Fantasy Football Today - Breakout RBs! Dobbins, Pollard and More (08/17 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Donate to St. Jude as part of our Draft-A-Thon! Bid on guest spots on our show, Zoom calls with our analysts and more! https://tinyurl.com/fftdonate Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts Dave, Jamey and Heath give their breakout running backs, and many of them can be drafted in Round 5 or later. How should that influence your RB strategy? Do we have any concerns about Rachaad White and Dameon Pierce on potentially bad offenses? Is this finally the year for J.K. Dobbins?  SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday 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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We're knocked out quarterbacks. Let's move on to breakout running backs. Welcome to this breakout extravaganza, the second of four episodes that you're going to watch or listen to on either Wednesday night or Thursday or sometime in the future. Adam Azer, Dave Richard, and Heath Cummings got a special guest. We'll tell you about him in just a moment. Today we're going to talk about some rookies who are on the breakout list. As Heath said in the quarterback episode, does that make sense?

Some say yes, some say no, but it doesn't matter. Bijan and Gibbs, they're going to be great. J.K. Dobbins, Tony Pollard, Rashad White, we'll get into that. Yeah, let's bring in our special guest. We have Jamie Eisenberg of CVS Sports. Do you ever get that? Oh, you work at CVS? It's like, no, with the B, like the media company.

Actually, I now work at Walgreens, so I appreciate you getting that correct. But no, thanks for having me. You guys are a great show. I listen to you guys all the time. Big fan. Never thought I'd be honored enough to be on this program. We could use a guy like you on this program. Oh, and I'll tell you, he's a guy like you on this show.

Yeah. It's great to have you. I'm going to tell you that I listen, I listened to your show all the time, but you know, that's never true. But, um,

anyway, uh, here's the mute. That's just kidding. Everybody here, the mutual breakouts that showed up on multiple lists. Jameer Gibbs. No,

wait, it was Bijan, Bijan Robinson and Rashad White, Bijan Robinson and Rashad White. Sorry. I had the wrong list there. Um, let's It was Bijan. Bijan Robinson and Rashad White. Bijan Robinson and Rashad White. Sorry, I had the wrong list there. Let's start with Bijan. How early for Bijan Robinson? Heath?

I think you asked the wrong guy because it's not the guy who hasn't ranked the highest, but in non-PPR as early as top four in the draft overall. In full PPR, he's a definite first-round pick, probably a top eight pick. Dave? I'm picking ninth in a draft right now, and he went two spots in front of me. I would have taken him as soon as fifth overall. Non-PPR, I would take him as soon as third overall.

I am all in on B. John Robinson. Jamie? Non-and-half PPR, I would take him second overall. No, I wouldn't take him as soon as third overall. I am all in on Bijan Robinson. Jamie. Non and half PPR. I would take him second overall. And no, I wouldn't take it on half non PPR. I take him half two overall full PPR. I take him five overall.

And I get questioned a lot of why not be on number one. And I don't have a strong argument in terms of running backs in any format. I think the situation is as pretty ideal as you can get for a guy stepping into the league. So he's going to be fun. I think we're going to regret not ranking him number one overall. In full PPR, Bijan Robinson is RB what?

Three. Three. He's four now. I think I had him eight like a month ago, and four guys have fallen by the wayside or had terrible happenings. And so, yeah, he's four for me. Who's the other one? McCaffrey, Eckler and? McCaffrey, Eckler and Barkley. Barkley. Okay. All right. We don't have to go too far into B. John Robinson. Rashad White was a breakout for Dave and Heath. Jamie, did you co-sign on that?

Yes. Okay. So, you know, maybe we should just lump all these. There's a lot of them, right? On the high end, there's Tony Pollard and Jameer Gibbs. And then there's a whole bunch of guys that, you know, depending on your draft, they could go in any order.

I don't know about any order, but not far from it, right? You got Rashad White, Damian Pierce. I'm guessing he'd be the first one off the board in most drafts of this group. J.K. Dobbins, James Cook, Alexander Madison. Again, that list is Rashad White, J.K. Dobbins, Damian Pierce, James Cook, and Alexander Madison. That's across three different analysts' lists here. Does anybody disagree with those five guys? I get a little nervous with Madison.

