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Speaker 1: This is the Labor Podcast with your host JJ Zacherthis

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Speaker 1: j J Zacher reson what's up everyone, It's JJ Zacharyesen

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Speaker 1: in this episode eleven ten of the Late Round Fantasy

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Speaker 1: Football Podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in.

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Speaker 1: The very first thing I ever did in the fantasy

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Speaker 1: football space was writ an ebook. This was back in

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Speaker 1: the twenty eleven twenty twelve time frame, and everyone was

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Speaker 1: drafting quarterbacks. Early in twenty twelve, we had five quarterbacks

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Speaker 1: gets selected in the first two rounds of drafts as

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Speaker 1: a reaction to a wildly good twenty eleven quarterback season,

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Speaker 1: and that didn't make any sense to me. So I

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Speaker 1: put together a fantasy football strategy guide, an ebook on

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Speaker 1: late round quarterbacking. Now that document today super cringeworthy. It's

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Speaker 1: really not good at all, but it set the foundation

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Speaker 1: for what I'm now doing. And some of the concepts

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Speaker 1: that I wrote about back then are still the same

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Speaker 1: concepts that I refer to all the time in this

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Speaker 1: podcast or in the Late Round Draft Guide. Supply and demand,

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Speaker 1: opportunity cost. We know all this by now quarterback and

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Speaker 1: tight end, but we're focused on quarterbacks here. It's a

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Speaker 1: onesie position. You start just one of them in your lineup.

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Speaker 1: Because of that, people don't need them as much, so

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Speaker 1: they get pushed down draft boards and you can often

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Speaker 1: get usable ones in the later rounds as a result.

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Speaker 1: It's why in super flex leagues that doesn't happen because

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Speaker 1: in superflex the demand is greater at quarterback that causes

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Speaker 1: the prices to increase for years and years late round quarterbacking.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just a strategy, it was the strategy. If

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Speaker 1: you weren't drafting quarterbacks late in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, and twenty seventeen in that timeframe, you were

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Speaker 1: doing it wrong, like objectively. But that's changed a bit

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Speaker 1: over the last five or six years. Players like Josh Allen,

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Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts. They've made it more appealing to

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Speaker 1: actually get quarterbacks early. Maybe not drafting one as early

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Speaker 1: as we were back in twenty twelve, but early enough

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Speaker 1: to make you say, oh wow, drafting quarterbacks late isn't

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Speaker 1: the only way to win Fantasy football. And I'll be

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Speaker 1: honest with you, guys, I've said this a few times

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Speaker 1: on this show in the past, but I think it's

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Speaker 1: worth repeating, especially because there's new listeners, and we're on

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Speaker 1: the topic right now. But I've gotten a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff right and a lot of stuff wrong over these

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Speaker 1: fifteen years of being a fantasy football analyst. Of all

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Speaker 1: of my takes, though, the one that I'm most proud

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Speaker 1: of came after Lamar Jackson's first MVP season. It was

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Speaker 1: just before the twenty twenty season. I wrote an article

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Speaker 1: on Number five or said he used to work for

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Speaker 1: and manage, titled did Lamar Jackson Break the late round

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Speaker 1: Quarterback Strategy? Now, he himself was a late round quarterback

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Speaker 1: that year and he broke out, But Jackson also made

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Speaker 1: it so abundantly clear that the rushing side of fantasy

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Speaker 1: quarterbacks was so so important. And here's what I wrote

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Speaker 1: in the conclusion of that article. I said, quote, you know,

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Speaker 1: the truth is the question of the late round quarterback

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Speaker 1: strategy and fantasy football this year shouldn't really revolve around

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Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson. It shouldn't be about whether or not you're

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Speaker 1: willing to take Jackson in the top twenty five for

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Speaker 1: the top thirty. Instead, our focus should be on the

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Speaker 1: fact that the fantasy football world has gotten smarter in

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Speaker 1: the past the season, like Ryan Tannehill's twenty nineteen would

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Speaker 1: have almost assuredly catapulted his cost the following year into

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Speaker 1: the top ten at the quarterback position. Yet today, the

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Speaker 1: following year, he's being drafted as a mid range QB two. Historically,

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Speaker 1: fantasy managers didn't put a premium on quarterback rushing production.

