Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Rookie Model: Running Backs

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) and Wes Huber (@WesHuberNFL) dive into the incoming rookie RB class using Scott Barrett's statistical model. The guys recap Scott's recent article breaking down the rookie RB class, starting with Alabama's Najee Harris and Clemson's Travis Etienne. Get 20% OFF Manscaped PLUS Free Shipping when you use promo code FP2021 at MANSCAPED.COM! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Ladies and gentlemen, you were listening to the Fantasy Points podcast, myself, Wes Huber, breaking down the top running backs in this class, or at least how high, I have them ranked in my pre-combine, pre-proday rookie model. That article's out. The wide receiver article's out.

You could listen to the wide receiver version of the article, I don't know, in a few days. Tight ends. We did that a week ago, maybe a week and a half ago. But that's out. You can listen that too. Here are unanimous love for Kyle Pitts, the goat. And, Wes, before we dive in, support for things. fantasy points is brought to you by Manscaped, who is the best in men's below the waist grooming.

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her boyfriend or husband is, you know, get this subscription from Manscaped, FP2021 at Manscape.com. It's the least you could do on here. You'd be helping out FantasyPoint.com, one of their, one of their, uh, uh, advertisers. So definitely look into that. Appreciate the chance to, to talk about, talk about hairy balls on a podcast. You love to see that. And then there's some interesting NFL news, and we could be the first ones to break that down live on radio. That was Sam Darnold getting traded to the Carolina Panthers for,

I believe, a fourth this year, a fourth next year, and also a second round next year. Wes, what are your thoughts on that trade? What are your immediate thoughts? that's quite a haul it's more than I would have given up for Donald and you know they obviously there's some

some news out there that the Falcons are looking to trade out of four so yeah they obviously didn't feel like going for the gold there and trying to secure a cornerstone instead they're going to run the tires on

Donald and see if there's if there's still something there and I'm not saying I'm completely down on Darnold, but it's not as exciting as, you know, some of their other options, in my opinion. So I think a few things, by the way, just to clarify, it's a 2021-6th rounder, and in 2022, a second, and a fourth. Just immediately, I'll agree with you. I do think that was a good haul for Darnold.

Daniel Jeremiah had a tweet where he said, if he could rank all the quarterbacks in this class and include Darnold. He had Darnold QB3 behind Zach Wilson and Trevor Lawrence. That was pretty shocking to me. Just the numbers. Wes is laughing. So, yeah, I think that was surprising to him as well. Just looking at the numbers,

Donald ranks 33 of 33 quarterbacks and PFF pass grade, 41 of 41 quarterbacks and adjusted net yards per attempt since entering the league. From a fantasy perspective, though, I mean, could this be another situation? like Ryan Tannahill leaving Adam Gase and then putting up, you know, borderline MVP type numbers. And this is going from an Adam Gase offense to a Joe Brady offense. So, you know, there's some life left in him yet. And, you know, Rappaport's out here tweeting, that's the starter.

And now the Panthers are either going to look to trade Teddy Bridgewater or, you know, restructure his salary. But, yeah, interesting to say the least. Any final thoughts on that? Now, I mean, we'll see. He was obviously playing for the Jets, so I guess it's a little unfair to stick a fork in him after that situation. So, I mean, it's great for his upside, and we'll see how it goes. I do not.

I do not think we're going to see a Ryan Tannenhill tight turnaround right away. But we'll see. It's definitely not the same player. I don't think Sam Darnold is a top five quarterback. I do think Ryan Tannaniel is. Ryan Tainhill is top five quarterback. Damn, I mean, he certainly put up those numbers. But yeah, and your other point is, I think, completely correct.

I think now we're looking at Atlanta is either taking a quarterback. I think that's more likely or they're looking to trade down. And, you know, teams are hesitant to make that trade because who knows. who the 49ers are going to take. But, you know, if it's Mack Jones, maybe there's a bigger haul there. I was mocking hits there. I just didn't think, you know, the quarterback, I mean, the head coach, Arthur Smith, who, you know, got nearly 100 catches out of Delaney Walker back when he was his tight ends coach.

I didn't think he could pass on that. But, yeah, I mean, now it's looking like we might see five quarterbacks in the first seven picks. And the Panthers are fully aware of that fact. And I'm like, well, we got to get a quarterback. But they'll get a quarterback and then look, ideally, you know, they'll get one of Chase, Peney Sewell, or Pitts, and, you know, you got to be happy with that. I have a question, especially if Pits last that long.