I get that he's an obvious breakout because he's getting an opportunity that he's never had before other than a few games here and there. But he's just one of the least explosive running backs over the last two years. I did the work on this day.

He had 11 carries of 16 or more yards, over 208 carries in the past two seasons. That's low. That's bad. Makes me, I don't know if it's quite Ezekiel Elliott bad, but even Zeke would be like, oh, man, damn. What's an average number of runs over 16 yards? Like what percentage is good or normal or bad?

I'd have to double check that. Off the top of my head, I think it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of like 10% to 12%. That might be even a little too high. I'll help you out here. I'll tell you. Okay, so out of 56 running backs, he was 43rd in explosive run rate,

which is 12 or more yards. So very bad there. He was 54th out of 56 in percentage of carries for zero or negative yards, as in he had the most, among the most. He was very good, though, in carries of five or more yards. So he moved the chains. He stayed ahead of the sticks, I guess.

And we're just talking about last year, Adam, you were? Uh-huh. I was talking about the last two years. That's 74 carries. Okay, the year before that, he was 45th in explosive run rate out of 58 running backs who had 100 or more carries. So he had some bad... That metric was bad.

Two years in a row, bad at explosive carries. I'd say Rashad White, we got to put, you know, even though just a rookie small sample, he wasn't very efficient either. So that's kind of one thing that maybe separates those two guys, Rashad White and Madison. They weren't great running backs last year for Madison. It's been two years in a row. And again, not a lot of carries for them, but that's just something that, that kind of stands out. It would maybe give people some hesitation. The thing I like about Madison and obviously, you know, we, we have the, the, the, the sample size of when Dalvin Cook has been there, but if you expand that a little bit,

he's got 14 games in his career with at least 10 carries, and he scored 15 PPR points or more in seven of those. And in seven games in his career where he's played at least 48% of the snaps, he's averaged 19.5 carries, 84 rushing yards, 3.7 catches, and 34 receiving yards with five total touchdowns. Over a full season, that puts him for 332 carries, 1430 rushing yards. And where'd I go? And 63 catches, 583 receiving yards and 12 total scores.

So when he's gotten the opportunity to get work or play a lot, he's been productive. And so explosive run rate, all those things. Yes, they aren't exactly in his favor, but I just don't know how much he's going to come off the field. That's the biggest question. He might. I mean, Ty Chandler looked really good. You know, there's still the rumor of Kareem Hunt joining the team.

You know, so depending on when you're drafting and when you're watching this and listening to it, you know, you might be a little frustrated when you go back and say, well, these guys told me to draft Alexander Madsen. I think there's just a lot to like in the current situation. But if that does change, then clearly there's a problem for him because somebody might be better. And that explosive run thing can be a good indicator. But at the same time, we have multiple top 15 running backs every year that we're talking about how they didn't have very many explosive runs. Yes.

That average rate was 7.4%. that's over the last two years heath 7.4 and he was at like basically five and a half yeah a little lower than that yeah okay so that's alexander madison so who's your favorite out of rashad white madison damian pierce james cook and who's the one I'm missing here? Dobbins. I wonder if we're going to have three different answers for this one. I'll go first. I'll say Damian Pierce.

I think he's the better running back than Devin Singletary in Houston. I think he fits the new run scheme that they're going to have there. They're going to do the zone running that San Francisco did. I think he's capable as a passer. Not sure if he's going to be asked to do a lot of it. And I think he's the better hammer in short yardage goal line situations. And this should be an improved offensive line. I don't know if it's going to be like, I think I might've said like a couple of months ago, it could be league average

given the injuries that they've already incurred. I'm not sure that that's going to happen, but it should still provide some pretty good opportunities for Pierce who once he got rolling last year, he was not bad for fantasy at all. And I think he can be a little bit better this year. All right. So that's Pierce for you, Jamie. Who's your favorite in that group of five? Dobbins.

Um, you know, I, I, I'm really excited for him to be in this offense. I'm glad the, uh, whatever he was dealing with to put them on the pop list is now a thing of the past. And I think this is going to be a big season for him catching the ball. I think this offense is going to be very successful. I think he's going to showcase himself as a runner, which has never really been a problem for him when he's gotten to work. I would not be surprised if he's a top 12 running back this year.