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Speaker 1: They ignored what's been dubbed the Konami code of fantasy football.

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Speaker 1: We don't see that anymore. The consensus top seven quarterbacks

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Speaker 1: this year are all players who bring extra juice with

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Speaker 1: their legs. So no, Lamar Jackson isn't what could break

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Speaker 1: the idea of drafting quarterbacks late in fantasy football. You

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Speaker 1: are as the fantasy football world gets sharper, the late

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Speaker 1: round quarterback strategy may slowly more into the middle round

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Speaker 1: quarterback strategy. Now I mentioned this article before. I have

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Speaker 1: pride in what I wrote because it went against everything

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Speaker 1: I had written about and talked through up until that

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Speaker 1: point in time. I sat here for literally eight years

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Speaker 1: saying that the late round quarterback strategy was the only

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Speaker 1: way to go, and I shifted that stance entering the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty season, and the result makes me feel even

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Speaker 1: better about making that decision. Because directly after that twenty

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Speaker 1: nineteen season things became more stable. The late round quarterback

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Speaker 1: strategy was not the only one that worked. In fact,

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Speaker 1: there have been seasons here and there over the last

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Speaker 1: six years where it hasn't been optimal. But I'm here

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Speaker 1: to say today that the late round quarterback might officially

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Speaker 1: be back.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Before getting deeper into this discussion, I want to remind

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Speaker 1: you guys about the Late Round Draft Guide. It's live,

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Speaker 1: it's out there, it's ready to be consumed. If you

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Speaker 1: pre ordered, make sure you check your email inbox. If not,

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Speaker 1: go to lateround dot com. The guide has tons of

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Speaker 1: strategy related information. It talks about how to spot breakouts,

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Speaker 1: bus there's players to target, there's dart throws, avoids, rankings

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Speaker 1: and tiers and more, and many of those sections they're

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Speaker 1: updated every week up until the start of the season.

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Speaker 1: To learn more, check out late round dot Com. I

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Speaker 1: reference twenty twenty being a turning point for the quarterback

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Speaker 1: position in fantasy football, and the data back set up too.

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Speaker 1: There's something in statistics called the coefficient of determination. You

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Speaker 1: probably heard me and others call it R squared. Are

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Speaker 1: squared tells us how much of the variation in one

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Speaker 1: variable can be explained by another variable. When one variable

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Speaker 1: perfectly explains the other, are squared is one or one

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Speaker 1: hundred percent. When there's no relationship at all, are squared

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Speaker 1: is zero or zero percent. We can compare two football

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Speaker 1: variables and find that relationship, and I and others do

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Speaker 1: it all the time. You guys have seen nerds talk

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Speaker 1: about on Twitter through the years pretty frequently. I'd imagine

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Speaker 1: one thing I do with the coefficient of determination is

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Speaker 1: look at average draft position or where a player essentially

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Speaker 1: ranked heading into the season, versus how that player actually

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Speaker 1: performed in points per game. If we were to get

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Speaker 1: an R squared of one, then that would mean we

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Speaker 1: were perfect with how we essentially ranked each quarterback that season.

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Speaker 2: The QB one actually ended.

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Speaker 1: Up scoring the most points, of QB two was the

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Speaker 1: second highest scorer, and so on. Now, clearly that never

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Speaker 1: happens because ADP is far from flawless. Players underperform, they

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Speaker 1: get hurt, All sorts of things happen. It's an unpredictable game,

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Speaker 1: but ADP isn't always terrible at projecting quarterback output. One

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Speaker 1: thing to know about R squared is that the sample

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Speaker 1: size that you're working with, can really dictate what that

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Speaker 1: number is telling you. This gets overlooked quite a bit

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Speaker 1: within the football space, So I want to call that out.

