Fantasy Football Today - Are They Workhorses? Are They Good? (05/17 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

Check out our Fantasy Football Today merchandise! https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today We look at a handful of RBs who may have workload concerns or skill concerns and do our best to tell you what to expect in 2022. We use both standard and advanced metrics, offensive line considerations and injury history to evaluate these RBs. First, let's talk yards per carry and what it means in Fantasy (1:00) for David Montgomery, Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, Najee Harris and more ... News and notes (17:15) as Drew Brees sends a weird tweet and Treylon Burks had a rough first practice. Then back to our RB discussion. We discuss Najee (23:30), Montgomery (26:15), Barkley (30:00) and Zeke (36:15) ... Moving on, let's talk about Cam Akers (42:40), James Conner (44:40), Josh Jacobs (49:30), Elijah Mitchell (51:25) and Leonard Fournette (55:40) ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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He's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. It is Tuesday morning and we are going to put our scout hats on and tell you which running backs are good because we are three former running backs talking about football right here on Fantasy Football Today. It's Adam, Dave, and Heath. A lot of YPC in this episode, so you know I'm excited. And basically, we're going to talk about running backs. Are they going to be workhorses? And are they any good? Is Ezekiel Elliott still good? Is Saquon Barkley still good?

How good is Josh Jacobs? We're not going to tell you based on our scouting what we think, but the numbers, the advanced metrics, those types of things, the trends, what does it all mean? Anyway, good morning, guys. You ready for a segment called ypc for life oh you've been waiting your whole career for this segment oh yeah and it goes well with but that's just an azure step yeah i think it'll be some of those today as well all right

ypc for life some of the running backs we're talking about what's what's wrong he i i just like i have already you know already, you know me. I prepare for these shows. I have read the notes. I know what's coming. And so often I'm shaking my head, not at what you just said, but what you're about to say. Okay, here we go.

David Montgomery has averaged 3.9 yards per carry in his career. Take out the last six games of 2020. That's just an Acer stat. Remember he had that great six-game stretch? Take out that six-game stretch. He ran against Houston. Week after week of crap. Yes, exactly.

3.7 yards per carry in his career if you take out those six games. Heath? Yeah, I mean, an Acer stat and YPC in evaluating running backs. As you said at the top of the show, we are clearly scouts and fully qualified to tell you which running backs are good. And according to those stats, it sounds like David Montgomery is not. What I should have done is taken a random six-game sample out and shown you how his career average is now 4.2, but I'm not going to do that. You can do that. I did it myself.

Yes. has been on a bad offense behind a bad offensive line and we saw in those final six games what it looked like when the opponents that he was playing were equal to the offense that he was on and the the one thing that you like you can find stats to try to explain why pc um and you can find stats to try to say well maybe this guy is better than what his yards per carry says with Dave Montgomery. We've known since he came into the league, he's been above average to fantastic in that range, depending on which stats you look at and which years you're talking about at

avoiding and or breaking tackles. Generally speaking, I would say that players who are bad are not good at that yeah he's not that good at avoiding tackles i don't think he i mean i get there is there is actually an avoid metric in uh true media that i could look up and i'm gonna guess he wasn't that good in 2019 or 2021 and he was good in 2020 uh but he is good a good tackle breaker he just doesn't really he's just not that explosive i think i think that's what well but he does get a lot of work and that's the name of the game fantasy football is that the opportunities up

to this point have been really good for him he finished 15th in ppr points per game last year seventh two years ago and i think that that's i don't know if anybody really thinks that montgomery can be a top 10 fantasy running back again in his career but oh he's done if you're going to believe oh yeah he might uh 11th through 15th if you draft him with the idea that he'll land somewhere in that range low end number one high end number two type of fantasy running back yeah i think you'll be you're gonna be good to go with montgomery i i think if david if justin fields um makes the type of improvement i think is possible for him then david montgomery is this year's joe mixon yeah i think mixon's a great comparison uh now this i'm doing off the top of my head but if you look at mixin i think it's three

years ago he was so like i've been 2019 he was like top 10 ish running back and this year he was top five and his numbers were very similar except the touchdowns went way up because the offense was so much better so i think it's probably what you're getting at is just you know he's been on like the 27th ranked offense around there each of the last three seasons, and more touchdown opportunities would be really good. We're going to go through these guys all one by one. I didn't mean to spend so much time on Montgomery. I'll get you the avoided tackle rate. Yeah, do it each of the last three years.

But the explosive runs are not there for David Montgomery, and I will expand on that a little bit later. There were two running backs who finished top five last year averaging less than four yards per carry. That had not happened since 2017. Melvin Gordon was the last running back to do that. Finished top five,

averaging less than four yards per carry. That's why I care about it. That's why everybody cares about yards per carry. I mean, you can pretend that I'm the only one, but everybody cares about it. Those two running backs were Najee Harris and James Conner. James Conner averaged a career low of 3.7 yards per carry. Najee Harris was at 3.9. Usually you don't finish top five.

Both of them did because they were, well, Harris was certainly a workhorse and Conner was, uh, had a very good role, especially when Edmonds was out. Uh, a few more for you here. I would just say amongst those two Connors is easier for me to explain. When you have a split, like he was a part of where you're handling all of the short yardage work and all of the first and set most of the first and second down carries. And another guy's coming in on passing downs and averaging five yards per carry. When the defense isn't expecting the run,

you would be expected to be below average in YPC for Harris. He handled pretty much all the work. So other than the fact that the Steelers line was bad, there's little explanation. It wasn't as bad as the Cardinals, by the way. The Cardinals had the second worst run-blocking line in football. Despite that terrible offensive line, Najee was seventh in avoided tackle rate at 30.9%.

Seventh best. And way ahead of David Montgomery,gomery who was 26 that 21.3 percent what he also carries on that what happened what's the minimum carries 100 100 carries thank you for pointing that out also if you wanted the explosive numbers for naji uh he had an explosive run on 5.9 percent of his carries. That wasn't very good. It's around league average 31st, but Montgomery was worse 4.9%. That was 43rd.

