The Show: Ekeler's Injury, JSN's Insane Outlook, and More

JJ Zachariason (0:00)

You're about to listen to The Late-Round Fantasy Football Show, which originally aired yesterday on YouTube. If you'd like to catch it live, you can find it on The Late-Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel at 1 p.m. Eastern every Friday during this 2025 season. That's on youtube.com/atlateroundff. So without further ado, here's this week's episode.

David Kitchen (0:36)

What's up, everybody? Welcome in to The Late-Round Fantasy Football Show, week two. I'm David Kitchen, joined by JJ.

JJ Zachariason (0:44)

Hello. How's it going?

David Kitchen (0:46)

JJ, you're no longer, you thought you were moving up the ranks, the JJ ranks?

JJ Zachariason (0:52)

Oh yeah, I thought.

David Kitchen (0:54)

On Monday.

JJ Zachariason (0:54)

Monday night happened, the second half of Monday night happened, and JJ McCarthy looked good. I mean, it's like, we had Caleb Williams looking good in that first drive. I thought he still showed some flashes. That one throw, I still go back to that throw that Caleb had to Roman Dunze on the sideline when he scrambled, and it was just a dart right at the sideline, and a Dunze made a great catch. But I think there's going to be a little bit of growing pains with Caleb, but there was a tweet, and I can't credit because I don't know who said it, and I'm sure it was a common sentiment, but it did feel like JJ McCarthy showed more growth in one game than Caleb Williams has shown in over a year in the NFL.

We saw him completely turn things around in that second half, looked really good. I'm excited about what they have in JJ McCarthy and what that offense might look like with Kevin O'Connell.

David Kitchen (1:47)

People were burying this Vikings offense in the first half, and then they were...

JJ Zachariason (1:53)

Guys, guys, pro tip. I've been around the block for a while. Don't send tweets, like definitive tweets about a player or game in the first quarter, first half of a game. Let it breathe a little bit. Let it breathe.

David Kitchen (2:08)

All right. I want to give a shout out to the sponsor of today's show, DraftKings. You've got the deposit bonus. You can get in there. You can see in the podcast description how to get that. You can also, JJ, scan the QR code if you're watching this.

JJ Zachariason (2:26)

Guys, no one uses QR codes, right?

David Kitchen (2:28)

They do. Ever since 2020, people use QR codes. If you are watching this.

JJ Zachariason (2:33)

What does 2020 have to do with it?

David Kitchen (2:35)

Because COVID happened and then people didn't want to look at a menu. I'm taking you back to the history of when QR codes exploded.

JJ Zachariason (2:43)

But QR codes have been around forever.

David Kitchen (2:46)

Right. But people didn't want to touch a menu, so they started scanning things.

JJ Zachariason (2:50)

I hate to break it to you, but no one cares about germs anymore.

David Kitchen (2:54)

They still use QR codes. Companies use them on Super Bowl commercials.

JJ Zachariason (2:58)

Yeah, but no one's on their computer looking up like a boomer, putting their phone up to the monitor and trying to scan a QR code.

David Kitchen (3:06)

Okay. We have too much to talk about, to worry about this in the chat.

JJ Zachariason (3:12)

Okay. All right.

David Kitchen (3:13)

In the chat, I just need you to note, and then I'll comment later, are you team QR codes or are you not?

JJ Zachariason (3:19)

It's pretty split right now, but C Park says, what is a QR code? Just woke up from my 20-year coma.

David Kitchen (3:27)

Been around for a while. This is a great way to use it. People are on there. Imagine watching this show on the big screen. You just, oh, there you go. I got my deposit bonus on Drakking.

JJ Zachariason (3:38)

Look, if we get enough people, if we get enough people that say they want to use a QR code, we'll keep it.

David Kitchen (3:43)

We're keeping it.

All right. Also, we got the weekly rankings, in-season rankings, Discord, everything on Patreon. We had a Q&A earlier this week with my first time hosting it during the season with that. So that was fun. So lots of fun there on the Patreon. If you're not a member, just consider doing it.

JJ Zachariason (4:05)

Discord's popping, man. Last night, I got to say, last night in the live Game Banter channel on Discord, when Tucker Craft started going ballistic against Washington, I mean, obviously, that was one of my dudes this year. So a lot of people have listened to my work or whatever. They ended up drafting him. There are maybe five to 10 players a year, maybe five players a year where they're a Discord player. When they go nuts, the Discord goes nuts, and that is one of the players this year. So it was a really fun time last night.