972: Mailbag 2/14/25

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 972 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by Underdog.

Thanks for tuning in. The Late-Round Prospect Guide, it's available for pre-order right now. I know I've mentioned this on previous episodes, but this year's guide has even more detail and more information than ever before. You get info on everything that goes into my prospect and year two models. You get profiles for every running back and wide receiver who are going to be at this year's combine. You get year two profiles for about 40 second year running backs and wide receivers. And I've added what I'm calling categories to the model this year that help categorize players into different buckets, depending on their overall scores in both the ZAP model and the year two model. I'm putting a lot of work into this. I think you guys are going to really enjoy it. You can preorder it right now over on lateround.com for $14.99. On March 10th when it launches, that price is going to go up by $5. And then also, even though fantasy football season is over, is it actually over? Over on Underdog right now, you can enter drafts for the 2025 season. If you know prospects well, if you have a good grasp on free agency, you can really have an edge on your competition. If you want to check it out, head to underdogfantasy.com and sign up. And when you do, use promo code LATEROUND to get up to $1,000 in bonus cash. That's underdogfantasy.com.

The first question this week is from Twitter. It's from a handle that I can't pronounce, but it simply says, is Ja'Lynn Polk droppable in Dynasty? So as I said at the top, the Late-Round Prospect Guide has year 2 profiles in it, or guys who just finished their rookie season. That model attempts to forecast how well a player is going to perform in year 2 or year 3 of their NFL career. It takes a player's prospect score, it looks at a bunch of metrics from their first year in the NFL, and it spits out a year 2 score. Now, like I also said at the top, I've now got these categories that the model puts players into based on their score. There are six categories. You've got the elite producers at the top, then it's the weekly starters, then flex plays, then bench warmers, then waiver wire ads, and then finally there's dart throws. Elite producers are for the very best players of the position. There haven't been many of them since 2011 when the model dates back to. Ja'Lynn Polk is currently being listed as a waiver wire ad because his year 2 score is 69.8. It's really, really not great. And that's driven by some really, really bad metrics in year 1 Unsurprisingly, my write-up for Polk in the year 2 profile section, it's not favorable. Polk had a 0.35 yards per route run rate last year. Honestly, guys, I can't even explain how bad that is. I mean, I can try, but it's really, really horrific. Since 2011, no rookie wide receiver with 200 or more routes run had a yards per route run that low. And only three other players within that parameter have been that bad, not just rookies, all wide receivers since 2011 Ja'Lynn Polk had 87 receiving yards on 252 routes. The only thing that's keeping him elevated in the year two model is his prospect score from the Zap model. That Zap score gets less weight at wide receiver in the year two model than it does at running back, but it still matters. But I doubt it's going to really matter that much for Ja'Lynn Polk. The odds that he becomes something significant in fantasy football are really, really slim. Like even by giving him the benefit of the doubt and using that prospect score to boost his year two score, he's in the waiver wire ad category, like I said. And only 1% of waiver wire ad players historically, or since 2011, have scored 14 or more PPR points per game in either year two or year three. Only 6.7% of them have even gotten over 10 PPR points per game. Anything below the bench warmer category, so waiver wire ads and dart throws, they suck. They generally don't do much for your fantasy team. In shallow dynasty leagues, I actually could see a scenario where Ja'Lynn Polk can be dropped. Like I'm sure there's going to be a lot of FFPC teams where he's dropped. I would probably still try to hold on just because his prospect score was at least average, but he wasn't like a can't miss prospect. He just wasn't horrible in my eyes. And there currently is opportunity there in New England, especially with the new coaching staff. At least the surroundings and the circumstances, they are changing a little bit for Ja'Lynn Polk. If that wasn't happening, he would be an easy drop in my eyes. So I would try to hold, but yeah, things are not looking good for him. This next question is from Twitter is from at UteWitFace. It says, after making the mistake of ranking Saquon Barkley too low in 2024, why are professional fantasy analysts willing to make the exact same mistake with Christian McCaffrey in 2025? It seems analysts fall prey to recency bias just as much as non-analysts. So I haven't done my rankings for 2025 yet. I haven't built projections yet. So I won't be able to be super definitive with my stance on CMC for 2025 But I do think that last point that you made here is definitely correct. It's human nature to fall victim to something like recency bias. I don't think fantasy analysts are some exception. We're all human. But regarding your question, it's obviously very early. Right now over on Underdog, CMC is going in a pretty similar spot that Saquon Barkley went in last year. So that's probably where this question or kind of statement is stemming from. I just wanted to say that I don't think this is a one-to-one situation and scenario. Ask why Christian McCaffrey is being drafted later this year than he was last year. It's because he had a really scary injury to start the year and then he got hurt again in season and the 49ers aren't necessarily in as good of a spot this year as they were last year and he's another year older. He's going to be 29 at the start of the season. Saquon Barkley was younger this past year and with Saquon last year, people were fading him because they were worried about touchdown equity. They were worried about the tush push. They didn't think that Saquon was as elite of a running back because his advanced metrics weren't amazing with the Giants. Now I'm not saying I agreed or disagreed with that. I'm saying that's why people were fading him. That's why his ADP was where it was at. So to me, this really is not the same situation. It's similar from the perspective that their ADPs are similar. They both have broken fantasy football before and they're coming off seasons where they kind of disappointed. But Barkley played 14 games for the Giants in 2023 CMC had that really unclear injury. He wasn't his special self from a fantasy perspective in limited time. And then he got hurt again. I don't necessarily think it's recency bias. It's just people understanding that we're dealing with a 29-year-old running back who could be wearing down a little bit. Again, that's not really a take on Christian McCaffrey. I don't have that formulated yet. I want to talk to some doctors too. But I at least wanted to say that sometimes you can get yourself into trouble when you make loose connections like this. I think there's a lot more to it personally.