We're talking out of, oh goodness, 49 running backs with at least a hundred carries last year. 43rd is right around where he's been in his career. I mean, Dave Montgomery just doesn't rank high on explosive carries, but he has two straight seasons with 1,500 or more total yards, or on pace

for 1,500 or more total yards, so you love the work. I just want to challenge Heath on one thing here. Let's see. Carolina, Seattle, Chicago, and the Rams. Let's see. Four games without James Conner, or without Chase Edmonds, he averaged 3.2

yards per carry. It was not that he just was working in short yardage. He did not run efficiently last year, James Connor. Okay, and then I'll challenge you. I don't think when talking about YPC, you should use that as an indication of the running back. I said he didn't run efficiently last

year. I didn't say he was bad. That's ascribing it to him. He did not run efficiently last year. I didn't say he was bad. That's ascribing it to him. He did not run efficiently. Okay, well, what do you want me to say? And then in week 17, he averaged 3.5 yards per carry without Chase Edmund. So it wasn't just his role. No, I agree. It wasn't just that.

I'm just saying that that makes more sense to me, that the early downs back sharing with a passing downs back would have a worse yards per carry. It is seems to be true that he was also inefficient. The Cardinals were also inefficient running the ball when chase Edmonds is not there. They were bad run team. They had a terrible offensive line,

but also maybe the best run team in fantasy. Yeah. A lot of touchdowns. Okay. Uh, Saquon Barkley in 25 games since his high ankle sprain in 2019, Saquon Barkley has averaged 3.9 yards per carry. Is that stupid or what?

No, I think that's what I said at the beginning of last year. We have not seen any evidence that Saquon Barkley is as good as he was before his injury. There isn't a single metric that is optimistic on Saquon Barkley is as good as he was before his injury. There isn't a single metric that is like optimistic on Saquon from last year. His avoided tackle rate is worse than any running back that we've talked about so far. His explosive rate is worse than David Montgomery's. He has, well, okay, here, here, here's the little silver lining. That isn't really a silver lining. It's a backhanded compliment to all four of the running backs that we're talking about.

Harris, Conner, Montgomery, and Saquon. Saquon had 34 rushes of zero yards or worse. That's the fewest among them. However, he also had the fewest rushes. He had the highest percentage of negative rushes, zero or negative rushes among the four. The biggest concern for me was that, I mean, and this wasn't a down and distance type of thing. Devontae Booker was just so, looked so much,

like if you were just to watch those two guys play football last year, outside of like two or three runs for Saquon, Devontae Booker was better. And here's a, let me see if I can find this, another thing that might give you an indication of what went wrong with Barkley. Okay, Barkley averaged behind, obviously the same offensive line. Saquon Barkley averaged 0.98 yards before contact.

That ranked 43rd among all players, some quarterbacks in there, but mostly running backs. 43rd among all players, some quarterbacks in there, but mostly running backs. 43rd among all players with 100 more carries. Saquon Barkley 0.98 yards before contact. Devontae Booker was at 1.51 yards before contact, which ranked 18th.

So I think a lot of people feel like Saquon Barkley is kind of always trying to hit the home run. He's a little indecisive. He's dancing around a little bit. I think there's probably some truth to that. He was so much worse than Booker before contact. The most famous dancer of all, maybe not, but Le'Veon Bell. Like he lost one step and all of a sudden that style didn't work at all anymore.

Right. Right. And I think he probably had a big offensive line downgrade as well throughout his career. That's just my guess. All right, Cam Akers, 2.6 yards per carry on 67 postseason carries. Ezekiel Elliott, he has averaged 4.1 yards per carry in his last two seasons. Not terrible, but in that same span,

Tony Pollard has averaged five yards per carry. And you want to talk about metrics. I mean, Pollard was just better than Zeke. In almost every single way. Josh Jacobs, after averaging 4.8 yards per carry as a rookie, he has averaged four yards per carry

over his last two seasons. And more concerning is, for me anyway, no carry longer than 28 yards in either of his last two seasons. And that's not a pretty big amount of carries, but he has not had the big playability. And he's also had a bad offensive line. So, you know, again, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I know who's good and who's bad,

but I'm going to look at the numbers and see, and we have to make these decisions. How good can these guys be? And will they lose that workload? Will they be true workhorses? So that's a little introduction to what we're talking about. There are some other names that we'll get to in just a little bit. We do have some news as well. And we are giving you 20% off some Fantasy Football Today merchandise. We're here to help you dominate your fantasy league all season long. And now you can represent your favorite podcast, which is hopefully us, with official Fantasy Football Today gear

only found on the CBS store. T-shirts, mugs, sweatpants, laser engraved pint glasses, hats, water bottles, and more to remind your buddies how you got the inside scoop to crush the competition. Right now, Fantasy Football Today listeners will get 20% off their order at the CBS store, which I'll put a link to in the episode description.

If you use our promo code, FantasyFootball20, the promo code is FantasyFootball20 at the CBS store, and you can get 20% off our cool merchandise. By the way, I thought this was a funny, funny comment. The Adam Azer Center for Runners Who Can't Run Good.

That's for you Zoolander fans out there. Zoolander, guys? Zoolander? Nah. You've never seen it or you don't like it? I've definitely seen parts of it. I don't believe I've ever watched the entire thing. Same. It's a classic. You usually find something better to do. No, it's a classic. It's really good.

It's really funny. Would you say Zoolander's better than the Big Lebowski? I'm glad you asked that. I tried watching The Big Lebowski on a flight last month, was enjoying it. Kids were, you know, being a little wild on the plane, so I couldn't watch it.

