Late-Round Perspectives: Jeff Ratcliffe Returns

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

Jeff Ratcliffe is The Late-Round Perspectives return guest who's a host on SiriusXM and The President and FTN Fantasy. He's done work for CBS Sports and Pro Football Focus in the past, he's a dad, and he's got a PhD in Anthropology. These are his Late-Round Perspectives.

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Jeff Ratcliffe (1:21)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're the champ, you have the bragging rights and I love that. I think that's an awesome flex to show up with the trophy, the belt, the football draft.

JJ Zachariason (1:31)

Yeah. Like why are we playing if you can't do that? Right?

Jeff Ratcliffe (1:34)

Exactly.

JJ Zachariason (1:35)

Like that's the whole point is that we, you know, I won the snake draft last year in that league and I wanted people to remember that I won that league last year. I had the luxury of, you know, I drive up to Canton every year from Charlotte. It's like a six and a half hour drive. Whereas, Rodopat was the other winner of the Auction League last year and he's flying. And I would imagine taking this, like, the belt's heavy, like they're not light belts. I'm sure that a lot of people listening have had, like, you know, different trophies and such. And, you know, Rodopat, you know, taking that through security might be a little bit of a problem just because of how heavy that thing is.

Jeff Ratcliffe (2:09)

I had that happen one time. I was actually out at Trophy Smack and they gave me a belt to bring home from LA and I had to take it out going through and had to explain it. Of course, like TSA, they were all laughing about it. They're like, look at this ding dong with a belt, but I mean, if anything, you can get through, but I wouldn't want to travel with it, like Rodopat either.

JJ Zachariason (2:30)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is the nerdiest flex of all time. When you're in the TSA line and you've got this belt, people are looking at you like you're either a professional wrestler or you're a fantasy football nerd.

One of the two is...

Jeff Ratcliffe (2:45)

Professional nerd, yeah.

JJ Zachariason (2:47)

Professional nerd is really what it is, yeah. Now look, Jeff, you've been on perspectives in the past, so we don't need to dig into the past and all that, and your journey in the space. I just want to get right to it. I just want to talk about what happened in week one. People are eager to hear some takes from someone that's not me within the podcast feed. So I'll just ask you this straight up. What was the biggest fantasy football surprise for you stemming from week one?

Jeff Ratcliffe (3:10)

It was actually there were two players I was thinking about here, but one of them being Daniel Jones. Although the fact that Daniel Jones can run is not a surprise. So I'm going to toss him. The surprise was Quinton Johnston. This is a player who we saw drop three footballs in a single football game last year, three passes and six down the stretch. And honestly, he was headed towards bus territory for sure, not for fantasy, but for overall NFL purposes. This is a former first rounder.

But what I think they were doing wrong in LA is using him as a downfield guy, like a TCU. He was a run after catch guy, big bodied player, but get the ball in his hands and good things will happen. And that's sort of what we saw there. Now there were some downfield targets, don't get me wrong. But I think a lot of times with these guys, it's more about getting them comfortable first and foremost, and then the good things start to happen from there. Now I don't know if this is sustainable. He also was out-targeted by both Keenan Allen and Lad McConkie. But if this is sustainable, if we do land somebody like him on waivers at the beginning of the season, that will prove to be one of the biggest surprises of the whole year for me.