Late-Round Perspectives: Field Yates on His Fantasy Football Journey at ESPN and His Kyle Pitts Love

Late-Round Perspectives: Field Yates on the spectrum of like ways to have yourself appear on like TMZ or the New York Post I felt like it was actually a fairly good [Music] one so the shoulder is there's kind of two ways to look at it um on the one one hand like relative to where I was six days ago I am like remarkably better uh I've got a long journey ahead I'm G have to have surgery on this thing in the next couple of weeks here which will set back the pain relative to where it is now but for the long term it's a good thing so uh we are focused on coming back stronger than ever hopefully within like four or five months my gosh did you ever think that you're you where were you guys again you guys were in the Bahamas the Bahamas yeah in Nassau in the Bahamas the Baja M Resort like one of the most you know luxurious places I've ever been to in my entire life it was supposed to be for rest and relaxation and instead I was resting and relax and relaxing in an emergency room hospital bed that's unreal that's I couldn't by the way for that like 24-hour period I could not open up a social media app without seeing the video of you running into that into that t like doing the The Tackle dummy thing and and uh wasn't like TMZ was reporting on it and stuff like you everywhere it was hilarious like you know and on the spectrum of like ways to have yourself appear on like TMZ or the New York Post I felt like it was actually a fairly good one true I also was like man it must be a slow news day otherwise like if they're they're latching on to this or it makes it made me realize just how ridiculous the entire incident was and how just uh completely unathletic I actually am but um no you know it uh it it was a funny day in some ways I guess this is the proverbial like you know make um make lemonad out of lemons here I guess because the pain was not so fun for the three hours the three hours in which my arm was detached from my body sucked yeah everything else though around it was a okay and uh truthfully like so many people down there that uh that helped make the process slightly smoother yeah Stell probably being a chief amongst that list is step for those in the fantasy Community probably already know is like you know the preeminent uh Sports Medicine person in the world of fantasy football and she was able to put some of her PT background to work there as she was kind of keeping me at ease unfortunately because of insurance issues and medical concerns like she couldn't actually do anything to me or else I would have surrendered whatever insurance coverage I had and the resort would no longer allow their EMT team to like take care of me uh so while Stefan wasn't unable to just pop that shoulder back in on her own which she probably could have done and done so masterfully she had me at ease much more than I would have been without her yeah yeah that's great I mean it's nice to have that kind of resource right there when something like that happens does it does it also I know you have a football background yeah like you yeah you played back in the day but like does it does it number one bring you back to that a little bit when that happened and then also make you like I remember one time I was playing like pickup football like I was like a senior or something in high school right and like you know we're just doing stupid things as you do and you're playing you know we're tackling each other and whatnot and I I broke my finger and it was like the top of my finger like just jammed you know and it like needed to get pulled back but no one could do it there and I was in unbel like literally some of the worst pain that I've ever felt before and then that weekend I go and I just watch the NFL and you know a quarterback hits his hits his finger on a dude's helmet and just goes to the sideline and they just put it back into place and he's back out there like does do those instances ever make you just respect the nflers even more you know obviously you played ball but like you know that's just like next level the kinds of stuff that they go through yeah my respect for Matthew Stafford was pretty high going into this injury and it's like that much higher coming out of it the clip that went around it goes around like every I don't know six to eight months of Stafford popping his shoulder out dislocating it the same injury that I had um and and just being back on the field like literally one play later I think there was a reason and he was talking about this on part of my take recently um apparently there was a timeout either was like a TV timeout maybe it was the two-minute warning maybe the other team used a timeout but basically he was not required to miss a play so he actually didn't miss a play after dislocating his shoulder yeah getting it popped back in was essential and they did that right away I did not for three hours so I was in a heap of pain there but like even after that thing was popped back in like the idea of just like getting up and like throwing a football at a high level like ridiculous to me um so I definitely have like a new found respect for football players and I also say is that sometimes it's the injuries to your point about like a broken finger is that the injuries that sound or are the most difficult to recover from like an ACL tear and I have not had one of those but I was like a struck by in the most recent episode of Hard Knocks when Ian wheeler the Bears running back tour his ACL and I don't think he felt good but he was like walking to his mother in the hallway of Arrowhead Stadium uh to console her for her for conso him I guess and you're just like sometimes it's you know the broken finger or like some sort of bad sprain that actually hurts way more yeah in the immediate term than the thing that like actually is going to require like a 9 or 12 month recovery like an ACL does yeah it's like sometimes those guys just walk off the field after tearing their ACL and then yeah and then it's you know it's that that 10-month recovery or whatever but Fields' Journey To Football let's talk about your your uh your football background and such I I always like to start out these late round perspectives episodes by just getting to know the guest a little bit better you know a lot of times uh you know I've had many conversations with the folks that I'm having on these shows and such but not everyone knows that background as well so I I'm I'm curious about your journey as to to becoming an analyst and where you are now obviously being at ESPN for so long uh how did you find yourself in the fantasy football space uh what was that Journey like for you just in general where did the the passion for football come from yeah so the passion for football was pretty much like the moment I can recall like I always knew I wanted to do something something related to football I thought it would be a player for a little bit and then you know I quickly realized that uh when you know you're barely making the pop warner team it probably is not going to be a professional football player so I was one of the coach um and Scout and do something in the world of the NFL but the passion for Fantasy Football started probably around when a lot of people began their fantasy football Journey um I remember playing in the sporting news way back in the day which was amongst the earliest platforms for Fantasy Football that had like a real following to it this was like the It was kind of like daily fantasy um it was salary structured and I don't believe it was for you would not draft a team for every single week but you would do so for the season uh at any event um I remember playing in leagues early early on and then I've got leagues that go back probably my oldest League now is maybe like 16 17 years so I've got some long running leagues that I've took around for a while but I did not ever think it would be something that I would do professionally but I started at ESPN in 20 2 uh 12 excuse me uh so 12 years ago I was my first uh event being a part of the ESPN family I grew up in Boston and I was helping Mike Reese who's great great great