But I am going to finish it, and I liked it. It was a lot better than the first time I watched it. It got better as a movie. It's aged well. You grew up. I don't know. It just wasn't really for me. It was a little too hectic for me. Almost like it gave me anxiety. But I enjoyed it.

I'm looking forward to re-watching it. And it's probably better than Zoolander, but Zoolander is really damn good. I've never heard anybody say that they got anxiety watching the Big Lebowski. Oh, come on. I mean, they go to do the money drop and they screw it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's an adventure with Big Lebowski.

Yeah. The dude. Oh, this is interesting. I was just looking this up. James Conner splits from last year he averaged 2.5 yards per carry on carries with one to three yards to gain only 2.1 on carries with four to six yards to gain he was at 4.8 and 4.4 for seven to nine and 10 plus yards to gain. Okay. My first reaction is why was he so good in the short yardage?

Kyler Murray. The teams obviously have to account. Teams have to account for Murray much more on short yardage than they do on third and five. You know, that's my first reaction to that. What do you think? No, I think, I mean, I think almost all, first off,

like 2.5 on one to three to go, I think is pretty spectacular. Yeah, very good, really incredible. And you would expect the best to be seven to 10 in terms of yards to go. But I did think it was interesting that he had 73 carries or 58 carries with three yards or fewer to go last year. That's a good rule. That seems like a lot. Yeah. Sorry, I'm looking up David Montgomery's avoid percentage.

I just told it to you. No, for all three years of his career. Oh. His 20th in 2019. What did you say? His 29th or something in 20... Somewhere in the 20s in 2021. And in his best year, he was sixth.

Sixth best avoid percentage in 2020. Probably a lot in the last six games. Okay. Big night for Heath, by the way. The biggest Celtics fan in the world is going to, at age 40-ish, his first Celtics game. That blows my mind. I cannot believe you've never been to a Celtics game, but I'm really excited for you. Game one of the Eastern Conference Finals. Yeah. As Dave said, they don't come to Missouri very often. And the last six years, I've not.

I mean, like the first third of the season is kind of out for me because of football season. And then I took my kid to a Warriors game because he was a Warriors fan. We went to a Bucs heat game because I got cheap tickets. But, you know, I've never been to a Celtics game. They're here for the first round of the playoffs. So we're going to go do it. Good luck, man. That's going to be awesome. Hope Marcus

Smart plays. Yeah, that would really be a letdown. You mean for the Celtics or like you're just being sarcastic? No, I'm saying if Marcus Smart doesn't play, I don't think things are going to go well for the Celtics. That's a big one. No love for Peyton Pritchard. My son goes bananas

every time Peyton Pritchard does anything. Same with mine. And I think it's because he knows that he's not actually as good as the other guys. Right. But he's the underdog. Yeah. All right, let's do our news and notes here.

Drew Brees is coming back, or he's not. We don't know what that tweet was all about, but he said, I'm coming back, or I'm not, or I'm going to be a dad, or i'm gonna be a dad or i'm coach football or something or go back to nbc anyway it's just worth addressing i guess but would you rather jamis winston or drew breeze be their quarterback um yeah i kind of feel like you gotta say winston at this point i think so how can breeze be better than he was after not playing for a year?

And, you know, clearly being a year older, on the wrong side of 40, he's not Tom Brady. Rejuvenated. All right. Would you take Drew Breeze, Heath, with your final pick in a dynasty startup? I think we need to talk about the actual tweet, because I was unsatisfied with Adam's.

There's a lot of people listening to us that don't have Twitter. And I was I was dissatisfied with the way Adam characterized the tweet. OK, so so before the tweet came out, there was a report that Breeze was one and done at NBC Sports and that he wasn't going to call games anymore. Right. So first he shared an Instagram post said, man, signing youlandry and Teron Matthew makes me want to come back and play again. Great additions, leaders, and players. Then, despite speculation from media about my future, I don't know why anyone would be speculating, Drew. It's not like you just tweeted that you wanted to come back again. I'm currently undecided.

I may work for NBC. I may play football again. I may focus on business and philanthropy. I may train for the pickleball tour, senior golf tour, coach my kids, or all of the above. I'll let you know. Now, I would love him on the pickleball tour. We're talking about a potential first-round pick in pickleball fantasy leagues. I don't know.

Is he too short? No, I think he can overcome that. The question is, what's his mobility like? Does he have that quick twitch? Oh, yeah, he's got the quick twitch. There is such a difference in that as well between the singles game and the doubles game. You need the quick twitch in the doubles game,

but you don't need near as much stamina or mobility. The singles game is, I think, where it's at. I have no idea. No idea what you guys are talking about. I think I know pickleball, but not really. All right, Tennessee wide receiver Traylon Burke struggled to get through his first practice, which I thought was interesting

because I know Pete Prisco said that there are some people who have concerns about Burke's weight and that he'll kind of balloon up a little bit. I don't want to put words in Pete's mouth. And then Ryan Wilson kind of shot that down, didn't agree with it. But not a great start. I think't want to put words in Pete's mouth. And then Ryan Wilson kind of shot that down, didn't agree with it. But not a great start.

I think he got through his next practice just fine, but we'll keep an eye on it. Traylon Burke's a little out of shape, maybe, in his first practice. Better now than September. John Machoda of The Athletic thinks that Dallas wide receiver Jalen Tolbert could make the biggest impact,

the biggest immediate impact of all of their rookies. All the Cowboys rookies. Right, of all of their rookies all the cowboys right of all of their it's not a huge headline but i'm just wondering are we maybe sleeping on jalen tobert a little bit look the receiving core has cd lamb and you can count dalton schultz those dudes will be there but who else is going to play wide receiver if michael gallup isn't ready to start the season they've got james washington they've got tolbert am i forgetting somebody else do they have anybody else that could actually displace somebody are you really

joking about cd lamb or did you say lamb i said cd lamb i thought i did lamb and and uh schultz i've been curious because they've been really spread out over the past few years in terms of targets. We've talked about this with Lamb and what his potential upside is. And I was really curious with them letting Cooper go if they were going to have Lamb become this 26%, 27% target share guy. If not, then it makes a lot of sense that Tolbert might be in the 18% range as a rookie. Certainly to start the year if Gallup's not ready.

