969: Mailbag 1/31/25

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

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

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason, and this episode 969 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog.

Thanks for tuning in. Before we get into the mail back questions today, did you know that you can already draft best ball teams for the 2025 season? You can join Big Board Contest right now over on Underdog for all different entry prices. It may sound crazy to draft this early, but the contest will close before the NFL Draft, so everyone's working with the same information. You just can get an edge right now if you know this draft class well. I'm not quite there yet, but I will be soon, and I'll be posting my rankings on the Late-Round Fantasy Football Patreon when I am there. To get ready for that, make sure you sign up on underdogfantasy.com and use promo code LATEROUND when you sign up. That will get you a nice deposit bonus up to $1,000. That's promo code LATEROUND. And also, the LATEROUND Prospect Guide is available for pre-order right now as well. Just head to LATEROUNDCOM, make that 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 and best ball formats 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. That's all on LATEROUNDCOM. Check it out. Now let's get to these mailbag questions.

The first question this week is from The Polymath on Blue Sky. It says, Are there any numbers that support this newfound success with rookie tight ends? Are we witnessing just an outlier driven by pure talent? Or is there any information we can use moving forward? So a couple of years ago in the LATEROUND draft guide, I had Sam Laporta as a LATEROUND dart throw. And I'm not saying that to just pat myself on the back. I'm saying it because of the logic that was used. People were fading rookie tight ends because we hadn't seen strong rookie tight ends in the past. It was a rarity. The problem with that logic though, and this is what I wrote about, was that teams didn't usually give their rookie tight ends a whole lot of run. They were running a ton of routes. But the players who were running routes, they were totally fine when it came to fantasy scoring. Now I know that sounds like such an obvious and simple take, but it's true. Since 2011, we've only had 23 rookie tight ends hit 300 routes run in a season. In total, those tight ends average a yards per route run rate that was only about 0.1 yards lower than veteran tight ends who had that many routes run. Veterans are naturally going to be a little bit better than rookies. But when rookie tight ends get run, they're still able to score some points. They're able to be relatively efficient. Now in recent history, teams are giving their rookie tight ends a little bit more love. Over the last two years, we've had five rookie tight ends hit 300 routes run. Now, that's an arbitrary number, but it gives us an idea of a player who's getting a decent amount of playing time. Since 2019, the last six seasons, we've had 13 of those players, 13 rookie tight ends with 300 or more routes run. In the eight years prior to that, there were 10 of those types of players. So it's going from 1.3 of those tight ends per season to 2.2 of them. That's not nothing. So we're seeing a slight uptick in just the sheer number of guys who are running a high number of routes as rookies. But your question is being asked, I'm sure, because in 2024, we had Brock Bowers. In 2023, we had Sam Laporta. And if I look at my prospect model, I think what we're seeing is just a combination of more opportunity and talent. Sam Laporta graded out really well as a prospect, which is why I called him out in that 2023 draft guide in the first place. Brock Bowers was elite. Even Kyle Pitts, I know he's really, really underperformed, but as a rookie, he was great from a fantasy perspective. And that's because he got opportunity and he was a good prospect. So I personally think it's just that simple. Teams are using these guys more, and in recent history, we've had some really, really good prospects. I wouldn't just draft a rookie tight end just because he's a rookie tight end, because Brock Bowers and Sam Laporta really buck the trend. You still want and arguably need the higher end profile attached to that tight end for him to be more than a streaming type.