Late-Round Perspectives: Jeff Ratcliffe

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

Jeff Ratcliffe is the president at FTN Fantasy and an on-air talent at both Sirius XM Radio and CBS Sports. Before all that, he spent about a decade at Pro Football Focus. He's got a PhD in Anthropology, and I guess he kinda has one in Fantasy Football too. these are his late-round perspectives.

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Jeff Ratcliffe (1:29)

Yeah, it was something like that. Yeah, three months. We were like, oh, this JJ knows what he's doing. Let's offer him some money because we actually had a budget and you turned us down.

JJ Zachariason (1:42)

And then I immediately peaced out and I got a gig at Numberfire and then the rest, as they say, is history. But you spent like almost a decade, right, at PFF?

Jeff Ratcliffe (1:52)

It was like, yeah, two months short of a decade.

JJ Zachariason (1:56)

That is wild. That is wild. So yeah, like you and I have known each other for a while. We got to hook back up a little bit at the Fantasy Football Expo as we do each year. So it was great to see you. Like I said, you've been in the space for a while now. You and I cross paths so many times. We've done plenty of shows and such together. But just for anyone listening that maybe hasn't listened to your stuff or at least recently, or doesn't know your journey or who you are as an analyst, how would you describe your approach as an analyst? Like who are you as an analyst, Jeff Ratcliffe?

Jeff Ratcliffe (2:28)

Wow. That could go in so many different directions. But I think to start, I should say that fantasy is just my excuse to talk about football.

JJ Zachariason (2:38)

Yeah.

Jeff Ratcliffe (2:40)

And I think that's a really important thing. Like JJ, part of our generation here, as Rich Rebar calls us, the CD generation. We were in between VHS and then like MP3 streaming and all that. But our generation, we didn't just go out and say, hey, start this player because I work for three or four letter network. It was, here's what I'm doing. Here's my knowledge of the game. Here's how I'm applying it to fantasy football and then taking it from there. And I think a lot of that for me comes from my background. You know, I was a grad student in the aughts. I was a college professor throughout the course of getting a Ph.D. And I played a lot of poker as well. I pretty much did anything I could to procrastinate. And I would talk about hands and walk through the process there. And eventually, like poker, obviously, the moneymaker boom was over. The whole full tilt thing happened. And I stopped doing that. And I started just lurking in message board forums in fantasy football. And like 08, 09, started writing a little bit. And then in 2010, it came around that everything is timing. And I reached out to a particular person. He said he had an opportunity, but he had to wait about a month. The opportunity ended up being PFF. And the person was Mike Clay. And it just couldn't have worked out better. But then even from there, I really had to work my tail off to get into this thing. And I realized along the way there were some parallels to what I did as a professor. Now, I was teaching a subject that most people did not give a crap about. They were there for three credits at B plus, maybe an A minus, and then moving on. And the subject is cultural anthropology. I had to find ways to make it interesting, make it engaging, and make it relatable. And I really tried to do that with football concepts and maybe even some of the advanced fantasy concepts so that anybody can understand these things, anybody can use them, anybody can apply them. And then ultimately, hopefully, they can enjoy football more in the process. There was a great realization that happened to me many years ago. I, on a Sunday, like a lot of people was sitting there watching games, had the laptop open with the scores, and I was utterly miserable because whatever was happened with my fantasy teams. And it was like, at the end of the day, I realized, holy crap, I just hated watching football. Like, that should not be the case.