Okay, and Cleveland head coach Kevin Stefanski wanted to draft wide receiver David Bell no matter what, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. So who would you rather draft, Jalen Tolbert or David Bell? Are you saying he got a post-it note and wrote David Bell no matter what? I'm not saying that because I don't get that. Okay. Can I just be pedantic for a second? Sure. Please.

Shallow and pedantic. Like, words mean things. And he did not want to draft him no matter what. He didn't draft him until the third round. He was willing to pass on him in round two and if somebody liked him in round two, he was okay with not getting him. Or he knew that he would be more of a day three type player

because he had a terrible... Actually, they didn't have a pick in the first two rounds. He took two players in round three ahead of him. Sure. So maybe he knew that David Bell wasn't a popular guy and maybe someone who obviously didn't have the athletic profile that a lot of teams look for. Maybe he did want to draft him no matter what,

and he got overruled. He doesn't get to decide all the draft picks. It's not the GM. Andrew Barry shutting him down. Yeah, it's possible. But yeah, they had picks 68 and 78 and then took him at 99. I think it's time we get into our workhorses.

We're going to take a quick break and really get into the crux of the show. 23 minutes in. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. All right. We love carries. and I love yards per carry. But seriously, the role is so important. So basically, are they workhorses and are they good?

And the first one will be probably easier to answer. But let's start with Najee Harris. Is he a workhorse this year, and is he good? Should that affect his ranking? Dave. He's definitely a workhorse this year, and is he good? Should that affect his ranking? Dave? He's definitely a workhorse. I think the Steelers look at what they've got at running back, the fact that they didn't really address it this offseason

after investing so much in him last offseason, and then giving him a ton of work last year. I think it's obvious that as long as he's healthy, he's going to be an important part of what the Steelers do. They improve their offensive line, at least the interior of it, by bringing in James Daniels and Mason Cole. And he's a factor in the passing game. The two quarterbacks that they have are not necessarily downfield throwers. They are capable of dinking and dunking, one of whom has absolutely no NFL experience.

I think you're going to see this offense lean on Najee Harris. I can't say more than they did last year, but pretty damn close to what they did last year. And that includes in the red zone. I think that you're going to see Najee Harris compile his way to very good fantasy numbers. And if it just so happens that the offensive line does a better job performing this year, that'll help fuel and a boost in his efficiency as well he's the of this group he is

the one i am most certain is a workhorse and he's towards the top of the list of guys who i think are actually probably good um i do think there's a risk that he loses targets partially because the team doesn't throw as much as they have in years past and partially because they don't have a quarter a statue playing quarterback um and so i think it's possible that he maybe catches 60 passes instead of 74 and then if the rushing efficiency doesn't come back that could be a tough problem for him yeah man i i think it's worth noting that even though he finished as a top five running back last year, and you're going to see him get drafted probably in the top eight in most leagues, that he was number nine per game in non and half PPR, number eight per game in full PPR. scoring. So they were not terrible. But what do you guys think? Better offense or worse offense? Because if this offense is worse, then

I think he's got a chance to be overdrafted. Because you're just not going to get a huge touchdown number in all likelihood. And the catch is right. 74 is a lot to expect. Offense better or worse for the Steelers? Or the same? More likely better. I would lean better. Yeah, I would lean better. Yeah, I would lean better.

All right, let's talk about David Montgomery. You can get him in the third round. I'll get their NFC ADP in just a second. Loved two straight seasons on pace for at least 1,500 total yards and 55 catches. Last year per game, he was 14th in non-PPR, 15th in full PPR. The year before that per game, he was something like sixth. No, he was 14th in non-PPR, 15th in full PPR. The year before that per game, he was something like sixth. No, he was seventh in full PPR, ninth in non-PPR.

So it's a big difference. I mean, I really think he's such an interesting player. Heath, you like him the most. You're good with Montgomery in round two. Yeah, and I don't know i mean i think some of that is that the bears offense is going to have to be better for him to justify that but also like there's so many running backs we've talked about it that are a couple years older than montgomery that have question marks or that have more injury concerns than he does that are right

in the same range in terms of what I expect points per game. And so if you can get him at the 2-3 turn, I think that's the perfect spot. I think he's pretty safe as a high-end No. 2 running back, and I do think he has top 10 upside. And you think he's safe as a workhorse? He's not as safe as Najee, but I would say he's the second most likely back that we're talking about to

be a workhorse. Najee was second in touches per game last year among running backs. Montgomery was eighth. If I had to predict one to slide, I think it would be Montgomery. I think the coaching staff is going to like what they see on film of Khalil Herbert. Remember it's a new coaching staff this year compared to last year. And the new offensive coordinator is coming from Green Bay. So there's going to be an

interest in getting a second running back involved. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be, all right, Montgomery's going to work rushing downs and then somebody else will be the passing downs guy. I think it could be mixing and matching a la Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon toward the end of last season. But I still think Montgomery will have a pretty good edge if you draft him with the idea that he gets 15 touches per game. I think he'll hit that. I think he'll be right around that mark. We expect the yards per carry to be better with a mobile quarterback, and it was better. It was 3.9 for the season, I believe, and it was 4.1 in five starts with Justin Fields.

And if you want to really... But that's just an Acer stat. ...Azer stat. Get the hell out of this one. Take away the first game that Justin Fields played. Because that was one of the worst games that a quarterback has ever played. Remember that game in Cleveland? Cleveland, right.

Threw for like 30 yards, whatever it was. He was terrible. Take away that game. Then you're up to 4.2 yards per carry. And with Fields, it will be better i mean his his efficiency will be better most likely with justin fields we see that consistently also it's way more important that he keeps his workload than that is like i haven't at seventh in the projections right now and i haven't projected at 3.9 yards per carry so So that won't have a huge impact. You're talking about maybe, what, five fantasy points?