I mean, that would be pretty ideal for their situation, replace Ian Thomas. That's an easy replacement. Yeah, I don't think anyone's going to be crying about that other than Ian Thomas. All right. Well, let's dive into my running back model. First guy up in a tier by himself, Najee Harris. According to my model, he's not only the top running back in this class, but he's the fourth best running back prospect to come out since 2014. That top five is McCaffrey number one, Melvin Gordon number two, Jonathan Taylor, three, then Harris, then Derek Henry. And again,

that's not how I'd rank these running backs. It's just based on college production alone, not factoring in the ProDay or Combine just yet, he would be the RB4. You want to give the folks at home some background on Najee Harris? And so five-star running back, something you don't hear about very often. It's not a moniker or a ranking that the scouting, the high school scouts, throw around. And it was deserved. The way we saw in that Alabama last season was exactly the way he played his opponents at Antioch in California. And it was a man amongst boys.

So, you know, if you played college fantasy last year, college DFS, Margie Harris was, I mean, he was your Bo Jackson and TechMobile. He was ridiculous. Yeah, so one thing with him is he is an older prospect. He played all four years in college. That's something my model typically dings a prospect for. And it did ding him slightly based on age and being a four year, but I mean still still elite overall. Etienne, same concern, although he's younger by a full year, Giovante, a full year younger than him. But I mean, he got a consensus round two grade as a junior. So you can't really. ding him for that. But what was it with Harris where I guess he wasn't really on the NFL's radar? And then now he's the consensus, RB1 per, you know, most talent evaluators, draft experts he'll talk to. Yeah, it was, I'm sure it was a similar situation where he went to the draft board and he had an evaluation. And they, they, it's, you know, probably not something he's throwing around, but they

probably gave him a grade that he wasn't, wasn't. So I'm just saying, I'm just saying, like, was his 2019, 19 tape, not that great, but 2020 was just on a completely different level. No, it wasn't that it wasn't great. It was that it wasn't as consistent early in this season. He didn't play as well. But then I think it was like over the last five games, he really burst out. It was like the nodgy we saw in 2020. And so I think it was more that he wanted to come back and have a consistent year. plus they ended on a down note, you know, and a similar situation with Devonzo Smith. They wanted to come back and finish out their Alabama careers and do something special.

Well, it seems to be a smart decision by him. He was absolutely absurd in 2020. He ranked either first or top three yards from scrimmage, rushing touchdowns, total touchdowns, first downs, route run, mistackles forced, targets, receptions, receiving yards, rushing yards, yards after contact, yards after the catch, just completely absurd 2020 season. And so here at fantasy points, you know where I stand on running backs, you know where Graham stands, where I think you stand as well, West, is that for fantasy, you really want a bell cow

running back. You want a running back who's going to play every single down, not going to be stuck in a committee, is featured as both a runner and a receiver. And that's why he was head and shoulders above everyone else. I think Etienne can be a bell cow in the NFL, but a lot more people are divided on that. Javante, it's like, okay, he's definitely a workhorse running back, which means he should see a lot of touches, but maybe not a lot of targets, although I think there's untapped potential there. But with Harris, to me, there's almost no question.

And you just see that in, you know, FBS records. or in total touchdown. So amazing numbers at the goal line, hyper productive and hyper efficient as a pass catcher, great as a runner. And you see that in the comps as well, you know, Lance Zeerline comped him to Stephen Jackson. I've seen them a few spots. I've seen Matt Forte as well. What are your, he was, he was, he posted a 1400 Russian yard 400 receiving yard season.

And like, if you look at the running backs who've done that, Etienne has done that. But it's like McCaffrey, Saquin, Barclay, Dalvin, Cook, Clyde Edwards, Flair, and those are the only Power 5 running back since 2015 besides him and Etienne. So really, just this statistical profile to me looks great. What are your thoughts on those comms? What did you see on tape as far as his bell count potential? Oh, there's no question. And he's got the size.

Definitely can absorb the pounding. And, you know, I did some athletic. research into combine history. And so Najee Harris, the 81-inch wingspan that he was measured with almost a seven-footers wingspan is the widest since, at least over the past eight seasons that I've checked. And, you know, there's been a lot of, I mean, you know, for obvious reasons, Kyle Pitts has gotten a lot of press for his 83-5-inch wings. span, which actually wasn't the top wing span.

Stephen Sullivan had an 85 inch tied in last year. So, you know, some bogus reports being tossed around out there. But the Najee Harris legitimately, number one on the list. And I also did some research with the correlation to production. And there was a 22% increase in total yards per season from all. running backs over those eight seasons when they were when they measured out above the 80th percentile wing span so um i i think that's that's you know definitely a plus it definitely helps his receiving ability which is is a is a major factor for him and his three down potential and um funny enough that

the three guys behind him derrick henry both both garbrough and alvin kamara all former Alabama running backs. Yeah. And you really see the Stephen Jackson comparison. That kind of makes sense when, you know, they're both between 6-2 and 6-3, 230 and 240 pounds. But, I mean, Stephen Jackson was so rare in that he was such a capable receiver at that size. And you don't really see that.

