The Art & Science of Dynasty Rankings with Jake Ciely

Jake Ciely of The Athletic has been doing fantasy football rankings for 15 years, and one of his most honest admissions is that he kind of hates them. Not because they aren't useful, but because a ranked list can't convey everything a manager actually needs to know. Understanding what rankings can and can't tell you changes how you use them. In this episode, Jeff and Jake walk through how dynasty rankings get built, why the current season deserves more weight than most dynasty managers give it, and what question you should be asking yourself every time you open a rankings page.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Rankings are a vacuum snapshot — they tell you what a ranker prefers if all else is equal, not what you should do for your specific team.
• Tiers communicate more than order; a player ranked 21 and a player ranked 28 in the same tier are essentially interchangeable, and a good ranker wants you to know that.
• Dynasty rankings take roughly twice as long to produce as redraft rankings because every player evaluation involves a multi-year time horizon.
• Jake weights the current season heavier than most dynasty rankers, arguing that too many managers are optimizing for 2029 instead of actually trying to win.
• Age is primarily a tiebreaker in the top tier, but becomes a more significant factor around ages 27–28.
• Contract situations are the underrated companion to age in dynasty valuation.
• Consulting redraft rankings alongside dynasty rankings can help break close calls, especially when you want to know which of two players has a clearer path to contributing this season.
• The hardest players to rank well are often not the stars but the mid-tier options whose range of outcomes is widest and upside matters more than floor.
• Jake's closing advice: stop being a lazy manager. Look at other teams' needs, make offers, start conversations. Don't just wait for trades to come to you.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 – Introduction
04:58 – The Question Rankings Try to Answer
14:08 – Tiers and What Gets Lost
21:13 – Weighting This Year vs. Future Years
27:32 – How Age and Contracts Factor into Rankings
37:38 – How Jake Uses, and Avoids, Outside Rankers
42:36 – When Are Your Rankings Done?
52:56 – Should Dynasty Managers Use Redraft Rankings?
01:04:17 – Stop Being Lazy & #BanKickers

🔗 Links Mentioned

• Jake Ciely at The Athletic 
• Jake's Post-Draft Dynasty Rankings 
• Follow Jake on Twitter/X 
• All In Speed Run podcast on Apple Podcasts 
• FantasyPros 
• Jeff's Dynasty Rankings 
• Follow Jeff on Twitter/X
• Footballguys

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Transcript

Jeff: Rankings are probably the most common form of fantasy football content that's consumed by dynasty managers and other fantasy football players. But what are they really? I mean, they are, of course, a rank order list of players. What goes into it? What do they tell you, and what do they not? Well, I've got Jake Ciely from The Athletic joining me today.

He's been doing rankings for 15 years. We're gonna break down the art and the science, and it's more art, of doing rankings next on Dynasty Compass.

[theme music]

Jeff: Welcome to Dynasty Compass. I am your host, Jeff Blaylock, the Other Jeff B from Footballguys. Very thrilled today to be joined by Jake Ciely, the senior fantasy writer at The Athletic. That title makes you sound old. You don't look old to me. Um, but welcome to the show, Jake. Good to see you and thanks for stopping by.

Jake: Well, no, I appreciate that 'cause I am, I am older than people think. Uh, if, if anybody heard the podcast about meeting Nicole in my 40s, that's a, that's a big hint of how old I might actually be for people out there.

Jeff: So the title fits, in other words. That's, uh, that's good. You, well, you don't look it. You don't

Jake: Although I'm the third. I'm the third. My da- my, my grandpa's a senior, so, uh, we're actually the fam... So my first name is actually John, uh, but my dad always wanted to name his son Jake, but also wanted to keep the family name going, so I'm actually the third. So I'm, I'm all sorts of like none of the

Jeff: Wow. You are, you are all over the, all over the place in time.

Jake: Yeah, pretty much.

Jeff: Well, Jake, tell everybody, uh, where they are. Obviously you said The Athletic, which is of course the big one, but where, where else can they find you and, and what do you do in the fantasy realm?

Jake: Uh, stuff like this, which is always fun to do. I, I have my o- own podcast that I brought back, and it's a short one, though, so the All In Speed Run. Uh, it used to be All In Sports, but now it's the Speed Run, kinda like video games as people know. And then I do regular appearances on Fantasy Pros and Pat Mayo and all that type of stuff.

But yeah, like you said, Athletic. I would say back in the day, we used to be able to say, "Just look at my Twitter handle. I'll tweet everything out." But now I, I don't know if anybody sees anything anymore 'cause I don't see responses from people half the time, and then like if five minute- like five weeks later, I'm like, "Oh."

Like I try to DM with you, and I was like, like I get a DM like seven days later. Like, "Oh, oh, okay. I don't even know how the system works anymore."

Jeff: Say, "Well, I know you pay attention, you're responsive," because I tagged you in a post the other day and you were on it all over it, uh, just a very few seconds

Jake: is, that's the thing. I think the only thing you're guaranteed to see is if somebody follows you and you follow them. Otherwise, like it's a 50/50 shot. You might respond to something I tweeted, and I'm not trying to ignore you. Uh, I just, who the hell knows what I see anymore.

Jeff: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, I know one of the things you do, uh, of course, is rankings. That's what this show is about today. We're gonna talk about the art and science of rankings. But I do wanna set up for those watching on YouTube or listening on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite platform, you know I'm not a typical kind of fantasy football show.

Uh, a typical ranking show, Jake and I would share our rankings, debate where we're off from each other, and, and just have at it for an hour or more. It's not the kind of show that we do here. If you're looking for that, sorry, we're not gonna get into that today. What we are gonna get into though is, as said, the art and the science of it, 'cause rankings are not just a rank-ordered list of players.

There's a lot that goes on to get to that list, and we've got one of the best rankers in the country here to talk about that. And so, you know, Jake, as we, as we kick this off today, you know, when you sit down to do rankings, is there any particular question that these rankings are really trying to answer?

Jake: Who, who you want more than the other person. Uh, but no, it really, like, comes down to is, uh, it'll, it'll kinda be a, a recurring theme throughout this entire thing is that I, I, I feel like answering the question, there's not enough. Like, just look... I hate to say this right off the top, I kinda hate rankings to a degree because there's so much information that you aren't getting.

Um, you know, it basically is like the cliche, don't judge a book by its cover, but it's worse than that. It b- you know, like it'd be going to a car lot only looking at the outside of the car and being like, "I know I want that car." You don't know, like, what the engine's like, and especially, like, if it was a used one.

Like, you don't know what the tires look like if you're just standing far away or, like, the inside could be trash. Like, there's so many more questions that you need to ask versus just is this player better than this player? Because especially, as you know, in dynasty, like, you try to answer the questions of like, hey, you know, you should want this guy better than this guy, but then it comes down to team need, and it comes down to, well, are you a team that's stacked and you can take h- you know, more risk, uh, risk, risky players with higher upside?

So I try to answer, like, the, the overall rankings, whether dynasty or redraft, are just like, if you're the middle-of-the-road team and, like, you're just like for everybody out there to try to be the catch-all, is you should want this player or to start this player ahead of this one. Um, and then I'm sure, like I said, as we talk, we get more into there's so much more nuance.

Um, so like that's the a- that's the answer, but it's like, it's a very surface level answer, if that makes sense. And I know you know

Jeff: Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of nuance to dynasty and there is no way to really do any one thing in dynasty and have that apply to everybody, even a, a player take or a, you know, answering a question. I know I aggravate some of our, our users in our Discord forum because I always answer a question with five questions or more to try to figure out exactly where they are so that I could give them, uh, the best advice that I can.

But man, you, you do, you do like redraft and dynasty, so you've got that just sort of, you know, cognitive dissonance in your head the whole time. I only do dynasty rankings, so I can kind of just stay focused on that. You know, how do you-- Well, first of all, how do you keep those separated in your mind from each other?

A- and then do you have a different point of view in redraft than you do in dynasty, or is it, is it you said that that middle of the road kind of team for both sets of rankings?

Jake: No, it is different. So redraft versus dynasty is just a balance of like, I mean, you know, you would be able to do redraft rankings right tomorrow. Like, like if it... I think the harder part is trying to jump from redraft to dynasty for people. And I'm not saying people can't do it, it just takes an extra level because you're thinking three, four, five years out versus this is all I care about for 2026 and this is all I care about for week one.