Yeah, all right. You're going to love this. He is RB19, being drafted in the fourth round in 15 drafts since May 1st in NFC, which is half PPR. That's behind Breesaw, behind antonio gibson behind cam makers um so going pretty late no that just tells me that there are the majority of people who are drafting right now are not giving him credit and they're chasing younger players who have a more

exciting profile he's's young, though. Yeah, well, it doesn't feel that way, does it? He's young. He's probably, what, six months older than Najee? He's in his fourth season. He's in his prime. He's in his prime. He's had a lot of work on him compared to Najee and Brees Hall, of course.

Okay, let's talk about Saquon Barkley. So whether or not he's good, we talked about that earlier. Let's focus on the workhorse part. New coaching staff, that's awesome, but he averaged 13.4 carries per game last year. That's if you remove week five. When he barely played, he played eight snaps, I believe.

So in the games that he stayed healthy, he averaged 13.4 carries per game. Later in the year, he had a four-game stretch. They finally turned him loose a little bit. 16, 15, 15, 21 carries. And then only 11 carries in week 18. But weeks, that'd be 14 through 17, he averaged, it was above 15 carries,

15 or more carries in all four games. But for the year, 13.4 carries for Barkley. So first of all, Dave, you look at their depth chart. I mean, they really don't have a complimentary piece to Saquon Barkley. It doesn't seem. Is he a workhorse? I'm not sure he's going to be. And that's even with the depth chart looking pretty good.

They've got Gary Brightwell as one of their backups. Matt Breida is one of their backups. Antonio Williams. Two of these three guys are former bills right so it's it's interesting how dables is bringing in people that he just he knows and he's worked with before and those are going to be the guys backing up saquon barkley i don't think brian dable is going to go full josh allen with daniel jones and say all right we're we're just going to put it all on your shoulders you'll run a lot you'll a lot. And the running game will be a complimentary piece.

I think he's going to use Saquon quite a bit, but I also think that Saquon's not going to get, he won't have many games with 20 touches. I think he's probably going to file in somewhere around 16 touches per game. Heath, what's your take on Barkley and his work? I think I have him projected pretty close. Like I've not really adjusted yet for the fact that they've not added anybody more than who they have. I think I need to boost up his touches a little bit. I think as the roster is constructed right now, he's probably going to be a workhorse.

Now what a workhorse running back looks like in a Brian Dable offense, Dave kind of hit on it. Are they going to run the ball with their running backs? Are they going to throw the ball to their running backs? That's not something they did a whole lot of in Buffalo at all. So he might be a guy who gets a higher percentage of the running back touches than we are anticipating, but doesn't quite get to the 18 touches a game because there just aren't that many running back touches available. Yeah, and they've had the second worst scoring offense in football each of the last two years. So if you're not getting a ton of touches and you're on a bad offense, that's a terrible formula.

You need the offense to improve. So I guess what I'm asking you now is make the case that Saquon Barkley deserves to be in the third round. It's, I think, easier to make the case against him than for him. Nobody's going to advocate for him going in the first two rounds. Make the case that he should be in the third round, and do you even believe that, Dave? It's tough

to believe, because the case begins with, well, all he has to do is stay healthy and get the 16 touches per game that I just said, and he'll fall into good enough production. But you've got to wonder if this offense is going to put up a lot of points. I think the offensive line will be better. I like the moves that they've made, but I don't know how many touchdowns are really going to be available. Does he have a shot at 15 touchdowns over the course of the year?

If I said yes to that, or if you say yes yes to that then he should at least be a third round pick but everybody's going to be worried about him getting hurt and it's it's totally natural to feel that way and i feel that way a little bit too if if he's not his old self he's not going to be good for fantasy as a top 24 type pick at best he would be worth a third round pick as a number two fantasy running back i just looked it up last year the bills were 30th and total running back opportunities that's russia temps plus targets year before they were 31st yeah you have to go back to five years ago well five seasons ago for brian dable i went through every year where he's been an offensive coordinator and looked at the catches for the running backs

and uh devin singletary had 38 in 2020 he had 40 in 2021 the last time someone had more than 40 catches was 2012 which uh which was before buffalo the last time dable was an offensive coordinator and that was the chiefs that was with the Chiefs. That was Dexter McCluster. They actually had a ton of running back catches that year. McCluster, Jamal Charles, Sean Drone, Peyton Hillis. They had well over 100. But yeah, with the Bills,

you didn't get a lot of running back catches. That's for sure. All right. I don't think he necessarily loved who he had there for that role right he can take one look at saquon as a pass catcher and say yeah this guy's got it he can still make an impact in space yeah and i would agree with that i thought that he had a number of plays last year where he was either close to breaking one or did break a big play through the air. Percentage of receptions by running backs in Dables' offenses,

it was north of 20% every year from 2009 through 2019 that he was a play caller. The last two years in Buffalo, way down. And I think that's because of Josh Allen. I will just say that yards per target, average for a running back is about six. He was Saquon's six as a rookie, six his second year.

Last year, he averaged 4.6 yards per target. He's been miserable the last two years, really, since that high ankle sprain. I think that if you're making a case for Barkley, it's just he hasn't been healthy for two years. You know, he's played hurt. He's either gotten hurt or played hurt. And there's only so far that that goes with me. I don't know. I think the same thing for Zeke, who's the next guy we're going to talk about, but you have to believe that there's still a

great player there in Barkley. If he can just stay healthy. And I don't know, I don't know how many people believe that at that point. Plus the team is just so bad on paper. I don't know how many people believe that at that point. Plus, the team is just so bad on paper. I don't know. Things have to really change there for Barkley. Now, Zeke is next. In his last 12 games, including the postseason, he had one carry that went longer than 13 yards.