guy one of my closest friends in the world now one of the greatest people he ever meet uh covering the 2012 NFL draft and ESPN Boston I don't know if you recall or listeners recall but there used to be sort of these subsidiaries of ESPN they were actually technically ESPN companies we had espnboston.com or ESPN dallas.com and ESPN new york.com ESPN chicago.com and a couple others um and so Mike was tabbed as the ESPN Boston reporter and so I was kind of sidekicking him for a little while and ESPN was like we we appreciate what you're doing but just a heads up like Mike Reese does not need help right like Mike is I would argue the best in the country and certainly more than capable of handling everything that went into his job dayto day so said let's find some other ways to to to kind of get you involved and I was doing so I I had worked uh in the NFL for a little while uh including uh the last stop was with the Chiefs I take no credit for what's happened uh they have seemingly got a whole lot better since I left we can decide whether that's correlation or causation um but I uh was stting to I was doing some like scouting reports and kind of tapping into my background there um and ESPN actually got a call from um a guy named Seth Markman who is our coordina producer of like pretty much all NFL stuff in college football now he's prominently involved with every NFL show college game day a lot of the college stuff that you see at the time he was working I think exclusively on on NFL but definitely was as involved as not more in the NFL back then and he said I have an idea for you and he said I know you're a football guy and you're you know this you've been tapping into the scouting routes but I think you'd be surprised how much crossover there is between fantasy and real football you know you'd say Hey you know if you're sitting there and you're scouting some tight end that you think is underutilized but you think is a really good player you translate that to Fantasy and you say you know if he just gets more opportunities he could become a useful f fantasy player and at the time Tim Hasselbeck had made a somewhat recent transition into the world of fantasy as well and Tim was an NFL quarterback for seven seasons and he provided that player perspective but by the time that Tim was done with his fantasy work at ESPN he was not simply sitting there saying you know well you the thing about Kyler Murray is he's best in his you know his his three-step drops versus his five-step drops you know he has some accuracy issues no he's sitting there talking about how like you know the thing about tan mcen is while he's got like a high floor you know I just don't know that he has like the piercing upside that some of these other guys do right so he was speaking a language that was Far Beyond just you know being a former quarterback right and so I got some encouragement there to kind of kind of get going and Chris Harris I know you know in the industry still today him and I did a show for a couple of Seasons uh it was kind of tailor made for my my new beginnings and my also my my background because it was supposed to be fantasy football Through The Eyes of like film breakdown too right right right hey so and so might have had 15 carries for 73 yards and a touchdown and the box score tells you that was good the film tell you was also good yeah um and so that was where it got started and then after a couple of Seasons ESPN had some transition on fantasy Focus Nate rabbits uh who was the original host with Matthew and Stefania moved into he moved away from the the podcasting role and into uh he was already in a corporate job at ESPN but just took on that that role took on more of a role uh and took it on fulltime um and so there was an opening there and that was when it all got started I think this say year 10 maybe maybe God it's all relative eight or 10 for me on the fantasy Focus podcast yeah that's wild man so like throughout that Journey one of the things that I've talked about on like living the stream with Denny Carter plenty uh over the years because I mean that that shows been around now for like 12 years uh but we randomly you'll get brought up randomly like you know other analysts get brought up or whatever not in anything bad it's usually because people want to say that they appreciate other people more than they appreciate us uh and so you you'll get you'll get brought up uh maybe maybe it's the the handsome factor between you and Denny and people people competing there but uh you'll get brought up and and the one thing that I've said multiple times on there and I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to you right now but you're you've always been so good in front of a camera like just so comfortable seemingly comfortable in front of a camera and as someone who you know I think that that most people you kind of just test things and see what you like and what you don't like what you're good at what you're not good at you know I've done some TV stuff in the past and I'm like I hate this with a passion I don't really want to do this at all you know like it's just it's just you figure out what you like and you don't like but you've been so so good and so you know you've been able to uh you know switch different gigs throughout ESPN and be uh featured on different shows and do it very seamlessly to an audience's perspective and I'm curious though and this this is kind of a selfish question too but I'm curious if that was something that you just felt more and more comfortable with reps or it was something that you immediately right away when you got to ESPN in 2012 you're like yeah I can sit in front of a camera cuz this is where where I'm comfortable whereas some people might be comfortable writing content some people might be comfortable podcasting doing that kind of thing uh where did that all come from yeah my zoom cut out for about 60 seconds there could you just repeat every single thing that you just said over the last minute yeah of course um no first of all like incredibly kind of you to say that uh and I I'm actually surprised to hear that you don't think TV is enjoyable because I I could share a lot of the sentiments that you just share with me right back to you you have an incredible ability to take fantasy information and and tidy it into like a very understandable and digestible package and do so in an entertaining manner which if we talk about the secret sauce of being a fantasy football analyst I could certainly go down that rapid hole for a little bit um I don't believe that like TV is the kind of thing that like either you're born to do it or you're not of course it's developmental traits I think that many things in life are like there are a few things that probably aren't but I think for the you know generally speaking most of the uh the the skills that go into doing what we do are the kind of things that can get better over time reps definitely helped but I think and it I think it probably matters even more now and is like more obvious and prevalent and pertinent to this conversation so I remember very very early on when I was doing TV uh someone reminded me because I of course I had some nerves thinking about the possibility of doing this more and more and potentially making a career of it was that I was just talking about sports right I wasn't dealing with politics or you know climate issues or things that so many people have such strong feelings on and oftentimes if their feelings don't align with your feelings it means that you are wrong and they are right and you can't find middle ground right so um and that that can be like a little bit difficult like a difficult pill to swallow if it's something that you're super passionate about and you you just fundamentally don't believe that the other side could be right whereas in football I'm just making this up here but if I tell you like I think the Jets are the most talented team in the AFC East this year and you're like that's ridiculous I think the Dolphins and the bills are better like it's okay if we disagree right you know the next 18 weeks beginning next uh will decide which one of us is right or wrong you know um it just