Uh, and I know those are weekly rankings and different, but like, I think it's easier to go one way than it is the other. But for both of them to be able to separate isn't too hard. The bigger thing is what it comes down to when trying to do the rankings is there's a similarity to both that I do, um, is that outside the top 10 quarterbacks, top 20 running backs, top 30 wide receivers, like after that everybody out there knows that the difference between WR35 and WR45, if you take the course of an entire season, is gonna be like, what, a half point per game?

And, and that, and that's the thing is like once we're down to that level, um, to go back to the, like the end of Frank Gore's career, like I don't want Frank Gore. Like, sorry, like I love Frank Gore at the peak, and I'm talking about the end of his career. I'm talking about the end of his career where he was averaging seven points per game.

Seven points per game, to lock that in every single week is not going to win you most, like 'cause he's not gonna be the difference maker. So once I get into that range, and this is where I say it ties into both, so for redraft in that area I'm gonna take higher upside guys. I'm gonna take the guys that, you know, if I only get a two, I only lost five points, but they had the potential to score 20 versus the guy that I know his range of outcomes is 5 to 11.

Like, I don't really care about that because I want the difference maker even if it only hurt... But again, it's only gonna hurt you by about five points. The same thing applies for dynasty is that for me, once we get into like just this year, the second round, normally it's the third as you know, but once you get into the second round this year, I'm taking those shots on guys who could potentially be weekly lineup plays.

Like, I don't want guys that I'm like, "You know what? I really like that depth on my dynasty team. I probably can use him three times this year." Like, then why? Like why, like, you know, if you wanna say for trade fodder, then like I don't think you should be doing that. Like I, I'm never drafting to trade. I'm drafting for like the highest potential ceiling that could surprise me in a lineup.

Like I know we don't talk specific players, but like I'll give you an example. Quarterback this year. I'm not... Like it's funny, like on the Fantasy Pros podcast I'm kind of becoming the Drew Allar guy, and I'm not a Drew Allar guy. Let me make that clear. Last year before the, like 'cause he was supposed to be, potentially be in last year's draft.

And last year like I, I made it clear, like I wasn't a Allar guy, I wasn't a Nussmeier guy, I wasn't, like and I went down the list. But the thing is going to this draft this year is you've watched him play. Like if you said, "Give me, build me a quarterback-" But forget about the brain. Like, you would build Drew Allar.

And the thing is, is like, but the brain is not there. He makes such terrible decisions. But if you watch at the right point of the game, like you might be like, "Oh my gosh, that's a potential top 10 quarterback." But if you watch 80% of the game, otherwise you're like, "That dude's terrible." Um, but I sa- I'm bringing him up for my example here is because, like in Superflex this year, in the third round, I'm gonna take a flyer on Drew Allar versus having my fourth tight end or a ninth wide receiver because if they get in his brain and teach him to actually see the game, which is a, a big ask, I'd rather have that potential because if he somehow put it all together, you have a potential QB1 versus, "Oh, cool, I have WR5 or WR6 on my team." Sorry, that was a really long-winded answer

to, like, how

Jeff: No, that, that's, that's terrific. It's good to know that you are not actually a Drew Allar stan. I was a little bit afraid that, that, that you may have changed over the years. You may have seen the light, and now Drew Allar is, is, is the dude. But yeah, definitely, you know, in Superflex formats, you, you mentioned, you know, Nussmeier.

I just drafted him this morning in the fourth round of a draft because he's a quarterback, and, you know, he has some tape that looks really, really good. If I close one eye, he's a terrific quarterback. Uh, but with two eyes open and all the tape, yikes. But he did land in a good enough

Jake: look at him between some,

like, uh, blur- like hand, hand sanitizer. Like, "Oh, my God, yeah."

Jeff: if I, if I do this, it's perfect. Uh, it's... But he's with Andy Reid. He's in a good situation. He's on a good team, you know? I mean, it, it's still tiny chance, but, but there's a chance. And I agree with you, man, I don't want an, a 11th wide receiver. I'm not gonna play that guy. If I'm not gonna play somebody, I at least want some upside with them.

Uh, but, you know, you've got so... Like, let me do something else real quick, though. You talk about Superflex and, and this is, we're going off, off the sheet, off the order here of what I gave you. But

Jake: Yeah, you're totally

Jeff: do you, you know, when you do Superflex, do you do separate Superflex rankings from one QB, uh, or is- does that magic happen in, uh, behind the scenes?

Jake: No, I, I do separately. And, um, so I do, I use the Fantasy Pros widget for our site because they, I mean, they've been develop- The Athletic, they've been developing one for years and it's like they, they... The problem is, it's kinda like, you know, why recreate something that's done really well? Because, you know, easily that tab is just so easy to use.

Um, and I'll, like, make it clear, I have a regular guest spot. Big fan of Fantasy Pros. But however, I don't love their auto ranker, especially when it comes to Superflex. Um, I, like, this is another one, and, and I, I already read through the question, so I don't remember if we kinda got, we're gonna get into this or not, so I'm kinda maybe answering a question, but if not, it's bonus for you, is I think in dynasty, quarterbacks are actually undervalued.

I think too many people look at it and they're like, "Oh, you know, like, there's quarterbacks." And even in Superflex, I understand they're gonna be vaulted so that people know that there's more value. 'Cause especially if you... I don't like 12-team Superflex. I know you're not asking that because you are, you come out of the draft with teams that don't even have a third quarterback that, without injury, like, byes and everything.

So 10-team is my preference to cap it at. But even so, with the Fantasy Pros, it tries to auto-rank for you on Superflex, and it kinda pushes some running backs and wide receivers ahead of quarterbacks, which I think are even more important as that point being is because it goes back to my whole, like, I want a top 10 quarterback.

I don't want QB15. Like, even in single quarterback, I don't want QB15. I don't want QB17. I don't want QB13. I want somebody that when you're talking about, especially in a 10-team, uh, 10's not even good enough. I want top six probably because I need a leg up on everybody else in my league. If I'm just playing keep away, like, or not only keep away, if I'm just playing like, hey, you know, we're gonna all be the same at quarterback, then I gotta find my leg up somewhere else.

And I think the problem is people, even because it's only one position, they look at quarterback and they say, like, "I'll be fine." But, like, you're immediately kinda throwing away a potential difference-making spot where, like, you know if you have Josh Allen, even as so- single quarterback, you know that you have an advantage to take shots elsewhere because you have that one position locked up versus everybody else versus, you know, two or three teams.

Um, but that's why, like, so I boost my Superflex quarterbacks. Like, in dynasty right now, uh, if you look at the widget, I... Most of my quarterbacks in single quarterback inside about the top 75 are plus 15 to 20 spots versus everybody else because I want Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, like those top ones, because I want some kind of edge at quarterback versus just playing the same guys everybody else is.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's, it's an interesting kind of way of looking at it because I think a lot of us get it drilled into our heads, especially new dynasty players who are looking at the format for the first time in 1-QB, are told wait on the quarterback because you've, you've got these values. The other positions that you can just kind of play anybody, and that quarterback, just like the other positions, there are big difference makers, and if you leave them sitting on the board, uh, you are, you're, you're missing out on something.

Um, but if you miss on those first few, uh, then, you know, then it's a little different story, a- and maybe, maybe we do dive a little deeper down into before picking up a quarterback.

But You know, rankings, of course, they're a list. They're, they're a rank order list. You can do different things to make the list look differently or move people around, but it's still a list.

There's a lot of dimensions to players that go into it, and I'm sure you don't use the exact same criteria or the same things for everybody. So how do you, how do you collapse everything that you wanna convey about a player or, or use to rank them and con- collapse that down into where they land on the list?

Jake: So I don't think there's a way to just have, look at the rankings list and know that outside of the one thing you can do with the Fantasy Pros widget. That's another thing, like why? Uh, you could add tiers, which that's what I try to do because that gives you a general range. Just like drafting with tiers is like, it kind of tells you, like here's the breaking point of like, you know what?

If you're looking at my rankings of running backs and let's say my tier breaks at 20 to 30, just keep even numbers right there. But you're looking at that and you like you have 21 and 28, but something's telling you, like you're like, "Man, I just really feel something about 28 this week," whoever it might be.

Like, that's my way of saying I'm okay with that. Like, I, I don't care. Like, like you're in the same tier. Like, yeah, I have him at 21 because, you know, 9 out of 10 times he might score 8.2 and 28 might score 8. And like, that's how big the difference is, and that's why they're in the same tier. So if you wanna go for that, I don't have a problem with it, and that's what I try to convey with the tiers.