That blows my mind. One carry in his last 12. And it was a 26-yard run against the backup Philadelphia Eagles in week 18. This guy stunk for 75% of the year. But he played that entire time with a torn PCL, a partially torn PCL. So you look at his first five games, and he got hurt in week four. Look at his first four games, first five games.

This guy was a stud, Ezekiel Elliott. He was awesome. He was explosive again. He was scoring a ton ofiel Elliott. He was awesome. He was explosive again. He was scoring a ton of touchdowns. He was a league-winning type player, even with that dud in week one against Tampa Bay. But he got hurt, and it's two years in a row he's played hurt. Plus, the year before that, he didn't have DAC. You can make excuses for Zeke.

So I'll ask you, is he good? Is he a workhorse? Heath, you can have the first word. The hardest thing for me is I want to say no, he's not a workhorse because tony pollard's there but then you look last year tony pollard was there and you look at zeke's touches per game and yes he was a workhorse so i think um especially with cooper gone that zeke is probably still going to be a workhorse as long as he can stay healthy. I don't, I don't think they're going to hand the reins to Tony Pollard.

Um, unless, unless Zeke gets hurt or is just miserable for the first month of the season, I expect him to come in healthy and, and be relatively productive. You nailed it from November on Zeke average 14.6 touches per game. And that includes the game without Pollard Pollardaged 14.6 touches per game, and that includes the game without Pollard. Pollard averaged 10.6 touches per game. Two games without Pollard, I think. They were close, but

Zeke had more. They gave him the ball more. It's going to come down to how spry is he this year, and how willing is the coaching staff to veer back toward riding him and limiting tony pollard because they might have seen enough from pollard last year and they might see enough of zeke in practice this summer to say all right we've just we got to get pollard more involved

he's more elusive he can make bigger plays we need that element on the field a little bit more and zeke will work in more of a traditional running downs role now in saying all that there was an interesting tweet from ed werder uh three days ago saying that uh he here's the tweet ezekiel elliott watched rookies following his workout he played most of last season with a partial pcl tear asked if elliott is fully healthy coach mike mccarthy said quote I would hope so. I was looking at the GPS yesterday. Elliot reached 22 miles per hour on Tuesday. I saw that.

Yeah. So that's a little encouraging that, you know, just running around. He's not obviously playing in a football game. He's hitting 22 miles an hour. That would suggest that whatever was ailing him physically is in the rear view at this point. You've got to keep tabs on what you hear out of Dallas in training camp because if we hear more and more stuff like that, that would encourage me that Zeke is going to be ready at least to begin the season like he did last season.

And hopefully he stays healthy, and hopefully the offensive line also stays healthy, and Zeke gets one more chance to be the workhorse. I want to rewind off of Zeke for a second. I'm going back like three running backs, but I made a joke earlier in the show that David Montgomery was only six months older than Najee Harris. And so I looked it up to see how far off my joke was. David Montgomery is nine months older than Najee Harris. Yeah, he's not old for sure.

And, I mean, even Zeke. Like, Zeke not old for sure. And I mean, even Zeke, like Zeke is still young enough. What is he, 27? That's still a perfect, yeah, he's going to be 27 years old in July. I mean, that's a perfectly fine year. He's probably not going to be

a top five running back. But when you compare Zeke and Barkley, I think they're an interesting comparison, right? Because you could say if they stay healthy, they could still be good players. Maybe great, but you have serious health concerns about both of them. Barkley misses a lot of time.

Zeke plays through injuries, but he's been hobbled. But Barkley has no competition in his backfield. And Pollard, just based on the numbers, Pollard looks like a guy that deserves to be unleashed. Maybe that's just because he hasn't had huge work, but he has been, the advanced metrics love him, the regular metrics love Pollard,

he's been explosive, he should play more. But at the same time, go look at the red zone, green zone, inside the five carries. Zeke owns that. So I don't know,

as we talk out loud, I don't understand why Zeke goes after Barkley. I think it's because people think Barkley has that backfield to himself and Zeke doesn't. But every other factor favors Zeke to me. So I don't know. Who do you guys like? Like is not a word I'd want to use with either one. I've got Barkley ahead of Zeke in the projections, but I want to rank Zeke higher. So yeah, I think the thing is like Barkley is probably going to get more touches, but Zeke's on a good offense.

And if he's good, he, I think he has more upside. Dave. I agree. I agree completely with Heath on this one, but I also think that as things stand right now, based on last year is Saquon healthier and in a better spot than Ezekiel

Elliott. Yeah, I think he is. So he just ran 22 miles an hour. How can anybody be healthy? How fast is Saquon Barkley right now? If he was 23 miles per hour, right?

So now see Saquon's better, but if it turns into 14 miles an hour and he's cruising around like me on a bicycle, then he's going to be, you know, at the back of the line, training camp is going to be bicycle, then he's going to be at the back of the line. Training camp is going to be really important. Yeah, it will be.

Reports are going to be important. We're not going to see these guys play in the preseason. They will probably get some reps in joint practice sessions if they have them. Dallas usually does. Keep an eye on it. It's going to be fluid. For now, Saquon over Zeke, but could flip on a moment's notice.

All right, I'm just going to say one last thing, and then we'll move on. Ezekiel Elliott, double check. I believe he had six catches in each of the two games that Amari Cooper did not play. And actually, yeah, he did. And Lamb missed half one of those games. But his catches were not very consistent, and it was a little bit concerning. But since they haven't really replaced cooper that might help zeke stay in that 50 catch range all right how about catch

too i know he hasn't necessarily shown it consistently not like zeke has but he can catch yeah how about cam acres workhorse another guy i gotta watch or good is he is he either one dave i fear that the addition of kyron williams is a sign from the rams coaching staff that they want to start using a committee and that the days of them leaning on one running back are on hold for now acres got that opportunity in the playoffs he was horribly inefficient he didn't look very good he had maybe like five or six plays where he had some juice in his legs i can forgive him because he's coming off of an achilles tear five months sooner than he should have but i'm still i i gotta see it from him if i if his training camp looks good he's rocketing ahead of all these guys that we're talking about not all obviously not for example but he's he's got a chance to be in a great position to rack up stats if he proves to

his coaches that he can be a three down guy and kind of change their minds about using multiple running backs my my current expectation is he's not a workhorse running back. And I don't think after 150 carries over two seasons, anybody knows if he's good yet. Like he had basically a five game stretch, five and a half game stretch where he was awesome, but that's all we've seen from him in two years. Sounds pretty familiar to me.