fors and I'm not saying that we don't take our jobs seriously certainly do uh but the stakes I just think are fundamentally lower than if you are dealing with something that for lack of a better term like is more real life yeah right I feel comfortable probably just knowing that if I screw up if I say something you don't like you know you're going to more likely hear from people that don't agree or don't like you you than those that do agree or do like you and a lot of people um acknowledge or align with you silently as opposed to a lot of critics letting you know very vocally yeah I like that I like that mindset of just I mean look I I've had plenty of like existential crises of like this is like like I'm I'm I literally am devoting my life in terms of my job to a game about a game you know it's it's like it it's silly at the end of the day like it's it's not important to degree I understand the entertainment value and the escapism and all of that and the importance of that so you know I've it's taken some time to like come to that realization and be like cool with it but I I do think having that mindset of just like hey this doesn't really matter at the end of the day you know if I do screw up a little bit it's not like uh you know babies are dying or anything and anything like horrible is happening so I really like that mindset overall yeah I think it's important because uh you know every year we're going to come back for more and what I believe is with like what we do in fantasy football specifically is and and you know this landscape so well is that like I haven't found too many people that I follow for Fantasy Football perspective who are like entering the season who are like hey you know what the number one wide receiver that should be coming off draft boards is Michael Pitman Jr right like really good player right but like I'd probably say on the optimistic side he's like you know wide receiver 10 on the pessimistic side I've seen some like wide receiver 20s or something right and I bring that up because because a lot of us are saying very comparable things with with some adjustments here or there right like um I do have some players that like I I I like the term flag planting I think that's become quite quite common here in the world of fantasy football where I do plant my flag I will try to because I think it's important for us to have some thoughts that deviate from sort of consensus but right um it's not like a lot of what we're saying is the same right you and I probably both have Josh all and Jaylen Herz two of the top three if not the top two quarterbacks in fantasy football so the job is not for me to find a different spin it's to make my spin about Josh and Jaylen entertaining and so uh some people actually find some entertainment in like the big swings that result in big misses but I guarantee you this is like on a personal level and not to spoil like one of the players for the audience that I'm all in on but like if at the end of this season Anthony Richardson is the next Mega star in fantasy football the the response is going to be incredible for me if he sucks going to be incredible as well just incredibly bad um but I do think there's something to be said for finding things that can be entertaining both you know in the short and longer term yeah yeah makes a lot of sense all right let's get into some fantasy takes let's let's talk some fantasy football here we're seeing a more wide receiver heavy approach really Have We Gone Too Far With Wide Receiver Hype on every platform I know you guys are seeing it on ESPN more um we're just seeing it across the board do you think at a high level that it's a mistake that people drafting all of these wide outs I think Mike Clay shared some data uh in particular where uh just an obscene amount of wide receivers in the first couple rounds are going off the board versus what we've seen historically over on ESPN uh do you think it's been a mistake or do you think that there is some validity to it no I think there's some validity to it for sure and here's what we've been talking about often on our show is that I believe in like in like a large League a 16 Team league I've made this point several times and playing in enough of them for enough a long enough period of time is that this the formula to win in a large league is not generic right it's not homogeneous it is different every single year it's there's a year in which the person who just happened to like strike big with two wide receivers early kind of carry their team because in a 16 Team league depth is going to be poor pretty much across the league so you don't need to have this early run on running backs which was sort of older conventional wisdom because a there's going to be nobody in the league that's going to have great running back death like maybe one or two teams will have two of the top you know 12 to 15 running backs but it's probably only people picking closer to the turn right if someone takes Christian mcaffrey one that person's probably gonna have a long shot to get like another top 15 running back at pick number 32 uh but then also is just like there's so few options right I mean how many good running backs are there this year I uh I invoked this recently in our show um I I I apologize for not having the specific reference but there was that show on Netflix about a woman who like famously like rearranges people's houses and closets oh yeah right right I can't I can't think of the name either but I know exactly what you're talking about Marie quandoo and it was like when she was deba when when she would go through someone's closet and they have a sweater and she'd like does this spark joy for you I've been using that test on running backs this year right like does this running back spark joy and like you get down to like you I think some people would start to get to like the Deandre Swift MRE Stevenson James Conor David Montgomery level you're kind of like I don't know there might be some people that find some joy in those players but there might be some people that are like man I really wish I just like you know swung earlier on Jamir Gibbs and maybe try to grab D Anan who obviously has you know a large range of outcomes but the best version of Anan is you know potentially a top I don't know five running back in fantasy football with enough volume so um I I would say that in 10 team leag speaking generally and ESPN's data by the way and this is reflected in our coverage is that like 91% of ESPN's leagues are eight or 10 team leagues are smaller and most of them are actually eight team leagues because while I know a lot of the discourse and the people that we interact with online um are you know harder core and I think that um that that's that's good and it's important and it's good perspective but like so much of our yeah consumer based at ESPN is like my brother playing in like an eight-man office League he's a football fan but he's not a die hard he he does it probably more than anything else because he wants to be a part of something that his colleagues are as well so um I don't like generally in a 10 Team league I do like to leave with at least one running back in my first two picks but um you know I've got a 10 team League Draft tonight that involves uh my wife it's it's five couples and like I wouldn't be surprised if like you know if I sit there and I land like Justin Jefferson with pick eight and AJ Brown's still there with pick 13 like that one could be calling my name pretty easily yeah I mean the other thing too is that the smaller the league the more like like you're saying the more perfect the team has to be to compete right and and and if that's the case then that means that you need to adjust and even I I always say like I I think people get it backwards sometimes with the onesie positions with quarterback and tight end in the larger leagues they think oh I need to get that Advantage at quarterback and tight end because the league is larger but you're actually setting yourself back more at the more important positions in running back and wide receiver where you actually should probably push it a little bit more with the elite quarterbacks and tight ends