'Cause they, like I go back to it, there's only so much we can say if you just print out a list and look at it. Like the, like we're just telling you, "Yeah, we prefer this guy to this guy," and there's no reason why, right? Like, so that's actually, to give you a little behind the scenes, like, like for The Athletic, I'm trying to, what, what we've been working on is having an extra column that kind of will have like a, an ups- that's the part, like what do you call it?

Like an upside factor or risk factor of like, you know, four out of five his like range of outcomes. But like that's the thing we're trying to like figure out. Like what's the best way? 'Cause do you want a risk factor 'cause what does that tell you? Do you want an upside? Because, well, then that doesn't tell you what the down...

You see what I'm saying? And, and that's the problem with rankings, there's so many more questions to ask. But I think tiers, um, for what we can do right now, um, I say we like most of us in the industry, if you use that widget, um, is kind of tell you that like I don't have a problem if you disagree with me and guys in this range.

Like, if you wanna jump to the next tier, then we'll have a little bit more conversation, and unfortunately The Athletic has comment sections where people are like, "Well, I was thinking this and I want this." Oh, you laugh. It like, uh, it's, it's thankfully whittled down- Over the years, but when people first realized that I will respond to every comment that's not just a, "Who would you start?"

Because the rankings are right there, who would I start? I need more context. Like, I will answer who do I s- who would I start, but if you're just like, "Would you start blank or blank?" That's like the same thing, going the other opposite direction. Like, you're telling... There's no extra context there. It's just blank or blank.

Okay, the higher ranked guy. But anyway, the comments, uh, a few years ago, I legitimately started off the season, the first 10 weeks of the season, I had over 1,000 comments for 10 straight weeks. They actually, like, did, like, a little mini award behind the scene in the Slack for answering all those questions.

So I'm, I'm actually really thankful they're only down to, like, 300 or 400 now. I have more time on my hands.

Jeff: That, yeah, I mean, that's some extra time to then just sort of rethink your rankings as you, as you answer questions. Uh, so, you know, you, you rank around 300 or so players. I did some mathing before we came on. I don't know if my mathing is correct, but that sounds about, about right. Uh, you know, how do you, how do you undertake that process?

So where do you start? I assume you do not start with a blank sheet of paper, but perhaps you do. You know, where does, where does Jake Ciely sit down and say, "Okay, I'm ranking 300 guys today. Let's go." Where, where are you starting from?

Jake: it's funny, I actually start with whatever's last that I had. So if it's in-season, pull the previous ranks from the previous week. But obviously, bye weeks are gonna come into play, but that's obvious. But anyway, start with the previous, um... Well, actually, there's two different things. I, I shouldn't have said pre- or regular s- that's preseason.

Preseason, uh, same thing as I do with dynasty, is it's, it's kind of convoluted for dynasty 'cause redraft- like just draft in the preseason, redraft, like I have my projections. So I do my first go, and I go through the rankings, and it's not writing it down. I just download them into an Excel sheet and I move them, and I go position by position, and then I do the overall.

Uh, admittedly, I'll tell everybody out there, I don't spend as much time on overall as I do position by position because overall, to go into this whole conversation we're having, I don't want people... I, I say this all the time, I hate overall. Like, I hate rankings in general because it doesn't give you enough information. I, I, I loathe overall rankings because people look at it and they're like, "Oh, he has Jeremiyah Love at 12, but you know, Tee Higgins at 18. So I... Every single time I should take Jeremiyah Love." And I'm like, "Well, not necessarily, 'cause who's already on your team? What do you like, like who's still available that might be around on the day?"

So that's why I hate overall. But anyway, I do my rankings position by position, do overall. I do my projections, and then I load the projections ranked, like I pull just the names in, and then I look at my biggest differences, and then I decide, like, who I wanna tweak based off my projections. I always reference this.

There was a bunch of years ago, it was before Lamar Jackson broke out, and I had him... Everybody had him ranked like- eight, nine, 10 that year. And my projections put him at two. And I've put it, like, and I s- and I was like, "Wow, that's..." Like, I even questioned my own projections and I'm like, "Eh." I was like, "I'll put him up to four, but I'm not gonna put..."

And that was the year that he won the MVP, he finished one. And I was like, "Oh man, I should've listened to my projections." Anyway, my point being is that's how I do it. So for dynasty, um, you can't really, as you know, you can't really do projections for four years. Like, you can to a degree, but it's so convoluted and I just use my projections for one year, pull them in, and then I start moving them, okay, like, based on, like...

And I'm kinda going through my brain of, like, all right, you know, Lamar Jackson, we'll just stick with him. 22 points per game. Well, I know that should last four more years, but, you know, whoever might the quarterback be right behind him, we're like, "Well, his might only last two." So i- it's basically age, looking at age and moving these guys around in their situation.

So it is manual, and that's why dynasty rankings take twice as long, because they're so much more manual of actually moving these guys, of saying, "All right, well, we're also talking about people on one-year deals versus three, four-year deals vers-" Like Josh Jacobs, yeah, that's cool. I know he's gonna produce this, and he could still possibly, and I even say this, he's gonna...

possibly could do it two or three more years, but is it gonna be on the Packers? Like, he's, like, gone next year. Like, so that's how I do it. Um, but, like, that's why redraft is so much easier. That's why I say you could j- like, you h- you don't do 'em, but this is why, like, you much... It's so much easier jumping to redraft if you do dynasty than it is to go the opposite direction because of that.

Jeff: Yeah, a-absolutely. I mean, I do occasionally have to sort of dabble in that and say: Well, if I, I didn't do these, but he'd probably be around my WR12 or WR13, and here's why. Um, but yeah. I mean, you've got the time element, of course. You know, do you... Uh, you've got your projections for this year.

You know, do you give, like, this year a particular weight in your evaluation? Or is it just this is the only set of data point that I have, and so we'll go with that, and then we'll just kinda go from there?

Jake: No, that's a really good question, and that's probably where I get the most pushback in dynasty, is I rate, or ra- uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Weight is the

Jeff: Weight, yeah.

Jake: Uh, we're talking, we're ranking so much, the R keeps coming right into my mind. I, I weight this year probably heavier than most people do, admittedly, because I look at it as, like, I know...

Well, know. We know what we should get. Like, everybody loves the rookies and, but I mean, just look at last year's. Look at, like, you know, uh, Jack Bech. And like, I don't know, there's still hope for him. Uh, Tory Horton. Not only is that like, he's actually like doubly possibly buried at this point. Um, so like I, I look at it as like I know what I'm gonna get.

I know these players are... And I'm not talking about the 30s and stuff like that, 'cause that's, I already said that's where I would

take swings. Um, but a lot of the, like a lot of the arguments that have been pushed back on me has been stuff like, "Why would you rank blank over blank?" You know, and I'll, I'll give you a good example.

So Dane Brugler did a mock draft like everybody did before the draft, and he had, um, like Tyson and Lemon falling into terrible spots. I mean, spots where they were at best the three this year, and they would be. Um, but then he put, I forget who it was, somebody on the Raiders, and it was a second round wide receiver.

And my point was like, you know what? I think there's an argument to take that second round wide receiver over them. Granted, those three, the big three, Tyson, Tate, and Lemon, were my big three, and then I had Concepcion on a tier of his own, and then I had everybody else. It's like, but the gap between them and that next tier of wide receivers like Brazzell, Bell, and all those type of guys, um, the gap, like when you look at talent isn't like, we're not talking Ja'Marr Chase versus, you know, like a, a average wi- like DeVonta Smith, who's still a really good wide receiver, but Ja'Marr Chase, you don't care what team he's on, he's going to be Ja'Marr Chase.

DeVonta Smith, his, we've seen it, his role can change with who's on the field with him, who's hel- but all that. So it's not that kind of gap. I think they're a lot closer this year. I, I don't think we had those Ja'Marr Chase type wide receivers in this draft. Maybe I'm wrong, but it, it goes to my point in this whole thing, is I'm saying like, I would take that blank wide receiver with the Raiders because he's coming in definitively as the one.

He's going to be the one. Best case, and all those other guys were mostly threes, best case probably twos. And I got a lot of hate for that 'cause I, you know, I based my rankings off that mock draft. But I was like, that's my point is like I know we're getting one year of production. And I'm hoping that year two changes, and three and four, and then yes, if I knew three years from now and we were only ranking 2028, '29, we'd have a completely different conversation.

But it's like there's value in what you get this year, and I think in dynasty too many people think three, four, five years down the road instead of right now. I watch teams in one of my, my home league, you know, and like of course it's my home league, so like I don't know how to say this without sounding smarmy.