But, yeah, I mean, I think that just hints at Najee Harris', you know, unparalleled belcal potential where he should be able to really withstand a beating in terms of total touches. and he can contribute in the passing game. And then, like I said, hyper-efficient at the goal line. Next running back on our list, Travis Etienne, I actually liked him a little bit more than my model did. My model had him ranked as the second best running back in the class and the 13th best

prospect, running back prospect, to come out since 2014. He ranks right in between Jakey Dobbins and Clyde Edwards E-Lair. If you look at the numbers, which I'll get into, hyper-efficient, to a point that, that maybe more hyper-efficient than any running back we've seen about eight draft classes or more ridiculously hyper-efficient. Why he ranked by Harris in my model is just it questioned the bell-cow potential. And you see that in as just, I mean, how many games has he had with 16 or more touches? There weren't many.

But a major factor there is that Clemson routinely benches their starters at the halftime. But in games that mattered, in games that were close, in the postseason Etienne, you know, he wasn't seeding a single snap or a single touch to any of the other running backs in that backfield. And when the score was within seven points, he had 76% of Clemson's backfield touches. So that's like a really high number and that hints at Belcal potential. So I like a little bit more than my model. But you want to give the background on Etienne from, I know you've been covering this guy for a while from a Debbie perspective. Yeah.

And it's true. He definitely took a seat early. quite a bit too. And one of the other issues is when they, when Trevor Lawrence had the passing game going, you know, when he was, when he was tossing dimes, you know, two, two plays, two play scores, E-TM was getting nothing on drives. And, you know, I'm here, I'm packing him around on my college rosters. And that was painful, you know, because you know what he can do in these matchups. But, yeah, so he comes, comes from Jennings High School. It's actually his younger brother is going to be a top recruit in the 22 class.

and he actually didn't get the attention that he wanted. It's not a top college. And so, you know, some of the Louisiana schools down there, they're definitely regretting that decision, watching him do what he did. But, yeah, so he, like he said, he came out. He got his draft grade, and it wasn't where he wanted it to be. came back and proved, he's top,

receiving back in this class, in my opinion. And his vision as a receiver is on question. I mean, it's easily the best in the class, better than Najee Harris. And, yeah, I mean, so the difference between these guys at the top is so slim. It's not even, I mean, we're just splitting hairs with these guys. But, yeah, E.N, he played when he was,

at Jennings, it was more of a triple option, wingback type offense. So he didn't have any receiving production there. They just didn't pass the ball. And when he came up to Clemson, they didn't pass the ball to him. They just, I don't think they realized what they had. So he didn't really even do any of his receiving work until his junior season. So I thought that was really interesting. They had some major changes along the offensive line as a senior. So that, that that played a big role. Yeah. So when he when he was a junior, you know, a lot of people thought he would declare for the draft, myself included. And he got a consensus round two grade and chose to come back to school. They asked him why he stayed. He quote unquote, I wasn't leaving for no

second round draft grade. So it'll be interesting to see if he goes in the first this year. But he was told he needed to work on improving as receiver. What happened? He led all running backs and receiving yards, basically doubled his receiving yard per cane average from 28.8 to 49.0. And just again, just looking at the numbers he put up. So his 7.25 career yards per carry average ranks behind only Melvin Gordon and Reggie Bush since 2000 among Power 5 running backs. Just absurd, absurd numbers. Best in my database at one of my favorite stats, depth adjusted yards per target over expectation, ranks just ahead of Christian McCaffrey, you know, elite numbers by yards after contact per reception, mistackles force per reception, numbers that really hint at a running

back's potential as a pass catcher in the NFL and then, you know, the best yards after contact per attempt season in 2019. Tons of mistackles forced. which is like one of the strongest variables in my model. You know, can he be a goal lineback? He's going to score touchdowns. He scored in 45 of 55 career games. That's an FBS record. Just everything I'm looking at really screams at, you know,

this guy is special. But what's interesting is Graham didn't love him. Graham, you know, his yards created data will be out soon. He has Giovante over Travis Etienne. But, I mean, I'm bullish on his belcow potential. And, yeah, I think this is a really special talent. I don't think there's that much of a difference to be that surprise that Graham has Trilante above him.

I mean, I have four guys that are pretty close. I think, though, with Najee, he's just a monster. So I think he's easily number one. I have a funny story. So you brought up the Stephen Jackson comp for Najee. So Kyron Williams, Notre Dame running back when he was growing up. That was his childhood hero. He loved Stephen Jackson.

