Late-Round Perspectives: Marcas Grant

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

Marcas Grant is a fantasy analyst for NFL Network, who also does multiple shows for Fantasy Life. He's a Southern California alum, a West Coast dad, he was once a play-by-play announcer, and Geno Smith may or may not be his doppelganger. These are his Late-Round Perspectives.

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Marcas Grant (1:23)

Yeah, it's funny because my face has been in the commercial, the promo for a while, they've never given me a quote in it. This year, they've given me a quote and they spliced together two things where I say, he's a big strong guy, he's the guy I want. My wife thinks it is the funniest thing ever when she sees it, she rewinds it and makes me listen to it over and over again.

JJ Zachariason (1:46)

That's true. Now that I'm thinking about it, that is what you're saying in that commercial, which is unbelievably amazing. That's so perfect. But yeah, man, it's good to sit down and chop it up a little bit. I was also thinking, you get the Gino Smith doppelganger. I get the Joe Flacco doppelganger all the time. So this is just Gino Smith and Joe Flacco chopping it up today. That's all this is.

Marcas Grant (2:12)

Obviously, exactly. Just two veteran quarterbacks talking about the game. That's all it is.

JJ Zachariason (2:17)

That's right. So look, with Late-Round Perspectives, I always like to start off the conversation to let you sort of talk through your journey, let folks know where you've come from and how you got to where you are. I mean, you're at the flagship, if you will, with NFL Network. And do you guys call it like, would you consider, when someone says, where do you work, do you say NFL Network or the NFL or NFL Media?

Marcas Grant (2:44)

I sort of interchange all three of them, to be honest with you. I work for the NFL, I work at NFL Network, I work for NFL Media. Yeah, they're all sort of interchangeable.

JJ Zachariason (2:52)

It's okay. I never knew. I didn't know if it was like if there was like a go-to for folks. That was because I will have an intro for you for the show itself. And I got to make sure I get that right. But anyway, let everyone know sort of like how you got into the space, where it all started, where the passion came from, all that good stuff.

Marcas Grant (3:11)

Yeah, I always tell people that this job sort of found me more than I went looking for it. I had worked in radio in various forms for a long time. I did minor league baseball play by play for two seasons. I worked for some local radio stations, covering a lot of high school and junior college sports and doing just kind of local sports talk radio for a while. I was lucky to get a job with a national sports radio network, which was then Sporty News Radio. They've morphed into several other things since then. But after working there for like a year and a half, two years, the company was sold, the owner wanted to move operations to Houston. They offered me a chance. I said, you know, I'm a California guy through and through, born and raised, wanted to stay in Los Angeles. I figured I will stick it out and just try my hand and figure something else out. So I was I was fun employed for about 11 months. A former coworker at the radio network suggested I apply to jobs at the NFL. He had been working there seasonally, said they're always looking for folks in season. So I literally went to like nfl.com/jobs or whatever the website is. And applied for like five or six things, most of which I wasn't qualified for. Nothing happened for a while. So this is 2011 The lockout was happening, and they weren't even sure if there was going to be a season that year. So I applied to stuff. It just sort of went out into the void and I didn't know what was going to happen. I kind of forgot about it. I got a phone call several months later from Michael Fabiano asking me if I wanted to apply for a job or interview for a job writing about fantasy football. And I'm like, well, does it pay? And he's like, yeah. I was like, sure. Cause at the time I was basically sitting on my couch, freelance writing and watching reruns of Law and Order SVU. So I'm like, this certainly beat that. So I went in, fun fact. I actually, the night before the interview, I read a whole bunch of his columns and I regurgitated his information back to him in the interview.