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Speaker 1: If you compare quarterback ADP to postseason result, how do

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Speaker 1: you know where to draw the line? As in, what's

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Speaker 1: the sample that you're actually looking at? Top twelve quarterbacks

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Speaker 1: by ADP, top eighteen, top twenty four? Are you looking

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Speaker 1: at overall ADP? Are you looking at quarterback rank? All

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Speaker 1: of those answers can shift and change how our squared

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Speaker 1: looks like top six quarterbacks might actually see great correlation

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Speaker 1: in a given season. The QB one finishes the best

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Speaker 1: quarterback among the six players, the QB two is the

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Speaker 1: QB two in points per game, and so on. And

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Speaker 1: if I sit on this podcast and say, look at

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Speaker 1: how predictable quarterback was, it's really not giving you a

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Speaker 1: reasonable idea as to how good quarterback actually was if

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Speaker 1: I'm only looking at top six quarterbacks, Because what if

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Speaker 1: the QB seven to QB twelve actually outperformed the QB

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Speaker 1: one to QB six. For purposes of capturing the typical

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Speaker 1: league economy, I usually look at top eighteen quarterbacks when

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Speaker 1: doing this analysis. That means in a twelve team league,

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Speaker 1: half of your league is taking a backup, and we

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Speaker 1: can see how those top eighteen quarterbacks do from ADP

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Speaker 1: to actual postseason result. Well, let's start with what happened

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Speaker 1: from twenty fourteen through twenty nineteen, and this is via

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Speaker 1: Fantasy Data's ADP. From twenty fourteen through twenty nineteen, among

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Speaker 1: top eighteen quarterbacks, we never had an r squared above

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent. And for the record, I'm only looking

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Speaker 1: at players who played eight or more games here. Now,

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Speaker 1: without context, it doesn't mean that much. But consider this,

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Speaker 1: there's six seasons in that range, and four of the

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Speaker 1: six seasons saw our squared tallies that were below five percent,

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Speaker 1: meaning average draft position explained just five percent of the

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Speaker 1: variation that we saw in points per game among top

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Speaker 1: eighteen quarterbacks.

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Speaker 2: That's terrible.

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Speaker 1: Then Lamar Jackson's season happened, and the year after everything changed,

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Speaker 1: top eighteen quarterback ADP to postseason result shot up to.

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Speaker 2: An r score to forty eight percent.

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Speaker 1: The next year it was fifty five percent, then it

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Speaker 1: was thirty percent in twenty twenty two. My hypothesis as

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Speaker 1: to why this happened, Why quarterback went from being totally

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Speaker 1: unpredictable to actually pretty predictable is because of rushing. The

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Speaker 1: markets started recognizing the importance of quarterback mobility after Lamar

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Speaker 1: Jackson's MVP season, and rushing is far more predictive year

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Speaker 1: to year. It's far stickier than passing is. In fact,

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Speaker 1: when you look at quarterback year over year correlation of

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Speaker 1: passing points per game versus rushing points per game, rushing

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Speaker 1: points per game is more than twice as sticky. And

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Speaker 1: that makes sense, doesn't it. Passing numbers fluctuate. A one

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Speaker 1: yard touchdown one year turned into a one yard rush

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Speaker 1: for the running back the next year. Touchdown rates regress,

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Speaker 1: but with rushing, we generally had the same handful of

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Speaker 1: quarterbacks giving us strong rushing numbers year in and year out.

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Speaker 1: And so after that Lamar Jackson season in twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: fantasy manager said, oh man, we can't let these guys

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Speaker 1: slide in drafts. So they pivoted and we got better

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Speaker 1: correlation all the while. Since that twenty nineteen season, the

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Speaker 1: top quarterbacks have actually been giving you a better edge

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Speaker 1: in fantasy football. From twenty fourteen through twenty eighteen, when

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Speaker 1: you look at the top two quarterbacks in fantasy football

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Speaker 1: by points per game, So not ADP, the top two

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Speaker 1: quarterbacks and how they actually performed, and you compare them

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Speaker 1: to the average points per game of the QB eleven

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Speaker 1: and QB twelve, the replacement level guys. You were typically

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Speaker 1: in that five points per game range in VORP. Now,

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Speaker 1: maybe that didn't make that much sense, but really, all

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Speaker 1: I'm doing here is a quick value over replacement player calculation.

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Speaker 1: We're looking at the top two quarterbacks in a given

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Speaker 1: season their point per game average, and we're subtracting the

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Speaker 1: QB eleven and the QB twelves average from that, and

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Speaker 1: those guys are the replacement level players in a twelve

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Speaker 1: team league. From twenty fourteen through twenty eighteen, the difference

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Speaker 1: in points per game between the top two guys and

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Speaker 1: the replacement level guys was typically about five points per game.