as in like an 18 team or you know an eight Team league where uh you need to dominate every position because every roster in that League you know is going to be very very good um but yeah the the running back stuff is interesting too like I think a really good example is just what happened yesterday with uh samaj pery going to the Chiefs where like think about just the fragility of that position and what can happen even with a top 12 running back from a projection stand point in Isaiah P now all of a sudden you're like all right is he going to is is is Peron going to play the McKinnon role and is that you know how's that like you will never see that happen to an Elite Talent at wide receiver like it's just never going to happen and so that's kind of the stuff that you know Sean seagull had written about with the Zer RB stuff back in the day about just the general fragility of the position and when you get uh you know only three guys to to six guys that you feel supremely confident in that you know a move like that wouldn't NE affect you know their cost their average draft position that's when it's like okay well if I can't get those guys then I guess I'm I'm going the other way and I'm going with some wide receivers there instead yeah it makes you just realize how much of a unicorn Christian mcaffrey is because the coiners keep trying to find people to do that to his value and then it's like oh we draft Isaac gendo in the fourth round who became by the way like I think you and I both shared an offend for him as a prospect the guy was I mean this was tra SE of a player as you could find and then now he's hurt right or it's like Elijah Mitchell who had a great season as a rookie as a six round pick like as great as you could ask based off where you drafted him in real life and now he's out for the year um but yeah you're right it is it's I think Isaiah Peko by the way I believe it became a legal disclaimer that you had to say Isaiah Pacheko who has less competition for work than any other running back in the entire NFL this summer and all of a sudden samj perine who by no standards is a superstar right but he is like a he's yeah he's good enough where he has to play yeah right like um I I think it was Matt Harmon who who said this said said it to the effect of like he's good enough that he muddles up like Snap counts or something yeah and that that's true right like you don't if the Chiefs plan to like turn around and cut samaj perine from like three weeks from now I was like yeah we're gonna take a swing on this guy no there are higher upside players you would take a swing on than samaj perine so that's the kind of guy like you bring them in because you have a very specific role in mind part of the reason why the signed him last year even though it was a deal that ended up lasting for just half of its totality yeah exactly exactly and that's that's the fear with all of these guys and like like all of the news items if you really like take a step back and like think about it and look at it all of the news The Kyren Williams Punt Return Saga items that we see in fantasy football generally not all I shouldn't say all but like the important ones that are really shifting ADP this time of year it's running back related like the Kiren Williams stuff uh you know with sha McVey talking this week about uh him being a punt returner and whether or not you know any of that even remotely matters uh you know I sent a tweet out that said like if this is the thing that's really shifting your your your stance on kyen Williams and not the fact that they drafted a Kiren Williams type back in day two you know in in April uh then you know I think that's just like backwards logic but um whether or not anything comes to fruition with the the punt return stuff right like the fact that this is Shifting ADP in the way that people think about it that kind of thing would just never exist at the wide receiver position yeah I talk about this with Clay often you and Mike are the most annoying people to have a varying opinion on because you're like the most pragmatic fantasy football analyst I've ever met in my entire life you know like I'll come into the show one day be like you know something I'm like kind of feeling a Pitman week this week just I'll change it I'm kind of feeling a la week this week right Mike will be like and then Mike will be like oh that's interesting you do realize that lerus sne is not allowed a single wide receiver to catch more than four passes for 37 yards his average depth of Target as a Defender is 2.7 yards as number one in the entire NFL I'm like damn it Mike let me just having a la moment here right Soh your your Kyon Williams thoughts yesterday shared on Twitter um reminded me that like you know if I felt good about him as rb7 since the moment that I uh submitted my post NFL draft rankings then they should it should be like pretty darn stagnant right now it's there's right it's gonna be hilarious too when he has like in week one like he does field like two punt returns but he also has like 31 carries for 195 yards in a touchdown yeah but it's also just like I you know Clay is even like next level versus me with a lot of this I mean Clay is like Beyond insane with his projections and his knowledge just it's it's nuts I I always I always lean into just like the general like the volatility of the game and the volatility of our projections and understanding that we're not going to get this stuff right and un just kind of looking at the range of outcomes of this kind of stuff um but I also like I just I get irrit not irritated that's not the right word cuz it's too strong but you know long on those lines of just the the logic that folks use like this being the item that's going to make you go from rb3 or you know rb4 something you're really really high on Kiren then all of a sudden he's on punt return Duty which he might only touch the ball two or three times uh you know like throughout a game and he might not even be tackled uh you know on those plays where that that takes him from an rb4 cuz you really high on him to rb18 you know it's like like there there's there's so many other things that are more important like I'm not even saying be high or low on him I'm just saying that like objectively the thing that should matter more is the fact that Blake korm as a prospect of all the running backs in this class if you were to pinpoint one guy in this class who looked the most like Kiren Williams just statistically analytically all of that it's it's Blake corm and and everything that they've said after that pick was you know keeping Kyon a little bit more fresh and like making sure they had some depth and they're doing it with a guy that can hypothetically hypothetically replace him when they need to replace Kiren Williams so like it's just about the logic stuff to me more than anything else that that kind of drives me nuts and to that point and this is Mike's stance yesterday so I I am simply sharing it not not taking credit for it myself is that um yes Blake cor is gonna play a role this year a much more impactful one than Ronnie rivers or darl Henderson who believe it or not was on the Rams last season for part of the year did it's that's already been baked into it though right I mean kyri Willams was rb2 last year in a points per game basis only Christian mcaffry was ahead of him so now if you're getting him at rv7 or rv8 like that is US acknowledging that he is going to be awesome because he's really talented in a great offense with a coach who loves to feature his strengths but he also now has a running mate who might decrease his workload by 12 to 15% maybe a little more maybe a little less on a given game and that right there is enough to dock him from rb2 to RB six seven eight maybe nine depending on how worried people are about the punt return stuff which is hilarious just because it's like I don't think people take uh time to notice how many awesome players on offense or defense play on special teams all the time like grank famously used to be the the wing protector on on the punt on the uh uh field goal team he ended up getting hurt on the field goal team so it became a whole thing like you know