Fantasy Football Today - FFT Dynasty - 2024 NFL Draft RB Prospects Part 1 with JJ Zachariason (04/09 Fantasy Football Dynasty Podcast)
Episode Date: April 9, 2024Join us for an in-depth analysis of the top running back prospects in the 2024 NFL Draft on Fantasy Football Today Dynasty, hosted by Heath Cummings. In this episode, we're thrilled to have JJ Zachari...ason (2:30) as our guest as we dive deep into the talents of Trey Benson (18:20), Jonathon Brooks (25:38), Blake Corum (31:30), Jaylen Wright (39:30), Braelon Allen (46:40), and other standout prospects. Together, we'll dissect their player profiles, providing indispensable insights tailored for dynasty league managers eager to gain a strategic edge in their fantasy pursuits. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Dynasty.
I am your host, Heath Cummings.
Joined today for our first part of the running back preview by a very special guest,
J.J. Zachariasen.
You know him at LateRoundQB on Twitter.
J.J., thank you so much for being here today.
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me.
And I see we both got the green shirt memo today. Perfect. Perfect. And kind of green backgrounds.
Like it looks like you got a green wall behind you. I've got greenery behind me until for the
remainder of this renovation, however long that happens to be. I do want to just at the very top,
like there's a reason we're having you on here for the running back preview.
Tell people about the late round prospect guide and where they can find it.
Yeah.
Late round prospect guide.
You can find it over on late round.com.
It's really just an analytical mathematical way of analyzing these guys.
You know, I obviously watch them as well, but you know, I wanted to have sort of a process
to, to lean on and to go to, uh, with running
backs and wide receivers in particular, I do tight ends now too, but in the guide, you
get every running back and wide receiver profiled that was at the NFL combine.
Then I also have a year two model in it where I look at sophomores in the NFL.
So guys who just finished their rookie seasons profile, all of that, it's 130 plus pages
of, of just absolute nerdinessiness so if you're into that
kind of thing check it out lateround.com that's what we're kind of trying to do here with the
running back and the wide receiver preview both two parts last week for wide receivers we had matt
waldman on on tuesday we had jacob gibbs on on friday you get a pretty good mix of film and a
pretty good mix of the data with those two and this this week, we've got JJ here on Tuesday. And like he said, it's not like he's abandoning the film, but we're going to talk a lot
about numbers. And then on Friday, we've got Emory Hunt for part two of the running back preview.
He's going to talk a lot more about film. So hopefully a little bit for everybody on today's
show, then it will be kind of an overview of the class at the start. We'll talk about JJ's process,
but then we will have,
like we did with wide receivers, some individual previews on the guys who are currently the top five running backs by DLF rookie ADP. That is Trey Benson, Jonathan Brooks, Blake Corum,
Jalen Wright, and Braylon Allen. We are going to try to give more analysis than what I've heard a
lot and what I've said a lot. We're not really going to know how to rank these guys until we get landing spots.
That will remain true, but we'll still try to talk about them a little bit as prospects.
As always, we start with three questions for our guest.
I just want to kind of go back to the model here for a second, J.D.
Can you give everyone like a 10,000-foot view of your running back model, what goes into it?
Yeah, sure. everyone like a 10,000 foot view of your running back model what goes into it yeah sure uh you know the goal for the model both at running back and wide receiver um and tightens
a little bit different but at running back and wide receiver uh the goal is to predict a player's
b2s is what i call his best two seasons across his first three in the league and it's just the
average of those best two seasons and points per game uh that creates a number and that's what i'm
really aiming towards right i didn't want to just you know, how he'd perform his rookie season or how he'd perform his second or
third season. So you're getting sort of a wider range, um, you know, by looking at their first
three years in the league. And then there's inputs that go into that and trying to predict
how well a running back or wide receiver would then, uh, perform, uh, and the running back inputs
are, uh, there's seven of them. So I can just run
through them really quickly. There's their size. Uh, and it's just weight. It's not height. It's
not BMI. It's literally just wait for, for the running back position. Now I know people push
back and be like, but Devon HN, but Keaton Mitchell, but, and there's always like smaller
run Jameer Gibbs. And yeah, I mean, there were, there were other things that those guys did.
Uh, you know, Gibbs had the pass catching profile and the draft capital and Devon HN
had a really, really good production profile.
Keaton Mitchell, uh, you know, obviously had the speed score and had, had the crazy speed
and athleticism aspect of things.
Weight's not everything.
It's just an input.
Uh, and that's not even necessarily my own bias of saying that I think that running backs
who are smaller or worse, I actually, if anything, have a bias
towards those guys. Cause I think they're more fun and entertaining to watch. Um, but you know,
realistically, if we're trying to predict fantasy football performance, you know, coaches use a
smaller running backs a lot differently than they use the bigger body backs and the bigger body
backs are generally and historically the ones, uh, that are, that are scoring more fantasy points.
So weight is an input. There's also a metric called breakout
score that I developed this off season. I don't hate breakout age per se, but breakout age is
just one singular binary metric where it's saying this guy broke out at this age. And if he barely
missed that cutoff, then the guy didn't break out and he's looked the exact same as someone who did
absolutely nothing. So I developed breakout score, which is essentially the age of a running back when he hit
different thresholds in total yards per team play, which is a, you know, very obvious what that
means. Just the amount of rushing and receiving yards divided by the number of team plays that,
that running back, um, uh, that running backs team had. Um, and it's looking at these different
thresholds and basically spitting out a number between zero and one, 100 saying this guy has X breakout score with 50 being the
average. Uh, there's also best season pro rated reception share. That's pretty self-explanatory
as well as just the percentage of team receptions that are running back had in their best season.
Uh, their speed score, which is weight adjusted 40 time. I'm not a big, I think that when,
when people hear about models and analytics with prospecting, they think that the combine is like this huge
event and it's a huge deal. And honestly, like the only thing I care about at the combine is
a player's weight at running back and then how fast he runs the 40 and then adjusting
for those things. And really with, with speed score in the model, it's only looking at the
upper bounds and the lower bounds. Like they're, you know, between like 92 and 112, which is like 80% of the sample, they're
all getting scored the exact same.
So it's really just looking at players who are very, very fast for their weight and then
very, very slow for their weight, whether looking at a green or a red flag.
There's also draft day age.
