Late-Round Perspectives: Kyle Yates

**JJ** (0:00)
Kyle Yates is a dynasty fantasy analyst who previously spent time as a host of the FantasyPros Podcast and a fantasy football content director at the Pro Football Network. He's a dad of three, he's a Bears fan, and he works at his church full-time. These are his late-round perspectives. This is my first interview since talking to Kendrick Bourne at Radio Row. So you do have some big shoes to fill, because he was amazing. Like one of the greatest interviews that I could have asked for.

**Kyle Yates** (0:40)
There were a couple of players that I interviewed on Radio Row that I was like, you are amazing. Yeah, yeah. And you would never expect it to, Brevin Jordan. Brevin Jordan was actually my favorite interview the entire time that I was at Radio Row. He was so good on camera. And then Alexander Madison. Alexander Madison was like the nicest human being that I think I have ever encountered. And that was on the heels of him just getting absolutely verbally abused that entire year.

**JJ** (1:07)
Oh, yeah. Destroyed by everybody and how inefficient he was and how, yeah, yeah.

**Kyle Yates** (1:12)
But he was amazing.

**JJ** (1:14)
Yeah, that was the thing for me. I said this on the show. It's really easy to lose sight of them as humans. And I'm not just saying that to say that and to be this really good guy and it's like, no, during the fantasy season, you're looking at data points for these players, right?
They're almost not human from that perspective. And it's sickening and gross and you feel gross. But it is a nice thing to have that interaction. And we interviewed Tedaro McMillan as well. And one of the things that we brought up to him was, if he was hearing from fantasy people, from players and stuff like that, he said that he didn't hear that much this past year, which was good, you know? You want rookies to enter the league and not immediately just reject everything that fantasy football is all about. But get that kind of garbage out of here. These guys are dudes and they're, a lot of them are really, really gracious. We talked to Josh Johnson was our third one, our other one. And the dude was just filled with unbelievable knowledge because he's been in the league for seven, 10 years. And he sat down with us for 10 minutes beforehand and just chatted. And we talked about his workout routine and stuff. And that's the kind of stuff that you just don't get to see without experiencing it.

**Kyle Yates** (2:31)
Yeah. And it's different too when the players are not going to interact with you, if you are interacting that way with them previously. So all you're doing is shouting into the void and shooting yourself in the foot for eventual potential opportunities to actually connect with these players who are human beings and are just out, like the majority of them are just great human beings.

**JJ** (2:52)
Yeah. The one thing, though, I will say is that every single player that I saw was one and a half times larger than I thought they were going to be. Like walking by Derek Henry was one of the most frightening experiences in my life. And I can't even imagine a defender trying to stop that man.

**Kyle Yates** (3:07)
Well, I even held open the door at Radio Road for Jordan Love at one point.

**JJ** (3:10)
And I was like, yeah, you're so much larger. Yeah. Yeah.

**Kyle Yates** (3:13)
Yeah.

**JJ** (3:14)
Well, yeah, I got that picture with Flacco, right? And like Flacco, he's gigantic. Like I'm 6'1, guys. If you see that picture online, I'm 6'1. OK, I'm not like I'm 6'1, like 200, you know, 195, 200 And Joe Flacco is towering over me. The dude is massive.

**Kyle Yates** (3:31)
Which is then insane when you think of like guys like Darnell Washington and Derek Henry, who make like these other NFL players look small.

**JJ** (3:38)
Yeah.

**Kyle Yates** (3:38)
OK, I, you could literally flick me and I would probably go flying back 10 feet.

**JJ** (3:43)
Yeah. Although I did see, I did see a post-game Seahawks interview with Sam Darnold and Kenneth Walker. And the interviewer asked them, it was like a quick, you know, one of just like, it's like a TikTok video or something. They were just asking a quick questions. And one of them was, could a regular average human complete a pass in the NFL? And they both said no. And then they said, can a regular person on 10 tries gain a yard? And they both said yes, surprisingly.