976: NFL Combine Winners and Losers

JJ Zachariason (0:11)

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 976 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Before I get into today's episode, I have a few things that I want to share. First, last week, this podcast was named Football Podcast of the Year by the Fantasy Sportswriters Association, and that was for a second straight year. I just want to say thank you, and I'm so grateful for your support. Without that support, there would be no Late-Round Podcast. And thank you to the FSWA for the recognition. It really means a lot. Now, second, we're not less than a week away from the Late-Round Prospect Guide launch. I'm in editing mode right now, so it's not totally done yet, but this thing is a beast this year. I've got profiles for every running back and wide receiver who are at the combine. I've got almost 40 year-two profiles. I have information in there on what goes into the ZAP model and that year-two model. It's 160 pages long of some super nerdy fantasy football information. And of course, I've got rankings in there too. You can pre-order it right now at $14.99. That's going to change next week, though, when it launches. That price is going to rise by $5. Then when the draft is over, if you order the guide, you'll get a post-draft version sent directly to your inbox in the final day of the draft. That's going to have updated blurbs, prospect scores, and rankings. Learn more about it over on lateraound.com. And while you're on lateraound.com, do me a favor, sign up for the newsletter. It's absolutely free. As a lot of you know, I hired David Kitchen at the start of January to be Late-Round Fantasy Football COO. And with that, we've been beefing up the newsletter game. You get content from both of us in that newsletter. I'll be sending one out this week about some Zapp model scores. Kitchen, he does a fun recap each week. And again, it's absolutely free. Just head to lateraound.com to learn more. Okay, let's get to today's topic, which is the NFL Combine. We just watched this year's Prospects run around in shorts, and we did learn a little bit. Now, I think most people who are new to what I do probably assume that my models and the numbers that I work with are hyper-focused on the Combine. That's really not the case at all. The only information from the Combine that actually goes into my Prospect models, the ZAP models, are height and weight measurements, and then I look at speed score at running back in tight end. Speed score being weight-adjusted 40-yard dash times. Now, that doesn't mean that the other events of the Combine aren't impacting a player's Prospect score, because the biggest input in each model is draft capital, and a team may be influenced by the Combine. They likely are influenced by the Combine. Which then can impact a player's draft capital. So, I try to keep that in mind as I think about which players were winners and which players were losers at the NFL Combine. But that's what I'm going to talk through today. Winners and losers from the Combine. Obviously, with a focus on the three positions that I have a Prospect model for, which is running back, wide receiver, and tight end. It's a pretty straightforward episode that I do each year, so let's do it. Now, I'm not going to lie. Today's episode is far more good than bad. There were way more winners this year in my eyes than losers. Let's start with the most obvious winner, and that's Matthew Golden. He ran a 42940 People knew that he was fast. I'm not sure that anyone was prepared for that. That kind of speed. Now, I talked about Golden a little bit on the episode that I did a couple of weeks ago on wide receivers who produce like studs in college. I got to be honest, his production profile, it's not very strong for a first-round wide receiver. And I think with that 40 time, he's probably now a first-round wide receiver. Before, it was kind of up in the air. Now, Golden's breakout score is 51.4. For those who don't know, breakout score is my metric that looks at age-adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt numbers. Obviously, there's more about that in the prospect guide, but that's the gist. Golden's 51.4 breakout score, it's fine, but it's far from great. It's barely above average. We've had 22 first- and second-round wide receivers drafted between 2011 and 2022 with breakout scores below 60 Only four of those 22 wideouts scored 14 or more PPR points per game in either year one, year two, or year three. Now, I don't think Golden has the worst production profile that we've seen from a potential first-round pick, but it's definitely well below average, and it puts him in a group of undesirable players, generally speaking. Clearly, he can still hit, but I always get nervous when a dude without a crazy good production profile gets elevated in the draft after what he did at the Combine, and there's no doubt that that's probably going to happen. I do think at the end of the day, though, without Travis Hunter being involved, he'll probably end up being the model's wide receiver for. Now, on the flip side is Isaiah Bond. During the interview portion of the Combine, some of you probably saw this, Bond confidently said that he was going to break the 40-yard dash record, and when you watch him play, you can see that speed on display. Like it seemed like a ridiculous thing to say, but he also is pretty fast. And he did run a fast 40, but to be overshadowed by his Texas teammate wasn't a good thing for him. He didn't run as fast as Matthew Golden. The Zap model likes Bond's breakout score more, but given draft capital, Golden's almost definitely going to rank ahead of Bond in Zap score pre and post draft. So I'm going to say that Matthew Golden was a winner and kind of as a result, Isaiah Bond, given his confidence in how he was talking about the 40, kind of a loser.