So how old a running back is at draft day? Uh, you know,
obviously younger running backs who are entering the league, they probably are just better at the
position because they're entering the league, uh, younger, and they probably were able to produce
at a younger age. And that's a sign of talent. Uh, there's a teammate score, which is essentially,
you know, did a guy play with another good pro, uh, in, in his backfield and we'll get to a guy
later. I'm sure that definitely played with some good pros in his backfield. And we'll get to a guy later, I'm sure that
definitely played with some good pros. And then the last one, and this is the most important piece,
draft capital, right? I mean, all of this stuff is not looking at, you know, none of this is
charting. None of this is film-based analysis that I'm looking at here. It's all production-based.
But at the same time, draft capital is sort of an input that has that embedded in it, right?
All these front offices are spending millions and millions of dollars to say, I want to draft this guy.
I don't want to draft this guy.
And that's obviously not just based on analytics.
They're going and they're scouting these guys and they're doing a lot of work.
And we're trying to win at fantasy football.
And I will gladly use an input like draft capital to help guide me and be better at fantasy.
Right. Yes. an input like draft capital help guide me and be better at fantasy right yes i i think what's
interesting to me and it's gonna turn into more than three questions for sure because i've got
a follow-up already like i think about the size thing that you mentioned at the top and it was
really just kind of it'd be very easy to say that was a one-year blip with the little guys last year
and there were a bunch of them um But the wide receivers we've seen for kind
of a three-year trend or four-year trend now where the smaller guys and then draft capital,
we're also seeing a trend that probably really gets enhanced this year because there's nobody
that's going in round one. How long do you need to see in terms of like, well, now we're seeing
smaller backs for two or three years, or now we just don't see running backs drafted in round one anymore. So I might need to adjust that. Like how long is it a trend? And
when can we just say, yeah, it was probably just one or two years worth of classes.
Yeah. Look, you know, I'm testing every single off season. I'm switching things up and changing
things up every off season. I changed the model pretty dramatically this year, mostly because of
the way that I was looking at like age adjusted production in it. And I thought there was a better
way to do that. And so I'm testing every year now, you know, going to the,
to the wide receiver piece, I actually don't even care about wide receiver size. You know,
wide receiver size to me has always been an overinflated overrated thing. The thing with
running backs and sort of what the way that I see this is draft capital being an input,
usually sort of embeds and encapsulates a lot of the things that
we might want to add to a model, right? Like a lot of times people might want to add athleticism
metrics to the wide receiver model, for instance, it doesn't matter at all. There's nothing from the
combine that I put in the wide receiver model whatsoever. And it's likely because draft capital
is inherently already putting that in for
me. Right. So Xavier worthy, you know, I know that this is a running back show and I'm talking about
wide receivers, but it just gives you an example of sort of how this all works. Uh, you know,
Xavier worthy goes and he runs a crazy 40 time. Well, it's, he's probably gonna get drafted like
20 spots higher than what he would be drafted if he ran a four, four 40. Right. So that kind of
thing is already sort of embedded in that. And I think that's sort of the case with running back to some degree, but I think the difference is that running backs are
deployed and looked at differently by NFL teams and what they can do on the field in terms of just
improving team outcomes versus what that means for your fantasy team, right? And I think that
what's important is a team might say,
Hey, I want to get a smaller running back to play in a tandem,
you know, with, with my, you know, bigger body back or something like that.
But at the end of the day, you know, he's likely still going to be in a tandem
and he's still, you know, we can look at this past year,
look at Keaton Mitchell, look at Devon HN, look at even Jameer Gibbs.
Gibbs was looked at in the model almost identically
to Bijan Robinson. Because draft capital overrides a lot of this stuff whenever you're drafted 12th
overall. But look at Keaton Mitchell, look at Devon Achan even. And I love Achan especially.
And I actually think you could consider Mitchell somewhat of an interesting buy too.
But it's not like their workloads were out of control, right? Like it's not like we've seen a true, true shift yet with running backs and these teams being
open-minded to giving 190 pound backs the rock more frequently. Right. I mean, we'll see it.
I mean, Austin Eckler did it for a few years there where he was a true bell cow back. And I'm not,
I'm not dismissing that aspect of things. I think you just sort of adjust, um, you know,
based on what you see.
But I also think that a lot of times with running backs and smaller running backs, it
might take a little time before those guys get the trust of their team that they're able
to truly carry that workload.
And the models look at the first three years of their career.
And if you look at a guy like Eckler, it didn't get going until a little bit later in his
career.
And it might even happen that way for a Chan now that most are back.
And, you know, so I, I, even Jameer Gibbs with David Montgomery, we know that Gibbs
without Montgomery is a lot more attractive of a fantasy asset than Gibbs with Montgomery,
not to say that he's a bad asset with Montgomery.
Um, but I do think that, uh, it's easy to look at those individual cases and want to
really change the model up and change things up but at the end of
the day i i do still think that you know the larger trend still exists well and it does seem like like
if coaches have more questions about the durability of those small backs and then keaton mitchell and
devon hn both got hurt last year like does that like what's the chances that the coach is gonna
be like oh yeah i saw last year they can definitely handle that, like, what's the chances that the coach is going to be like, oh yeah, I saw last year that he can definitely handle that workload. So I don't, I don't like
to focus too much on injuries, but when it is the type of guy and even a tank deal, the type of guy
where you have some concerns, can a guy of that size stay healthy in the league? And then they
get hurt in their first year in the league. You at least have to wonder how much their coach
is taking that into account. Let's get to question number two. And I think you,
you brought up a good point. Like the workhorse running backs kind of going away. We still have a few of them. It's
much more likely to do it, to do that. If you're a larger back than if you're a smaller back,
but also I think like we're getting to the point to where once you get past the first 10 or 12
running backs, however many guys are going to do that, we just need the guys who can be elite
without that type of workload.
And so with this class, most of the feedback I get from everybody I asked about it is it's just
kind of a mediocre class. I'm just not that. We'll see who gets drafted on day two and we'll draft
them at the end of round one of rookie drafts, but there's not anybody special. Is that the case
with this class because there aren't any guys with elite traits or because there aren't any work
horsebacks that can do everything. Yeah. I think it's more so the latter. I do think that you can
look at this class and I love your point about sort of the running back landscape right now.