So he would wear his Rams jersey around town with his sister's door, the Explorer wig underneath a Rams helmet going around pretending to be Stephen Jackson. I found that pretty amusing. So they called him Kyron the Siren because he would go around just making all kinds of noise. But yeah, with Etienne. the thing I do like about, you know, even coming back and playing another season, he's still only entering the NFL with 684 carries. And you look at Breece Hall.

He's only been at Iowa State for two years, and he's already up to 280, or I'm sorry, 464. So, you know, and kind of think, Travis Etienne, he's the all-time leading rusher in the ACC, and he's only got 200 more yards than Breece Hall, who didn't even play his entire first season. for the cyclones. So the wear on the tires, I mean, he's, he's still got a lot of tread, and he's going to enter the NFL with a reputation as a receiver. You know, he was a situational guy at the goal line at a 48% success rate with 11 personnel,

only 23% with heavy personnel. So it's a situation where he needs to fall into the right offense and have a coordinator that knows how to use him properly. Another thing is he had a 79% success rate with inside zone and only 9% with outside zone. So we also want to see him fall into an inside zone offense and, you know, things like that. But I love his potential. I love his vision. His vision as a receiver is great, but it's also great when he's at the goal line because he likes to spot.

on those edge defenders when he's running inside zone and he'll look at those inside gaps and try to faint that he's going that direction. As soon as he sees that edge defender jump inside and give up contain, he jumps it, jumps it back to the outside and just walks into the end zone, which is exactly what you want to see. Etienne is he's the real deal. He's going to be a big name, probably somebody that's going to end his career close to you know, Hall of Fame potential, wouldn't go that far.

But, you know, he's going to put up some numbers is basically what I'm saying. Yeah, it's interesting. You kind of get a bunch of different opinions when you survey the talent evaluators in this industry. Yet some people say, hey, you know, I don't know that he could be a bell cow, but he's at the very least an elite change of paceback. Phenomenal home run hitter. You see that in his statistics, one of the best.

home run hitters to come out in a while. You see that in his pro day, 4-4-1, 4-4-3, 40-yard dash times. And then you have other guys coming out saying, hey, I think he might have Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara, upside as a three-down running back, who's also very special in the passing game. That's what Bucky Brooks said. And so it's interesting to see everyone all over the place. But again, Harris doesn't have those questions. I'm bullish. And Graham's not really. But let's look at the third running back, according to my model, which is Giovante Williams. Again, he's maybe he just turned 21 or he's yet to turn 21.

But it's a full year younger than Etienne, who's a full year younger than Harris. He ranks just two spots behind Etienne on my model. But again, I'm a little more bullish on Etienne than my model. But still, I mean, Javante 15th best since 2014. that's eight draft classes. So he should be the RB2 in a typical class. And, you know, my model liked a bunch of different things with him, but most importantly, it was just elite at forcing miss tackles,

breaking this tackles, gaining hard yards after contact. Those are among the most predictive variables in my model. And he was really elated it. He had the best, best career. year, miss tackles force per touch. His 2020 season was the best season since 2014 by miss tackles force per touch. Elite yards after contact numbers. And you really see that on tape, man, is this guy fun on tape in the same way that, you know, Marshawn Lynch was fun on tape in his ability to break tackles? When you, when you educate the folks at home about

Javante's background and your thoughts on him? Yeah, love me some Javante. But I think that's a universal opinion. He is, and I think that's part of the problem. I think, I think when you have somebody, when you have guys like Najee and Etienne, I think we can start getting a little bored with him because we already, we've already seen what they can do. You know, and they've been talked about over and over and over. It's just like, okay, let's just, let's get him into the NFL.

Now let's see some new stuff. I want to see some new blood. That's where we have Giovante Williams because, you know, He did well last year, but I wasn't, I wasn't in love with him. I watched some of his tape when I was researching for my, for my Debbie drafts last year, and I just didn't love him. I was on the fence. He was like right on the, right on the edge for me. I ended up going another direction, obviously.

I regret that now. But, yeah, so he comes out of high school, almost quit, playing for Wallace Rose Hill, which is a really small school and a really small town. He wasn't a running back, though. He was a linebacker. And a little on the smaller side, you know, it was short. It was good. Put up, you know, 100 plus tackles a year, solo tackles, was definitely a high-energy guy,

but just didn't have enough to get those Power 5 offers. And he didn't get any either after his junior year. He had a couple, a group of five. and a really smart valedictorian of his high school. So he had some Ivy League offers. And he almost took those. He almost walked out. He almost walked away from football.