Let me make that clear. Because it's gonna be like my home league is inexperienced. It's probably more experienced than most people watching this show because it's people that are like, "Hey, I'm in a bunch of fantasy leagues." Like, like, so like, and if any of them are watching this, I'm sorry. Like, but admittedly, I like, I back-to-back champion.

I should've won last year, but I had 1,000 injuries. Like it's, I, I filled out my IR. Like I had leftover spots and I couldn't fill in my IR. Actually, I got into the final week of the season and I couldn't even fill... I had one empty spot 'cause we have two flex, super flex and all that. But anyway, I couldn't even fill the rest of my roster.

That's how many injuries I had. It was absurd. But it's still a stacked roster and I'm saying like, for that point being is like, like when it comes to knowing this is like I've taken advantage of that league because they're all looking three, four years and those teams that are only looking three, four years have never even been in the championship game.

And that's, and I think... And I know some people can work the other way. You might have a bunch of people that only look in the, you know, they haven't played a lot of dynasty and so they only weight this year, and they trade for Josh Jacobs like they shouldn't and all that type of stuff. It could go both ways.

Let me make that clear. I'm just saying I think the, the, the catch is that too many people look at 2029 instead of, "Hey, we're playing in 2026." Like, and I think that's, that's my biggest difference and where I get a lot of pushback.

Jeff: Yeah. I mean, this is the only year you can actually win a championship. There is no winning a championship in 2029 here in 2026. And at some point, you know, the perpetual rebuilds need to actually not rebuild anymore. And for me, it's really a matter of what's your strategic goal for a season and then stick with that for the season because that advances you to the next season.

I see a lot of, lot of dynasty players changing strategies, you know, being attracted by the shiny object, the rookies as you're talking about. I, I personally am lower on rookies than a lot of the industry because of the various sorts of things you're pointing out, is that they, their potential may be very good, but th- they're rookies and there's real other people on the field who have histories with their coaches and their players and whatnot.

And so, you know, that tends to dampen them, uh, just a little bit. And then of course, there's always more rookies coming. Uh, and this year's class in particular, there's definitely more rookies coming, uh, next season who may be, may be a little better. But so you did mention age a little bit, and age is sort of one of those things in dynasty that, that I, I...

Is, is not as simple as just this dude's older than that dude because there are also elements of their player performance, where they are on their team, uh, whether they're beating the... Whether they're Derrick Henry and defying time or whether they are, you know, Jonathon Brooks and can't stay healthy. Uh, that, those age dif- the age difference doesn't seem to matter there.

So how do you kind of factor age in to, to dynasty? Do you give it a pretty heavy weight? Is it a light weight? Is it tiebreaker? Uh, you know, kind of how does, how does that work for you?

Jake: Inherently a tiebreaker because, I mean, if you look at Chase versus Smith-Njigba, we're talking about two years, you know, that kind of situation. So, uh, if you want, but I mean, I could still see the case for Chase being one versus Smith-Njigba because he's Ja'Marr Chase and he plays with Joe Burrow and the Bengals.

So, like, you could see how, like, you could make the argument either way. I think when the gap is bigger, when you're talking four or five years, now it means quite a bit. Um, we were also talking about the fact when age, I think, comes into play of trade opportunities. So I'm always trying to get away from running backs once we start thinking 27, maybe 28.

And I know, like you just brought up Derrick Henry. I mean, but like we have plenty of other running backs at this point. I mean, the day and age we're in now, people's careers are lasting longer. They're playing longer. They're playing at a higher level for longer, which is the biggest thing. Uh, but the problem is, is I'm thinking about i-i- it's kind of like, do you wanna be left holding the bag?

Like, yeah. Like, like

Jeff: Mm.

Jake: everybody know... And that's the thing, it's like everybody knows 29, 30 is the real like, oh my God, it's about to happen. And there are some that get past that and that isn't an issue. But like, you're looking at the fact of like, like Jacobs right now. If you would've traded him last year versus waiting for this year, just look at him.

Like his trade equity was so much better last year than it is this year because you got out early. And that's the thing is like, and I'm not saying just throw these players away. But you know this, like everybody knows, like you're going to be able to get trade value. And if you can't, you hold onto him.

Like that's what... Like I'm not saying like give him away for n- for poor return on equity, um, but return on value. But the thing is, is like I'm looking to kind of think ahead to get that year before everybody's thinking about it because everybody will know at this point. Uh, wide receiver is the same thing.

Like if you, you know, Mike Evans is a good one that keeps hanging on, uh, unfort- like, and that's, but that's the 1 out of 50. Like Mike Evans, Derrick Henry are the anomalies. Like I know people got away from Mike Evans three years ago and they're like, man, like it's annoying at this point. But you did the smart move.

So that's kind of how more of I look at age is like it, like is it about to potentially start to decline and every single year is gonna be lesser return on investment? Um, or, you know, also when that comes into play is, is possibly the contract involved. Like that, I think that's one people, that's one part that people don't look at enough.

A good example this year is I'm not a huge Nick Singleton fan. I am a fan of the situation as potential return on value because he went to a team with two players, two running backs, Pollard and Spears are free agents next year. Are either or both even back? And that's the thing, it's nothing to do with their age, it's just they're on expiring contracts.

And are either of them back? And Singleton went to a team where like potentially is the timeshare next year. Um, so it's like age comes in, but age also comes into contract situations. 'Cause you could play that out too. It's like, is Josh Jacobs gonna get anything more than maybe three years and a very heavy first year loaded deal?

Probably not at this point. And that's the other part of how you look at it is contracts go almost hand in hand for me when it comes to money. Or money, age

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. Well, contracts and money definitely go together. Those, those two things are, are, are definitely

Jake: how that works out, right?

Jeff: yeah, it's really shocking how that works. You know, but I, I-- that's a great point to look at the contract situation of the other players on a team in dynasty, because that tells you a player may be entering into a situation where they may be locked into a third or fourth role for years because of the, the moves that were made.

You know, look at, for example, the LA Rams with Max Klare coming in. There's already 11 tight ends on the roster. Uh, all but one of them is under contract through 2027-- 2028, I think. Uh, there, certainly there are outs there, and they may trade them. They're, they can have some c- some cap casualties, but that's a, that's a lot of traffic in front of a young player.

But then you look at someone like an Eli Stowers, who was my TE1 in the rookie class this year, and still is. Uh, and part of that is now with that landing spot. I mean, you've got a team in Philadelphia that has been very good to its tight ends over the years, and that is willing to part ways with their tight end one this season.

They signed him to a one-year deal, restructured to be cap friendly, lots of void years afterward. And so that means that Stowers may very well be the tight end one for an offense that likes tight ends i- in a year, and that to me is a, a valuable kind of thing to be looking at. Uh, and so that does play into, I know it plays into my rankings, but it should also just play into player evaluation as a dynasty manager.

When you are looking at a choice between a couple of people that are in the same tier, that may be a sort of tiebreaker even over age is what's the contract situation? What's the role going to be, you know, in the future? Uh, a- and, and that's something that can't be reflected in a rank order list either.

We may take it into account, but we can only take it so far.

Jake: Well, yeah, and that, like, a, a great example of this one is I saw some people who were like, "Oh, look out for Colbie Young. The Bengals love to pass." I was like, we're really getting excited about the third wide re- like, Iosivas fun at times, but they're... 29 and 30 are where the contracts end for Higgins and Chase.

And, you know, wouldn't be surprised if Chase gets extended at some point and just keep him as a lifelong Bengal. But, like, we're talking about three years from now, these top 20 wide receivers are li- like, really? Like, fine, take your flyer on Colbie Young. Like, whatever. It, it's cool. I'm not gonna argue.

But, like, I, I think that's a really good point is, like, that spot is, he's at best the three.

Jeff: that's not terribly exciting. If you need that kind of depth, you can trade for it in season. You know, uh, Colbie Young will be available, Iosivas will be available for a third-round pick at any point after around October. So if you need them, y- you can just take them there.

So what would you say, you know, in terms of your process, you know, uh, do you have like hard and fast rules that you give to yourself or anything that you could write down or the rule?

Or, uh, is it the judgment calls that really aren't kind of set into stone that you may use one precedent thought process over here and use the complete opposite thought process and precedent over here with a different set of players?

Jake: Uh, there's ki- I mean, there's two, but it li- it's not gonna unfortunately, like, give a lot because there is more. But, like, one is, I... Well, no, so like one is I don't spend a lot of time on the elites. And by elites, I'm talking, like, go back to what I was saying, like, I, I, I say, like, elites, elites. Like, I, I'll slim it down.