If you look at, at just dynasty ADP or dynasty rankings, what have you, there's like six guys
that we feel good about as like a true rb1 that you might want to
spend up for and i think this plays into the smaller back thing too where the smaller backs
might not be seeing a bigger workload they're just a little bit more relevant because there's just so
many rb2s in the nfl right now right like for like you could have guys ranked like rb40 right now in
dynasty and you wouldn't be shocked if they finish as an rb2 because finishing as an rb2 in fantasy
really isn't that big of a deal at this point. You're really trying to get those truly, truly elite players. So I definitely
think it's the latter though, where there are players in this class that have pretty elite
traits. It's just that I don't think there are any players in this class where it all comes together
and we have a Bijan Robinson, a Brees Hall, you know, those kinds of, of, of true
bell cow backs, but there are definitely some elite pass catchers in this class. They just
don't necessarily bring enough of that strong early down work. You know, there are players
with a ton of speed and athleticism, but they might not have the vision to necessarily do that
consistently and be good consistently on the ground. You know, there are players who are
consistent, but then don't have that athleticism. And so, you know, when I, when I think people say that this is a weaker running
back class, I think what they're really saying is, you know, there's not that much juice at the top,
right? There's not a guy that's likely going to completely transform and maybe, maybe it'll happen
after the fact, but going in as prospects, there's not a guy who's really going to probably transform,
uh, you know, the, the dynasty, uh, uh, community and rankings and industry because, uh, in the game, because,
uh, he just, it just doesn't exist. There's not that combo of like size, speed, athleticism,
production, uh, the, the strong vision, uh, the pass catching ability. It's just not really there.
I think there are guys who are like 80% there. And I think that the class in general probably has a little bit more depth than people are
giving it credit for.
Like, I think that there could be a lot of RB2, RB3 types in this class.
I just have a hard time seeing a true RB1 Brees Hall type back in the class.
Yeah, the Brees Hall will be John Robinson, Jameer Gibbs, probably not coming out of this
class.
We are, I mentioned at the top, we're going to talk about Trey Benson, Jonathan Brooks, Blake Corum, Jalen Wright, Braylon Allen.
I might even, if I can, get a couple of questions from the chat because I know that they've got some
guys they want to talk about as well. But I wanted to give you a chance here. Who's your favorite
back from this class that's not one of those five guys? That's not one of the guys we're going to
talk about here after the break. Yeah. Like I said know, like I said, I think it's a class where, uh, there's, there's
sort of this flatness to it. You know, there's like a lot of like RB two RB three types from a
fantasy perspective. And so what I think because of that, we could see players emerge kind of
unexpectedly, unexpectedly, because there's not, it's not gonna be that difficult for one player
that's drafted in round five to maybe jump a guy that's drafted in round three or something like that. Um, you know, you say favorite, so I'm going to go with, uh,
sort of the value play who I think would, would end up being, uh, sort of a sneaky late round
pick and rookie drafts, a guy who I just think is just the general best value. And that's Isaiah
Davis out of South Dakota state. Um, to me, he just has a really, really complete profile. Now
I know he played at South Dakota State, and that's not Alabama.
It's an SEC school.
And so competition, obviously, a lot easier.
So his production profile is going to look a lot better.
Here's actually a really good example of what we were talking about earlier, of things being
sort of embedded in draft capital.
There's actually nothing in the running back model.
There is a wide receiver when it comes to program strength and stuff.
But in the running back model, there's a wide receiver when it comes to like program strength and stuff. But at the run in the running back model, there's nothing that's, there's no adjustments
being made for the size of the program that are running back went to. And a lot of that, I believe,
you know, this is more of a hypothesis more than anything else. A lot of that is because we don't
see smaller school backs get drafted in the first couple of rounds of the draft anyway, you know,
so any of these smaller school guys who have great production profiles, maybe they'll go
round three, but they're usually day three picks to begin with. And if you look at the guys who do
go day two, there's been some hits. Look at Kareem Hunt. Look at David Johnson. I mean, there's been
some decent hits from those players, which is why I think there's just no strong correlation when
draft capital is part of the model. But I think Isaiah Davis, probably a day three guy.
Maybe he doesn't get drafted,
but I think he will get drafted.
But he has really good size.
He's 218 pounds.
He split a backfield at South Dakota State with Pierre Strong.
That was his first two years over there.
He was still able to dig into his workload a little bit,
which is a good sign,
because obviously Strong ended up being an NFL player
and he's been on rosters,
not like he's out of the league. And then if you look at Davis, his final two seasons,
he broke tackles at an above average clip. He generated 10 plus yards at the third best rate
in this class in his best season. He had an above average reception share. He's a pretty natural
receiver. He had the third best offensive grade last year, according to PFF.
And then whenever I always do statistical comparables with the model,
and that dates back to 2011,
his top two comps are James Robinson and Tyler Algier,
which I thought was really interesting.
You get these bigger body guys who can kind of do it all,
but they're not necessarily special athletes. They're not necessarily these ultra special backs.
But I do think with Isaiah Davis, if
he can find a spot, you know, obviously James Robinson finds a decent landing spot year
one, Tyler Algier, you know, competing with, with older running backs and was able to carve
out a role.
I think that we could see Isaiah Davis, you know, if he gets the right spot, have a pretty
great year one, and then just immediately flip them in dynasty, right?
Just immediately trade them away, get, get a second rounder for him and then kind of move on. But I do like Davis as a value this year.
Excellent stuff. Isaiah Davis, definitely not one of the top five guys that we're going to
talk about here in just a moment. Let's take a short break and then we'll jump right into Trey
Benson. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.
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So Trey Benson, the consensus RB1, at least by ADP, maybe even by expert ranking. It seems like, I wonder if it's
more of a fact of very few people that have him below two. So like he comes out at one in the
averages, you know, he's got the size six foot two 16 played at the big school, but are you sold
that he's the best running back in this class? I'm not sold, but I don't think I'm going to look back at this class.
And if he is the RB, you want to be surprised.
You know, like I think that if you look at the positives,
he did break tackles at a pretty good rate, especially two years ago.
It was like insane how well he was able to force missed tackles.
He has really strong athleticism.
You know, he had a great speed score.
He has the size to be, you know, every down back but there are some flags and and i think that uh you know there's some people that might
be ignoring the flags a little bit you know his best analytically his best season reception share
is under 10 that 10 mark totally subjective i mean this is not like a uh you know you're over
10 then you're great you're under 10 you're bad but it's usually sort of a number that I want a running back to get to because we usually do see any elite back easily clear that
mark when they're in college. And so, so he was able to get to that 10% mark. His breakout score
is 48.2, which is totally average. Now he did tear his ACL early in his collegiate career. And so
that forced, you know, some of that production to come later and, uh, wasn't as great as a result of that, but at the same time, you know, it's
still something to note. And so if you look at day two backs, uh, since 2011, who had a breakout
score below 60, so it's a well, well above where, where Trey Benson's at and a reception share
below 10%. Here's a list of the day two backs with those with while, while failing to hit those marks since 2011, Alex green, Steven Ridley, Christine, Michael Carlos, hide Matt Jones, Damian Harris,
and Trey sermon. So I just think that it's not great. It's not looking great. So I think the,
the way that I view Benson is there's just a lot of volatility. I think there's some safer
running backs you can go to in this class
that might not have the same ceiling.