And then his coach decided, you know what? He's got everything that you want a linebacker, you know, mentality-wise. But it's very similar to what you want in the running back. So he moved him to running back. He ended up getting the North Carolina offer that he wanted. And, you know, obviously the rest is history. But one of the things that really helped. to him. It also helped his counterpart, was having Michael Carter along his side and working with him

and trying to make each other better players. And so, you know, the number one, the number one most important athletic measurement for running back is your broad jump. when you have a running back that measures above the 65th percentile and broad jump, you have a 30 percent increase in total yards, total yards on average per season over a career. It's a massive group that includes Alvin Kamara, Derek Henry, Chris Carson, Nick Chubb, Aaron Jones, Christian McAllen, Jeffrey, Cam Acres, Jonathan Taylor. What do you think that speaks to?

You think that speaks to explosion and the power you can create with your lower body? Lower body explosiveness, driving forward in the pile in the trenches, and ability to create power from the ground up. And again, all this is going to be encapsulated in my post-pro-day model series of articles, which are going to come out probably a week or so. Wes, I'll have to connect with you and you can help me with that. I'll show you all the correlations I have and what my model is spitting out. But yeah, so maybe based on this broad jump, he's someone who can, you know, rise even higher in my model. Well, another guy on that list is Travis Antiann. He's also above the 65th percentile.

And now I'm not talking about just this year. I'm talking about over the last eight seasons. He's up there with an elite group. So it's something that you, that, you know, There's too much time, too much attention is given to 40 times. Scrap the 40 times, throw them out. They're no good. I mean, unless they're really good.

But here's what I do like. I like 20 times. I like 10 yard splits. But if you run a good 40, you're going to have good 20. Those are hard to find. You got to connect with me after the podcast. What did I tell you, man? I said, you know, you just wait for my sheet.

I'll have it. I'll have it to you really soon. I'm almost done. You can have guys from prior classes as well? Oh, I've got a database for you, brother. Beautiful. Look at that. We got to put that up on the site, actually.

I was going to ask you guys if you wanted to put that in the draft guide or something, but I've got some insane stuff to toss your way. I mean, we could create a tool for that. All I have left are, I've got to do the wide receivers. As soon as I have the wide receivers done, I'll have a database for fantasy points. Okay. All right. Well, let's get back to the podcast.

We'll talk about this after hours. So, Javante, yeah. And again, should be immediately a 20 carryback in the NFL. Like I see that so easy. The question was as a pass catcher because there wasn't a lot of production there. But then again, you have Michael Carter alongside him. My pre-compine model has Michael Carter's the fifth best back in the class. Danny Kelly comped him to Austin Echler.

You see that with a lot of his comps where it's these guys who are better, past catchers than we are runners. But his past catching production wasn't significantly more than Javante. It was kind of on par. And with Javante, you see untapped potential there because the efficiency on those targets was at a really high level in terms of forcing this tackles, gaining yards after contact. So I do see upside there. I'm not yet ready to call him a bell cow, but what do you think about his potential as a pass catcher? Because we know just how valuable targets are in PPR leagues. 2.8 times a carry.

Yeah, I mean, I think. Outside of the red zone. I think with my college backs, okay, so we can't all have our Christian McCaffrey numbers coming out of college. We just, they're just not there, right? It's, he's just that unique.

But I want to see a guy that can at least put up one yard per route run in college. And at least, and that gives us, at least an idea of of his potential. If he can't even get up to there, like a Kennedy Brooks at Oklahoma, I'm concerned. I mean, he's one of the most talented running backs in the country, but he's barely cracking 0.5 yards per outrun.

And that just means his offense is just not, his quarterbacks aren't even looking at him, man. They're just like, no, no, no. Because they know he's not, he did, the thing that's lacking with a lot of running backs is they aren't, able to use the same type of weaponry they have as a runner, it doesn't translate as quickly after they catch the ball. So some guys, it takes them a little bit. Something I see with Ramandre Stevenson is it takes him a few steps before he becomes the running back that he is off of

a handoff. And another thing you'll see with a lot of college running backs is the majority of their receiving work will come on design screens. Now that's not a complete negative, But you still want to see them do work outside of those design situations. You want to see them ad lib and kind of adjust to work with their quarterbacks when they're scrambling out of the pocket. We don't see that just quite yet with Javante. What he did what he did when Sam Howell would scram out of the pocket. He wouldn't run horizontally to give to give Howell a target. He would run vertically.

That's okay in college. You can't do that in the NFL. it's going to have such a low completion percentage. And he did work on his receiving, his route running prior to his senior year. He had a great guy to be, like I said, to work with Michael Carter. But it's just not quite there yet. I know the numbers, he put up some good touchdowns and everything. But, you know, that's kind of one of the things you've got to be careful with.

