Fantasy Football Today - 2026 RB Tiers EXPLAINED! Rankings, Projections & Draft Strategy (07/14 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

We start with the latest news and notes (4:00), discuss how many running backs you should have drafted by the end of this episode (10:25), and hit some group stat discussions (12:04) before getting into the tiers. We break down the elite RB options, including the debate between Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson in Tier 1 (17:45), Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, and James Cook in Tier 2 (18:50), and the biggest concerns with De’Von Achane in Tier 3 (24:08). Then we dive into Josh Jacobs' value in Tier 4 (32:50), discuss Breece Hall and David Montgomery in Tier 5 (38:10), and look at Jeremiyah Love and D’Andre Swift expectations in Tier 6 (47:35). We also discuss why Jadarian Price lands in Tier 7 (59:31) and break down the Vikings and Commanders backfields in Tier 8 (1:06:40).Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcastsWatch FFT on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

This is fantasy football today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? It's a no idea. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races and he stays on his feet. It's just going to go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.

Back tears on Tuesday, July 14th. As we welcome you to fantasy football today. We'll talk about the best of the best, Bejan Robinson, Jermere Gibbs, but really go down the draft board and talk about, At what point are we talking about backup running backs? How many running backs do you want in the first five or six tiers, for example? Adam Aiser, Jamie Eisenberg and Heath Cummings, welcoming you to the show.

What did you guys learn about quarterbacks yesterday? Did you learn a lot? Did you have a nice educational session? Yes. It was great. Yeah. It's really, I was so mad last night because I had my FSGA. I'll talk about this a little bit later when you ask one of the running back questions.

but I had my FSGA Champions League draft last night. And I just totally didn't do the thing that I said I should because it was a 14-team draft, and I got to round five, and there was nobody I wanted to draft. And so I drafted Drake May. And then I hated myself seven rounds later because Jared Goff was still available in round 12 of a 14-team draft.

You did the right thing. Just wait. You did the right thing. You know what I was so happy about last night? What? And everybody needs to do it again. Wish Dave a happy birthday. Oh,

Oh, yeah. Yes. Oh, Thomas, do we have that picture that someone made? I think we could pull it up. Did you see that? It was pretty rude, really. Like, they made Dave look youthful and exuberant. They made Jamie and I look like 25 years older than we currently are.

Yeah, and me look like, well, accurately, the weakest person. I didn't even see you. Oh, here we go. Oh, yeah, you're really straining to lift up his calf. Jamie and I are just holding Dave like 90% of his weight, no problem at all. And Adam can barely lift up his shoe. Yeah. Happy 50.

Dave, Dave looks the same since the first day I met him. He looks the same in that picture, too. Yep, he sure does. All right, so Dave, turning 50 this month. Keep wishing him a happy 50th. But don't say it's from us. Yeah, I'll get blamed for it, apparently. Don't tag us.

If you did it already, don't do it again. So it just got to be new people. News and notes. Rams left tackle, Alarick Jackson will not face felony charges for domestic violence, but he still could face discipline from the NFL. All right, more importantly, well, no, sorry, shouldn't have said it like that. I guess more fantasy relevant.

Baker Mayfield played through a lot of injuries. He talked about it on the Netflix documentary. All right. So it was a sprained MCL and PCL and a bone bruise in his knee in week two. And then a bicep slash tendon injury in week three. And then he aggravated the bone bruise in week seven. And then Mayfield had an AC joint, which is a shoulder injury, in week 12. and his former teammate Levanti David said Mayfield had an oblique injury and he also mentioned other injuries.

He still somehow managed to rush for more than 22 yards per game for the second consecutive season. Mayfield's previous career high was 10.3 rushing yards per game before 2024. But Heath is someone who has been, I guess, low on Mayfield, a little wary of the bounce back here. What do you make of all this? this was, according to him, according to Levanti, David, a really, really injured year for him and he played through it, didn't miss a game. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a, if you want to bet on a Baker Mayfield bounce back, that gives you all the ammunition that you need. And you're not any more convinced. Oh, I'm bouncing, I'm betting on a little bit of a bounce back.

I don't think anybody should expect 2024 Baker Mayfield because that was the best season of his eight-year-old. career. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, fair enough. I am very intrigued about the rushing yards. I mean, that one thing I did not think he could repeat in 2025, and he did.

Pretty cool. Okay, Jamie, let's talk about a couple of players that, you know, the athletic said could have maybe bigger roles than we thought, just their beat writers. And I don't know that would make them necessarily fantasy relevant, but it could hurt guys that we like. So one of them, Daniel Popper, who covers the Chargers, thinks that Charlie Kohler is going to get more opportunities in the passing game than he did in Baltimore. This is a tight end Charlie Kohler rarely used in Baltimore, now with the Chargers.

And Josh Kendall of the Athletic, who covers the Falcons, thinks that rookie wide receiver Zachariah Branch will be top three in targets and maybe even second in targets. And I assume that right now we think it's going to be London Pitts-Bijon, certainly London one and then I don't know about Pitts v. Bejohn. But if Branch is top three in targets, maybe that hurts Kyle Pitts. Anyway, what do you think about the Kohler and Branch speculation? I'll start with Branch. I think he could be third on the team of targets.

It's not hard to see him getting 110, potentially, if they're going to be a little bit more pass-heavy. And Bejohn doesn't get to 109, I believe is what he had last year. So, like, you could see a little bit of a decline in targets for Bejohn Robinson, and especially if they maybe, you know, try to limit his touches a little bit as he's, you know, getting one year older and trying to see if they have a playoff run in them. So I can see that one being more realistic than the other one. I mean, Charlie Kohler being better than he ever has in his career, sure. I mean, you know, if he catches, you know, what is it, 25 passes maybe?

Like, that's something that's realistic. Is he going to impact everybody else on the team? I mean, I think once you get past the top two receivers, there's probably an opportunity for somebody to be third. I don't think anybody would say Charlie Kohler over Aranda Gadsden or David Nijoku or Trey Harris or O'Marion Hampton or Keaton Mitchell like you go down the line. So sure, if we see a lot more 13 personnel and more tight ends on the field, then he could be a factor to ruin the other guys, no chance. I mean, it's mostly just that we hope both of these guys are wrong. But, yeah, if, like, I was looking at the Kevin Stefansky thing, and he's,

Dave, I think, has talked about how tight-in targets and running-back targets often negatively impact each other. And it's been about a 27% target share for tight-ins and 16% for running backs in the Stepansky offense. So I would expect if Branch is third, and I hope he's not second, but if he's third, it might hurt Bijjean a little bit. Okay. We got a lot of other podcasts in case you want to keep listening to great podcasts or start listening to great podcasts. I'm going to show you if you're on YouTube. Go to CBSports.com slash podcast. Deep Waters.

This is, you know, fighting podcast. We'd go ultimate combat sports. MMA. Deep Waters, new podcast. Check it out. Call it what you want. Soccer podcast. We got fantasy baseball today.