how good could the Patriots have been if grank had been healthy and it was like oh they won the Super Bowl six weeks later and you know went there 10 times whatever it was but like defensive players cover kicks all the time right and that they're on the field for the very next snap so um it generated some Heat yesterday but I am very happy that those who decided to become more nervous about kyn Williams are doing so because it just means that people like you or I might be able to get him a bit of a discount in the drafts that we have right right exactly like I I've been more in the camp of like I like Korum as a value more than Kiren like just strictly from like a cost perspective and I like a lot of the wide receivers that go you know or at least I'll take a chance of some of the wide receivers going around Kiren but it's all cost like everything we do is based on cost and if we're getting a discount now on kyen Williams yeah I'll get some kyen Williams or more than I had anticipated otherwise because this news item this Standalone news item is not what's going to do it for me because I already had my my take and my stance and my my opinion based on what they did with Blake corm uh you know with Kiren but you know I do think like to to Mike's Point and what he was talking about um you know with from like a projection standpoint it's really true and it just kind of it it uh speaks to the lack of depth that we have at running back this year where a guy can have legit competition from a day two running back step in and you know still be a lower-end rb1 or like even a mid-range rb1 because that's just kind of the landscape and the situation we find ourselves in right now yeah there are very few that are immune to it you Chris mff be the one I guess Derrik Henry probably is isn't like obviously lower down but probably in that same category just because of like the specific style I guess the specific running back archetype he fits which is that like the only way you validate paying him 8 million bucks a year is by running him into the ground 25 times this season um but yeah it's a very very short list obviously the you know the three at the top and then a couple others like Derrick Henry that can sort of stake claim to that list this episode is sponsored by Underdog fantasy if you haven't played over at Underdog yet now's the perfect time there are tons of different beste ball leagues that you can join and there's definitely a league out there that fits what you're looking for and you can use all the things that I've talked about with guests on becoming a best ball bro to crush the those drafts but like I said now's the right time to join up because if you go and you sign up and use promo code late round you not only get a nice deposit offer but you also get a free late round draft guide that's a $25 guide emailed to your inbox after signing up for absolutely free so head to Underdog fantasy.com sign up using promo code lat round and make it a posit I can confirm it's a really really fun platform to play on now back to the How Field Is Attacking Tight End In 2024 show all let's let's talk about tight ends because that's another position that we're seeing slightly different ADP this year than history what we've seen uh typically from the position there is more depth you know we get Trey McBride last year we get this rookie class last year you know and Dalton concade and Sam leapa uh now we have Kyle Pitts in a situation where he hypothetically has a a better quarterback and uh you know better offensive scheme um but then at the same time you know last year a lot of the the higher end tight ends just didn't really perform as well what we thought it's really funny though that Travis Kelce on a PPR points per game basis was still the tight end one last year and he had a disappointing year right just because of what we've come to expect from set for himself yeah yeah right um but you know now we're seeing these tight ends get drafted a little bit later the these these earlier Elite tight ends but the the position does seem to have more depth than what we've seen historically so my question to you is how are you attacking that position this year and do you have any favorites at the position yeah so I have I have a lot of favorites at the position this year because I have and this this actually feels like of all the things I was thinking about this last night cuz I was in a draft where um I was very very patient at tight end and it worked out in in what I believe will be my favor but I think I got a little bit too black and white with my stance on tight ends which is that I believe they're a 10 to me like you cannot convince me that those guys are not solid starting options going into the season I can probably say them because it's probably going to come off the the tongue pretty fast it's Kelsey leapa Mark Andrews Evan Ingram Trey McBride David and joku dson K Jake Ferguson George KD Kyle pittz and the order can be shuffled look at that man that was that was impressive we've been doing this so much I've been talking about prend so frequently that it kind of has become burned into my brain yeah the next players up at that position just for like some name perspective it's like Dallas Gard uh I think you can make a case for Brock Bowers Pat Fri moth right hackinson not included in that 10 but obviously if he were healthier when healthy he certainly could be in that list but that might be week nine week 10 we don't know um so there are other names as my dog walks in get out of here buddy walks in and says hello those are the 10 that I feel best about and the value is that there's only two that are going like measurably ahead of the rest right that's cavis Kelce and S La pora I think as we get closer and closer to the season and I'm not trying to be unkind to this constituency of fantasy football players we're going to have many more of the people that treated a bit more casually do their drafts this weekend Travis Kel is going to go early right he's yeah most popular player in the NFL I mean if he's not he's on the very very short list probably along with his teammate Patrick Mahomes he's going to go early the ADP data is going to tell you that Travis Kelce he's probably going to rise to tight end one by a decent margin on ESPN because of that factor in in the leagues that I play in um and and all the mock drafts that we do at ESPN we took on this robust mock draft project this summer that were like close to 50 mocks in like Kelsey went last night 38th but we're starting to see like a drop of Travis Kelce because as as you know but people that are listening uh hopefully know or can be made aware of is that it's not that Travis Kelce can't finish his tight end one it's that the justification of the cost for so many years was that he was tight end one by being so far ahead of the curve it was like starting the game up a touchdown with Travis Kelce regardless of who your opponent's tight end was and if that person was weak at tight end it might have been more like 10 or 12 nothing with Kelsey because he was just that dominant so my favorites this year it kind of starts with that I would say like the fourth or fifth like TR McBride yeah dton concade David en joku Evan Ingram 116 catches last year like I don't know if that's gonna happen again but it doesn't need to for him to pay off the cost right now because the cost for those guys is like seventh eighth round on ESPN ADP data and that kind of goes all the way down until we get to Jake Ferguson who is at least my 10th rated tight end and also ADP suggest he is around tight end 10 um there are a couple guys that make me a little bit more nervous in that group one is George KD and one is Kyle pittz uh KD the like the value's fine on both of them like missing on either of them is not going to cost you because you're paying such a moderate price but KD as we know plays in an offense and everybody not named Christian mcaffry is vulnerable to a Down 10 games 10 last year out of 16 played with three or fewer catches now he also LED all tight ends in receiving yards uh and you know was second in touchdowns only to Sam lorta so that's there's some really good with George