You've got to hit the breaks when you get too excited about the touchdowns. because, you know, 20 touchdowns one year, maybe four the next. So we'll see. We'll see. I think that Williams is definitely trending in the direction of being called a three-down of, you know, correlling a three-down role. I'm just, I'm with you. I'm not 100% there yet, but I'm definitely, I'm hanging on and thinking that's where it's going to go.

All right. Well, and by the way, Javon, Dante Williams, his odds to be the first running back drafted in this class has moved from plus 700 to plus 300 just a few weeks prior. So there's a chance, you know, a team has him RB1 in this class. There's rumors of that. But let's move to my RB4. And then we could talk about your RB4 or maybe you even have him RB3. We'll talk about him a little bit later, Trey Sermon.

This one's going to be fun. This is going to be, we're going to duke it out here, West, because I know you're no. nowhere near as high on this guy as at least my model is. And that's, that's Kenneth Gainwell, who's a solid, solid tier behind the big three. And really, you see that. I have it a big three, big tier fall off, and then like a little three with Gainwell, Michael Carter, my RB5 in my pre-compine model, and Trey Sermon, my RB6, I think you're an RB3 or four. But yeah, let's talk Kenneth Gainwell. Let me make my pitch, and then you could have this. rate it because because I'm sure I'm sure you you've put a lot of thought into this.

So Kenneth Gainwell, he's interesting. He opted out of the 2020 season. He lost four relatives to COVID. That's totally understandable. He only touched the ball 10 times during his true freshman season. So we really only have a one season sample size to work with. But man, what a season it was. He averaged 104.2 rushing yards per game, 43.6 receiving yards per game.

And if you just look at the running backs to meet those thresholds, you know, 95 rushing yards per game, 40 receiving yards per game, you're going to see names like Christian McCaffrey, Saekwon Barkley, Matt Forte, Todd Curley, Chris Johnson, Joe Mixin, really a who's who of, you know, Bell Cow running backs. He wasn't exceptional by any rushing stats. He was very productive, but he wasn't really exceptional by any of the rushing stats. I look at my model values. He had a better than expected pro day. You know, a lot of people were concerned. He kind of has like slot wide receiver size, but he had a really great pro day. And so just his receiving numbers off the charts.

You have to remember that this was a guy who was a quarterback in high school, very little experience playing the position. 10 touches in 2018, 2019, amazingly productive numbers. and he sat out 2020, and you have to think there's some untapped potential there. And that's how I view it. It's like this is a great swing for the fences, pick and rookie drafts where what are the chances he hits? I mean, the chances he busts, maybe let's say it's high, but there's also that like 10% chance he could be, you know, a true bell cow, you know, PPR hog. And you really see that in the, the comps he's getting.

You'll get a you'll get a poor man's Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara Light, but then you also get Devin Singletary, Theoretic, Jeremy McNichols. So if he's a scat-back, I mean, the value in that from a dynasty perspective, from a year one fantasy perspective, not good outside of best ball, not good at all. So he reminds me of Antonio Gibson, you know, maybe pre-combine Antonio Gibson or maybe a little before the hype started going where it's like, okay Antonio Gibson all the way hit, but things were a lot less certain, you know, this time a year ago, where he really fell into the perfect situation. And maybe, maybe we see that with gain well.

Maybe we see that. Maybe he could be Christian McCaffrey Light. Greg Casale liked him on tape. Danny Calli, I talked to very divided. He's like, well, he's great in space. I don't know how well this translates. I see the upside. But I know you hate this. So, West. Tell me why you're not a fan. Okay. So I think I think I've, we've had enough conversations now that where you're, you're high on him and, you know, I'm not quite as high. And I think that because of that, we, it's become a situation where it might even seem like I don't like him. But actually, I do. I think he's get, he, okay, so here's the thing. He's fast and he's got a good broad jump. Now it's below the 65th percentile, but it's, it's the same.

62nd. I'm okay with that. That's not a, that's not much of an outlier to me. So here's what I like about him. Another former quarterback, so we can see that with his route running. He's, he's good at reading and diagnosing coverages and, and working off of his coverage. He's, if you, if you want a, if you want a running back, that can line up in the slot. In this class, he is, he is the guy. There's, there's, there's, there's, there's, nobody else that I've seen. And I'm not looked at, you know, the top 30 running backs, there's 42 in this class. I've not looked at him.

You like Felton as a slot wide receiver too, right? Excuse me, I'm sorry? And you like Felton as a wide receiver, not a running. Yeah, yeah. I'm not looking at him as a running back. He's, I don't know if he's athletic enough to play running back, to be honest with you. He's going to take a lot of damage, unless he's very situational. coming in as a strict receiver out of the backfield.