The Early Edge, a daily sports line betting podcast. Ion College Basketball. some garbage here. Fantasy something, whatever. Fantasy football today, Dynasty, be on the box score inside college basketball now with the first pick, NFL draft podcast, pushing the pile with Kyle Long and Mike Renner. This is an NFL podcast with some great insight. Cover three for college football, attacking third, another soccer podcast, kicking it with Kate Scott, and you can see the rest of the list. You got to scroll back up, Keith. You need a little bit more of a description there, man.

Wow, that is, well, fantasy football today, Dynasty Podcast. That pretty much covers it all. That's a very... I'm surprised that they fit the Beyond the Box Score description in that little tiny talk. It's kind of fitting, really, if you think about it. Yes, it is. I was on Beyond the Box Court, and, like, Jacob had to stretch to get us to 20 minutes, but I would really...

We have wide receivers coming up tomorrow. We'll talk about some of the things that Jacob and I talked about, but we really spent 20 minutes on Zay Flowers, and I only got more excited. And Jacob and I will be talking about Jay McBride next week. We were going to do it yesterday, but we're going to do it next week.

All right, back to the running back tiers, or let's begin it here, with just one question. I had a bunch of questions about tiers yesterday with quarterbacks, but it's a little bit different with running backs here because you're drafting so many of them.

You should have at least two running backs by the time you finish which tier, Jamie? Five. Okay. I would say ideally six, but I mentioned last night I was in that 14 team draft, and I started with a Munra St. Brown at the eighth pick, followed by Rashi Rice in round two, followed by Zay Flowers at 36th overall. And so I had to go down into tier seven for my second running back.

But if you're able to draft three top 12 wide receivers, then maybe it's a little bit lower. Right. There are no rules, just guidelines, be flexible. Tier 5 for Jamie. He said you should have two by the time this tier is done. Javante Williams, Breeze Hall, Cam Scadaboo, Travis E.TNA, Chan, Quinchan, Judkins, Dandre Swift, Dandre Swift and David Montgomery. Tier 6 for Heath is similar names, some of them. Scadaboo, Swift, Judkins, Javante Williams, Travis E.T.N.A. Chan. And Jeremiah Love, who is... Are you going to say... say both of those last names throughout the entire season? I want to say E-TM because I think it's just, it's just so confusing, I think, for people. I mean, if I say Travis first, it's not. I used to say Alvin Kamira-Kamara, so I guess it kind of... Didn't somebody try to correct us and say it's E-chan and A-chan? No, it's not. He said A-chan.

He said A-chan. Didn't he at his press conference said exactly the same way that Devon A-chan says it. It used to be Devin A-Chane. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, once you get to, let's see, so that would be like, you know, 20, 22, 23-ish running backs. Try to have two of them. I was actually speaking of pronunciations. So I was a baseball tournament this past week. And for the championship games, which my son advanced to for West Boca Baseball and Mark Ingram's son advanced two for also West Boca Baseball, different teams. So I'm standing next to Mark and I was telling them a story that when I was in the Dolphins press box many years ago and they were trying to pronounce the Vikings in-house press box guy was trying to learn the pronunciations of the players and was trying to learn Adawale-Ogunlea's name to say it correctly for when he made a play and just was butchering it left and right. The Dolphins PR guy at the time was trying to correct him and I was just laughing my butt off. And I said to Mark, I'm like, do you ever have any struggles that?

He was like, this is the reason he's not in doing play by play. He said, he doesn't want to butcher names. Like, we should just come up. Like, we don't have to say it correctly for our purposes to people. Like, you just say Travis E. People know what you're talking about. I guess I could do that. But yeah, I think pronunciation, as someone who's had his name mispronounced

basically my entire life. When I graduated college, they said, Adam Scott, easier. And it really. Easier? Yeah. It's A-I-Z. How can be easier? us to write it out phonetically on a card.

And I don't remember what I wrote, but what I wrote confused her. So she said, but I just, I like to pronounce people's names right, if I can. What do you think they called my son's, what do you think they called my last name when they announced his name? It was Simon. Eisenberg? No. How could it be anything other than Eisenberg?

Ellsberg. The I was an L. Oh, that is going to tell you, this guy had the roughest day of his life trying to All right, let's get to some running back stuff. Here are some group chat stats. I'll just run through them here. Bejohn Robinson had only 11 touchdowns in 17 games. He still averaged 22 PPR fantasy points per game.

That is the fewest amount of touchdowns for a running back who averaged 20 or more points per game since Ezekiel Elliott in, I want to say, 2019. He had nine touchdowns in 15 games and averaged 22.1 points per game. So Bejohn Robinson, amazing season, and he only scored 11 total touch. touchdowns. Jamir Gibbs in seven games in his career without David Montgomery has averaged 28.6 ppr fantasy points per game. It's insane. James Cook led the NFL in rushing last year. That's, I think, fun trivia. I'm not sure how many people would have would guess that. No running back has won consecutive rushing titles since, of course, Derek Henry in 2019 and 2020. And speaking of Henry, over the last seven seasons, Derek Henry has been first or second in

rushing yards per game in six of the last seven seasons. He's amazing. He's been top three in total yards per game among running backs in five of the last seven seasons. He was seventh in total yards per game last year. So those are some group chat stats about some of the best running backs in football. Here is a dreadful email of the day. It is from Lance and Phoenix. He has another idea for breaking ties in overtime. At the end of overtime, kickers kick field goals from 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60 yards.

Team with the most field goals wins. How many ties have we had? What's that? What was this person's name? Lance. I just want to know what John's Brenner County. John Breach.

How many ties have we had in the last five years? We had one last year. They're pretty rare. We're solving a problem that isn't a problem. Yeah. Well, this is not the solution. love love the enthusiasm hate the call we'll be right back with running back tiers on fantasy football today you know jamy's been kind of asking like what should we do for dave for his 50th birthday

we could get him a new hamster that's true all right tier one is a two-player tier jimier gibbs and bjohn robinson for both jamie and heath i will ask one quick question and then we'll move on. Heath, would you argue, it's easy to argue it with Gibbs. Would you argue that both of these players, their situation has gotten better this year compared to 2025? Probably. I think Brian Robinson, Jr. is closer to Tyler Al Jir than Isaiah Pacheco is to David Montgomery. And I think there's some risk that the Stefansky offense means fewer targets for Bijon than he had in the offense last year, which was really geared. towards throwing to the running back. So I'm not as sure about Bejohn, which is why Gibbs is our consensus RB1, but probably.

Yeah, he had a career high target per route run rate. It could just come down. He had 103 targets, Bejohn Robinson. But I think we expect the touchdowns to go up again, only 11 touchdown, seven rushing, four receiving. Okay, that's tier one. Tier two is slightly different. James Cook is in tier two for Jamie,

but not for Heath. It's Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey for both of them. And Jamie, you have James Cook joining Taylor and McCaffrey on Tier 2, whereas Heath does not have Cook in Tier 2. He has Cook in Tier 3 with Devon A-Chann. Why did you put Cook in with Taylor and McCaffrey, Jamie? These are all my first round running backs. So I think all these guys belong in round one, Gibbs and Bijon being the first two overall picks for me. And then Taylor, McCaffrey, Cook, whatever order you think they should go.