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Speaker 1: It was never over five point three in a given season.

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Speaker 1: From twenty nineteen, so Lamar's first MVP season through last year,

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Speaker 1: we've had seasons of six point eight, six point three,

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Speaker 1: seven point point seven, and six point two. That's across

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Speaker 1: seven seasons. So to put this all another way, not

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Speaker 1: only has quarterback become more predictable. But those quarterbacks have

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Speaker 1: also more frequently been giving you a larger edge in

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Speaker 1: fantasy football than they were ten years ago. And that's

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Speaker 1: precisely why late round quarterbacking, while still an appropriate strategy,

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Speaker 1: wasn't the only strategy you needed to go with year

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Speaker 1: and year out over the last five or six years.

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Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, I remember talking to you guys

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Speaker 1: about this many times over the years, and I always

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Speaker 1: got the question, when will this change? And my answer was, well, hypothetically,

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Speaker 1: if you got twelve quarterbacks who could all run the

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Speaker 1: ball really well and still give you good passing numbers,

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Speaker 1: then we wouldn't need to draft a quarterback early because

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Speaker 1: in that hypothetical we would know that twelve guys had

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Speaker 1: a legitimate shot to be the QB one in fantasy football.

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Speaker 1: So why reach or draft a quarterback early if that's

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Speaker 1: the case. And really we're starting to see that happen

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Speaker 1: more and more. You know, I've been saying saying that

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty season was really a big turning point for

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Speaker 1: quarterback predictability. Well, that year, we had fifteen quarterbacks who

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Speaker 1: played eight or more games score three or more points

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Speaker 1: per game via rushing, seven of them had four more

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Speaker 1: points per game and five of them had five or

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Speaker 1: more points per game from twenty eleven through twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: So just before this season happened, the average season saw

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Speaker 1: just seven to eight quarterbacks score three or more points

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Speaker 1: per game via rushing. In twenty twenty, just to reiterate,

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Speaker 1: we had fifteen of them. That was really the turning point,

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Speaker 1: not just because we recognized what mattered in fantasy football,

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Speaker 1: but we also just started to get an influx of

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Speaker 1: rushing quarterback talent. And to be clear, by rushing quarterback talent,

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Speaker 1: I'm not simply saying Lamar Jackson types. I mean quarterbacks

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Speaker 1: who can provide a rushing floor that's not like Matthew

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Speaker 1: stafford Esk or Jared goff Esk. I'm talking about players

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Speaker 1: who can still move a little bit to where if

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Speaker 1: they have a pretty good season as a passer, that

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Speaker 1: rushing production can take them over the edge. Which think

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Speaker 1: about who we've seen enter the league since twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Jalen Hurts, Trevor Lawrence, Justin Field's

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Speaker 1: got a lot of starts, and now we have Malik

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Speaker 1: Willis Brock Purty has done a lot with his legs

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Speaker 1: in recent years, Caleb Williams, Jaydon Daniels, Drake May, Bo Nicks,

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Speaker 1: Jackson Dart, Tyler Schuck, and hopefully cam Ward. The vast

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Speaker 1: majority of the quarterback prospects entering the league these days

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Speaker 1: are not just straight up pocket passers. We might place

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Speaker 1: them in some bucket if we looked at this through

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Speaker 1: a binary lens of is he a pocket passer or

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Speaker 1: isn't he a pocket passer? But these guys are giving

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Speaker 1: us three or four points per game via rushing, which

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Speaker 1: is making them more predictable in fantasy football. However, what

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Speaker 1: we're also seeing with this math that I've been talking

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Speaker 1: about is a change in our squared. If we go

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Speaker 1: back and look at the top eighteen quarterbacks by ADP

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Speaker 1: through the years, Like I said, in twenty twenty and

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, we saw a really strong correlation with

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Speaker 1: where those guys were ranked, where they were drafted, and

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Speaker 1: how they actually performed. Twenty twenty one was the highest

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Speaker 1: R squared that we've seen dating back to twenty fourteen.