I don't see Felton as somebody that you're going to give a reasonable amount of carries to. But I do like game well, though. You know, like I said, he's got the speed. He's got the explosion at lower body power. I think that's good. He's got some jump cuts, some nasty moves, not quite as agile as the guys at the top. To be honest, I've got him really close to Michael Carter. So here's the downside.

He's not even my top group of five running back. I've got him below Elijah Mitchell from Louisiana. Mitchell's a little older. So here's the thing. Let's look at Gainwell's age. He's basically the same age as Travis Soutes he in. You know, you would think a guy that only has one year of experience, of college experience, and that also just sat out.

year. I mean, you just kind of get the impression. He must be, you know, he's coming in as a red shirt sophomore. He must be, you know, pretty young, but he's actually, he's actually older than Travis Etienne and ETSIEN as a senior, you know. So there's that. There's the fact that, you know, if he's not quite there yet, you know, he's quite a bit behind. But I like his athleticism enough to say that, that I think he'll, that I think he'll

have a similar career, almost identical size to Michael Carter. But here's the big difference. And this is something I just came up with. So I took wingspan and I cut off the arms, right? The chest width. Did you know that Kenneth Gainwell has the thinnest chest width of all 262, 552 running backs over the past eight seasons? at 9.2 inches and it's at 9.25 inches and it's 25% smaller than the guy above him on the list.

But I think the second or third guy above him is the guy who I would comp him to, Chase Edmonds with the Cardinals. But here's the thing. Cliff Kingsbury is going to present Kenneth Gainwell with a great opportunity, at least the way it stands. I think he's going to let Chase Edmonds be his number one running back. If he does, then there might be a similar path for Gamewell eventually. But I don't think it's going to be immediate. It's going to take around the same amount of time for him to acclimate to the game.

I'm not seeing a situation where he comes into the league and gets immediate playing time, like Najee and Etienne and Williams and a couple of other guys. I see that with Elijah Mitchell. But at the same time, I think long-term game well, he's a talent. He's going to stick. He's got NFL athleticism. And that receiving ability, there's always going to be a role for that. Yeah, I think you lose me a little bit when we're getting into the weeds on chest with.

But I mean, hey, I think you're right on the point that this guy, could be slow to develop in the NFL. I mean, very limited experience, but I also think that limited experience and how good he was in that small sample, having, you know, played quarterback all throughout high school, hints that upside. And, you know, if you get Chase Edmonds and Chase Edmonds is an RB1 this year, you got to be happy with that. He is going, he is pretty expensive, you know, Antonio Gibson a lot cheaper this time last year. But yeah, let's get into your guy who my model hated, which was Trey Sermon. And the reason my model didn't like him, I like him a lot more.

But the model's not going to like him because the lack of production just wasn't there. And he failed to reach 1,000 rushing yards in each of his four seasons. He got forced into a committee alongside Ramandre Stevenson and Kennedy Brooks. Kennedy Brooks, I think outproduced him in both seasons. Ramandre Stevenson. I think Al produced him in his last season. And then you see Tray Serman, you know, running scared, leaving for Ohio State. And, you know, Ramonji Stevenson's in this class.

Should me be thinking, hey, maybe this Stevenson kid is better than Tray Serman. And then he's at Ohio State. And he's in another committee alongside Master Teague. But then he broke out before an injury in his last game. And he had nearly 600 yards from scrimmage in two games on nearly 70 touches. And he really broke out in that bell cow role. So you really see flashes of greatness. You see hyper-efficiency in some of the seasons on a per-touch basis.

But, yeah, definitely dington for that production. Tell us why you like Sermon so much and why you're not worried about him fleeing the program and running from Ramandre Stevenson and the lack of production and the injuries. Man, you throw a touch of drama into the pot here. I don't think it was as dramatic as you're making it sound. He was not running for Lomois. We've got an audience here. Yeah, he wasn't running from anybody.

What he was doing is he went to Oklahoma, which, you know, had a stacked room when he got there, a stacked running back room. And he, you know, your model might say he was, he wasn't very productive, but he was a very efficient guy, average six and a half yards per carry. over his career, 60% of his yardage came after contact. He was also big time in the big games for his teams in his true freshman year. He played a massive role in the victory over Ohio State. And then, you know, obviously he pretty much guided Ohio State to the playoffs this past year. You know, here's the thing is, Ramandre Stevenson is a good ballplayer. So is Kennedy Brooks.

