want about Calvin Ridley playing that role last year. Not only did he have some unfortunate touchdown luck, but he still maintained a 22.4% target share. According to PFF's modeling, Ridley finishes the wide receiver 14 and expected fantasy points last season. And Ridley wasn't getting drafted as the wide receiver 50 last year. So essentially ADP trends pointed to Brian Thomas being an obvious pick. The market undervalued this type of player in the past. That player being a talented player. And then on top of that, the potential workload was there. He would take on that Calvin Ridley role, which wasn't amazing for Ridley from a results standpoint, but Ridley underperformed. When you can get a middle round wide receiver who's this good of a prospect, you should want to take on that risk. You want to take on that variance. And when that player also has a path to volume, same exact deal. Now, Brian Thomas ended up performing better than even I expected. But in fantasy football, it's not simply about being precise. It's not about predicting the outlier. It's about liking the outlier more than your league mates. And that's what happened with me when it came to Brian Thomas.