987: Mailbag - NFL Draft Predictions, Market Mismatches, and More

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, 987 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast.

Thanks for tuning in. This is an early mailbag episode because the NFL draft starts tonight. I'll be busy working on the Prospect Guide as the picks come in, so as I do each year, I want to get this episode done and out there before the festivities really begin. And speaking of the Prospect Guide, remember that you can still get the pre-draft version of the guide up until the draft is over. If you get the pre-draft version, you'll get the post-draft version too. But anyone who buys the guide, say on Sunday, you'll only receive that post-draft version. The guide is 160 pages long with tons of Prospect and Year 2 profile write-ups for running backs and wide receivers. And if you're interested, you get to see what goes into both the Zap and the Year 2 models as well. You can learn more about it over on lateraound.com.

The first question this week is from BlueSky. It's from BlueBurb. It says, The NFL Draft is finally here. While your draft guide updates will be incredibly helpful, I often feel like I need to take action quickly since everyone is so focused on the results in real time. What should Dynasty Managers focus on to avoid over and under-reacting to the new information? Thanks. So just to be clear, to promote this fact one more time, the prospect guide will be updated for everyone by the time Saturday Night rolls around. Which means if that's not fast enough for you, then you're making moves in your Dynasty League while the draft is happening, which is next level dedication. Now, I don't know how to directly answer this question aside from, you can get all my thoughts like four hours after the draft is over. But I'll at least explain how I consume the draft and how I think about the draft. Since I started doing these prospect guides, this is guide number four now, I've realized that having a good grasp on where prospects are expected to go can be really helpful as you watch the draft. They're projected draft capital. If your goal is to immediately capitalize on something happening in the draft, then you need context for the things that are happening in the draft. And the dynasty consensus doesn't always think about that context. For example, Troy Franklin last year, he was someone who many thought was like a lock to be a second round pick. His NFL mock draft database big board projection was 40 second overall, but he fell in the draft. He wasn't even selected on day two. And immediately when that happened, you knew that something was up, because you had that context of where he was supposed to go. But you knew something was up because so many teams were passing on him over and over again. Now, there's usually a little bit of a lag for that to become a consensus thought in the dynasty space. When he went 100 second overall, people were still anchoring to that day two price tag. Eventually, it does wear off, and people realize, oh, yeah, okay, this is a day three pick. But in terms of immediately capitalizing, that's the easiest way to do it, which is to adjust your priors based on draft capital itself. Now the ZAP model, that's what helps me do that more precisely. But if you just reference NFL mock draft database during the draft and sort of compare and contrast where these players get drafted, you can find players who might be over or undervalued. But like I said, if you're looking at my takes on things, I would just wait a few hours after the draft for the updated Late-Round Prospect Guide to drop. That guide will have brand new blurbs for every relevant player. So like with the wide receiver class, I might rewrite like 20 to 30 of the player pages on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And those updated player pages will reflect their new score, their new draft capital, and their NFL teams. Hopefully that kind of answers your question.

The next question is also from BlueSkies from Deadman Walken. It says, Over under two and a half first round running backs, over under two and a half first round quarterbacks, over under three and a half first round wide receivers. Okay, so a lot of you are going to listen to this episode on Friday, maybe even Saturday, Sunday, and so on. And by that point, I'm going to either look like a moron or someone who's really smart. And to be clear, I'm not a betting tout. This is not me saying that you should go find a sports book and place these bets immediately. I'm just a nerd living in his mom's basement trying to solve fantasy football. And in doing so, I've studied a lot of movement and mock drafts with the skill players. Now, with that caveat out of the way, here's my answer. I think under two and a half running backs, I think over two and a half quarterbacks, and I'll say over three and a half wide receivers, assuming we're counting Travis Hunter here. The players in my mind here who are going to be first-round picks at running back, Ashton Gentey, and Amarion Hampton. And then at quarterback, Cam Ward, Jackson Dart, and probably Shador Sanders. Although that's kind of going back and forth. And then the four wide receivers, I think it's going to be Travis Hunter, Tet Macmillan, Matthew Golden, and I think a Mecha Ibuca is going to sneak into round one. The one player I am kind of back and forth with here is probably Trevion Henderson aside from Shador Sanders. But I'll just stick with Hampton and Gentie at running back. You can do whatever you want from a betting standpoint with that information. I'm using this time strictly to give my take on how the first round might look. Not to tell you to go make money off of this information. I haven't studied the betting markets like I've studied mock drafts in general. This asks questions from Chuckster on Patreon. It says, Found your perspectives episode with Matt Waldman fascinating as always. In the RSP, he acknowledges that Hampton may be a consensus top three rookie pick, but advises to wait on running back because of the great depth of the position. Are you putting Hampton at number two because there are only two elite producers at running back, so the value is actually to wait at wide receiver, which has three elite producers? Or is it as simple as his ZAP score being higher than any of the wide receivers? So first off, anyone who has the prospect guide, the tiers that I developed this offseason, they're not really meant to be compared across positions, because there are different requirements for each position in fantasy, and there are different hit rates for each category. Like running back elite producers don't have an identical hit rate to wide receiver elite producers. Zap scores are not meant to be compared across different positions. Second, when it comes to rookie drafts, I'm not really someone who drafts based on what I can get later. This isn't a season-long draft where you're doing some sort of VORP calculation and drafting from an entire pool of players. Not only that, but Dynasty Leagues are often way more active than season-long leagues are. And what that means is you can trade more frequently. That's why I and many others, we've always said that when it comes to rookie drafts, you draft for value and you trade for need. Meaning, if I'm loaded at running back and there's a clear running back who'd be the next pick in my rookie draft, I have no problem taking that running back. Yes, running back is deeper than wide receiver this year. There's no doubt. But if there's a clear teardrop about to happen, I'll gladly take the running back even if my team is loaded at that position. And when it comes to Amari and Hampton, I've talked about this so much now. He checks a lot of the analytical boxes that I care for him to check. I sent a newsletter out on Tuesday where I gave 25 data nuggets about the 2025 class. And one of them was about Amari and Hampton. It said, quote, There have been just four running backs in the Zapp model's history to get drafted in the top 100 with 110-plus speed score and a best season reception share north of 15%.