I think they should go in their first round. and would not be surprised if by the time we get to August, I have Cook ahead of both of those guys. I just think that there's so much upside for him if he does get a little bit more involved in the passing game, which is something you're hearing a little bit out of Buffalo. And Heath, you have just McCaffrey and Taylor. Your next tier has Cook and A-chan.

I tried to do mine, just kind of so they'd be a little bit different. The first five or six tiers don't have as much to do with my rankings as they do with my projections. just to kind of highlight where those big breaks are in the projections. And Taylor was three and a half points per game better than James Cook in Cook's career year. And Taylor's pretty much always been a couple points better per game than James Cook. And he's two and a half points higher in the projections this year than James Cook. So Taylor and McCaffrey, like, they're not safe.

And Taylor could see his workload come down or he could have another one of those years where he doesn't get the ball thrown to him as much. or Daniel Jones could go back to being Daniel Jones, but just looking at a mean projection, there's a big gap between McCaffrey and Taylor and James Cook. Taylor was the number one running back per game in non-PPR, number two per game and half-pr, and Taylor was number four per game in full PPR. But they were really like five elite running backs last year,

and that was McCaffrey, B. John Gibbs, Taylor, and A-chan, all averaging more than 20 PPR fantasy points. points per game. Jake Sealy gave an interesting stat on Thursday's show with Dave. He said that Taylor averaged 30 fantasy, I hope I'm not misquoting him. If I have the number slightly wrong, the concept is the same. 30 fantasy points per game and wins, 10 points per game in losses. And they were identical, basically, whether it was Daniel Jones, the quarterback or

whoever else, Philip Rivers, whatever they were using at the end of the year. And then I even went back to 2024. In 2024, Taylor averaged 22.6 points per game in wins and 13.7 in losses. So I don't know what to me. They're not going to go 0 in 17. They're not going to go 17 and no. They're not going to go 17 and no. But it is two years in a row pretty big splits.

I feel like that's a little fluky. And it's also a little bit of like a chicken and egg thing because when he has good games, they're more likely to win. but he's what do you make it that? Like looking at their schedule, it doesn't scream hard at all. I'm not saying it's necessarily one of the easiest schedules. They do have both the Titans and the Browns

in the fantasy playoffs. They also get to play the Giants and the Colts and the Titans again and the Steelers and the commanders. They've got, they're probably a 10-win team as we look at them right now. And so if I just kind of expect maybe you're going to get 10 games where he's at 24 points plus and seven where he really struggles. I think that the two big things for them is one, will Daniel Don't stay healthy the entire ear? And two, you kind of alluded to this Adam, will he be more involved in the passing game?

Because this is really the first time you could see an easy path to that happening. Well, he had 46 catch. Taylor had 46 catches last. year, which I think is great. I mean, I used to... Irreplicable. I think so. He's been on pay...

I azur stat the hell out of Jonathan Taylor. Good. I use only his lead back games. Take out his injured games, take out that weird stretch where Zach Moss was kind of splitting with him because Taylor had the holdout and the injury. And I think in three or four of his seven seasons, I want to say,

he's been on pace for over 40 catches. So he's a guy that actually plays on third. third down. He's not like a Derek Henry. He's not like a James Cook that come off the field. He doesn't always play on third down, but he'll get some of the reps there. He can see. He's, he's shown he can be a 40 plus catch guy. I absolutely think he belongs in the first round, because if you're worried about that win-loss split, he's, they went eight and nine last year. And he was R.B4. So, you know, I had a really tough decision last night between him and Ross, St. Brown and Jonathan Taylor.

Is PPR? It was PPR. So I took St. Brown. Yeah. But it was very close. I think you should have. All right. I think you had a great, great draft, Heath, great tracks. So, um, my RB2 is.

We'll find out eventually. All right. So tier two again, Taylor and McCaffrey for both of you, James Cook for Jamie. Let's go to tier three now, which has James Cook and Devon A. Chan for Heath. And Jamie has a seven-man tier of Devon A-chan.

And then Chase Brown, Kenneth Walker, Hampton, Genty, Barkley, Derek Henry. First thing to note, Gentie on fantasy pros is RB4, I believe.

He's going eighth or ninth overall. He went fourth overall in the draft I did last week. Oh, wow, Genty. We're definitely lower on him than most. But as we look at this tier for Heath, James Cook, we already discussed. A-chan is in tier three for Heath,

but obviously it's a two-person tier. So I think the question, Jamie, why do you have A-chan, who was one of those five elites last year, in a tier with Chase Brown, Kenneth Walker, Marion Hampton, Ashton, Jentie, Sequin, Barclay, and Derek Henry? So these are all my round two running backs, and I think you kind of know the theme already for A-chan, if you've been listening to us for the majority of the offseason. The dolphins could clearly be terrible. That does not mean he's going to completely fall off because I think he'll probably be the entire offense or the majority of the offense and hopefully still be involved. the passing game, but I think, again, we kind of expect, I expect his role in the passing game to decrease a little bit. I don't think he's going to score many touchdowns based on the win totals for the dolphins, what Vegas is telling us, and certainly what the personnel suggests.

So when you have a quarterback like Malik Willis was probably going to look to run a lot more than Tuotungalwa did when you have a different coordinator and different play caller, and we saw that at the end of last season when they switch quarterbacks with A. Chan, that is just targets and opportunities went down a little bit in the passing game. So I think he'll be good. I just don't think it'll be great. I certainly don't think he'll be elite. I would still take him in round two. I just would not take him in round one. And Heath, I think it's so interesting the way you break up that seven-person tier for Jamie. Obviously, you have A. Chan as your favorite. But Chase Brown, Derek Henry, Seguan Barkley are in tier four for you. And Hampton and Gentie are in tier

five for you. And I think that's, oh, and Ken Walker, where's Walker? Oh, also tier five. So basically, you look at Jamie's tier, you have A Chan ahead of the pack, and then you have Chase Brown, Derek Henry, Sequan, Barclay, and Josh Jacobs, we'll get to him in a bit. And then you have Hampton, Genty, and Walker lower than Brown, Barclay, and Henry. So talk about that.

Yeah, I mean, I've said it before, and, like, Jamie, I think, has focused maybe a little bit more on the negative with A. Chan. I'm just kind of terrified to be too high or too low on him, because as bad as the offensive environment in Miami might be this year, they were like 25th in yards, 26th, and points, and 31st in plays run last year. It was a pretty terrible offensive environment, and he averaged over 20 fantasy points per game.

I hate Malik Willis's history of throwing to his running backs. Also, Malik Willis has nobody else to throw the football to. And so I have a hard time discounting A. Chan too much. Basically, to put him in the James Cook range, I've kind of discounted him 10%, because he was about 10% better than James Cook was last year. And then I probably didn't totally stick to my projections only by not including Barclay, Henry, and Jacobs, because they are pretty close to James Cook and the projections behind him for sure. But they have, in my opinion, far more risk than James Cook does. Are you showing a little hesitation with Gentie and Hampton, who you have in your fifth tier with Breece Hall, Kenneth Walker, and Kyron Williams?