It's not top 10 quarterbacks. Top five quarterbacks, top 10 running backs, top 15 wide receivers, top five tight ends. Like, people hem and haw and debate and all this type of stuff in dynasty or redraft. And I'm like, well, you know, like, I could... Like, go back Chase versus Smith-Njigba. You wanna argue for either one of them?

I don't care. Like, like, you're just not gonna have that argument with me. Like, I'm not gonna sit here and waste time because what does it matter in the end game? Whether it's redraft or dynas- yeah, they're both amazing. Like, and I think especially in redraft, people get hung up on that way too much, and it's like, I just, I don't...

This year with Lemon, Tyson, and Tate, I am, I have Lemon one. If we wanna, like, I, I'm sure you saw it, like, I got so fired up with the whole Jalen Hurts can't throw over the middle, and it's like, no, he doesn't. The team hasn't de- de- designed him to the past couple years because of the talent around him.

But it, yeah, he's great at throwing outside and deep. It's like, uh, I made the comparison to baseball for baseball people out there. It's like, these are the people that complain that Kyle Schwarber doesn't hit enough doubles. Why? Like, he still hits doubles, but like, why are you... He hits 50 home runs. Like, "Oh, I want you to hit more doubles."

Who the hell cares? Like, and but also, you really think, and I said this yesterday on the Fantasy Pros show, I was like, you really think people out there, like, who's, who are arguing for this Hurts situation, that the Eagles traded two fourths to move up a whole three spots with a division rival to take a wide receiver that doesn't fit their offense?

With also sh- you know, Mannion's taken over. Um, Hurts throws over the middle of the field exceptionally well. It's just he hasn't been asked to and doesn't need to. Um, all that being said is I'm bringing that up to say, like, Lemon versus Tate versus Tyson. If you wanna argue Tate should be the one, okay.

Like, I see every argument for it. If you wanna argue Tyson 'cause he was the best talent, if healthy- Fine. I'm okay with it, whatever it might be. But we spend so much time doing that where I feel like the bigger argument needs to come into those tough decisions that you're gonna have once the season starts on who's my WR3, who's my WR4, who's my flex running back, that kind of situation.

That's where the conversations should be happening. Um, the other side of it is once, as I said earlier way on the beginning of the show, is once you are down into that range and you're talking about bench options to fill your flex or even your fourth wide receiver, whatever it might be, is my rule, if you wanna put it out there, is shoot for that upside.

Go back to that example I gave you. Instead of going for the guy that gets you five to nine points every single week, I'd rather, and people don't have to agree with me, I'd rather go for the two or the 20 because that 20 is gonna help me win that game. That five to nine is not gonna do much for me. It's just gonna guarantee I get some points in that spot.

Jeff: Right. Yeah, and even if you have, you know, three or four of those guys in your lineup and three of them give you two, if one of them gave you 20, it's still a net gain over what would've otherwise been there, uh, for those safe floor guys. It's only when they all strike out and you go, "Well, okay, that was

Jake: And that's gonna happen. You can't go 17 and 0. Like, let's make that clear.

Jeff: Yeah, you'll, you will have that happen. It'll happen in your semifinals, it'll happen in your finals, it'll happen on week three. It, it happens where, where it happens. And Jake, you were pointing out earlier talking about struggling to fill in a lineup.

I'm actually in one of these crazy wild leagues where you have to play two quarterbacks. You can play four. Uh, and in one week I had one healthy quarterback, and it was Russell Wilson, and he didn't play. So I had two zeros, uh, at the

Jake: I was gonna say, you took the big fat L in that league.

Jeff: I was in, I was in playoff contention up until that point, and, and that was the end of that.

But, uh, you know, there obviously are lots of other sources for rankings out there, but you and I aren't the only two people who do this. Is there any point in your process where you look at what some other people have done and see, you know, where you are relative to that? Or is that a, you know, once you've, you hit publish and then you look kind of situation?

Jake: So I will say, like, I try not to because I get... You know, there's so much noise, and I'm not saying noise in a bad way. Um, it's just, like, there's so many people and really good minds. And honestly, that's why I don't wanna call it, like, noise in the, like, disparaging term. There's so much out there that, like, you can cloud your own...

Like, I think more times than not, and this is why I tell people to trust their gut when they push back on my rankings, because I do the same thing. The more often than not, if I let that stuff sway me it's I swayed wrong, and I'm not 100%. Like, even when Fantasy Pros did their accuracy and it used to be a percentage, we were in the, like, up, like, corner, and I, like, we were up in, like, the upper 60s and stuff like that, which means two-thirds of the time we're right.

One-third of the time we're still gonna be wrong. Um, and back then they used to do it, like, very much like if this person finished in front of all these people, it was right. If not, so it's very easy to get wrong. So even the best of the best, like, and if you wanna call the other people and not me the best of the best, but anyway, we're gonna get at least a third wrong.

So what I'm saying is that, like, if your gut's telling you something, you've seen something, you know, I can't possibly watch every minute of every single game. I have NFL+, I stream through, and, like, I still might miss something. You know, we're not perfect. Hell, NFL teams drafting, and this is their job, aren't perfect.

We miss, they, or m- they miss half of the first rounders don't end becoming first round values. So if they can't get it right, we're ... So I say all that to say is, like, I pay attention, but I try not to get sucked too far in for, like, groupthink. You know, there's a few out there that I respect, uh, that I feel do similar, like, why, like, I, I...

Again, I, people find success. I'm not saying anybody's doing it wrong. I wanna make that clear. I don't go 100% film. I don't go 100% stats or metrics. I do 50/50. I feel like if you do one without the other, you're giving yourself a disservice. And I know some people skew very heavily one direction or the other, and again, I'm not saying their way is wrong.

They can be very successful doing it. But I try to find people who are similar. Like, Rich Hribar's a good one. Um, I didn't wanna give out too many names 'cause I don't wanna leave somebody out and all that type of stuff. But, like, Rich watches a ton, but he also involves a lot of metrics and stuff like that, and gives so much information that sometimes if I see him really down or really high on somebody versus where I'm at, I might take a second look and go back.

It's similar to the projections, where my projections say this and my ranking says this, it kinda makes me go, "Wait, where did I miss something? Did I miss something on the projection side, or did I miss something watching that I completely overlooked?" So that's where I'll go, but again, I try to only do that very infrequently because there's just so much you can fall down a trap of questioning yourself, really.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, this isn't an Oscars speech, so don't worry about leaving somebody out. You don't have to then take a full-page ad in the Hollywood Reporter tomorrow because you, you missed the name of your

Jake: The last 15 minutes are just gonna be names that I've seen.

Jeff: Right. Yeah. T-today on Name Dropping, Jake Ciely. Uh, no.

Can we just scroll a list? Can you, can you add that post cut, like, just, like, just...

Jeff: Yeah, we'll just

Jake: Here, I'll give you a really easy one. Not everybody I follow is fantasy related, but a lot of them are. Just go to the people I follow on Twitter, everybody including yourself. Those, those are the people, like, I, I I've actually interacted with and respect their work.

So there you

Jeff: There we go. Yeah, I'm with you. I try to do as much of it as I can. I, I will then look to see where am I missing something if I'm way off, and, uh, sometimes I am missing something and sometimes I'm not. You know, I think y-you've got Rich for kind of your, your muse. Mine is Matt Waldman, particularly on the rookies, that if I've got somebody at WR4 and he has him at WR26, that's, uh, that requires me to go back and at least take a look, maybe look at film.

I do tend to be more analytical in stats, but I do have eyes, and so I, I do see things. I do kind of evaluate that way. But, you know, for me, being kind of a mathing sort of guy, y- math is what comes into p- fantasy. We're a- trying to get points. Points are math. So there, there is that. So I- I'm a little heavier on analytics, but not, not exclusively so.

I think folks who are exclusively so are fine, but they're missing out on, on what their eyes would tell them.

Jake: Yeah, if it's a 70/30 versus 50/50 versus 6- or whatever it might be, like, I don't think there's a wrong way. I just, I think completely ignoring one side or the other, 'cause we've, I, you saw that. There was like, what was it? Two, three years ago, there was a huge debate on Twitter about it, and like, well, guess what?

I feel like anybody who's 100% one way or the other, I think you're all wrong. So anyway, uh, Waldman's a good one because I'm, I'm not gonna say the players because I, I don't wanna sound like a, like... I, I'll put it this way. There's been a player that Waldman was super high on that I'm like, "Hmm," and I ended up being right.