All right. Heath, are we going to get three different answers? We got Pierce. We got Dobbins. What do we got? Yeah, because I was going to say Madison is my favorite favorite of this group but we already talked a bunch about him so i was going to say james cook i think the thing that those two guys probably have in common and maybe baltimore is the exception here but lamar runs so much um like those are the guys dobbins madison and cook that are on good offenses even though they have question marks

like the other two guys Rashad White's one of my breakouts like I definitely agree with it but that's a question mark about explosiveness and question mark about how good the offense is and how many how good the offensive line is and how many touchdowns they're going to score Cook listen this Buffalo

situation hasn't been great because of what Josh Allen's done in the red zone and they haven't thrown to their running backs maybe as much as everybody would like for them to. But they're acting like they want to do both of those things. And I don't think it doesn't seem like Damian Harris is even going to be a factor. I'll tell you a number that shocked me. And maybe, Dave, if you want to check my work on this. The Bills were actually 15th in running back targets last year.

The last four seasons in the Josh Allen era, they've been 28th, 27th, 25th, and then 15th in running back targets. I would actually appreciate it if you would double check on that because I want to make sure it's right. I think it's a pretty important number. I'll need a little more than the usual 30 seconds on that one. I've got this one.

I've got the opportunity index right here. Yeah, because Singletary had 52 targets and Cook had 32. Naeem Hines, even Reggie Gilliam had a combined 19. Zach Moss had 8. So they spread it around. But they actually did throw to the running backs

league average, it seems. I've got them 16th, yeah. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Do we think that Cook is going to have a role that we haven't seen other than maybe a six-game-ish stretch for Devin Singletary, where he's really going to be the bona fide, legit lead running back for the Buffalo Bills?

I've got him projected for like 245 touches this year. So what's that? 14, 15 per game? So I guess not really, but I do think that he will be more explosive than Devin Singletary. So I think he'll probably be more efficient. But no, I don't think we get to a point

to where we have a 300-touch running back in Buffalo. If they do in the next year or two i don't think james cook's probably the guy who's going to see 300 touches but i do think he gets most of the catches and he averages probably close to five yards per carry if not better on the ground here's uh here's a fun azure stat for you so uh the leader in yards per carry of at least 100 carries last year you know that was that's uh well no he only had 89 carries um justin fields uh running backs it might have been but um i do know who this is you're about to say his name i think well it wasn't james i was gonna say james cook but khalil herbert yeah that who it was. And they averaged the same yards per carry.

And like you said, Cook has 11 carries less. So he didn't get over that 100-carry threshold. I think the best thing that's happening to him right now is not only does he look good in practice and he looked good in the first preseason game. Damien Harris is hurt. And so is, I think, Adam, you called him the new cockroach, Latavius Murray.

I don't know. I think someone else said that. Oh, maybe that was Heath. Um, that is he going to be, you know, a factor and, and he might, and, you know, they, they were in the conversation early on, you know, to maybe bring in Dalvin cook. We know that's not a possibility anymore. You know, is, is Leonard Fournette who's still hanging out there or Kareem Hunt still hanging out there, somebody that they go and explore, but I would guess not, you know, and, and Sean McDermott, I think you've heard me say this a few times, you know, is Leonard Fournette who's still hanging out there or Kareem Hunt still hanging out there, somebody that they go and explore?

But I would guess not. You know, and Sean McDermott, I think you've heard me say this a few times, you know, going back to the owners meetings in March that right after they signed Damian Harris, he was really excited to get a more physical presence there. But he's just following the same script, Harris is, of not being able to stay on the field. So Cook's got every opportunity here. And I think the one thing to note, and you mentioned this Adam, in terms of where the numbers are in terms of receptions or, or opportunities in the passing game for running backs, it was new offensive coordinator,

you know, and that's something that, that changed last year, you know, Ken Dorsey now taking over play calling as opposed to Brian Dable. So maybe that's just another wrinkle and that just continues to get enhanced,

which remember going into last year, they were really trying to get a pass catching running back. You know, it was everything in free agency. It was everything in the draft and they end up with, with James cook. They didn't use him to the level that we thought that they would, but maybe that's something now that they just get him more on the field as a

featured guy. So, uh, yeah, I, I find myself, you know, feeling a little bit too low where I haven't ranked the 23.