I mean, I think just seeing, and you don't have to show it yet, Thomas. We'll get to it. I'm sorry for jumping around. But I think if people just saw your fifth tier of Hampton, Gentie, Breece Hall, Walker, and Kyron, they might say, a wire those three Hampton, Gentie and Walker in Jamie's third tier, mixed in with Kyron and Breeze Hall. but are you just showing a little hesitation with those guys who have never,

who have never done it before, right? Like Barclay and Henry have done it, but Hampton, Gentie, and Walker have never actually performed like a second round pick. I think it's kind of like what I said about Baker Mayfield, where I said, yes, I am projecting him to bounce back, but not all the way back to 2024. I am projecting Hampton, Gentie, and Walker to be better than they have ever been before, right around 15 fantasy points per game.

but I'm not projecting quite as big of a leap as not just Jamie, but for those three guys, a large part, I think I'm lower than the industry on those guys. And I mean, we know how this works. What probably is going to happen is that one of the three is going to make the leap that Jamie is expecting. One of the three is going to be somewhere in between and one of the three I'm going to be right about. But those three are kind of the guys that it seems like most people are expecting to do something outstanding that they have never done before.

I'm expecting them to have career years, but not take quite as big of leap. And then, Jamie, how do you balance that with Walker, Hampton, and Gentie? Walker's best finish was RB12 per game in PPR, but that was a year where he had a ton of catches, which he hardly ever does. But Walker, Hampton, Genty,

let's just say they're clearly less proven than Barclay and Henry. Chase Brown, I understand why you have Chase Brown in this tier, you know, we talk a lot about him. But just comparing the three guys who have to take the next step to the older guys who have, you know, been 2,000-yard rushers, how do you compare those two sides? Walker is kind of the wild card here, I think, just because we don't know exactly how he's going to be used, changing teams.

I mean, everything, according to the reports, this offseason have been fantastic. You know, the fact that they like the way that he's being involved in the passing. game, at least according to reports. His uses in the passing game, surprising them a little bit, I guess, has his past catching ability. So that, to me, is kind of the wild card on top of the wild card, you know, kind of what, like, what is he going to do as a pass catcher? But you look at this team, and 32nd in rushing last year, they invest all of this capital to be a better running team on top of the fact that arguably is still the best quarterback in the NFL,

top three by the ESPN rankings that just came out, even coming off an ACL tear. But Patrick Holmes is coming off an ACL tear. And you look at the weapons in the passing game, and there's so much volatility there, it feels as if you look at Andy Reed's history, and with the Chiefs, it's been sort of pockets of success of these guys being good running backs.

But in Philadelphia, he got amazing production out of his running backs. And Walker's coming off this postseason run, where, yes, he struggled a little. little bit at times or struggled in relative terms struggled to produce at a high end level. Like you said, RB12 was best finished. But if you look at what he did in the postseason, you know, he was producing better than McCaffrey was last year. And so can we get somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 plus points?

I think you can in this offense. So that's what I'm banking on with him. With Hampton, it's really just the McDaniel factor and the tackles being healthy. And I think, you know, you look at what he did at times last year, pre-foot injury, post-foot injury involved in the passing game, not involved in the passing game. really it's can he just stay on the field for all three downs and not have a Keaton Mitchell potential problem, which I think a lot of people are sort of forecasting if you're anti-aumarion Hampton. For Genti, I get the upside.

Look, he's, you know, prospect-wise, one of the best running backs coming into the league. And you look at what he did at times last year, you know, there was the, I think Bill Barnwell had the tweet yesterday or post on X about comparing him to Trent Richardson, which was disgusting. But he did? I don't think that's fair to say. What was that? He just chose his stats. I don't remember what year it was for Richardson, but it was gross. But, you know, then the pro-Gentee people were pointing out, well, yeah, look what he did against the Texan defense, for example.

You know, when he had 188 total yards and two total touchdowns. So you get Linderbaum, you get a healthy Colton Miller, you get hopefully better quarterback play, certainly better coaching, at least on paper. Like the Ashton Genti rocket emojis could be well worth it. So I get the chance, I get the idea of taking a chance on all three of those guys. For me, they're more round two picks, early round two picks. But I would not take any of them in round one as of now. All right. Let's take a look at the next tier here, tier four for these guys.

Jamie has Josh Jacobs and so does Heath. Kieran Williams and Jeremiah Love. But we're at, Jamie, are these round three running backs for you? These are round three. Yes. After this, I believe, is where I start to group the rounds. but I just feel like when you look at the top 15, 16 guys, those are all players that I think we see go in the first three rounds.

All right. So again, for Jamie the round, sorry, Heath, Jacobs, Kyron Williams and Jeremiah Love are the tier four running backs for Jamie. Those are the guys who'll take in round three. For Heath, it's guys that you're going to see in round two for the most part. Unclear what Josh Jacobs' ADP will end up being. Where did he go last night? Do you remember Heath in your draft?

I do not. before I had a chance to take him in round four. I'm relatively certain about that. Also, just to protect everyone, do not, under any circumstances, go look at Trent Richardson's rookie year compared Ashton Gentis. Do not. Why? Don't.

I mean, I think you have to now. I mean, it's just how do you know? So Richardson had, what, four? three fewer touches and four fewer yards and two more touchdowns and 13 more fantasy points in two fewer games

and they average 3.6 and 3.7 yards per carry and Richardson averaged 7.2 yards per catch to 6.3 for Gentie. So I'm sorry. If Jentie ends up not being that good the next time an elite prospect

skips the combine, I'm throwing up major red flags because Harrison didn't run the 40 and he might skip the combine entirely. And Genti didn't do anything. And I just, you know, for Harrison, I think he knew what he was doing. I think if he would go to the combine,

there's no chance he would have been taken ahead of Malik neighbors. Anyway, Heath's tier four is Chase Brown, Derek Henry, Sequin Barclay and Josh Jacobs. These are basically the 16 fantasy point per game running backs in my projections. If there was no risk, then they would be borderline first round picks like Chase Brown is. And then you just, I think, have to assess the risk of Henry, Barclay and Jacobs yourself.

I may have Jacobs second on this group if it turns out that he's not going to face any sort of punishment. 16 to me, just when you say it, it sounds low, but it definitely is not. Chase Brown actually averaged 16.5 points per game last year. He has shown he can be over 20 in the right circumstances. Henry had one of his worst years in his last seven, and he averaged 16.8 PPR points per game, but he was RB7 per game. So last year, 16 points per game would have made you top 10. You know, 16.8 would have made you seventh per game.

and we're further than that in the, you know, in the ranking so far. So 16 points per game is pretty good. Barclay had a bad year last year. He averaged 14.5 points per game, which is also what Ashton Genti averaged. All right. So, you know, look, a lot of it's the same names. We'd have to go through tier four for Heath looks a lot like tier three for Jamie with Henry and Barkley in there.

But Jacobs, Heath has maybe a little higher on Jacobs than Jamie. I don't know, but split in here. So let's go to the next, let's go to tier five. here. Actually, let's go to break. Yeah, let's go to break. Love breaks. All right, we'll be right back after this awesome break on fantasy football today, and then we'll get to Tier 5. Welcome back, folks. All right, Tier 5 at Running Back. So, we're all over the place now. We have eventually reached the point where Adam gets super frustrated because he doesn't understand why these don't match up. No, you understand, though. You have more tears. You just have more tears than Jamie.