And there was a player that Waldman was super high on and I wasn't, then I went, "Hmm," and he was right and I was wrong. So, like, it, there's a good example of, like, it can go both ways, but he's a n- yeah, he's, he's a good one. I've actually talked to him on his podcast before.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you know, with dynasty you have several years for things to play out, so you could be wrong for three years and then suddenly, uh, suddenly you're, you're perfectly

Jake: Just don't wait till that fourth year to do the victory lap. Like...

Jeff: right, right, right. Uh, so yeah, how do you know when you're done? How, how do you know when your rankings are done other than the clock hit the time that you have to hit publish?

How do you know that you're done with your ranking process?

Jake: you know what? That, also a really good question that I think just ties into all that. It was like, if I... Now at the point where I'm looking at these minute details that in the end game don't really matter. Like, like, because metrics do, but once you start getting, like, super deep into, like, these ones where, like, it, you know, it could just be simply the game matchup.

That was the one week. And like, so, um, if I'm at the point where I'm like, "Yeah. Oh, but wait, should I put him 26 and him 28?" Like, like, stop. That's where, like... When I go back to what I was saying, like, if you wanna argue the guys into tiers, and if I start doing them, that's like, that's where I know, like, oh, no, my ranks are done.

If somebody wants to have a discussion about these two players, I'll absolutely have it. Um, but once I start, like, fine-tuning, so to speak, like, I think that's where you kinda get... Like, you know you're done. You're, now you're overthinking yourself.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, same. I-- it's, for me though, it's lower. So when I'm, when I'm arguing with myself between WR72 and WR75, like it doesn't matter. It, it just doesn't matter. Uh, if I could give them all the same number, I would, but I have to, I

Jake: That's, well, that's a good way to put it too. Like, you know, like there was plenty of times last year because you s- like last year was such a volatile... Like it probably... So I've been doing this prof- professionally, uh, I've been, since 2010 I've been working for at least a site somewhere. And last year, I may be wrong, but feels like the most volatile WR2 season I think I remember in now 16 years of doing this.

And I think, like that's a really, like I wanted to rank, like I just wanna rank like 15 wide receivers, WR16. Like, I just wanna put them all right there. Like, I don't wanna s- like I don't wanna even have 16 and 28 that big of a gap. I want them all like, so I, I, I know what you're saying. Like, there's like, I just want them all in that same spot.

Jeff: That's been my rookie ranking so far. After about seven, the rest of them, the next 18 could go in any order and I could defend it. Uh, it,

Jake: Oh, you know what? I feel like the NFL did that. Like, you know what the NFL did this year? The NF- the NFL, without realizing it, was a bunch, it was 32 fantasy managers. They all sat there and once we got to the second and third round and started saying, "Oh, I'm gonna look like the smartest person and I'm doing this."

Like, and that's, this entire draft was like there's gonna be, I feel like in about three or four years, I know we're talking rankings, but I feel like in three or four years we're gonna be looking back and, you know, we do like the grades now. Looking back thr- I feel like there's gonna be some really terrible and really great draft classes that, like, we just didn't know because, like, everybody was out there trying to look smarter than the other team.

Jeff: It's funny you said that. It was what I said to somebody the other day is I thought they were trying to out-clever themselves or each other a-and they ended up with this sort of weird, uh, this weird set of players that doesn't quite go together. I, I actually did some research, uh, earlier this year being a mathing guy, trying to find, you know, the, the, the, the gaps between ADP and actual success and compared it with other things.

And the worst set of things in terms of predicting actual fantasy performance, and admittedly they're not trying to do that, they're doing something else, but it's the NFL draft. The NFL draft is terrible at predicting fantasy performance. ADP is much, much better. But it's of course because we dynasty guys, we are trying to get dynasty value, right?

NFL guys are trying to build their team. I mean, you, you don't take someone like a Nate Boerkircher because you are trying to make fantasy points. You take him because you need a blocking tight end to supercharge your running game, and that, that doesn't show up in, in fantasy.

Jake: mean,

the NFL is also a good example this year of like what people in fantasy do too is like, "Oh, I gotta be the smart- I gotta, the buzziest name, I gotta make sure I get him." Like, well, no, because you just retur- you ruined... I, so you asked before about my rules and stuff like that. Um, a separate rule to when it's purely drafting times. Um, I always say, like, don't buy all the risk.

And where that means is, like, you vault somebody... And you can, obviously with the elite guys, like, you're taking Lemon or Tate at two, three, four, whatever it might be. Y- you have to, like, there's not, like, I'm just talking, like, rounds two, three in dynasty, in redraft, obviously now we're down to rounds like five, six, seven, stuff like that.

But the point being is kind of what we just saw with, you just brought up a really good name and anybody like, like Caleb Douglas, that feels like one of those ones where it's like, what's the possible return on investment in this? And it's like, if you bought them where they have to be 100% of the outcome that's the best case scenario, you've left yourself no potential return on value.

Like, you bought all of the risk. Your only part is potentially having decreased value. You've left no room to return value. And I think people get caught up in that because they want to look like the smartest person. They wanna be like, "Oh, I got that buzziest name," and now they re- they threw all the value out the window.

Jeff: Yep. Yeah, I s- I see, I see that a lot. I see it in the NFL, at least in my evaluated eyes, and I certainly see it in dynasty where, where folks are reaching. You're like, "Okay, you just took him at his ceiling." And then it's, it was where you had to take him, but I, I'd rather take someone else. And of course with risk too, and that even counts for the upside players.

You know, if you put, you know, Brazzell and Branch together, a- and I've got shares of them because that's who was available in the middle of the second round, and they have as much upside as anybody. But if your entire draft strategy is built on that, uh, y- you-- that volatility is not gonna play out very well in the long run.

If you have five guys like that, one of them will probably hit, but the other four aren't going to, and, and that's just sort of the way that that works in, in, in the NFL and in fantasy. But, you know, as dynasty managers, you know, we-- people use rankings to, for, for different things. I, of course, well, I could not do them, so...

But before I did them professionally, uh, I used them kind of as checks against my own instincts about what, what a player was. Uh, other people use them, as you say, for start-sit decisions. They make decisions on drafting one guy over another because somebody has him ranked two spots ahead of the other guy.

So when dynasty managers are looking at, at your rankings, what do you really want them to see? Or maybe more better question, what do you want them to be processing as they're looking at them and going down your list one after another? What, what do you want them to be thinking about that what they're seeing from you?

Jake: Uh, so what they're seeing from me, I would actually turn this question to, like, what they're not seeing. And I know that, like I said, that's gonna be an overar- arcing theme here is that, um,

Right.

this is what everybody else has. Like, you know, they go back to the wide receivers we were just talking about, like I prefer Lemon to Tate.

I prefer Lemon to Tyson, but it's very close. They're in that tiers. What I think they need to ask themselves and what they're missing is not even specifically just wide receiver versus wide receiver versus wide receiver. It's like, what does my team need? And I think like, you know, we just drew the comparison to the NFL doing it.

I'm not saying going that far, like, uh, don't go drafting yourself some tight end because you have a massive gap and like blow past a Lemon or Tate just because... Like don't take Sadiq second because you need tight end. But at the same time, like what-- Like dogs are starting to get

Jeff: Yeah.

Jake: in the back.

Hey, come get a treat.

Jeff: My, my wife took the puppy to work, so we, we don't have that problem over here today, but...

Jake: Well, normally, normally they're good. Like they're... So this is Barkley that I've

Jeff: Hi, Barkley.

Jake: So there's Barkley. Go, Barkley, here, go get your

Jeff: Saquon or Charles?

Jake: Saquon. uh, so but my sister asked that, and I think she... Come here. And this is Ziggy. This is... Come here. Come here, Zigs. You can get on camera too.

There's Ziggy

Jeff: go. Hey, Ziggy.

Jake: So that's the newer one that we got, um, we adopted because somebody on next door was going back to college with five kids, and so she was... Puppy. He's only, he's only eight, but yep. So but anyway, is like what do I need on my team? And that goes back to also including that upside. Like I'm not saying every single player on your team should be, you know, a, a binary outcome of 20 or two.

But like what does your team need? Does your team need production because you have so many of those 20 and two types, or does your team need some more upside? Do you need something to kind of break through that you keep finishing third, fourth, fifth every single year, and you need to take some, some of, some of those shots to finish at the top.

