Late-Round Perspectives: Chris Harris

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

Chris Harris is a former Yahoo and ESPN Fantasy Analyst who's now the owner of Harris Football and the host of the popular Harris Football Podcast. He believes film doesn't lie, he sends fascist emails, he hates crutch arguments, and he might live on a yacht. These are his Late-Round Perspectives.

You know, I realized after I had asked you to come on the show, that we are facing each other in the Ekeler Invitational Semi-Final this week. And-

Christopher Harris (0:40)

Good luck.

JJ Zachariason (0:40)

Yeah, it's hilarious because, so I have to preface this, so that everyone understands what's going on here. So, my team in that league is pretty trash, and I lost three of my first five picks. It's a 14-team league, and when you lose, you get injuries and stuff, it's very, very rough, right?

Meanwhile, Chris' team is just destroying everyone, undefeated right now. You're sitting with Josh Allen and Christian McCaffrey and Kenneth Walker and Isaiah Pacheco is hopefully gonna be healthy this week. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, please can Jonathan Taylor just play with one hand? I would be, I'd really appreciate that, so I don't have to play Chris Rodriguez for a second straight week in this playoff. But somehow as a seven seed, because there's seven playoff teams in this league, somehow as a seven seed, I beat Josh Norris last week who had by far the better team. It's just one of those situations where like, I didn't even think this, like I didn't, you know, like week 10, I'm like, okay, this team's done. Like this isn't gonna be a team that I care about.

And then now I'm sitting ready to just be absolutely annihilated by you here in week 16 So I hope you enjoy that W this week, Chris.

Christopher Harris (1:52)

I mean, I'm trying to think of the number of times in the many, many, many years that I've had an undefeated team that actually won. I don't know that I can ever remember such a thing.

I don't know that I can, I mean, usually you spit the bit.

JJ Zachariason (2:06)

Yeah, yeah. There's usually, I mean, like, that's what I felt like last week with Norris. Like I legitimately, cause you know, this is like a fun league. We're all playing with Austin Ekeler, that kind of deal. And I'm like, you know, if I win this league somehow, sure, that'd be great. We all wanna win. But at the same time, I'm like, I want the best teams to also do well, you know, in these kinds of situations where there's not like tons of money on the line or anything like that.

And for Norris, like his team was really well put together. You know, like he did a great job. It was a really strong team.

He just happened to have a Dallas stack on that team with Dak and Tony Pollard. And like things just didn't go his way. And I had like Jordan Addison who had done absolutely nothing or, you know, not a lot for the last month and a half and just completely blows up. And now, you know, I'm not gonna get that kind of performance against you again. That would just be insane luck and just very, very unlikely.

Christopher Harris (2:55)

I had Harman on my, so Matt Harman's the one who put the lead together. And he was on my show Monday.

And he was like, Ekeler wants you so bad in the finals. Bring it on, little man. He also said, there's like an actual physical trophy they bought for it.

JJ Zachariason (3:15)

Oh, now I wish I would have cared a little bit more about that.

Christopher Harris (3:19)

So I don't want the thing. I'm like, if I win, can I send it to JJ?

JJ Zachariason (3:22)

Yes, you can send it. Look, look, you can send it to the person that you beat by 60 points in the semifinals if you end up winning it. I will gladly, gladly get that fourth place trophy and display it behind me here. Be a fantastic addition. But yeah, man, I'm excited for you to be on the show.

You and I have had a relationship for a while now, basically since you've kind of gone out on your own, which how long has it been since you left ESPN?

Christopher Harris (3:45)

Nine years, baby. Nine years. That's insane. Nine seasons, I guess eight and a half. It was 2015 summer.

I mean, when I left ESPN, I didn't know anybody in the business. You're not allowed to. When you're at ESPN, they don't let you do other shows, right? So I put out the call and you were the second person who I think Andy Barron's was probably the first because I've known him since the 90s and then you were probably the next one.