Do you think David Montgomery? Yeah. Well, except for the fact that David Montgomery's played like 40 football games. I know, and that's even worse that he's only had a six-game stretch where he's been extraordinary. Extraordinary, sure. Well, that he's really stood out. He's just been a guy, basically, for the other games.

I don't know if that's true or not, but he's also a workhorse, and I don't think Cam Akers is. That is true. Akers, Barkley, Zeke, who's your favorite? Barkley's ranked the highest. Barkley right now. Okay. Oh, man, I got a lot more here.

James Conner. Fun fact about James Conner. He has been on the second worst run blocking team in the NFL in two straight seasons. Pittsburgh in 2020 and Arizona in 2021. Is James Conner a workhorse and is he good? I do believe he's a workout horse and I think he is good at the one thing

that really matters for running backs and that's catching passes and doing things after the catch he was astonishing in those games without Chase Edmonds some of the catches he made some of the highlight real plays he made he was very good catching the ball when he was in Pittsburgh and so I don't know if he's good as I don't know what is yet why PC is going to be this year but he's going to score the touchdowns and he's really good at catching the ball and he's got very little around him in terms of competition. And so I think he will be a workhorse and he will be good. I'm worried about the red zone competition.

And I'm not talking about other running backs. I'm talking about Marquise Brown now being there. Hopkins will eventually be back. The addition of Trey McBride along with Zach Ertz, those are two big tight ends. Plus, Kyle O'Murray can run it in. So I'm not sure he's... In fact, he scored 18 total touchdowns last year, right? Is that right? Yeah, yeah. 17, 18?

15 rushing, I think. I'm pretty sure between that stuff and his own health issues that he's not going to hit that mark again this year and so first and foremost you probably should project him to score around half as many and then if that's the case he needs to see an uptick in rushing efficiency just to have a chance to come close to matching what he did last year now i think we've got it ranked appropriately we're not putting him as a top five or top ten fantasy running back but i think you should probably lean on him more as a high end number two guy maybe even a middle end number two guy because there are some some flaws i will say that the

cardinals have been much better at running the ball in the red zone than they have been throwing the ball in the red zone since cliff kingsbury and kyler murray have been there and over the last three seasons they've averaged 18.3 running back touchdowns per season i don't think there's too many running backs on the roster they're taking those from connor no it's it's about other players taking them from connor i'm just to me it just comes down is, is he going to be the passing downs back? Because if he is not the passing downs back and the touchdowns go down, then you're looking at maybe a Kenyon Drake season from a couple years ago where Drake was not even a top 20 running back per game. Barely caught the ball. The touchdowns were good, but the efficiency wasn't great.

I mean, Conner might get worse, but I don't think we have any reason to think that Kenyon Drake's as good as James Conor. No, I disagree with you. I think at that point in Kenyon Drake's career, he was awesome the year before when he got traded to Arizona. He was really good

with the Dolphins per carry, if I recall. He was a part-time back his entire career. But he was always efficient. We were really excited. And he was great with the Cardinals. Right. He had like eight touchdowns. We were drafting him in the second round.

He happened to... I think you might be right that we were... Maybe we were wrong in thinking that. But he was a second round draft pick that year. There was a ton of hype. He ended up being a really big bust. Yeah. I'm just saying that like James Conner has proven enough

to where we should just all acknowledge that he's better than footballing Kenyon Drake. There's also a guy who had very little market for him two straight off seasons and 3.7 yards per carry. That's why I bring it up. I just wonder, is he

on his last legs? He's only 26 I think, right? He got a big deal this year, right? I'll look it up to see what the deal was. I don't know. I mean, it took a while, right? And it doesn't seem like... I thought he was the second running back signed

after Chase Edmonds. I don't know. I guess I'm remembering it wrong. He had $13.5 million guaranteed. Over what? For three years? Three years, $21 million. $13.5 million guaranteed.

Salaries the next two years are guaranteed. So he's getting almost $7 million a year. No, but right. Well, I guess every running back is kind of a slow market these days, most of the time. I mean, look, it's a fair point. Arizona did pony up for him to a degree. It's not a huge deal,

but it's big in running back terms. I don't know, but I guess it just seems like he might not be a great rusher anymore. But it could just be an offensive line issue. All right, Josh Jacobs is next. He was per game 18th in non-PPR, 17th in full PPR, or half PPR, 14th in full PPR last year.

Heath, is Josh Jacobs a workhorse, and is he good? I think this is the biggest one. We have questions about whether he will be a workhorse because he really has been for the last two years, but that role in the passing game is not one traditionally that the Patriots have given to their lead rusher.

And if Josh McDaniel follows that path, then I think Jacobs is probably just a touchdown dependent number two running back and not a workhorse, but, and he hasn't really shown anything efficiency wise. I don't think that would make you want to throw the ball to him a ton. It's going to come down to whether they use Kenyan drake or brandon bolden in that role um i i'm concerned he's not a workhorse i do think he's good not great he's right between barkley and zeke in my rankings

he's been in the nfl for three years how many of those three years has he finished in as a top 12 running back in PPR points per game. Once. Nones. 17th, 14th, 15th. Draft accordingly. Heath's right. It would be a shocker-oo if Josh Jacobs were to pick up a lot of catches this year. Shocker-oo? It would be because Josh McDaniels comes from New England

and he very much wants to split up the division of labor with those running backs, and he should. They also drafted Zemir White, who's – I don't think he redshirts this year. I think he could take some work off of Josh Jacobs. It'll be low-value touches at first. But I could see Josh Jacobs seeing a slight downturn in carries, a significant downturn in catches, and you got to hope that he scores a lot of touchdowns.