And it just depends on sort of
what kind of risk profile you want to take on
when you're drafting in your rookie draft.
You know, it's interesting
because you talk about safer running backs,
but just from the,
and I don't know if you'd agree with this,
but from the mock drafts I've seen
from the running back rankings I've seen,
if I'm thinking about safer
in terms of who's going to go day two,
Trey Benson seems like everybody thinks he's going to go day two.
He just might be, he's saying amongst the backs who do go day two, less safe.
Yeah, exactly.
If I were drafting in my rookie draft right now today,
I'd probably draft Trey Benson before any other running back
because we feel so good about draft capital being there for him, right?
And so obviously if,
if he goes day two, if he goes in the second round, let's say, and, and only like a Jonathan
Brooks goes in this in the, on day two or something like that. And then all these guys just go day
three, then. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a nice boost. That's why, you know, draft capital
is obviously part of the equation here as well. I just think that within the player, if you're
evaluating the guy individually, and I know that a lot of people who break down film say that he's an inconsistent back, who's not necessarily super
decisive. I think that shows up a little bit in his production profile too. Even two years ago,
when he was forcing missed tackles at a really, really high, like, like I'm talking like according
to PFF, one of the best rates that they've seen over the last decade, right? He saw a shift in
that even year over year, you know, it's not, there just isn't that overall consistency with Benson.
And that's what scares me a little bit. Okay. No, that makes, that makes perfect sense. Let's,
let's be a little bit optimistic with Trey Benson here. Okay. He gets round two draft capital in
whatever you think is the right situation and kind of hits his upside. What do you think that
the three to five year forecast
for Trey Benson, if everything goes right, looks like?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that he,
if his upside hits and he falls into a decent spot
as a round two running back,
I think we're looking at probably a low end RB1 in Dynasty.
You know, like I still think that's part
of his range of outcomes,
which I don't feel that way about some of the other guys
we're going to talk about.
Like, so I do think that, you know the the higher end outcome exists for benson
i just also think like his top comp statistical comp in my model was kenyan drake and i i think
that's sort of what we're looking at where we saw flashes with kenyan drake right like we we saw
kenyan drake moment for sure right the fantasy community had a massive kenyan drake right like we we saw him we had a kenyan drake moment for sure right the fantasy community
had a massive kenyan drake moment where he was a second round pick and redraft and so i i think
that we could see that but we know that kenyan drake had the tools he had the athleticism he
was just so so inconsistent week in and week out and he would have these stretches where we're like
oh my gosh like he could be pretty legit um and that's my fear with Benson you know but but I do think that imagine Kenyon Drake and that output that we saw
being consistent and obviously you can see that low-end RB1 outcome well that type of inconsistency
I think because like one of the places that people will say is is the best place a running back could
go is they go to the chargers because they're going to run the ball 600 times and they're going
to have a good run scheme only they won't have a quarterback running at 30 of the time so it's just going to be fantastic even
with gus edwards there a good rookie running back will put gus edwards in this place i'm not sure
that trey benson especially with two coaches who value the way that gus edwards approaches things
that trey benson's going to take a lead role from like from like a gus edwards type a veteran
who just
does everything the right way every play.
Yeah, I think that at the running back position in particular, because it is relatively replaceable
in the actual NFL and even in fantasy.
But I think that we can't necessarily discount.
This is really hard to measure.
This is totally subjective.
But I don't think we can totally discount who would would be a players, a favorite player of a coach,
right? Like someone who is just going to grind it out, be very consistent. And honestly,
I think that's one of the reasons why Seattle last year when got Zach Charbonnet is not because
Kenneth Walker is bad. It's that he's an, he's another inconsistent home run hitting runner.
And that's what I think Trey Benson is sort of like, where I don't know. And his profile isn't unlike Kenneth Walker's to some
degree. I mean, Walker's was better on the ground. Uh, his, his total yards per team play rate was,
was much better than Benson Walker's the better prospect than Trey Benson. Don't take me, don't
get me wrong, but they both sort of had like a middling to below average receiving profile.
And they both sort of have this home run ability where you watch them and you're like,
holy crap, the athleticism is there.
The home run hitting ability is there.
But what if you get Zach Charbonnet, if you're Trey Benson, if you fall to the right spot,
you're one.
And then those inconsistencies show up.
And all of a sudden you have this low success rate and you're only this home run hitting,
hitting back.
And, and, you know, fortunately for like Kenneth Walker, his market value has maintained for the most part. And so I
don't, you know, from a dynasty perspective, it hasn't been that bad, but that's the kind of
running back that Walker is. I think it's okay to say that he's this big play. It's sort of like,
you don't know what you're going to get each touch, but you know, that something crazy is
going to happen. You know, you're very unlikely to get a two to four yard game. Like It's going to be a disaster or it's going to be awesome. And that might just be the best
way to end the Trey Benson profile. It's going to be a disaster or it's going to be awesome.
Let's move on to RB2 in the consensus rankings. It's Jonathan Brooks. And I've made the argument
that if he had not torn his ACL last year, the conversation about this running back class would
be much different because I do think he's the one guy in the class that if he just is perfectly fine
and regains everything, all of that athleticism could take the league by storm the second half
of his rookie year and jump into the top 12 of the dynasty running back rankings and really be
a complete RB one. Am I too high on Jonathan Brooks? No, I think that that's probably right.
Um, you know, if you look at the stuff that my model's looking at, obviously it's production complete RB1. Am I too high on Jonathan Brooks? No, I think that that's probably right. If you
look at the stuff that my model's looking at, obviously it's production-based and age-adjusted
production-based. And there are some players, so teammate score is going to help a guy like
Jonathan Brooks, right? You had Bijan Robinson and Roshan Johnson coming out last year who played
ahead of him. You can't really hurt or ding Brooks for not producing in a backfield with those two guys.
And then what we saw this past year is he had a really good total yard per team play rate of 1.99.
That's prorated before the ACL injury. That would have been, that's one of the better numbers in the
class. You know, he's just one of six backs in the class to have a best season, 10% reception share
and a 1.9 total
yards per team play rate. He's good in pass protection. He was a four-star recruit. He
really has sort of the total package, if you will. You know, I think he would be the consensus RB1.