I'm going to ask you a question about Rashad White and Damian Pierce and the level of concern you have for them based on the fact that they might be on lousy offenses. We'll see how you guys feel about that after this break on Fantasy Football today. All right. I teased it going into break and here we are. So Rashad White with the Bucs, Damian Pierce with the

Texans, not exactly Jameer Gibb. We'll get to him in a second and Tony Pollard, but not exactly James Cook, not exactly Madison, not exactly Dobbins. So, Dave, what's your level of concern about Pierce and White just not being able to overcome their circumstances? It's pretty low for Pierce, just because I think talent will win out there in Houston. And I think the coaches like him better as the primary running back. They like

Singletary too. They wouldn't have signed him otherwise. And Singletary could profile as being the better option on third and five plus, something like that. But I think Pierce is going to get a lot of other opportunities that we look for in fantasy football. Rashad White is going to win on volume. i don't think we've already talked about just his lack of explosiveness and you know he's probably a little bit better of a pass catcher than people may realize he got a lot of targets last year is he going to get them again this year maybe um i worry a little bit about him more so than pierce okay anybody worried about these guys significantly worried that they'd be higher if i wasn't a little bit worried about them um sure i guess i'm the low

guy on both of them even though i kind of agree with both of them as potential breakouts i'm not sure pierce was not too far from this last year was he um but like the where it shows up is in the touchdowns like we shot damian pierce last year had 220 carries and scored four touchdowns i've got both pierce and white projected outside of the top 60 in percentage of rush attempts that go for touchdowns so if if they if they're not if they don't have big reception numbers and that's right they're on teams that struggle to score it's pretty hard to be a running back that matters if you don't have big reception numbers, and that's right, they're on teams that struggle to score, it's pretty hard to be a running back that matters if you don't have a high touchdown total or a high catch total. Well, that's where you've got to hope Rashad White wins.

To me, he's very different in every format because I think you've got to hope that he's going to be as involved in the passing game as he was last year or close to it. Now, granted, Baker Mayfield is not Tom Brady, but I think people overlook just what Baker Mayfield has done for pass-catching running backs. And granted, he obviously last year played with one of the better ones because he was with Christian McCaffrey.

I think a lot of people forget that they're actually on the same team last year. But he's going to, I think, rely on him. And there was a pretty significant injury for the Bucs today where Russell Gage goes down. And this receiving core is very, very suspect right now. So they they got two guys to the top but it's very thin after that and so how do you maximize your best players getting them on the field you know Rashad White I think's you know going to be a three down guy and and that's something that you can't overlook and then what his role in the past game is is hard to overlook and so for a guy that had 50

catches in his rookie campaign and he wasn't in the full-time role the majority of the season, that gives him a pretty good opportunity here to do what we're talking about here, to break out. So PPR, I think he's worth drafting as number two running back half. It's more of a flex, and non-PPR, it's almost just, okay, desperation flex for me, because I don't think he's going to score

very many touchdowns, and you don't get the points for those receptions. I got to say that of this group, I don't typically draft Damian Pierce because he's going, I mean, fantasy pros is PPR ADP. Damian Pierce is 48th. And if you guys like all of these guys as breakouts, I just don't even see the,

I don't see the merit in drafting Pierce 48th. I'd rather just wait a couple rounds and draft these other guys. Unless you think Pierce just has such great upside, you know, like I'm just looking at two drafts that I did earlier this week, one on Monday. And then the one we did last night, Damian Pierce went, uh, 40, he went, uh, let's see 46 in one and like 50th and the other. So no, no, much earlier than that sorry um he went 35th he went the second last pick yeah he went 35th in one and he went about 40th in the other so well both were full ppr half ppr and full ppr and you went higher than half right five picks six picks

something like that okay but still i don't know that i want to take him in round four if especially if we like the running back value later. I'd rather fall back on Connor, who we haven't talked about. He's not a breakout. But any of these guys, Dobbins is going in like round six, so I just wouldn't do it personally. I don't know if Thomas can do this, but if he has our consensus rankings from, I think,

probably 13 through 24, if he has that up, it's very much of a mixed bag. You know, I think you could say there's certainly guys you can gravitate toward, breakout candidates and players that you like. And then, you know, there's going to be a couple, obviously, that you'd like to avoid. But that's why I think this is a great year,