I'm just trying to show where the big breaks and projections are. It may have made your life worse, which is kind of a nice added benefit. Yeah, I think so. So you have Hampton, Gentie, Breeze Hall, Kenneth Walker, and Kyron Williams in Tier 5. Jamie's at the 14 to 15. 14 to 15 points per game, okay, in full PPR. Jamie, what do you think about Hall and Kyron being in the same tier as Hampton, Genty, and Walker? he's got that potential i mean obviously you know and if you're buying the jets offense being better which

it should be and you're counting on brees hall being you know uh healthy for a full season and and hopefully hopefully hopefully you know not what erin glenn wanted to show us last year and still saying this year about using braylin allen and potentially Isaiah davis you know i don't think that's something to necessarily be worried about it's really more like can he get back to being involved in the passing game with all the new additions that they added? And can he be the best version of himself or close to the best version of himself, which we've seen at times, not so much last year. So I think Breece Hall, I would rather have Gentie Walker and Kyron over Breeze Hall.

But look, Breeze Hall most likely. So I mentioned the previous tier for me, tier four were the running backs. I was taking in round three. That's me. So that's Jacobs, Kyron, and Jeremiah Love. those guys are early to mid-round three, I certainly can get on board with if you wanted to take Briseall late round three, early round four. But these are guys that are basically picks 35 plus for me. And so I kind of lumped in the running backs I have, for the most part, ranked in rounds four

and five in this tier, which is where I think Brise Hall belongs, early round four. And I think, Adam, it might be helpful to the people looking at the graphics if you just said, and I can look it up if you don't want to. How many running backs Jamie had in the first four tiers versus how many I had in the first four tiers? Because somebody said they was really shocked that I had like second round running backs in tier five. I had four, six, ten running backs

in my first four tiers. So a couple of these guys are top 12 running backs for me. Are the tiers about to get bigger for you? they are yeah like tier six and seven are are bigger for you but we look at jamie's tier five right and these are the these are like the rb twos and javanti williams bris hall bris hall the one guy that kind of stands out is heath having him in a tier with hampton gentie and kairn and kenneth walk kynne and jami having him in this tier of the less exciting guys but the really good rbivante williams bris hall cam scadaboo Travis et n n and

Quinshon Judkins, DeAndre Swift, and David Montgomery. Did you give any thought, Jamie, of not including Montgomery in there or anybody? Within this tier, did you think about splitting it up more, or you think they're all the same, basically? Javante, Brise Hall, Scataboo, E.T.N., Judkins, DeAndre Swift, Montgomery. Montgomery certainly toes the line of, you know, which tier he belongs in. And it depends on how you feel about Montgomery. I think, you know, again, for me, it was a little bit of a slow process and coming around on what he could do in Houston. And so, again, following mini camp and some of the offseason reports about he's the guy, he's going to be the guy.

We'll see what role, Woody Marks plays. That obviously has to play itself out as we get to camp and, you know, the early part of the season. So you want to make sure you're making the right choice in selecting him. But I do think that if he does step into that. role. He's not going to be Joe Mixon because I don't think his passing game profile is the same as Joe Mixins or at least Joe Mixon's history when he went there. But I do think that Montgomery can still be a potential 10 touchdown guy. I think he can rush for 11, 1,200 yards and certainly have enough of a role in the passing game that he's still going to be successful. So looking at it where if he's

not going to share so much and, you know, again, whatever they think of what he marks will sort of see, he belongs in the round five range for me, which is where, again, these guys are being drafted. So this is where I start to tail off a little bit in the running back rankings by comparison to the receiver and their quarterbacks and tight ends come into play. And so it's really like I push up the first four tiers in the first three rounds,

and then it's more of a trickle-down effect of late round three to really the end of round five with these guys. Heath, any thoughts on Javante, Breeze Hall, Scadaboo, Etienne, Judkins, Swift, Montgomery. I think you will see all of these guys except for Montgomery in my next tier. And I'm just, I think that the passing game thing, I'm probably a little bit more optimistic about Woody Mark's role doing that. And I'm a little bit concerned about a 29-year-old running back who hasn't had the feature role suddenly filling that. Cool. Let's go to the next tier then. Tier six. By the way, if you're watching,

on YouTube. I don't know what happened to my camera. I'm sorry about that, but you will just be getting my soothing vocals from my line. Many people are saying this is the best looking FFT on YouTube we've had in a long time. Yes, I could not agree more. But that actually sounds like an insult to Dave. So I could agree more. I disagree. Dave should be here for that. All right. Bucky Irving, Bejiel Tootin, Chuba Hubbard, Tony Pollard, and Trevionn Henderson for Jamie, and Scataboo. Swift, Judkins, Giovante, E.T.N. and Jeremiah Love for Heath. So I think you can kind of see that because Heath has more tiers, now we're at the point where Jamie's like kind of one tier ahead of Heath, or I guess, I'm guessing tier seven's going to look a lot like Jamie's tier six.

Kind of like what I said with Montgomery in the last tier. Every one of the guys in Jamie's tier six are in my tier seven except for Chuba Hubbard. Except for Chuba. Wow. All right. Back to Jamie's list in a minute. I know if you're listening, there's a lot of names here. But Heath's list is Scadaboo, Swift, Judkins, Giovante Williams, Travis E.T.N. with all, like the, you know, these guys as our RB2s. If you go wide receiver, tight end with your first three picks, maybe they're your RB1, that's fine. But Jeremiah Love being in this group, let's talk about that. I have not had the nerve to draft him yet because I just, I want a little clarity in training camp, but where you at right now on

Jeremiah Love, a little lower than Jamie, based on tears. I think that, like, I'm not as low when it comes to ranking because I've got some FOMO with Jeremiah Love. So I've got him ranked as a round three back, but just looking at the projections in this offense that I think is going to be pretty bad. And we still think Trey McBride's going to earn at least a 25% target share, which could cut into some. And we've got Marvin Harrison and Michael Wilson at wide receiver. So I have a hard time projecting a lot of targets for Jeremiah. I love. I think he's really good at that, but just the way this offense is set up. And then I don't, I really hope that James Connor and Tyler Algear don't matter at all. But it kind of seems like

they might matter a little bit. Okay. So then unless you guys have anything else you want to say about Scataboo, Swift, Judkins, Javante, E.T.N. in love. I think, I guess I would say that love, obviously you just talked about the split there, but Swift might be the odd man out in terms of workload compared to Scataboo, Judkins, Javante, and E.T.N. Is that fair to say? There's certainly the risk for it. You know, if what we got from week seven on is the norm,

then there's going to be some weeks where DeAndre Swift is very frustrating and maybe a stretch of games where he's frustrating, where we're looking at a potential trapback if he's not scoring touchdowns or being involved in the passing game or both. There's also the potential of he's still the best running back on his team, and Ben Johnson decides that he's going to continue to lean on him in important situations. But last year it was kind of, okay, when did their success start to happen? Well, I think it was when both guys were, you know, getting opportunities,