And the other thing too, is he weighed in at the combine heavier than I thought he was going to be,
but you know, this is one of those things where, you know, the model might have, cause I have to use combine measurables to get everything
standardized for weight. And, you know, a guy who isn't necessarily doing a bunch of cardio
right now because of this ACL injury, you know, maybe he's five or six pounds heavier than what
he probably plays at. Right. Um, so you have to take that with a little bit of a grain of salt
because he has a, you watch him, he's a little bit slimmer, um, you know, of a back as opposed
to like a, a more compact, like Blake quorum or something like that. But, um, yeah, I mean, look, I think,
I think that Brooks probably would be the easy consensus RB one. I do think though, Heath, that,
you know, from a game theory perspective and from like a dynasty perspective,
I understand if people, even if they, cause I, I, I, my model is probably going to look at
Jonathan Brooks and have him as the RB one, depending on draft capital and stuff. Like I
wouldn't be shocked if that happens. I might not necessarily draft him as in his own tier,
or even maybe as the RB one, only because there's a real chance. We don't see a hundred percent
Jonathan Brooks in year one in his rookie season. And if that happens, you know, you're going to
have some doubt entering year two, where, you know, is he just not that great or is he like, you're just going to ask
a bunch of questions and you also might see his value drop a little bit just in the dynasty
market. So I do think that you still have to take the ACL injury into consideration because of that
game theory component, you want your guys to appreciate and value. And there's at least that
chance that, that Jonathan Brooks doesn't. Yeah't yeah i think like we had two examples last year of the young guys
coming off the acl and bruce hall and giovante williams i was kind of out on both it turned out
that the market was mostly right bruce hall needed about six weeks and then became the best
second best running back in fantasy football and giovante williams just kind of struggled
along and plotted all season long and i don't think we have any good reason to have a lean on which direction Jonathan Brooks is going to fall
on that. But I do wonder like, he's not going to turn 21 until July. Shouldn't we give him a little
bit of a break on the ACL from the fact that like he could skip this year and still be younger than
some of the running backs we're comparing him to. I think you and I should. Yes. You know,
I think that anyone listening to this should absolutely. Do I think the dynasty market is
going to do that? I don't know. You know, I think that the dynasty market is not only really
reactionary, but it's really, it looks at production and says, Oh, this guy was good.
I mean, look at perfect example of this. Look at Romeo Dobbs and what happened with Dobbs after
the playoff run that the Packers had in like these big games that he was having and stuff like that.
He shot, he was like wide receiver 35 at one point, uh, you know, within the dynasty market
because he was producing, he was getting touchdowns, yada, yada, yada. But then you look
at that wide receiver room and you're like, there's four legitimate players that, that are
wide outs in that, in that group. Um, why is Romeo Dobbs being singled out in this way? When
Dontavian Wicks coming off a really, really good rookie season is 20 spots below him in wide receiver rank.
It just doesn't make that much sense.
The dynasty market just reacts so strongly to production.
And if the production is not there for Brooks,
you and I, if we draft Brooks, we'll say, all right, we're holding onto him, right?
Like we're not, we're not trading him away after a down year coming off an ACL.
But at the same time, we do want to always, you know,
accumulate as much value as possible in our dynasty rosters.
And there's at least a risk that is evident and already there and already sits there with
Jonathan Brooks and his ACL that I think that you should at least use that and utilize that
information to some degree. Absolutely. And like, like with Benson, we'll, we'll finish with the
upside. We'll finish with the positives. I do think like you've got to take the ACL into account,
but let's just, let's just get crazy. He goes day two to the Cowboys and he gets to October 1st
and he's 100% Jonathan Brooks. I think he has the most upside in this class and he could easily be
a top, maybe not easily, but if everything goes right, he could be a top 10 dynasty running back
like eight months from now, right? Yeah. And the other thing too, is if he goes to a great landing spot, I think that people are going to be a little bit more
lenient about a lack of production, right? Like if it, if it's not there, even if it is there,
uh, you know, uh, during the second, like, look, if Jonathan Brooks goes to Dallas and he dominates
the second half of like, I think it's possible that he would then dominate the second half of
his rookie season, which is the piece of the season that matters most.
We'll get the most influence and rankings the way that we view these guys.
I mean,
what he's probably like RB seven,
RB eight and dynasty,
you would assume,
you know,
after that point.
So,
yeah,
I mean,
I think that Brooks definitely still has that in his range of outcomes.
We have a RB three is the guy who maybe his name has been mentioned more on
this podcast than any other.
I think I've heard that some people have turned it into a drinking game whenever I say Blake Corham and Chargers.
He is the running back out of Michigan who was a complete workhorse for Jim Hardwell, but also shared.
They just ran the ball enough that you can have both of those.
But his production was really front loaded, which I think is interesting.
Not production, but efficiency.
I think it's interesting in terms of we like young production,
but we don't really like it when the last thing we saw wasn't as good.
So how do you kind of mesh those two things with Blake Corum?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that you can subjectively look at him and say,
okay, he was coming off the injury,
and there's reason that he maybe lacked some burst and such this past season.
But look, I think even despite all that, he's a very good, very consistent back.
You kind of know what you're getting from him.
He had really solid above average marks sort of across the class, right?
He had the ninth best breakout score in the class.
His best season reception share was 12th best.
If there's one negative or red flag to his profile, you could say size for sure. I'll get
to that in a second, but also his age, right? He's, he's well over 23 years old and age is a
factor that, that we have to not only consider in terms of how these guys produce and what kind of
talent they hold because younger players producing early shows us that they're talented.
I use the example in my prospect guide where if an 11-year-old is playing the piano and this crazy,
crazy song on the piano versus a 19-year-old playing that song, chances are when they're 25 years old, the 11-year-old is going to be way better at playing piano than the 19-year-old
will be. And so we're seeing that with Corbin to some degree, but he was able to at least produce at a fairly young age that he's
coming out a little bit older.
And then when it comes to size,
and I think that this is really interesting to sort of like paint this
picture of Blake quorum being like a solid potential RB two and fantasy.
I don't think that he has necessarily RB one upside,
but to be a consistent,
solid enough,
throw them in your lineup, you know,
get 12 to 14 PPR points and feel okay about it. Um, I think that this is probably the thing that,
that tells it best. So I do think size is somewhat of a concern. He's sub five, nine, uh, since 2011,
we've only had six running backs, uh, get drafted in the top 100 who were under five foot nine.
