Pitt graduate has big say on fantasy football plan
You’re on the clock in the first round of your fantasy football draft, the league you started with your buddies in high school or college. You’re thinking about which running back or wide receiver you prefer. You may be eyeing a tight end.
The fantasy football magazine you picked up or the player queue at the bottom of your laptop screen says you should wait a while to pick your quarterback.
In this spot a decade ago, you might have grabbed a prolific passer such as Peyton Manning or Drew Brees. Today, there’s a decent chance that Patrick Mahomes, whose video-game numbers had folks anointing him a future Hall of Famer before his 25th birthday, will still be on the board a couple of rounds later.
Why the major shift? You can attribute it, at least partially, to a Pitt grad.
JJ Zachariason, a Wexford native, was working at a Cincinnati advertising agency in 2012 when he wrote an e-book that changed the way that millions of fantasy owners pick players and launched his career as a fantasy football analyst.
Now, he has a full-time writing gig with the sports analytics website numberFire and a fantasy football podcast that is among Apple’s most popular. And while he likes to joke that he still lives in his parents’ basement, he’s doing quite well.
“A lot of people view it a certain way because it is objectively the nerdiest, dumbest thing imaginable,” he said with a laugh. “You’re analyzing fantasy football and the majority of people I come across have no idea how big the fantasy football industry is, how much money there is in the industry or
anything like that.”
Zachariason was raised a Steelers fan. His family started to split up season tickets after Heinz Field opened. He didn’t play organized football during his days at North Allegheny, but he and his friends had countless backyard showdowns.
He got his marketing degree from Pitt in 2010 and soon moved with his nowwife to Cincinnati to work at an advertising agency, where he was a project manager for three years. He soon found himself, at 24, at a crossroads in his career.
“I said, ‘I can’t do this for the next 40 or 50 years of my life,’” Zachariason recalled. “So one day at work, I opened up a Word document and wrote down what my passions were, and one of those things was very clearly fantasy football.”
He decided that in downtime he would combine that passion with his marketing degree and self-taught skills in graphic and web design to write an e-book.
In June 2012, Zachariason published “The Late Round Quarterback,” which took eight or nine months to put together. He also started a related website. The premise behind the late-round QB theory was largely tied to supply and demand.
In most fantasy football leagues, which typically have 10 or 12 teams, you must slot multiple running backs and multiple receivers into your starting lineup, but only one quarterback. And there are more than 12 productive passers in the NFL.
“As a result, you can get very viable quarterbacks late in drafts. You can wait and wait and wait,” Zachariason said. “And on top of that, quarterbacks are more predictable on a weekly basis, so it’s easier to get [replacements] off the waiver wire.”
Here’s where another basic economic principle comes into play: Opportunity cost. By letting leaguemates grab their quarterback early in your draft, you can often pick potential difference-makers at other positions and still get a quality QB.
“In 2012, it was a peak season for the late-round quarterback strategy,” he said. “That was the year that Russell Wilson and Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III came into the league and they all dominated [after being later-round fantasy picks]. It was a very good year for the strategy. So a lot of people took notice.”
The website formerly known as Rotoworld asked Zachariason to write a series of columns. Then he briefly worked for Pro Football Focus. In 2013, he got a phone call at the urging of another North Allegheny grad, Nik Bonaddio.
Bonaddio, who knew Zachariason’s older brother and was also a fan of JJ’s work, had won $100,000 from Regis Philbin on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” and was using it as seed money to found numberFire. It felt like a good match. Zachariason was one of the start-up’s first hires. His advertising days were done.
Zachariason says for folks who aren’t fantasy fanatics like him, the takeaway should be that it’s important to find things that you are “truly passionate” about.
“And don’t be ashamed of that passion,” the 33-yearold was quick to add.
Eight years later, Zachariason is still with numberFire. And since writing his e-book, he has seen the average draft position ( ADP) of quarterbacks plummet.
In 2012, Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton respectively went fifth and sixth overall in fantasy drafts, per Pro Football Focus data, and on average five QBs were taken in the first 26 picks. Based on ADP data for 2021 compiled by FantasyPros.com, only one quarterback ( Mahomes) typically goes in the first 26.
Zachariason doesn’t want to get full credit for shifting an insanely popular industry. He’s just the one who popularized the late-round QB strategy.
“I’m sure that there’s a lot of people who came across some of my work and started to think about things differently. There’s no doubt,” Zachariason said. “But I also think a lot of the strategy itself was being done and implemented by people when I was in middle school. I was just the one who ended up marketing it.”
He has proven to be more than a one-trick pony. His ensuing work, which is typically data-driven, has earned him a strong reputation among his fellow fantasy analysts. He’s often invited to participate in expert-only leagues.
And Zachariason’s podcast is one of the most downloaded fantasy football podcasts ever on Apple. Unlike most others in that competitive space, his episodes are quick, hyper-focused and information-packed. Chartable, which tracks podcast analytics, had “The LateRound Podcast” seventh on its trending list as of last week.
Not bad for a guy who can’t find a way to beat his North Allegheny buddies.
Zachariason, who lives in North Carolina now, has been in a league with them since his freshman year of high school. He competes in others with the likes of Matthew Berry and Evan Silva. But he hasn’t won his “home league” since 2009.
“It’s funny,” he said sincerely when asked about the grief he gets. “I’ve just had heartbreak after heart-break. It’s my cursed league.”