Kelce George KD FY and slip right there um his upside is about as good as there is on a weekly basis but the downside is pretty significant and then Kyle pittz and I talked about your sort of incredibly pragmatic approach that is so useful and helps so many people win so you probably wouldn't love this justification but I got to tell you I go down the Kyle Pitts Road one more time and he burn for a third straight year it's going to be the shame on me situation right that makes it trickier too the draft Kyle Pitts in my book and hilariously my first redraft draft of this year I took Kyle pittz as my tight end so I sit there and I say that and then the first opportunity I had to actually start a team from scratch this season I took him it's always that's it's always yeah it's always interesting to me because like I always you know all publish rankings starting in season long redraft rankings uh starting more in like June and July just to kind of get a feel for things and then when you start doing your bigger drafts your important drafts and whatnot you start to understand even subconsciously who you like and don't like and you're like oh maybe I like this guy a little bit more than I thought or maybe I don't like this guy as much as I thought and that alone can start to dictate your rankings a little bit um and how you feel uh about guys but yeah look Kyle Pitts at the end of the day clearly clearly has a wide range of outcomes because we we've SE seen it h seen him have a wide range of outcomes just just naturally and in general and and I I think there's even schematically question marks of what we're going to see out of him where he's going to line up because they don't have that much depth at wide receiver in general like is he is he going to play slot a lot like is it is this like is that how they're going to deploy these guys or is it it going to be Ray Ray McLoud or whoever they have you know as their as their three so there I I think there's just a lot a lot of question marks with pits so I I understand the hesitation for folks and then the the KD thing with anyone in San Francisco it's outside of CMC like you said it's just a roller coaster every week they're just they're they're the classic better and best ball kind of picks we that's probably a more appropriate term to utilize we started this last year Mike Daniel and I when we were doing the three of us shows that like and maybe might have been actually might have been all of us talking about I can't recall but I feel like Mike and I had the conversation first and Mike is usually on in days that it's him Daniel and I but any event any player that was like up and down that like you know good for like you know Gabe is like the captain of this team maybe Mike Williams when he's healthy like players of that kind of caliber it would always be like if if a guy was just up and down and up and down he's a 49er we just started calling him that because again other than Christian mcaffrey we saw it last year like that's the Fool's Gold of looking at season long rankings and po Point totals right um it's it's why I think it's actually to me is the reason why amanra deserves to be wide receiver three in rankings going into this season I think cidd lamb and Tyreek Hill have you know clear cases the two top ranked wide receivers but for me Alman ra as opposed to Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chas and like if we went to court and you told me I had to argue either of those guys I could have you know blast so right but Alman ra as we know like he is just as he reminds me of Travis Kelce he's as steady as they come now there's some upside as well I think Alan ra has a lower chance a lower percentage chance of being wide receiver one overall than Jefferson or chase does but I think has a higher chance than either of those guys to be a top three wide receiver and so to me there's some real value in that um and so like that principle I think is important to apply when on occasion not you can't have every pick be that way but on occasion I do think that's an important thing to keep in mind and part of how when I am ranking players um you know when I I'm thinking about drafting a 49ers wide receiver like yeah auk might have been whatever it was wide receiver 11 last year and it was largely good but the bad WI the bad weeks from Brandon auk could be like wide receiver 62 whereas the bad weeks from Alan R Brown is like and not that they're being drafted next week but it's like yeah he was wide receiver 16 this week he really sucked right and like you're not gonna bench George KD like that's part of the problem too right is that you're drafting him as a starter you're going to play so you got to just take the hits in season long whereas you know again in a best ball environment you're at least getting that second tight end or maybe even third tight end in some builds where like all right if he has a down week maybe these other guys step up and they're able to to fill in that slot I always go my my go-to example of the of the Vol the highly volatile player has always been Dey Henderson from from back in the day a deep cut I love right yeah always always the easy three 105 and a touchdown one week he walked so rashed Shahed could run in right exactly I mean same sort of AR archetype I guess yeah exactly all right so we already talked about Kiren Williams he was one guy that I wanted to get to another one is uh Josh Jacobs Range Of Outcomes Narrows Josh Jacobs in the situation in Green Bay AJ Dylan goes on season ending IR uh marshan Lloyd was reported at first that he was going to go to IR but he has not gone to IR you know he's banged up though so they have a lack of depth because of this Lloyd injury especially behind Josh Jacobs uh I was more bearish than the market on Jacobs a couple months ago and I mean maybe even arguably today if his cost is you know rising and such but mostly driven by uh you know Matt laflor and his history of splitting back feeld fields and you know Jacobs wasn't necessarily a special back last year you know coming off a year where he had so much uh you know such a big workload um but I'm curious because I I I bring people on because I want other perspectives out there um how have you viewed Josh Jacobs this year like is this a situation now that things have really cleared for him where he could just be a full-blown Bell cow in this offense and kind of say you know Screw you Matt laflor in the way that you've you've run your uh your offenses historically the range of outcomes for Josh Jacobs has decreased about as much as any back yeah that I can think of so far this preseason all the factors are working in this favor right now but there are still some legitimate limitations for Josh Jacobs who by the way a 3.6 yards per carry last year now I know that yards per carry is not just a running back stat it's also an offensive line stat um but you know I saw zamir white like run like comparably or even more effectively behind that same offensive line down the stretch for the Raiders I still have my questions about zir white just as an decide but you know it's a note a data point there so the depth behind Josh Jacobs extremely thin right now Emanuel Wilson sounds like he's the number two but like kudos to the you know the seven people that know Emanuel Wilson not named Denny Carter of course who's an Emanuel struther um but it's a very it's a very favorable spot it's a beefed up offensive line compared to what he was playing behind in Las Vegas but I think the range of outcomes is fairly narrow because I don't think there is like League altering upside for Josh Jacobs because he's been an inefficient Runner I don't think the passing game utilization is going to be insane a couple of years ago when he was so involved in that Raiders passing game a lot of it was the dump off city right and that's kind of what makes me nervous about Rashad white this year he's been one of the guys that I've been I've been lower on than my ESPN colleagues and probably industry as well is that like that's amazing when it hits but like two years ago might three years ago it's Josh Jacobs two years ago it was R Andre I think last year it could