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Speaker 1: But since twenty twenty one, every single year, are our

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Speaker 1: squared has gotten lower? So what I think is going

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Speaker 1: on right now? Is that, Yes, the market has gotten sharper.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you could just look at Matthew Stafford's ADP

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Speaker 1: right now after his MVP season, after his crazy touchdown

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Speaker 1: rate season, and it's far far lower than it would

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Speaker 1: have been six, seven, eight years ago. Drafters are definitely

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Speaker 1: getting smarter, they're recognizing things like progression, but we've got

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Speaker 1: to give the actual quarterback landscape some credit for this

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Speaker 1: shift in predictiveness. We've seemingly been adding a borderline studeley

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Speaker 1: quarterback to the mix every year since that twenty twenty timeframe.

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Speaker 1: Last year was Drake May, the year before that it

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Speaker 1: was Jaden Daniels. But then we also have this second

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Speaker 1: tier of quarterback who have just enough rushing juice to

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Speaker 1: get them a top five finish if they have a

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Speaker 1: really good passing season, Lawrence Justin Herbert, maybe Joe Burrow,

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Speaker 1: Caleb Williams, Brock Purdy, Patrick Mahomes, maybe even a bow Nix.

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Speaker 1: But then on top of that, we still have quarterbacks

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Speaker 1: who could just break Fantasy football if things really go

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Speaker 1: their way, like Malik Willis, Jackson, Dart Kyler Murray, those

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Speaker 1: players who have shown off this crazy ceiling thanks to

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Speaker 1: their rushing juice. And then all the while, we know

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Speaker 1: it's still very possible for pocket passers and good environments

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Speaker 1: to thrive. It's just not nearly as predictable. They need

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Speaker 1: someone of an outlier year to really hit that ceiling,

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Speaker 1: like we saw with Matthew Stafford last year.

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Speaker 2: But the ceiling can still be hit.

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Speaker 1: It's not like they're completely worthless in fantasy football, that

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Speaker 1: group like Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford, maybe Jordan Love.

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Speaker 1: When you look at quarterback rankings these days, you're not

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Speaker 1: staring at a linear list of pocket passers like you

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Speaker 1: were even like six or seven years ago. Going into

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Speaker 1: the twenty twenty season, only three drafted quarterbacks Lamar Jackson,

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Speaker 1: Josh Allen, and Deshaun Watson were coming off of seasons

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Speaker 1: with five or more points per game via rushing. Only

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Speaker 1: seven drafted quarterbacks had three or more points per game

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Speaker 1: via rushing. The market did a good job putting those

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Speaker 1: guys up top, and each one outside of Daniel Jones

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Speaker 1: had a really good season.

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Speaker 2: That's why the predictability was so strong.

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Speaker 1: But then you look at twenty twenty six, seven different

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Speaker 1: drafted quarterbacks had five or more rushing points per game

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Speaker 1: last year, sixteen of them had three or more points

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Speaker 1: per game. In both cases, that's more than double what

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Speaker 1: we saw back in twenty twenty. So what does that mean?

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Speaker 1: While considering most of you are playing in a ten

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Speaker 1: or twelve team league, it means the potential for chaos

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Speaker 1: at quarterback. If there are that many viable players out

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Speaker 1: there who are running the ball, then there are that

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Speaker 1: many reasonable options to finish as difference makers at the position.

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Speaker 1: And if that's the case, if we've got a lot

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Speaker 1: of mobile quarterbacks, a lot of dual threat quarterback and

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Speaker 1: even pocket passers, and good environments to choose from, then

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Speaker 1: I think it might be the year that we see

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Speaker 1: a very clear Late Round quarterback rebound. That's it for

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Speaker 1: today's show, though thanks to all of you for listening.

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Speaker 1: If you get subscribe to the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast,

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Speaker 1: make sure you are bustwarting for it pretty much anywhere

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Speaker 1: podcast can be found, and follow me on Twitter and

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Speaker 1: on Blue Sky at Late Round QB. Like I told

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Speaker 1: you guys last week, the podcast schedule this week, it's

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Speaker 1: a little bit different. We do have a becoming a

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Speaker 1: best ball bro episode coming out later in the week,

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Speaker 1: but that's all you get this week. I'm sorry I

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Speaker 1: had to take a vacation. Make sure you check out

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Speaker 1: that draft guide though over on lateround dot com, and

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Speaker 1: I will be back next week with the regular podcast schedule.

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Speaker 1: I'll talk to you then,