Late-Round Perspectives: Denny Carter

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

Denny Carter is a writer and podcaster for NBC Sports Rotoworld, and he co-hosts the Living the Stream Podcast. He's a Wii Golf Pro, he's got one of the best heads of hair in the fantasy space, and he's never been owned online. These are his late-round perspectives. Thank you.

I'm really excited about this because this is the first time after years and years of talking to one another that we're able to podcast together.

Denny Carter (0:35)

That's right, this is a first. I appreciate the opportunity.

JJ Zachariason (0:41)

Yeah, I'm very excited. For those of you who don't know, for the record, Denny and I have another podcast, Living the Stream, that we just finished episode 269 of.

Denny Carter (0:52)

Nice.

JJ Zachariason (0:53)

For Living the Stream.

And I thought I'd have him on Late-Round Perspectives. You have been one of the guests that folks have talked up the most to come on Late-Round Perspectives. Because we have a certain dynamic on Living the Stream, where I'm kind of guiding the conversation a little bit, and we're giving our, it's sort of the same flow each week. Whereas Late-Round Perspectives is much more a Denny-driven show.

Denny Carter (1:19)

Free-flowing, you say what you want.

JJ Zachariason (1:22)

Yeah, right, right.

And this, you know, the show is more about you, Denny. This is, I want to learn more about you. I feel like I know a good bit about you, but I want folks to learn more about you. And I want to hear some takes because, you know, we talk to each other all the time about fantasy football.

We DM each other, we text each other, all that good stuff. But I, you know, there's still some things that I don't know how you feel about. And I would love for this show to sort of be that arena for you to spew those takes.

Denny Carter (1:50)

I'm all for it.

I will say, I do feel overly exposed online after all these years. So we'll see if folks know everything about me or if there's still some things left to learn.

JJ Zachariason (2:01)

Yeah, I mean, of all of the fantasy analysts, I feel like you're one of the, you're probably in the 98th percentile in terms of what's out there about you. You know, you're not really hiding anything.

But I do want to start things off by talking about your sort of journey in this space and becoming a fantasy football analyst and all that good stuff. You and I started at a really similar time. It was like back in that 2011, 2012 period. And I remember distinctly the reason why I found you, because I believe I found you before you found me.

Denny Carter (2:33)

Really?

JJ Zachariason (2:34)

Yeah, I'm going to just say that that's my win between the two of us.

But I believe the reason I found you was you were at that fantasy football convention or some sort of conference that was in like New Jersey or something. Was it in Jersey? Is that what it was?

Denny Carter (2:51)

It was.

JJ Zachariason (2:52)

And like Michael Vick was there, I think. And you were treating it as a sort of reporter, being there. And then from there, I remember DMing you and you and I seemed to just like e-kick it off via DMs and such. And then we just ended up starting Living the Stream. I was like, hey, I want to do a podcast. You want to do a podcast with me.

But we've been around for a while is what I'm saying.

I mean, our first Living the Stream episode was when your son Xavier was born. And he's now what, 10, 11?

Denny Carter (3:25)

He's actually 22 He's in his third year of college.

He's 10, yeah.

JJ Zachariason (3:30)

Right, right. And so look, we've been around for a while, but I want to ask you, what do you think has changed the most through the years? I'm not just saying with fantasy football analysis, but also sort of the way that consumers are playing the game and people are playing the game.

Denny Carter (3:46)

I have not thought about the New Jersey Convention forever. Thank you for mentioning that. You want to talk about a dopamine hit.

That was a dopamine hit because I was virtually unknown, unfollowed on Twitter coming into that. I started tweeting about it and Rum for Johnny and you and Evan Silva and Chris Westling, they all started retweeting me and I'm like, oh my God, it's happening. So that was very cool.

And yeah, so I was a reporter coming into this thing. Anyway, to address your question, what has changed?