be Rashad white where it's like it was kind of like hit the royal flush right like they they had some real offensive line issues last year in Tampa they had the worst depth amongst all backfields in the entire League last year it was the perfect scenario for Rashad white but back to Josh Jacobs here is that like I think he's going to be a more efficient Runner than what he was in Las Vegas I think he'll be a less involved pass catcher um so I think there's like an rb8 season ceiling in there for Josh Jacobs maybe rb6 or rb5 but like I still think for him to reach the caliber of and you're not drafting him to reach the caliber of Christian mcaffer Bree Hall uh bejon players of that out like outcome um it's going to take like something unforeseen right now yeah I I right right I tend to agree and I i' I've gotten a little bit more of him just before the inevitable like ADP Spike like in a beste ball environment and stuff like that but there's just there's there's a lot of concerns that I think people are just kind of be like oh no he he'll be the Bell Cal he'll be the Bell Cal but uh you know the other thing too with like Target share is and this is something I've talked about with like a DeAndre Swift uh you know a little bit and guys who are in these offenses with really good Alternatives at pass catcher right where where you know when when we project these teams we're not projecting just saying this guy's going to get 65 Targets this guy's going to get 75 and so on we're saying this is a target share pie that we're divvying up right and so every team has a 100% Target share pie and you have to think about it from the perspective of what's going to be more optimal for that offense what's going to be more optimal for the Packers who have a very good wide receiving room or or a hopeful wide receiving room or the Bears who who have a more objectively uh insane wide receiver room what's going to be the more efficient way of throwing the ball like where are you going to throw it well it's to those those weapons because we already know inherently that a wide receiver Target is more valuable than a running back Target uh you know in the real NFL so it's it's one of those things where like you know we can project you know another example of that is I I've I've leaned in a little bit more on Kenneth Walker than I was earlier in the offseason but at the same time uh they have good weapons like they have good like how high is that Target share ceiling for that kind of player and that's that's my kind of fear with a guy like Jacobs too is that you know can he hit a 10 11% Target share I think it's in his range of outcomes for sure like I think that's probably a closer to his projection but like you need to get to like the 15 16% Mark in order to really have that like top three fantasy season yeah it's funny because it would probably require like multiple players from Green Bay like going down because on top of like so they have this ambiguity in terms of who is their wide receiver one right but they also have like six credible Playmakers among their wide receivers and tight ends right I mean Christian Watson Jaden Reed Davian Wicks Tucker craft Luke Musgrave Romeo dobs like that's six legitimate Playmakers right like you know the ceiling for each of those players is different uh both in real and fantasy but that's like six guys that like probably two of those guys have to be unavailable for Jacobs to to kind of creep closer to that 15% Target share that you're mentioning I find the Kenneth Walker uh disc discourse sort of fascinating right now in this regard is that like there's been a decent amount of recent sort of push back that like you know the fantasy Community is not high enough on Kenneth Walker thei third I'm like I've got him as RV 11 like I'm not like you know we're not we're not crushing Kenneth Walker the third stock right now right it's that this is a player who to your point like this was the Seahawks were you know this was the team that was the Bears and the Texans before they were what they are right now right these three legitimate wide receiver options and but Walker is a capable pass catcher like I believe he'll make his money in the NFL as a guy who's just like a ferocious tackle breaking running back who is at his best when you just like let him go to work in that regard yeah exactly I mean he he hasn't been a a high volume uh pass catcher dating back to college but I it's because of the alternative there the alternative is you probably if if you're going to give him touches you're going to want to do it more on the ground because that's where you can find some efficiency from him and you know the the hope is definitely that you know instead of the 8% Target share that he generally gets it's more in that like 10 11% range which I think can happen and that can catapult a player like that because uh you know it's going to give him a little bit better of a floor for a guy who's that that home run hitter right the the guy who uh isn't necessarily as consistent down to down as like a shanet you know who's more of that like James Connor mold um so yeah I definitely definitely agree there um one thing I want to talk about you mentioned uh zamir White um Vegas Raiders RB Zamir White but uh I had a bold predictions piece that that dropped this week and one of them uh was that uh Taj Spears would outscore zir white not only outscore him I added that he would outscore him by 30 points this year uh which is definitely obviously bold you know it's part of the the whole idea the conceit of the piece right exactly exactly um uh but but it's a lot of that is the fact that like I like the Tennessee backfield it's not even necessarily like an only Taj Spears thing I like Tony par too I like attacking these ambiguous backfields because a player can emerge just via Talent you know a guy can get hurt and then all of a sudden it's like oh wow I have like a low-end rb1 on my team um but also I'm worried about zir white and you kind of mentioned a little bit about white where are you at uh with white is is all of that warranted I think it's all warranted and I will concede that like I wish I had a stronger opinion on zamir white he like the numbers you go back and look at the final five games of last season they were good right like legitimately solid numbers the volume was very good he had a game in which he had five catches as well so he's not a total zero in the passing game I'm also not totally convinced like BU as I he'll have a big passing game role uh the team still has air Abdul and Dylan lby like in the in the Cradle here to potentially be pass catching options um I would just say it's hard for me to be super bullish on several Playmakers in an offense that just generally speaking feels like could be amongst the worst like eight or 10 in the entire NFL I think's fine as well maybe this is because they're now teammates the fear is that this is Alexander Madison 2.0 I know where it's just like it's pretty good right if you go back and look at Alexander Madison's game logs at the beginning of last season it wasn't that he was finishing as like RV 57 it was that we told you like hey you know like this guy's got like lowend rb2 value and he was having a lot of like rb28 finishes you know or it's like he's getting these goal line carries and doing nothing with that some of the things like some of the boxes were being checked by Madison last year maybe the most important box was that Madison's just an okay player and was maybe overcast in that starting role and so I wonder like that's my fear for zamir white I have a little bit of exposure to him but uh and and some of that's by Design like I do have a um like a rule that like players that I am more out on than in on because I play in enough leagues I I naturally find some exposure there to yeah protect myself right if I'm the I'm a big dummy from time to time we all are in this industry uh but it's good to have you know the insurance so but I would say that zamir is not amongst my favorite RB 23 targets like I much more lean into aandre a James Connor a David montgomer maybe Monty uh but rre and James Connor for sure over zamir white who at least on ESN data