and I think that's going to continue. So if you were to say at any point that you knew there was going to be a stretch of games where Kyle Monongai is out, I think D'Andre Swift has top 10 upside. but we just can't go into that thinking that you think top five yes was it week seven when that started because I was trying to get what

his pace was after the oh I have it it was um I'm sorry I have it somewhere we just did this last week when we were talking about quorum and

and mananga I said it was a spider man meme because it was week seven for both yeah his last 11 games for DeAndre Swift, he average 13.9 ppr fantasy points per game, which is good. It's not great. And it's would have made him RB 18 for a full season. And by the way, that excludes week nine. He missed that game. So I'm just looking at the splits when they were both healthy for the last 11 games. And if I tell you 13.9, who do you have projected for more than 14 fantasy points? Do you

have Scataboo for more than 14? I mean, this is right about the 13 to 14 point range. I said the last group was the 14 to 15 point range. So that sounds about right. I was looking at just touches. He was at 15.6 touches per game in those last 11 games, which is about 260, 265 touches. The average 17 touches per game in the two playoff games. So I don't really know if you're telling me 270 touches, I'm not confident that's going to be a big outlife.

amongst this group. Yeah. I think that's fair. What it really comes down to is how do the bears pass a lot more and how much are they able to stay in that run-heavy system? They run a lot of plays. That's the way they get around it. It's the way they make everything work.

I think Jamie's Tier 6 is where it starts to get really kind of tough for me anyway. Yeah. You know, with some exceptions like Jeremiah Love, I feel like I know what to expect from most of the guys in the top 20. But we get to this tier of Bucky Irving, Bachel Tutin, Chuba Hubbard, who Heath is not going to, you know, group with these other guys, Tony Pollard and Travion Henderson.

Bucky Irving, Basil Tudin, Chuba Hubbard, Tony Pollard, and Trayvion Henderson. Jamie, what's the theme with those five running backs? Uncertainty. You know, Bucky is, could be amazing. But as we saw, you know, second half of last year after he came back from the injury and still, you know, I think he's healthy, but still, you know, you got to factor in potentially fighting through a shoulder injury.

Kenneth Gainwell is going to potentially steal passing down's work and Sean Tucker potentially stealing goal line opportunities, which happened last year. So, you know, could be the true definition of a trapback. Basial Tutin's in a competition with Chris Rodriguez, obviously unproven as his in his rookie campaign, but huge opportunity. Tuba Hubbard has the Jonathan Brooks factor to deal with, and we'll see how that matters. Tony Pollard, new coaching staff plus Tadze Spears and potentially Singleton. So that's something you got a factor. Trevionn Henderson, you know, somebody put in the chat, you know, Chuba and Pollard, I think it was ahead of Henderson.

No way. Look, man, we're all rooting for Trevionandh Henderson to be the guy. I think that's obvious. We'd love to see him be the featured running back for New England. But as we saw last year, it was a lot of plays, a lot of snaps, a lot of everything for Ramandre Stevenson, and a lot of nothing for Trevion Henderson when Stevenson was healthy in their playoff push and the second half of the season.

So I think it's just looking at it, as this is the group that I think could change a little bit in terms of like Henderson can take a huge leap forward if we're getting a lot of positive reports for what his role could be in this upcoming season. Hubbard could take a huge step backwards if Jonathan Brooks is fully healthy. I think in the case of, you know, just to touch on Jeremiah Love for a second, I'm so hopeful, you know, Heath mentioned Alger and Connor not mad. I wish they would just trade James Connor and allow him to be maybe a clear cut number two somewhere. and then allow Jeremiah Love and Tyler Alger to be that tandem. In that case, I think we would feel a lot better about Jeremiah Love, and he maybe get pushed up into round two if that's the case.

So James Connor is really the wild card in the Cardinals backfield and maybe somewhere else, you know, where he can like go to Denver and be the backup to Giovante Williams. Go to Jacksonville and maybe challenge to be the starter there, like anywhere but Arizona right now to allow Jeremiah Love to be the guy. I think when you look at this group of Irving Tutton, Hubbard, Pollard, and Henderson, unlike the guys before them, I mean, you're drafting the guys before them based on their week one outlook.

I think with this group, you have to speculate. You have to start playing out in your mind how you think the season is going to go. Do you think Bejel Tootin is just going to eventually take over that job, you know, and maybe he starts the season splitting with Rodriguez, but he's just so good that he, you know, earns a bigger share. Do you think Chuba Hubbard fends off Jonathan Brooks? Heath is pretty worried about that and thinks Brooks, you know, could just supplant Chuba Hubbard. Tony Pollard, I mean, Tony Pollard is the lead, the lead, the lead, Spears is the third down guy. Pollard's definitely going to lead the team and carries. I'd be shocked. He'd have to stink, I think, for that not to happen.

Henderson, you've got to play that out in so many ways, right? You've got to really wonder what's going to happen there. Can you highlight Andy's comment? Because I think it hits it right on that exactly what it is. This is the grouping where depending on roster construction, if you need floor or home run. Yeah. You agree with you obviously agree with that, Jamie. Yeah, for sure. Do we all agree that Tony Pollard is the floor?

Pollard and Hubbard are the floor plays, and I think the other three guys are home run plays. Not sure I agree with you on Hubbard, and I'll tell you, well, I just feel like the way you phrased it might be selling his upside short a little bit. because what if Jonathan Brooks, a guy who was so unproven coming into the NFL and is coming off two torn ACLs, is just not a factor at all? You know, what if he's just not that good, not that effective? Then Chuba Hubbard is, I don't think he's a very good running back. I think he's pretty average. But then we're talking about a guy who gets so many touches that he's probably going to stand out in this group. But I also do think that if Brooks is a factor, I don't think Hubbard disappears.

I don't think it's Jonathan Brooks is getting, what do you say, 275 for DeAndre Swift? I don't even think that that's the case. Like I think we're talking about maybe 200 total touches for Jonathan Brooks. Like they're not just going to throw everything on him because of what he's coming off of. Oh, no, but I'm saying what if he gets, you know, 100 touches? No, no, I know. You're going the opposite direction in the case of Hubbard. But I think you obviously have to factor in, you know, you're talking about the week one outcomes.

Like I think you have to factor in that Jonathan Brooks is there. And I think if Brooks struggles like this is another team that. can go looking. It may not be the Connor, Alvin Kamara type of running back, you know, just an aging veteran that makes sense leaving his team. It could be, you know, Isaac Arendo, like somebody like that, who can still go in there and be that number two guy, you know,

someone that's potentially off their roster because of their, you know, just role or circumstance. I watched a lot of Bucky Irving tape last week or a couple weeks ago, and I got to tell you, he was unbelievable as a receiver. He made some phenomenal

plays, and since coming into the league, 75 running backs with 30 or more targets over the last two seasons. Bucky Irving is seventh in yards per outrun, 19th in yards per catch, six in yards per target. He has eight catches of 20 or more yards, which is the sixth most among running backs the last two years. And now they have Kenneth Gainwell.