So team need matters. Don't over- obviously overvalue it, but if you're talking about Sadiq at six versus Price and you have five running backs, I much rather prefer Price at this point, but maybe you need to take the Sadiq. So I think my, my rankings don't answer that. That's why, again, I go back to why I hate overall 'cause that doesn't tell you that.

Um, but they like for... So it tells you what you need from what I just v- in a vacuum. That's my vacuum. Like this is what I would do. If everything was equal, this is who I prefer. Um, but that's the question I would say to turn towards the people looking at the rankings is that which, what you need to ask yourself.

Jeff: Yeah, I think it's a really good point about overall, I know we've made it once before, but it's a good enough point to worth making twice, is that, you know, at least within a position, we, we've zeroed out the other factors and we're looking at in, within a tight end, this is who we would prefer in a s- over those other people.

Um, but then when you start to compare that against running backs and you have the Sadiq versus Price kind of discussion or debate with yourself at 106 or 107, depending on format, you know, looking at how we may have them ranked against each other does not take into account things like your scoring system, your bench situation, your starters, whether you're looking for a solid floor or some ceiling, whether you're a contender or not.

Those are the kinds of questions that can't be answered even in regular rankings, but then when you combine them and you mix the positions together, it's really difficult to, to draw any conclusion. As... To me, as long as a player... If players are ranked within about 10 or 15 spots of each other in combined rankings, I consider them essentially equivalent or, or on a tier, at least in terms of, of decision-making.

That may not be true, but, but I, uh, it, it... They have to be really, really far apart for something like that for me to think that the, the combined rankings are actually telling me anything.

Jake: Yep.

Jeff: Speaking of rankings telling us something, you know, I, I do see dynasty managers looking almost exclusively at dynasty rankings when they're making almost any kind of, of decision for their fantasy team.

Do you think that there are times that fantasy managers, dynasty managers in particular, should be looking at other kinds of rankings and not just dynasty?

Jake: So if you wanted to go back to what we were talking about with the preseason when I do the projections, you know, used the Lamar Jackson example, but we also talked about how it sounds like you're, you're on, on more of the page with me than most people are in the fact of valuing this year and what this year matters.

projections might be the better way to look at it is like there, you know, the rankings with the projections to say like, "Okay, in redraft for this year, I'm trying to decide between two guy..." Like, like KC Concepcion falling to the Browns or heck, with, uh, the what the, what we all hated with Boston there.

So, you know, I'm trying to decide dynasty-wise, I know Jake was... And I'm saying this like, so I know Jake was a big fan of Concepcion, but where does he now have him just for this season? 'Cause that's also telling me who he sees the clearer path to hitting this year, and I'm just using it as an example 'cause they got drafted both by the Browns.

But I think that's something like just gives you that little extra nugget as like, okay, this person might hit first, and then, well, they've now got the head start and, you know, maybe future years. But again, what if one of them gets hurt? What if something else changes the quarterback? New quarterback comes in next year and their styles change of like who they like to go back to the Eagles.

Like if you were talking about the Eagles for next year versus the Eagles for the past four seasons, it's gonna be a different style offense. So I think that's the only way, and it's kinda like when you're having tough decisions. I wouldn't say go, you know, look at my dynasty or anybody's and then go straight to redraft to get more information.

It's like kinda almost like just when you need to kinda break those close ties of like situations where we might not have a lot of clarity out of the gate.

Jeff: If somebody is valued a lot more in redraft than in dynasty, that's usually a sign that they are-- that the belief is that this player is a content- is a player who's gonna deliver right this moment, this season, uh, but maybe not the longer term, and that may be kind of the play that I wanna make.

The other, the opposite might be true. If I'm a rebuilder, I want to avoid the situation where somebody is valued much more in redraft because that means their value is much more focused on this year. Uh, and then also, you know, where you weight what, you know, where, how much you weight this year versus others.

If you are not contending this year, you probably don't put much weight on it at all. Uh, you would put weight out into other seasons. If you are contending, maybe those other seasons aren't where you put the weight. So that to me is one of those kinds of, you know, learning from the gaps rather than trying to learn from the order.

Like, where is the, where are the differences out there, and why are they different, and can you exploit that, that difference? I think that's, that's, uh, that's the, the, the signal there that you're kind of looking for, uh, a-as a, as a, as a successful manager, particularly a dynasty manager.

Jake: Yeah. Yeah, uh, and I completely agree. That goes, like, kind of to tiers is if there aren't tiers, like, okay, how big is the gap? And what, like you said, in, especially in overall rankings, is that gap 10 to 15, 20 players, or is it, like, seven? 'Cause now you're like, you can... That will tell you right there. It's like seven?

Okay, well, you can kind of make your own choice. 15 to 20, it's like, eh, you might be like, be patient, and if you don't get that player, it's okay.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. A- and be, be aware of where that 15 to 20 is because, you know, 15 to 20 in the top 48 is a huge gap. 15 to 20 in, in the, in between 145 and 160 is nothing. It's the same, you know, gap of 30 or 40 there. I don't even worry about that. I-- Our ranking system at Footballguys lets you know if you have what we call an outlier ranking, and it's like, "Well, yeah, I'm 50 people over consensus here, but he's my WR81."

It doesn't, it doesn't matter that I am that much more bullish on him than everyone else because you shouldn't be drafting this guy anyway. Uh, but in case you are, in case you're in a really deep league, and this show does cater to folks in really deep leagues where you need to know who is the WR126 this year because that's who I'm gonna end up with in the, you know, 25th round of my draft, then it does kind of matter.

But yeah, where are the gaps? Not, not only the magnitude, but where are they? Uh, where are they on the, on the board? Up at the top, they mean a lot. Down at the bottom, they don't mean very much. Um, you know, I mentioned earlier I was generally lower on rookies than, than consensus. Are there any kinds of players that you are typically higher on or lower on than, you know, the herd?

Uh, is there a pattern to it or, or is this just that player for this reason and this player for that reason kind of differences?

Jake: So the quarterbacks, to go back to that, like quarterbacks in general, but mostly like trying to find... Like, I'd rather keep going back to the well and trying to find a top five, six quarterback and taking those chances versus just being happy rolling out. Like I go back, I always compare it to like real life with the Bengals.

Like, do I want Andy Dalton every single year and just knowing I have QB15? Or do I wanna take the chance and go back into, you know, a trade or a draft, I'm now talking dynasty, and take the chance that I have somebody that makes a difference at that position. Uh, tight ends, I would say I'm much higher on the potential, same thing, quarterbacks, and much lower on the rest.

Because once you get past, you, everybody knows this, once you get past the top five or six tight ends, the difference between TE7 and TE20, and especially in dynasty, everybody has, everybody has a tight end that they could plug in. Everybody does. And I see people are like, you know, out there and they trade for like...

And this is before the move to the Giants, and maybe he finally becomes a top five or six tight end, but everybody's like, "Oh, I got Isaiah Likely 'cause he put up 20 this week." Yeah, but at the start of the season, you still got the same tight end that everybody else has because y- everybody in that range of tight ends might put up 20 or might put up five 'cause they're tight ends.

So like those two positions. But if you're talking about like players kind of skills overall, um, it's not like, like it's not like a Lemon type versus a Tate type or anything like that. It comes down to, I think, the most overlooked thing. Um, you talked about how NFL draft ADP, like the real NFL draft where they were drafted doesn't mean as much as people think.

Draft capital, basically. Um, I look for potential opportunities. And I go back to my Raiders comparison. It's like, he's not my favorite wide receiver, but he just walked into potentially 130 targets. I'm looking for touches, touches, touches. Where are the potential touches? And that's where it really comes down to.

So there isn't like a, this is a specific type of player. It's a specif- specific type of opportunity. And as I go over to Nick Singleton, I'm again, now this is kind of like a little bit, this is where so many layers come in. Like it's a little bit contradictory to valuing this year. But I'm looking at Singleton potentially could be walking to 200 touches next year, where some of these other running backs, yeah, they could be the number two from day one, only getting 100 touches, but those 100 touches are also guaranteed to only be 100 touches for the next three years.

Uh, Emmett Johnson, like assuming he becomes the number two, yeah, Kenneth Walker might get hurt, that's fine, but we're, you know, we're not gonna try and predict

injuries. Kenneth Walker just signed a long-term contract. He is the guy for the Chiefs for the next three to four years, if everything stays as we expect it to.