are going pretty similarly in terms of round value yeah look White's never been a pass catcher throughout his I mean even dating back to Georgia like wasn't you know obviously competition plays a role there but hasn't hasn't been a pass catcher you know he just strikes me as a play like you said like Madison last year who you're drafting in that low-end rb2 range who doesn't really have a ceiling that can get that much high like are we going to be shocked if he finishes you know let's say he's being drafted at RB 21 are we going to be sh shocked if he finishes rb19 or rb20 probably not but would we be shocked if he finishes as rb10 I think so probably right like that's the thing is like I just don't haven't been able to see where that ceiling is really going to come from uh with zamir white yeah the further we get from Round One the less prone I am to drafting a guy closer to his ceiling like of course you can't draft Christian mcaffry too far from his ceiling because he's going first right um but as we get further move from round one like the floor of radun is obviously quite low he's a third receiver on his own team but the ceiling is high enough that I keep finding myself reaching for Rome perhaps right more than my ranking suggest I should be right right uh speaking of uh some rookies are there any later round Rookies Who Field Is Targeting rookies that that you're eyeing this year that you've been drafting a lot yeah so the running back class like is pretty much all insurance policy we talked about Blake corm already you know Trey Benson has had an interesting preseason in some people's eyes but he's like pretty clearly entrenched as a second running back in Arizona uh and you know just James Conor has I know he's he's famously never played every single game in a season he hasn't been unhealthy per se over the past few years but still um I remind people often and I you know this I think is often lost during preseason analysis is that there are two categories of preseason rankings one is for players that we think have sticky value throughout the year right uh if Justin Jefferson is T being taken eighth overall the the the impression you're giving is that he's an elite player every single week during the season at some point though you start drafting players that are useful for pockets of games right maybe adun eventually becomes you know a 17 game player could be as soon as this year probably more likely next year um but if Kean Allen has a soft tissue injury that costs him weeks you know six through 10 how high is romad dun assuming that Caleb Williams is what we in your weekly rankings and five games of a potential top 20ish option of wide receiver is really valuable uh because not every player on your roster is going to be useful every week during the season so I think Trey Benson is kind of a pocket player right I don't know that he's going to I I would be surprised if he has uh weekly utility but if he gets four or five games really interests me wide receiver there's so many just because as we all know there's great depth at wide receiver in general I'm trying to think about the rookie class that we have talked about you know lad makoni I you know I I don't have a great grip on just the the wide receiver room General uh in in Los Angeles Roman Wilson like might be the wide receiver I know he's been banged up like he might be Pittsburgh's second best wide receiver if this auk deal does not get done and you know I've seen the optimism surrounding van Jefferson and I'm like we've been down this path before right like it is what it is so I'm not going to be deterred by that in the pre-draft process I was a bigger than consensus fan of Jaylen pulk I don't want a ton of Patriots offense for understandable reasons but uh for guys going is basically free like all those are names that come to mind yeah I like pulk too I mean I I felt like pulk was just kind of undervalued as a prospect in general throughout that whole process I think a lot of times when you get those wide receiver rooms that are a little bit muddied and they have a lot of good talent you just kind of push like of course we're we're watching them more and we're seeing more of them because we're like oh wow Roma dun is doing this but look at what Jaylen pulk just did uh but at the same time you know it's it's like at least like analytically they don't look as good that's why I have like a teammate score in my model and such uh I've always team and Target between those two what's that who's a better bet between Jaylen p and romad dun to be to team targets right not all Targets created equally but if you know if Jaylen pul pushes for 110 in New England isn't that better than potentially you know 77 in Chicago maybe yeah 100% 100% I think I think pulk has been uh he's someone who that that whole Washington room actually I've comped to the USC room of of a handful of years ago cuz like Drake London's kind of a dunesque you could you know I think the the the the least uh comp uh comparable one is is like pulk to Pitman but then like Aman R st Brown was actually a loose comp for jayen McMillan for me so like it's it could end up being just that all three of those guys are very very good pros and we're already seeing a lot of hype from all of them you know in their respective camps so yeah pul is someone who I'm I'm definitely The One Player Field Is Trying To Leave Every Draft With definitely interested in all right before I let you go field give me a player the one guy I think you might might have hinted at it earlier who you are trying to every draft with this year well it's hard because uh he he plays a one player position and I've now been talking about him so much this this preseason that I'm actually finding myself getting less and less exposure to him but I do love me some Anthony Richardson this year um that that's probably you know the truth is like that's probably not the actual answer just because again it's it's a you draft generally one quarterback and yeah he is starting you his ADP is skyrocketing right now um so I will say this even though I just made like a Counterpoint against him radun is being drafted much later than any of the other first round wide receivers other than I think Brian Thomas may maybe Xavier Worthy is kind of floating around there as well but like Rome you don't have to like this to me is how I think you win championships in the draft right I don't think you win championships in the draft because you took Justin Jefferson eth overall where he should go right there are no points well I guess there could be but like you know we don't chase third round finish uh third place finishes or seventh place finishes in 14 Team league we want to win the entire thing and it's the player who doesn't have an obvious path but has an obvious skill set that ultimately can be the guy that wins you leagues uh he like Devon aan last year is a good example of it right like the path was a little bit murky at the beginning of the season and he was obviously unavailable for parts of the Season he was inconsistent when he didn't get a legit workload but when he got like double digit opportunities it was like holy crap this guy broke every single model available so Rome is one that I found myself walking away with quite often as well yeah I love that call and not only that a guy like Rome has multiple outs it's not just one out not one wide receiver injury or one wide receiver not performing well you got you got a couple there that that can help Elevate them um but field man it was great to chop chop it up and chat um as always let everyone know where they can find you and and anything else you want to promote yeah we are rock and rolling now with fantasy Focus which if you head over to the ESPN NFL YouTube page I believe it's youtube.com ESPN NFL uh Monday through Friday 10 amm eastern time so we're covering a lot of ground but we are desperate desperate I tell you for real football which as you and I are talking is one week and about seven hours away yeah crazy crazy you can find all my stuff as usual over on lat round.com follow me on Twitter at lat round QB otherwise everyone enjoy your weekend and thank you for tuning in