And so I hope they continue to throw to Bucky Irving, but he is super tricky. He just logically doesn't make sense. To do what? To throw him the ball as much because of Gainwell. Like Gainwell's coming off a 75 catch season. Like, yeah, it's first and second down catches. You know, you figure Gainwell is going to be the third down back.

Is Baker going to throw to Bucky on first and second down? I would also point out that, you know, when I was watching the tape, I just thought, man, this old line looks terrible. And then I go check PFF. I go check ESPN. They had them 25th and 27th, respectively, and run blocking, way down from 2024. So I think their center missed all but two games. We're at start of the year on IR or Pup, whatever it was. I think the blocking could be better this year.

Let's go to our next tier, tier seven. Mega tier. Whoa. What round are we moving? You know, first question, Jamie, how come you have Judarian Price in this group with Jalen Warren, Ramandre Stevenson, Dowdell, Dobbins, the commanders guys,

Ramandre, R.J. Harvey. Gerardian Price is here instead of with Chuba Hubbard and Bucky Irving and Trayvion Henderson, et cetera. Yeah, he was easily in that tier and headed a lot of those guys following the draft, but then you're just hearing everything out of minicamp and just the potential role for him, plus the fact that you have now the possibility of Zach Charbonnet being ready earlier in the season or even playing it all, whereas following the NFL draft, we thought that might not be the case.

So if they're not going to make price a, I don't want to say workhorse, because I don't think that was ever in his profile right away. But if they're going to use George Hollani, they're going to use, Emmanuel Wilson, they're going to use Charbonnet at some point, then it just gets messy. So for me, it's more of the questionable, even more questionable guys. But yeah, you can make the case that he belongs in that previous tier for sure. I mean, there's still so much upside for a team that will likely continue to have a similar type of philosophy. Again, changing coordinators, you never know how that's going to go.

But still a defensive-minded head coach, still a first-round running back. I think just that if you take away the draft capital, and we've talked about this time and time again, in terms of what late first round running backs have done, just because their first round picks do not necessarily mean that they're going to have success or immediate success or ever be successful. I think just in the case of Price, for me, it's more draft rounds is how I'm approaching this,

and Price is not worth drafting in the first six rounds. All right, I'm going to do my best for the audio people out there. Tier 7 for Jamie is, how about this? Who are the guys that you both? have into your seven jadarian price is this is the this is the the the friendship tier because jamie has both steelers both commanders both broncos i have both patriots um both broncos and both steelers yeah um so yeah this is this is the uh the friendship tier so i think we both have jadarian price we both have jaylon warren we both have remandre stevenson we both have rico dowdo we both

have Jay Dabins. We both have, I think Remandre Stevenson might be in here three times. We both have RJ Harvey. So that's kind of how it breaks down. Remandre Stevenson, yes. Yeah, we've pretty much caught up in terms of rankings at this point.

He has this mega tier for tier seven. But he does have David Montgomery here. So I guess you're a little lower on Montgomery. You talked about that. And you're a little lower on Bucky Irving, I guess. And I'm a little lower on Paul. This is, this is Jamie's tier six and tier seven in my tier seven, basically. And the thing is in rankings, you're not lower on Irving.

Jamie and Dave have him 23rd and you have him 24th. So am I just, so help me kind of reconcile here. I think when we got to tier five and I said I only had 10 players in my first four tiers, that pretty much reconciles it. Yeah, but. Okay. had Bucky Irving grouped in a tier with Tuton, Hubbard, Pollard, and Henderson. So do I.

All of those got... Is that similar to you? Except for Hubbard. Okay. So you're pretty much the same on Bucky. Yeah. And then Hubbard is the guy you just don't see I'd like him as much. Right.

It's specifically because you think Jonathan Brooks is going to... Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't really believe that Chuba Hubbard... is like has the the like maybe he could sneak into the top 15 to 18 but I think he has a bigger risk at just not being like I think Dobbins and Harvey are probably both when they're both healthy both going to be flexworthy I think Dowdle and Warren are probably both going to be flexworthy Raman Dre and Trevion both going to like those guys are and I am a little bit afraid not that Jonathan Brooks has 275 touches,

but there comes a point in this season where they're like, you know what, Chuba Hubbard is like 10 touches per game, and it's not that efficient, and we just don't want to ever start him anywhere. See, I think I'm more in line with you, Adam, where like if Jonathan Brooks is not anything, Chuba could be a great fantasy running back.

Yeah, he was a top 10 running back on a pro game basis two years ago from week three on weeks one and two he didn't really have the job then they gave him the job and he was actually had a very good year and you look at his yards per carry you never know what you're going to get from tuba hubbard you could get 3.8 could get 4.6 or whatever but um it's hard at this point in the draft to find a guy who could just dominate his backfield but obviously the potential exists for him to not even be the lead running back so right and i think there's two there's two examples of that one 2024 when he was doing what he was doing and then they decided, hey, let's give him this ridiculous contract extension, despite the fact that they had drafted Brooks and they gave him the contract extension, but I believe before Brooks was injured.

And then they go out and they give, they sign Rico Dowdle, who we kind of thought was, oh, this was a weird signing because he was coming off this successful run in Dallas. And then all of a sudden, Rico Dowdle does what he does for them with the two 200 yard games. So it's a little bit of a mystery in terms of what Chuba will do. I sort of look at what the offseason moves have told us, and I've said this time and time again, is the lack of, of bringing in anyone of significance, a telltale sign of they believe in Chuba Hubbard, or is it a telltale sign of they believe in Jonathan Brooks, or both, that they think that this tandem is just going to work that well.

So I'm willing to take the chance on Chuba round six-ish. I prefer to get in round seven or later, but it kind of just the way the board falls. All right. So again, this is a tier where we have the Patriots guys, the Jamie has Trayvian Henderson a little bit higher than this, but Patriots guys, the Steelers guys, The commanders guys for Jamie, not for Heath.

Did I say the Broncos guys? You didn't. They're in here as well. Judarian Price is in this tier, which is noteworthy because he has moved down a little bit since draft night. I guess I would say looking at these names, I typically don't draft two of them. Now, I personally think David Montgomery would not be in this tier for me,

so I might have him and someone else. but I and maybe Bucky Irving too but I don't know for most of these names I probably wouldn't have two of them you guys agree with that or no no I think it depends on what your roster build is

I prefer not to have two of them you know I think this is you know the type of tier you take a chance on one of them you know whether you think it's hey let me get one of the Steelers guys because I think they could be great or one of the Broncos guys or commanders guys whatever you want to you know break them up

but you know if you go hero RB or zero RB, I mean, like, these are great options to take chances on because if one or two of them do become the featured guy for whatever stretch of games they are, those could certainly fill out your roster and make you a very formidable team. Yeah, you're pretty much never going to see me doing zero RB. So, it's so like. Right, but if you go here RB, I mean, these are guys that, you know, still going to have, I don't want to target, but you almost have to target them. Yeah, you can certainly get away with it. You just take some chances, and injuries are a big determining factor in fantasy football, right?