Best case, Johnson's gonna be 100 touches, 100 touches, 100 touches. Uh, will some of that volatility? No, but I'd rather take the chance on Singleton because next year that's 200 potentially for three or four years. So it's the opportunity that like, I'm always looking for where are the potential touches coming from, whether it's, you know, wide receiver, tight end, quarterback, or like whatever it might be.

Where's the opportunity coming?

Jeff: Yeah. I, I think that's really, really, really solid advice there. I mean, what's, what does this guy's role look like? You know, how does he fit in and, and what does that look like going forward? Because you said if you've, if you've locked in the players ahead of him on the depth chart for years, then that's where he's gonna sit on the depth chart.

He becomes a desperation flex play at best, uh, or, you know, if everybody in front of him got hurt, you know, the Jacory, uh, the, the Bill Croskey-Merritt situation. If everybody in front of him got hurt, he gets his opportunity, but that's not, that's not something to bank on. We sort of don't want

Jake: And now he might not even have that opportunity this

year.

Jeff: and it may be gone because they once again have 13 running backs and, uh, and, and that may shake out. But Singleton to me is, is a really great example because that is a, that's an, uh, to me an ascending offense. You have an aging workhorse, one. You have a two that hasn't really shined when he's had the opportunities, and you bring in someone who has had a really good college career, who's hurt, who had a really unfortunate injury that killed his draft capital.

Although honestly, everyone's draft capitals of running back got killed after Jadarian Price, so it doesn't really matter. Uh, a- a- and yeah, I think it's a great guy. I mean, I try to pick him up where I can because I see the same thing you do, Jake. I see this is... He, yeah, he may not get the 200 touches because they may very well draft somebody next year or bring in a free agent or anything like that.

We can't predict that. But looking at the board right now, the path is clear next year for him, and that for several years. On a rookie deal? My goodness. Yeah, give him 200 touches a year for three or four years.

Jake: The coaching staff there, you have no ties for Pollard or Spears. And Daboll like I know he had input on bringing over Wan'Dale Robinson, know he's not the head coach or anything like, but like there's input, uh, up and down this team where they're coming in and being like, you look at those like why, why would they want the guys before that?

Like their ties are now to the people that they drafted or brought in free agency to prove that they, you know, they knew what they were doing with the guys that they brought in. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, that's another thing too to look at. And with so many changes in coaching, uh, the coaching carousel spinning really fast, we got what? 18 new offensive coordinators this year, which is insane. So even a lot of the things that we assumed before, you know, if you assume Philadelphia's offense is the same from last year to this year, well, I don't think that Sean Mannion is gonna send four receivers in straight lines down the field 70% of the time.

I may be wrong, but you know, as something you pointed out earlier, Jake, you know, over the middle is going to be a thing this year for Philadelphia in all likelihood. Last year it was not, and it has nothing to do with Jalen Hurts' ability. It's it's the play calling. Play calling's different this year. So lots of things to always think about.

You know, dynasty is an ever-changing, ever-moving target. You're gonna be wrong a lot, just be prepared. You know, I, I, I've seen people agonize over rookie draft picks in the last couple weeks. It's like, just go with the gut. Whatever you were thinking initially, that's the answer, period. It doesn't matter who- where we have them ranked, doesn't matter any of these other things, you know.

Just, just, yeah. And your chances of being right or wrong are the same for either one of them. Probably less than half because that's the way rookie classes are, especially when one is, uh, not great as this year. Uh, and then just one other thing on that point, you're talking about the Jets and the Browns being, you know, not-- We beat up on both of those, uh, franchises on this show quite a bit.

You have one of the, one of the weakest position player draft classes in years according to just about anybody, and the Jets and Browns take two players each in the first round out of that group. That should tell you a lot about those two franchises.

Jake: Yep. And apparently to everybody, hey, like hey, they, uh, are two of the teams that supposedly did the best in the draft according to the last site, so maybe things are changing.

Jeff: uh, you know, at some point they've got to hit, right? Uh, Jake, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today, uh, hanging out with the pups too. Uh, do you have any, you know, kind of final, final words of wisdom for dynasty managers who've hung with us, uh, through the show and listened to us describe how we, we kind of don't actually like rankings, but we do them, and they are sort of important, but not really.

Uh, but yet they are something that comes with this territory and, and a lot of people look at them.

Jake: Yeah. Uh, final piece of advice doesn't have anything to do with rankings. It has to do with stop being lazy. There are too many lazy managers. No, that's like, serious. This is where people get their advantage is you'll see it all the time, especially Sleeper now that they have that put people on the trade block thing, is people just bang, bang, bang, bang, and it's like, "Oh, four people on the trade block," and then that's it.

That's the end of it. Like, make some freaking effort, people. Like, go to teams, look at their needs, and be like, "Hey, would you think about trading this?" Or like even throw an offer out there. Like, people are lazy, and everybody does the same thing as like, "Hey, I need a running back," end of story. Like, everybody's supposed to just come to them and flood them with offers.

Like, just put in a little bit of effort and make those efforts and make those conversations. I always love starting with the conversation of like, "Hey," I say, especially in Sleeper, 'cause you can do it. You send the trade offer and say, "This is what I was thinking," like, you know, blah, blah, "because you have this need.

This fits my need. What do you think? Do you even wanna not..." Like, if you're trying to buy low on Marvin Harrison right now, which I think is a good opportunity, you can send out a trade offer, "Hey," but like, you know, "This is why I'm sending you this," and then you can find out. Like, or is Marvin Harrison somebody that you're not looking to sell low on?

That type of stuff. But anyway, people are lazy. Just make the effort, and you will be a better fantasy team just making some effort.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, I-- that's great advice. Great, great advice, Jake. Really appreciate that. Uh, remind everybody one more time where they can find your great work.

Jake: Uh, well, trying to chase down these dogs when they're like, one, one's a puppy. That's what they were finding a lot recently. Uh, over The Athletic. Um, if you can find anything on Twitter these days, @allinkid. Oh, the same thing on Bluesky and Instagram, all that stuff. Um, but mainly, mainly The Athletic, the Fantasy Pros, and then my All In Speed Run.

Like, those are the other podcasts I'm regularly on. Well, obviously my own podcast. I would, I would hope I'm regularly on

Jeff: I was hoping that you do your own podcast. Yeah, that, that's kind of a thing.

Jake: yeah.

Jeff: Uh, you know, there was one thing I did not ask you about that I meant to, uh, it just didn't work itself in, so we'll, we'll do it as kind of our closer, and that is, you know, what is your process for ranking kickers?

Jake: Ah, can, can... I mean, can you see the shirt? Oh, no, it's off-screen.

Jeff: It's off-screen. Well, maybe in the wide shot we'll see it.

Jake: Maybe in the sh- yeah. You, you know what it is. Uh, uh, you're lucky I didn't hang up this episode as soon as you asked that 'cause ban them. You know where to ban them all to, H-E-L-L. It's... Send them...

Jeff: Yeah, that, that has been, uh, uh, you know, uh, some of our online banter over the years has been over exactly that. The hashtag ban kickers. Uh, and, and, you know, I was doing a, uh, division by division sort of recap of the draft for fantasy purposes, and the only offensive player that could possibly score points in fantasy Green Bay selected was a kicker.

So I immediately like,

Jake: c- of

Jeff: this is the ultimate, ultimate Jake Ciely draft pick right here. Lead with the kicker." That, that's,

Jake: Well, and the thing is to... Here, I'll give you the most simplest version of it. It's like for everybody out there too, like I wanna repla- like if you ban kickers, replace it with a flex. Uh, just go deeper at running back, wide receiver, and tight end, which is what I really love. Um, as a complete sidebar, like one of my favorite leagues is one where you only s- you start one quarterback, one running back, one wide receiver, and then it's seven flex spots.

And well, six, one... Six flex spots, one super flex. So it's like legit, like you're starting what you want. So much strategy. Anyway, um, my... This is my, uh, the simplest version of, I'll tell you before we get outta here on the kickers, is like the only way they have f- value is if the offense fails at their job.

So there you go.

Jeff: There you go. Well, Jake, thanks so much for joining me, and thank you all for watching on YouTube or listening on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite platform. Uh, please like and subscribe. Please leave a comment. Like Jake, I do also personally respond to the comments that we get, uh, here on YouTube and elsewhere.

If you wanna help the show grow, go over to Apple, five-star rating and a nice review would really help the show get some traction, gain some more audience. And also tune back in because next week we will have another outstanding guest and, uh, more, more of this dynasty theory and, and, and discussions to help make you a better dynasty manager, and that's why this show is called "Dynasty Compass."

See you next week