The thing with him is that he's always come through in games that the Raiders win. I would imagine that the Raiders are in line to win a decent amount of games this year. They're going to be a competitive team. All right, Elijah Mitchell breaks the mold here a little bit because he actually had a great YPC, 4.7 yards per carry, San Francisco running back, not too surprising there, but that's really good. He had a great season, and he was a little bit worse

than Josh Jacobs per game, but he also had 17 carries or more in 9 of 11 games, and that is a workhorse right there, Elijah Mitchell. So, Dave, do you think Mitchell keeps that workhorse role, which we just have not seen for a full season for a 49ers running back in quite some time? You see the workhorse role in spurts from 49ers running backs. That's what happened to Mitchell last year. When he had the opportunity, he was great in it, he he had multiple points in the year where he was out because of injury and so i'm sure that's going to weigh on the 49ers and i'm sure the 49ers are

going to use multiple running backs because they've done it every single year and it's been a different running back that leads the way for their offense every single year so trying to figure out who that guy would be would it seems like a thoughtful exercise for people to do before they go into their fantasy drafts. But it's almost going to be fruitless because we would have never thought that Elijah Mitchell would have been that guy last year. We thought it would be Trey Sermon. And that's why he was going with a top 85 pick in fantasy drafts last year. And then he ended up being a scrub and mitchell was the one who took over the the one difference with mitchell compared to other running backs under shanahan in san francisco is that he's young and so maybe that works in his favor a little bit more and he ends up being given maybe just like a little bit more of a leash to go and be that main guy for them, at least on running downs and in high value opportunities. But I, you know, the odds are kind of against him.

I think another running back that you just, you can't look at and say, he's a top 12 guy. And another guy that you can't look at and say, yeah, he's going to be a workhorse. He might have six games this year where he's a workhorse, but he might also have six games where he's clearly splitting

and then he'll probably be out for the other six games. 18-game season. All right. Okay. Heath, what do you think about Mitchell? Is he going to be a workhorse? No one has any idea.

Well, I mean, you look at the of shanahan and you have a pretty decent idea right i think i don't agree with that i don't agree with that oh you so this is gonna be like the whole patriots actually do feature running backs thing absolutely absolutely because each of the last two years with fournette and and mitchell they did make the effort just those guys couldn't stay healthy. I mean, I said Fournette, I'm sorry.

Mostert. Fournette's the last guy we're talking about. Mostert and Mitchell, they made the effort, but they couldn't stay healthy. And again, to have 17 or more carries

in 9 of 11 games, they treated him like a workhorse. Now, I'm not saying that he will be. I don't think he will be. I just, to sit here and say

that Elijah Mitchell will be a workhorse running back, it just seems too bold. But I do think that the 49ers have shown a willingness to do it over the last two seasons, but the guys couldn't hold up. I think it's dependent upon how much work Trey Sermon, um, has put on to be what they thought he was when they drafted him. And, um, and whether Mitchell can stay healthy, probably. Another factor is Lance. He played two games.

Mitchell played two games with Trey Lance as the quarterback. He had nine carries in one of them, and Lance had 16. In the other, Mitchell had 21 carries, and Lance had eight. And another factor is Debo. I don't think he's going to get the eight carries per game. I don't even know if he's going to be there. But does Lance increase or decrease the carries for Mitchell or stay the same?

I'll stay, stay the same because they will run more, but he'll get a smaller percentage. Okay. All right. Can you explain that for a sec? The team will run more of Lance's quarterback because Lance is the quarterback.

Yeah. But Lance will take a higher percentage of the carries, so Mitchell won't actually have more. I see. That's a horrible sound. What is that horrible sound? Somebody moving something? All right, it stopped.

Whoever it was. You're in trouble. Last one's Fournette. He was a workhorse last year. Any reason to think he won't be one this year, Heath? A slight reason. Rashad White says that he's competing for the starting job. Now, he's a rookie

playing with Tom Brady, so I don't think the likelihood's very high, but there's a slight concern. Well, that's just the Heath side. Dave? any concerns? Wyatt, you know, I don't know why they brought in Giovanni Bernard last year if they just didn't want to use him. That was so weird to me.

They brought him back this year. I know. So that's the thing. Like, will they, without Bruce Arians, will they use a true third down back? Does that factor in at all? The quotes that came in, is it yesterday or the day before? I think it was from Leftwich. Basically indicated that the problem with taking Fournette off the field

is Tom Brady. I don't think Tom wants Fournette to come off the field. Well, that's good. Yeah, that makes me want to get Fournette even more. 27 years old. Proven in this offense to be very good, can catch the ball. The competition for playing time is Geo, who's basically a third down back that the team doesn't want to use a lot of. Rashad White, who has no experience at the pro level.

And Keyshawn Vaughn, who had one really good run last year I think this is among the best workhorses that you could draft this year and I think he's worth the second round pick silly as it sounds because two or three years ago Fournette was left for dead in fantasy circles all right that's it for our show today. Thank you very much. On Thursday, we will talk about, we're going to have a debate. It's either going to be Cup versus Chase versus Jefferson or Pitts versus Waller versus Kittle. We haven't decided. We're also going to talk about dynasty tight ends and read your emails and your Apple podcast questions. So send your emails to fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. That's the letter I and your Apple podcast questions. Just put them

on Apple. That's A-P-P-L-E. Thanks, Dave and Heath. And I'm Adam. And we'll talk to you on Thursday on Fantasy Football Today.