And again, height is not part of my
model but weight is um he's at least a little bit more compact he has a decent bmi um but even still
let's just run with this for a little bit uh only one of those running backs scored more than 15 ppr
points per game in one of his first three seasons in the league so one of six gave you like a you
know low end rb1 season once throughout that time frame.
But five of those six smaller back shorter backs hit 12 or more PPR points per game in
one of their first three years in the league.
And I think that's the perfect example of what Blake Quorum is, is that if you get a
smaller running back that's going to get drafted, and I say smaller isn't just like stature
and height.
If you get a smaller running back getting drafted on you know, on day two in the top 100,
you know, there's likely some talent there.
There's, they're likely going to give them
some sort of workload.
It's just that I don't know if the ceiling
would necessarily be there, right?
And that's exactly what his profile screams throughout.
I think he's arguably the safest running back
in this class, right?
Like if you want to get RB2 production,
you know, in a tandem more than likely at at the NFL level who then, you know, if his, his tandem partner
gets hurt, you know, he can probably, uh, uh, shoulder the workload, uh, you know, for a game
or two or a stretch of games. That's, that's great. Um, but I don't know if he's ever going
to be like a true bell cow back in the NFL. When you talk about Blake Corum in a tandem,
does he end up in a tandem that's one of those
ambiguous tandems where it's two series for one guy, one series for the next?
Is it a tandem because he's coming off the field on passing downs and third downs?
Is it a tandem because he's coming off the field in short yardage and in the red zone?
Yeah, I think it's a series thing.
He actually was pretty good at the goal line and such.
I don't know if an NFL team, because Darren Sproles was decent at doing that kind of thing. I just don't know if an NFL team, because like Darren Sproles was decent at doing that kind of thing.
I just don't know if like an NFL team
is going to really do that.
So I do think there is some fear of him
not having the touchdown equity
that we would want.
But I do think it's more of a rotation,
you know, by drive or something,
or even him, you know,
between the 20s seeing 60,
65% of the team's backfield share.
But then once you get into the red zone, you switch things out a little bit.
I don't think that he, he's not a bad pass catcher.
I just don't think that he's, you know, someone that you're going to need to have on the field
during those passing down situations.
But look, if he goes, let's just say he goes to the chargers, right?
And he's, he's paired up with Gus Edwards, which I think could work because, you know,
I think he's capable enough as a receiver.
You're not going to get this like dynamic receiving out of the backfield with Blake
Corham, but you're going to get solid enough receiving better than Gus Edwards.
Right.
Right.
And so in that kind of situation, I could see the rotation happening.
Him maybe getting a little bit more work in between the twenties and then Gus Edwards
coming in and stealing all the touchdowns.
And like when you compare, cause he's the kind of guy it seems like to me, and I don't
know if you've watched enough of the two to say, but he's probably more likely to be consistent on a play-to-play basis than Trey Benson.
Yes.
And so his fresh legs over someone like Gus Edwards, you could see in the second half of the season, they trust him enough to where he really is the 1A, as opposed to Edwards starting the year as the 1A.
Let's finish with his upside.
You already kind of said you don't see that as probably an RB1 type situation unless he just happens to have a really good touchdown
year. It sounds like the type of player that probably not great enough at anything to like
guarantee he's going to do all of that work for the team, but not bad of an effort in anything
that he has to come off the field in any certain situation. Is it like a David Montgomery type
situation in terms of a potential fantasy upside?
Could we see like somewhere in that RB 15 range? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in terms of, of him being in
that range, yes. My, my fear though, you know, a guy like Montgomery always has the, you know,
the, the touchdown appeal and he's at least shown us that, that he had the three down capability and
he had a more well-rounded production profile coming out as a prospect i know that you're not making that comp per se but um like the the comp just to give
you an idea the statistical comps that were spit out for blake quorum and i know this is going to
make people not excited about him but it's clyde edwards a lair daryl henderson and kendall hunter
right where you know i i think that a guy like henderson at his peak if you will um you know, I, I think that a guy like Henderson at his peak, if you will, um, you know, was still
able to give you decent fantasy production in the right spot. You know, he just tailed off like most
running backs generally do. You know, I, I wouldn't be shocked if Blake Corham is only in
the league for four or five years, because that's just what happens at the running back position.
But, you know, all those guys were capable three down backs, but they didn't do any one thing
super, super special.
And that sometimes can limit a guy's ability to find the field. And that's my,
my fear a little bit with Coram, but I do think overall he saw it. And if he gets top 100 draft
capital, he's probably going to have an RB two season, or at least a high end RB three season
across his first three years in the league. People get nightmares hearing the CEH name,
just because of what
happened with him and Jonathan Taylor after we factored in first round draft capital for CEH.
But I do maintain as somebody who probably watched all of his football, there was a drive
in his rookie season. They were giving him the goal line work and he had one or two games where
he struggled so bad inside the five and it like changed the entire arc of his
career they just decided from that point forward he can never carry the ball inside we would rather
run an end around amico hardman than give it to ceh at the goal line and it just completely changed
the arc of his fantasy football career totally so we will take one more break i will say we've got
two players left i do have a little bit of time here for your questions so if you have some
questions about a player that we're not talking about put that in the chat and we will get to it in just a
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We are back and we are to RB4. I was maybe a little bit surprised that this guy was RB4
in the rookie ADP, maybe just because I hadn't paid enough attention to it,
but it is Jalen Wright out of Tennessee. This guy really caught my attention when I
opened the football guy, rookie draft guide
for the first time.
They had him at RB one in this class.
I think it's easy to see the upside here.
I have a hard time seeing very much floor with Jalen, right?
How do you view him?
Yeah, I think that's right.
Um, I bought into him more and more as the sort of process has gone on.
Like if you look at my prospect guide right now, uh, that's based on, you know, the, uh, projected draft capital is how I'm getting the scores that the pre-draft scores
that's on NFL mock draft database. Um, but Jalen writes projected, uh, draft capital has risen
quite a bit since I did, uh, you know, the, since I launched the prospect guide a month ago.
And so I bought into it more and more because of that for sure. But also, yeah, when you take a
step back and look at this draft class,
you again, you don't have many players that stand out in terms of having these elite ceilings
and having these really, really special traits.
And with Jalen Wright, he has some special traits.
I mean, if you, you know, he didn't really get it done as a receiver in college,
but his breakouts and his breakout score was only 45.
Wasn't anything special, but he can make huge plays over 25% of his rushes. Uh, last season when 10 or more yards,
that was first in the class, he ran a sub four, four 40, it was four, three, eight.
