Late-Round Perspectives: Matt Kelley

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

Matt Kelley is a fantasy football podcaster who is the founder of both PlayerProfiler and FastDraft. He's a dad, he's an analytics believer, he can sometimes be a little controversial, and he's the king of the long-form podcast. These are his Late-Round Perspectives. Here's the thing, I already know that this Late-Round Perspectives episode is going to be the longest in the history of the show.

Matt Kelley (0:35)

I had meetings later today, and I told people that this is all up in the air now, because I'm gonna be going on with JJ.

JJ Zachariason (0:43)

Yeah, I mean, would you agree this is gonna be probably the, I think the longest was actually the last Perspectives I did, had Waldman on last, or a couple weeks ago, and which is ironic that we have the Waldman to Kelley. I know that there's been a little historical beef between the two.

Matt Kelley (1:02)

Very, very long time ago. Very, very, very long, a galaxy far, far away, a fantasy galaxy far, far away, where I was very eager, an eager young man, trolling on Twitter, looking for takes I disagreed with, so that I could rip them apart of my podcast. And sometimes they would get back to people.

JJ Zachariason (1:24)

Yeah, I feel like though you've grown a lot from that perspective, right? Like you don't, that's not what you really do anymore.

Matt Kelley (1:34)

Only because they don't have time.

JJ Zachariason (1:35)

To that degree. I'm saying that.

Matt Kelley (1:37)

I would.

JJ Zachariason (1:40)

You have been a controversial analyst in your history. You would agree with that, yes?

Matt Kelley (1:47)

Yes, and I just want people to know that say, oh, I'm selling out and I've lost my edge and all those things. No, it's all there. It's just I'm very busy with two companies, okay? And I just can't dig in to the bad takes on social media like I used to be able to and listen to all the podcasts I used to be able to so that I could really lean into that on the show. Now, I just have to come up with my own takes and just trust the process.

JJ Zachariason (2:22)

You just need your own awful takes out there.

Matt Kelley (2:24)

Yeah, now I'm just stuck with myself. I'm just stuck with all I got, man. But fortunately, over the years, it wasn't just about ripping apart other people. It's about coming up with your own approach to things. I know we're going to talk about that today. I'm excited to talk about it. Your own process and figuring out what matters. It's years and years to get to that point. Now, fortunately, as I no longer have some of those crutches, I have this other body of work that I've built up, that now I have a prism through which I can analyze players, and situations, and strategies through, so I feel good.

JJ Zachariason (3:00)

Would you say it? Because I think that anyone that listens to my show knows that I'm a generally agreeable person, just in my nature. You and I have talked countless times in real life and interacted in real life. And so, the way that you approach things is, or historically, I'm not saying that we just went over all of that, but would you say that that's just part of your nature, to want to almost play the WWE heel at times as an analyst in the space? I think, because I want to come at this from the angle of maybe someone listening to this show who has heard you in the past and sees me talking to you, and we're having this conversation, and they're curious about our approaches, because our approaches to that kind of thing are totally different. Obviously, I think Waldman has some brilliant stuff that he brings to the table. I wouldn't have had him on perspectives last week. I think he's a great human as well. And so, I only bring him up because that's one of the many folks that you've talked about or talked about their takes and such on your show. But is that something that is innate? Or do you think that it's something that you have forced a little to make more entertaining content?

Matt Kelley (4:19)

I was a class clown, and I was always bothering the teachers. And I was always... I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what my problem is. But I am looking for... I am looking to, you know, mix it up, man. I'm looking to mix it up. It's interesting. I was just thinking about this. You know, when I came up, there were... the talk radio was still big. Mike and the Mad Dog and all that. And I used to listen to Dan Lebatard. And he used to really have these, like, you know, big time, you know, back and forths with Stephen A. Smith and many other people. In the current landscape, especially with podcasting now, and, you know, influencer culture, you get a lot more rewards for just sort of being a nice, calm human. So you see a lot of the people that are maximum successful, they're not necessarily pushing the envelope. They're not necessarily, hey, waving their arms around, look at me. Hey, I'm going to start fights with someone, because this is a WWE style spectacle, turn whatever radio show podcast into that. And so that's the era I grew up in, and I'm still wired that way. But now I look around and I'm like, well, actually, if I were reverse engineering this, just to have maximum followers and maximum sort of reach, then I think that you're better off now if you're getting started in the content creation, in any industry, you're better off just sort of being yourself and a nice, calm, level-headed person that doesn't have these sort of emotional issues where you're starting conflict and you're trying to get attention.