So if you draft some guys, it could be amazing if there's an injury, then sometimes that's just how you win. A few years ago, I remember doing a zero-r-b draft, and none of the guys that I needed to get injured got injured, and my running backs were terrible. So it's, you know, it's a crapshoot, I guess. All right, we have time for Tier 8. Is it our last tier? Tier 8. Jordan Mason, really interesting player, because are we under the assumption that he,

is going to be the lead back, Jamie. So you have Mason, Kenneth Gainwell, Jonathan Brooks, and then you've got Menongai and Coram, who are the same exact person. Mason, Gainwell, Brooks, Menongai, and Corum. Heath has Mason and Aaron Jones here. He has Jonathan Brooks and Chuba Hubbard here. You have Kenneth Gainwell here as well.

And you have Menangai. But not Corum. How could you possibly, Heath? I will come back to Jordan Mason in a second, but my head is exploding. How could you have Menangai in one tier and not Corum? I see just a slight edge for Monongai in the 1B that's almost a 50-50 split. I think Monongi is going to be just a little bit closer to 50-50 than Corum is.

They will not throw the football to Blake Corum, and I don't think that they're going to give the ball to Corum inside the 5-yard line very often, and I think Menongai will have a little more of both of those things than Blake Corum. And Kairn Williams has been much more consistent at what he is. As much as I liked DeAndre Swift, I loved him last year. I drafted him last night. DeAndre Swift's kind of been all over the place in his career. Sure.

I find it a little bit more likely that DeAndre Swift just does something that moves Menongai into the 1A tier than Kairn does. For the record, I agree with most of what you said. But Kauram and Kairn both had eight goal line carries in the last 11 games of the season. Also, Swift has gotten hurt much more than Kyron Williams too. That's another thing you could factor in there. All right, let's talk about the Vikings guys, Jamie. You have Jordan Mason in a tier without Aaron Jones, whereas Heath has both Vikings guys in the same tier.

So we have to see how this all plays out. But this is now, there have been two people who cover the Vikings. One, when Jones resigned, and then one recently, I think it was Matthew Collar, who came out and said, if the Vikings want to. be the best version of themselves. I'm paraphrasing here. It's Jordan Mason being the lead running back. You know, average over five yards per carry,

not going to be involved in the passing game. Let Aaron Jones do those things on passing downs and let Mason be the guy at the goal line. And the projection was, and I believe he covers the team for Purple Insider, so one of the block sites that cover them, but I think he's covered them forever, is he suggested he projected 1,100 yards rushing

and eight touchdowns for Jordan Mason. I don't think that's realistic, but if they did commit to someone, for me, I agree with that. I would commit to the 27-year-old guy as opposed to the guy who's going to be 32 and missed time last year. And in the games that Aaron Jones missed time last year, Mason average, I believe, over 13 ppr points per game. So I'm expecting just a better Vikings offense as a whole because of Kyler Murray.

So more scoring opportunities. I do think Mason has the potential to be a flex. I don't think you want to trust them as a starter. but if there is the risk of injury, it's more so for Jones than it is for Mason at this point. And so I can see a path for Mason being a borderline number two running back. Now you have Claiborne who they drafted and we'll see what kind of role he plays, but it feels as if he's still going to be third in one of these rookies like we like,

but we'll never really get on the field much until there is an injury or two. I just think there's a chance for Jordan Mason to be the best running back in Minnesota, and hopefully that's the case, which is while I'm sort of approaching it. anyone else you want to talk about here heath viking are the commanders guys i i thought i was going to be a little bit ahead of consensus on the commander guys it seems like i'm a little bit behind jamie but maybe that's where a place where the tiers just didn't catch up um i think either one of them could be good and it's just it probably comes down to and it's kind of the same thing with tootin though he has a bigger opportunity because the competition isn't as stiff Both of those guys showed things with the football in their hands that were exciting. And both of those things had things in their second off season that they had to improve if they wanted to play more. And we're not going to find out probably until week one which of those guys really took the step forward. I think Bill is a better runner than a lot of the guys that are above him.

But can he be adequate at other things on the football field like pass protection, like catching the football, like whatever else they want out of him. We just don't know. I think the case for Bill is similar to Jordan Mason. Like, you know, you're not going to get a lot of pass catching work. You hope that he's the featured running back. I think that's kind of how they're treating him. I don't know if they want to, you know, put Rashad White in that three-down role, but it's more likely that Rashad White becomes a three-down running back than Jacourri Kroski Merritt becomes a three-down running back. Rashad White has proven to be a very good pass-catcher, I don't know if you want to call him a great pass catcher,

but at least his numbers suggest that when you throw him the ball, he can have opportunities to make plays. And prior to last year, three straight years of 50 plus catches, the last two seasons for Rashad White, he was 4.3 yards per carry. So for a guy that couldn't get over north of four yards per carry, 3.9 was kind of where he lived. He did get better. And so that kind of speaks, I think, even more volumes,

Adam, given what you said about the Tampa Bay offensive line and how much they struggled with their run blocking that Richard White was still successful in the opportunities that he got. So I like the opportunity for Rashad White a little bit more than Cross Ki-Mert right now because of the lack of past catchers in Washington and the connection that he has with Jane Daniels, the two of them playing together at Arizona State. So I do think that we could see White back to that 50-catch plateau. If he does get more rushing opportunities than maybe we expect and certainly takes Cross-Kee Merit off the field, then I think he's going to really distance himself. So I just take the chance in PPR more so and even half-PPR more so on him than White than Bill. in non-PPR, I think Krosky Merritt has an edge, but not by much.

Well, that's going to do it for our running backs, tears. Wide receivers tomorrow, tight ends Thursday, mailbag. We're going to record on Thursday, not sure with time yet, and it's going to publish. The audio will publish on Friday, but Dan and I will have our Festivist episode where we air our grievances. Just a couple of things here from the chat. Autumn Voyage says that Adam turned his camera off accidentally so he could eat a bagel.

Jokes on you. I already did that this morning way before the show. started. And everyone would have heard it if he had. Yeah. And Johnny Airport said, Adam doesn't eat his bagel abomination anymore, thank goodness. That, of course, would be ham and Swiss with tomato and Russian dressing on a cinnamon raisin bagel. That's where the abomination part comes in. I have a little bit of a dilemma now, Heath. Maybe you can help me. We talked about this before the show. I think I want to go prove Johnny wrong and go get that bagel for lunch today. Yes, you should. However, I don't want to eat the tomato because I don't want to get

the parasite. Okay. I'm like, I really want this parasite to go away. I don't really know what to do about that. You know, I'm, I'm pretty sure they, they wash the tomato. And I can't go get a bagel because in nine minutes, FFT Dynasty starts, so don't go anywhere. Okay. Don't go anywhere. Don't It's Parasite, and we'll talk to you next time. I'm finishing with my podcast. Podcasts. Everything has to come to on the end. Now streaming, only on Paramount Plus.

The acclaimed series, The Shy, reaches its final chapter. From Chicago. It's my home. From Emmy Award winner, Lean Away. There are two types of people in this world. Those that reach for more, and those that just enjoy what they got. This is shy. Anything's possible. song to you.

The Shy, the final season now streaming, only on Paramount Plus.