We know that he can create these explosive plays. Uh, and he also played alongside Dylan Sampson,
who I'm not the biggest college football guy, like, like in season, I'm only looking at stuff
out of the season and then looking at their transition, you know, to the NFL. Um, but evidently, you know,
moving forward, like that's another great prospect that he played alongside. So, um, you know,
that's one of the flaws of teammates score is that when there's a guy who's an underclassman,
that's really good, uh, that, uh, that a running back competed with, it's not necessarily going to
understand that and get that signal because he's not entering the league yet.
So if Samson's bad, then whatever,
you know, then this is moot.
But I do think subjectively
you can throw that out there and say,
okay, he played with some decent competition
there at Tennessee as well.
I think at a minimum though,
Jalen Wright is going to play in a tandem.
And this sort of goes back
to what we talked about earlier,
where the running back landscape
in fantasy right now is a bunch of rb2s who are in tandems and if you're going to get efficiency
from a player which i think you will get from jaylen right because of his big playability
maybe he'll never be a bell cow uh but i do think that you're at least going to see this
this tandem effort from him where he can see a devon achan type workload where he's getting
uh a rookie season workload i should say where he's getting a rookie season workload,
I should say, where he's getting 30 to 45, maybe 30 to 40% of the team's running back rushes,
and then some work through the air or even a Keaton Mitchell type workload.
And that could be enough for him to give you some spiked weeks, give you maybe RB three
production with RB two upside. But then there's the upside of what if all of these subjective
secondary things
like the teammate competition and the way that Tennessee used him sound like this would be the
first time that a, that Tennessee misused a running back entering the NFL over the last
decade or so. And so I think that, that because of that, the floor,
while he does have a scary profile from a floor ceiling perspective, like a Trey Benson,
if you will, like if you're looking at the volatility of the profile, I think that Jalen Wright fits a tandem better than what
Trey Benson would fit, right? Like Trey Benson would be entering the league and a team would
be thinking, oh, this guy's a bell cow or bust. Whereas Jalen Wright, I think it's like, oh,
we're drafting him a little bit later than where Benson might go. We can use him in a tandem or
more so in a tandem. And then from there, you know, that's the floor is that he's in the tandem.
And then from there, maybe he just takes over naturally.
Yeah.
It seems to me like he is a guy who possesses some really elite traits that coaches are
going to look at him and think, well, I could teach him to do that better or that better
or that better.
But I also think like you mentioned it, he's going to be in a tandem.
I think he's probably looking at 150 to 180 touches in his rookie
season. And so he really has to be efficient at that volume. If he's not going to see his value
drop in his first year in the league. I wonder if that makes him a little like, does that make him
more or less landing spot dependent? Like it kind of feels like he needs to be in a pretty good
situation in terms of like the quality of the team, not necessarily need to have an opportunity for touches. Yeah, I think that's probably right.
But then you also, you know, if he goes to a team that has an open backfield and some team really
thinks that they can work with his traits and all of a sudden it's the rocket ship, like he's just,
he's just off. Right. And so I think it can go in a lot of different directions, but yeah, I mean,
I think the most likely outcome is he's in a tandem and if he's going to be in a tandem,
we're going to need him to be in an offense that
could create efficiency on the ground, which is what we saw from what we've seen from Baltimore
through the years and what we saw out of Miami with, with, uh, you know, Devon HN and even
what we saw with Jameer Gibbs, right.
And in Detroit, where we know that the offensive lines, they're the run games there.
They have that effective run, run, run uh atmosphere and environment for that player so
yeah i think that that landing spot with all of these guys but there's some guys like a jalen
right where it could go a longer way i don't think i mean he doesn't have anything in his college past
profile to suggest this but you mentioned former tennessee running back so we'll just we'll get it
out of the way um a guy who has been incredible without a workhorse workload in the past alvin camara who
did go to tennessee he doesn't have that type of upside right no no and camara too you know back
whenever i remember that was one of the first years i started prospecting was like in that like
2017 ish range or whatever and camara coming out had a pretty weak at the time i was like oh this
production profile isn't that great i'm not you know whatever he's not that athletic because he or whatever. And Camara coming out had a pretty weak at the time. I was like, Oh, this production
profile. Isn't that great. I'm not, you know, whatever. He's not that athletic. Cause he didn't
test that well either. Like Camara, I feel like has this, there's this idea that he's like this
super, super fast athletic back. That's not necessarily what Camara is. Um, and he's also
bigger than what a lot of people realize, you know, there was that the Gibbs to Camara comps
last year where, uh, I mean, Camara had like 20 pounds on Gibbs, you know, entering the league,
but regardless of all that, uh, Camara's receiving profile at least was really,
really, really strong coming out. Like that was, if there's one piece to Camara's profile
going from Tennessee to the NFL, it was the fact that he had an unbelievable receiving profile.
And I personally at that time was not weighing that enough. Right. And so that's something that I've evolved with. I am a sucker for a good receiving profile
running back because I've seen how that translates from the player doesn't even have to be a great
receiver in the NFL. It's just that it shows you it's a signal for talent because these teams
are giving their running backs the ball in so many different ways, right? Like they're,
they're, they're trying and you can even get some signal on special teams
if they're a punt and kick returner,
because in college,
teams just throw their best players out there
and they give them the ball
any way they can possibly get them the ball, right?
And so with Kamara,
the fact that he had that receiving profile,
it's not there for Jalen Wright in the same way.
I think that Kamara is a much better,
and I know that this is hindsight driven too,
but Kamara was a much better prospect than Jalen right in my opinion good stuff we'll view him as you know maybe
someone in that tige spears range in year one and then hope that he grows into a bigger role than
that prospect number five i don't know that he could be a whole lot different than jalen right
and this is the kind of guy raylon Allen is the guy that I historically would have
been higher on than most. I'm a sucker for this type of prospect. He does seem like somebody to
me that if everything goes right, could be over 300 touches. How do you look at Braylon Allen?
I think that's the right way to look at it for sure. He, I'll say this. He probably objectively
has the best sort of production related age adjusted production related metrics in the model.
And that's because when Braylon Allen came out of high school, he left high school a year early.
He went to Wisconsin and he was recruited as a, like a defensive back kind of safety,
maybe linebacker hybrid. Uh, but then he decided to play running back and he then recruited as a defensive back kind of safety, maybe linebacker, hybrid.
But then he decided to play running back.
And he then goes to,
and he plays running back year one at 17 years old.