And, you know, so was Rodney Anderson in his true freshman season. So, you know, these are talented guys. And when you went to Ohio State, similar situation, you know, the Master Teague. I mean, we're talking about a guy that's in the 85th percentile athleticism-wise. I mean, this isn't somebody that you just walk into and just say, you know what, you're the number two running back now. But so one of the main reasons that he didn't just come over to Ohio State and just start running away with the job is it's not a gap scheme. It's his own scheme. And I think more than anything, it proved that he was versatile enough to go from the most gap-heavy scheme in college football to a 100-1-1-1-1-1-1.4.

zone scheme at Ohio State and still do what he did. It took some time for him to get his timing down. You have to time your cuts exactly. You have to cut right on the heels of the offensive line with a zone scheme. And that takes time. That takes time to adjust and not looking down at your alignment's feet. You need to keep your eyes up on the defense. So, you know, this may not, you know, you may, I may lose you in the weeds.

You know, what I was saying about Gainwell is I really don't know what to do with that width of his chest yet. But it's just interesting. I just, you know, I didn't see that on tape like it was a big thing. But, I mean, I just didn't realize he was that small when I was looking at him. And I may lose you in the weeds with this. But the 10-yard split that Tray Sermon put up at his pro-day is phenomenal. It's above the 60th percentile. Above the 60th percentile, you have a 25 percent increase in average yards per season.

And Tray Sermon was the fourth fastest over the past five years at 1.49 seconds. That's faster the Rondell Moors. When he, when he, his explosion, when he takes off is just phenomenal. Now, he's a big guy, you know, six foot, over six foot, 215 pounds. So, you know, he has that explosion and why he has that explosion is because of his lower body. He was, he's also in that group and the above the 65th percentile and broad jump. And, you know, so he's got that lower body explosion, that excel. that instant acceleration, almost to the point where when you see him run, you don't think he's

that fast. But he actually is. As soon as he takes off, he's running full speed. And that's, I mean, what's more important than the first 10 yards on it for a running back? So how early would you be taking Trey Serman in a rookie draft? Well, that's the beauty of it all. So why do I have, why am I more excited about Elijah Mitchell than I am Kenneth Gainwell? Because I don't have to reach for him. I just let him fall to me and I get him late. Now, I'm sure whoever's listening to this and Scott, you'll probably snipe me and the leagues were him together, but, you know, I can just sit around and wait for Elijah Mitchell to follow me. That's the same deal with, you know, I could sit here and I can say, oh, I've got Tray Sermon over Giovanni Williams and blah,

blah, blah, it doesn't matter because guess what? Giovante Williams can be gone before I even look at the draft. I mean, he's going to be one of the first picks. I can wait on Trace Sermon. So where would I draft him? It depends on the group that I'm in. If it's not a group that I did a mock, a rookie mock the other night with another group. And the computer snatched him up.

We didn't have enough for the full draft. But I was going to see how long I could wait on him there. But yeah, I mean, I think maybe third, If I can wait, it would really depend on how the running backs, how they're falling off. Because it's really top-heavy this year. It's not like we've got this loaded class of running back. So there's a lot of guys with some potential. But none, when you get after you get after the top 12, 10 or 12,

there's a pretty steep decline in the returns. Yeah. So I did a rookie draft last week. Najee Harris went 102, which, you know, was crazy for a tight-end premium superflex. That should be Kyle Pitts, in my opinion. And where did Pitts go in that one? It was just ridiculous. He went 104.

Oh, my gosh. And I had 106, so I was pretty upset about that. But we took Travis Atienne 106, Javante Williams, 107, Kenneth Gainwell 203, Michael Carter 204, which I was ecstatic about those picks. because we got immediately after Elijah Moore, Terrace Marshall, Tylin Wallace in 205, 206, 207. And then Jamar Jefferson went 211. That guy's after his pro day.

It shouldn't even be on the board or on your board. And then Tray Sermon went 301. Like I would much rather Tray Sermon in the third than, you know, as much as I might like Kenneth Gainwell's potential. Early second is way too early. Michael Carter, you know, he just, projects to be a committee guy to me. But I mean, you could read more about Michael Carter in my rookie model article. I also talk about Jared Patterson. I talk about Javian Hawkins,

Khalil Herbert, Ramandre Stevenson, Chuba Hubbard, Puka Williams. So you can read that article to get our full thoughts. This is just, you know, let's hit on the top guys for the folks at home who hate to read. I know there's a lot of you. And then in a few days, we'll be breaking down the wide receiver article. Wide receiver article is already up. And yeah, that's it for us today. Thanks for listening.

And Wes, we're going to be talking pro-day stuff after this podcast ends for, I'm sure, quite a while. It sounds good. I love talking about some athleticism. And, yeah, it definitely don't need to try to sell everybody on all of our guys. So, you know, it's more of just a situation where we just want to get value and we want to, you know, try to try to maximize the picks that we have. So we're definitely on the same team here with all these guys. And I just, I enjoy talking about, you know, athletes and their potential and upsides and things like that.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, raise you. and review on your favorite platform, and come join the roster at fantasypoints.com.