And he has a pretty productive season at Wisconsin,
which is crazy because like who in there,
like it just shows you how talented this guy is
as an athlete that he gets recruited as a defensive player. And then he enters Wisconsin, a program that has given us so many NFL caliber running
backs over the last 10, 15 years. And he just goes and he, he plays well, like he's productive
immediately at 17 years old. So his breakout score is the best in the class because he was
17 freaking years old doing things on a football field at Wisconsin.
Right. Um, the problem though, is his production didn't get that much better as his career went
on at Wisconsin. And then the other problem I have is five 11 to 35. Like you said, I mean,
like he has the prototypical size to just shoulder a massive, massive workload if a team is willing to give it to him. The problem though, is if you look at how he forced missed tackles, it was below average in
this class. And you have to wonder why is it happening? And then you read scouting reports
from people who are really dissecting the film a little bit more than I am. And a lot of them
are saying that he just doesn't use his size the way that you would want a 235 pound back to use their size right and so i think the fear with
him is so his top comp in my model like the objective comp is james connor you know that
that like where james connor's had a great fantasy career i think that if anyone were to look at
james connor and say like you're an elite running back that'd be kind of silly it's just that he's
found the right spots throughout his career to really just be the solo guy. And he's just solid, right? Like he's a
reliable, strong running back and catch some passes out of the backfield. I think Braylon
Allen's probably not as good of a pass catcher, but he could end up being sort of that like
reliable piece. But I think that the fear is that Braylon Allen goes down the path of AJ Dillon,
where, you know, it's this bigger body guy who,
at times we've seen those moments of him really using his body
the way that you would think he would,
and he probably should.
But the whole package isn't necessarily there.
And I think that Braylon Allen might get typecasted
as being just an early down back,
and that's a really big problem for his fantasy value.
I will say, and this might be something
where I'm just totally wrong, but you've mentioned all the reasons to really value age. And I like,
it blows my mind just having had a couple of 17 year olds and having a 14 year old now
of a 17 year old leaving school early to go play division one football in the big 10 and rushing for 1200 yards yeah like that is incredible and
it like you can see it now because he turned 20 in 2024 yeah he doesn't even turn 21 until the
year 2025 and so i wonder like that young age does it also give more hope for we talk about he's not
as good a pass catcher as
James Conner. I saw some things from James Conner the last year and a half catching the ball in
Arizona that I don't think he had in Pittsburgh. Um, he like he's made just really looked good as
a pass catcher or he doesn't necessarily use his body the right way. Does the young age give you
any more of a hope that he improves on some of those things in the NFL? Yeah, I think for sure.
And like, we can't discount too. And this is where like, you know, again, going back to like the way that
people view someone like me, who's like modeling this stuff. And they think that I'm like so strict
in the way that I'm looking at these prospects and whatnot. And then I can't stray away from
what the model is saying. That's not it at all. This is just a guide more than anything else to
make sure that I'm not missing something obvious and such. I think that more subjectively, we can't totally discount just things that we aren't able to
measure or see.
And that's like, like, this is going to sound kind of lame, but like work ethic, right?
Like, like James Conner overcame something that the majority of people will never understand,
right?
With his cancer diagnosis and doing what he did there.
I'm sure that changed
him as a human to be a built different if you will right and so i do think that like a guy like
connor because look i graduated from pitt i watched james connor in college like you wouldn't believe
and the i did not expect him to have the career that he had and has had in the nfl right and i
think there are just players kyron williams another one where Kyron Williams from year one to year two,
clearly improved as a player, or even from what we saw in college to what we saw then in year two,
it's not just, Oh, Sean McVay gave him more work. It's no, we got it. Can we, can we just give the
running back some credit for working hard and doing really well and getting better? Right.
So I think any of these players, you can make a blanket statement and say, all of them can improve. I think that, you know, just like as a human,
we can sit here and say, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. Like where were you at 20 versus where
were you at 23? And you learn a lot during that time period. And you can, uh, you can understand
why a guy like Alan would then also maybe learn a lot because it's not like he's had the same experience in college and the same amount of years under a coaching staff to really
fine tune his game. So yeah, I mean, I think that you should use age to your advantage a little bit
whenever you're analyzing these guys, because it is important. I will say just for the record,
I was still pretty much an idiot at 23. It took several more years than that for me. Is it fair
to say we'll finish up here
like we talked about everybody's upside braylon allen's upside feels to me like the guy who has
like a top eight fantasy season and half of the fantasy community is still saying he's not any
good yeah i think that's possible i also think it could go in a in a way of um us no part of the
problem with braylon allen analytically is that
he didn't test right like we don't we don't know how fast he is because he said i think he's he
said that he had this lingering high ankle or something that he just didn't want to mess with
it or whatever um i i if if we knew what his weight adjusted 40 time was i'm thinking more
of like the dynasty market and how the dynasty market would react let's say that he ran like a
four or five even at that size. Uh, I think that
a lot of people would just be in on, on Allen and that would give him nice insulation from year one
to year two in the NFL, in terms of his overall value in the market. I could also see though,
if he has a big season, I could see it being, this is a didn't play running back, but I could
see it being sort of like a chase Claypool situation of like, you know, the, the community just being totally split, uh, you know, between these guys who are
just aggressively going after him and then, and then, uh, managers who are just not going after
him whatsoever. Uh, because let's be honest, a lot of people just stick to their priors,
you know, and, and if you are, there's a lot of people who are Braylon Allen people right now.
And if you're a Braylon Allen person, uh, entering year one, and he has a good year one, you're going to be even more of a Braylon Allen person. And if you're not a Braylon Allen people right now. And if you're a Braylon Allen person, uh, entering year one and he has a good year one, you're going to be even more of a Braylon Allen
person. And if you're not a Braylon Allen person and he has a good year one, you're probably still
not going to be that big of a Braylon Allen person because it's always in the back of your
mind of like where he came from and the kind of game he has and all that kind of stuff.
So, um, I do think his ceiling is there. Like I, I think Braylon Allen hypothetically has just as
high of a ceiling as
maybe anything other than anyone other than like a Jonathan Brooks in the class. Um, but I do think
that the, the, the chance of that ceiling hitting is even lower than a guy like Trey Benson.
Makes perfect sense. Those are your top five running backs by current rookie ADP.
JJ, thank you so much. Awesome. Awesome stuff. Tell everybody one more time where they can find the late round prospect
guide.
Yeah.
All my work over on late round.com.
Really easy to find.
You'll see a big ugly picture of my mug right as you,
as you hit late round.com,
but you can,
you can check it out there.
Make sure you guys tune in on Friday for part two with Emory Hunt.
Thanks.