if you didn't do it the last couple of seasons and just been living in a cave, to go hero RB. Because you get one of these guys, and then you come back in in rounds four at the earliest but mostly five through seven and you can get one of these guys to be your number two option and it's a very good place to be you know so right I I think that's you know lends itself to going receiver early and even if you go you know I don't want to say zero RB because that's not really the the theory If you're taking these guys in rounds four or five, but you can get to these guys. I mean, you asked me this

recently about, or ask all of us, um, if you go Jefferson at one, and I said, I like to go to the three receivers, Jefferson, Smith, and Higgins of those choices that you gave, because when you get to that four or five turn, you can get two of these guys. And so it's, again, it's just a great start. If you're in a three receiver PPR league to go with those receivers and then come back and, you know, double tap these two running backs or two of these running backs, excuse me. All right. We're going to finish up here. Dave, uh, tell me about Tony Pollard. He's on your breakout list and you like him in the first round. You think about what he did last year when Ezekiel was in Dallas, he averaged over 15 PPR points per game. Now Zeke and his touchdown hogging ways out of there. I think there's room for Pollard to

continue to increase his touchdowns and his touches, be the lead back in Dallas, and maybe even pick up over 50 catches over the course of the season. Absolutely one of the most efficient running backs in fantasy last year. I think he was up there the year before, too. And now he's getting an increased workload in a pretty quality offense with a really good offensive line. Schedule be damned on this one. I think that Tony Pollard's got a shot to be an absolute league winner and would be thrilled to take him in round one.

I used to try and get him in round two, and I would take like Stefan Diggs or somebody like that over him. I still might try for that, especially if I'm late in round one. I used to try and get him in round two, and I would take like Stefan Diggs or somebody like that over him. I still might try for that, especially if I'm late in round one, but I just don't think he's going to get there nearly as much as he used to. Especially now, I've been doing a few drafts since Zeke signed in New England. Pollard's going like top 12, top 14 pretty regularly. Okay. And finally, Jameer Gibbs is on Jamie's breakout list. What is the earliest, when is the earliest you guys would take Jameer Gibbs,

let's say in a half PPR league, Jamie? In half and non-PPR, he loses. I would not take him before round four in any other format besides PPR. Round four is the earliest in half and probably around five. And what about in full PPR then? Beginning. So round four, the earliest in half and probably around five.

And what about in full PPR then? Beginning part of round three is the earliest I would consider. Heath? Round four, early round four in full PPR, late round four in half PPR. I might still be round four in non-PPR, but it's like running back 24

versus running back 16. Right. Okay. And Dave, Jameer Gibbs. Early round four and full PPR, late round four, early round five and non-PPR. Wow. Two people, two of you saying early round four for Jameer Gibbs. I thought we get at least two round threes in there. Well, I mean, to me, it just goes back to what his usage was. And I've talked about this a bunch of times on the show before. Usage in college was never as a feature guy. He was always splitting.

Barely played near the goal line in college. Six snaps inside the five. And then he always struggled to get yards after contact when he was near the line of scrimmage. He could come through, like, you know, edge runs, and he's six, seven yards downfield. He makes contact. Yeah, he can bounce off a tacklerler a lot of running backs can do that dander swift just did that in a

preseason game i think gibbs can be better than swift was last year i don't know if he can really top the 15 or 16 ppr point per game mark if everybody stays healthy top three and running back perceptions this year will be christian mccaffrey, Austin Eckler, two, Jameer Gibbs, three. I think I might disagree. Yeah. Eckler, McCaffrey. That's fine. I mean, I think that's the upside case for sure, is that he gets that role.

Oh, he has that role that he gets that role. What do we have? Oh, he has that role. He has that role. Oh, yeah, he's got that role in their offense. What do we have? The quote that came out just like a day or two ago, that 40 to 50 catches was the expectation for him in year one. Right, that was Jeremy Fowler.

I would bet money on David Montgomery having more catches than Jamal Williams did last year. Right. That's fair. I would also bet on Jameer Gibbs playing more games than Jamal Williams did last year. Right. He's got the third down. I would also bet on, on, uh, Jameer Gibbs playing more games than DeAndre Swift.

Let me give you a dark horse to be, to be third dark horse scoff. All you want Alvin. Oh, well, he's got the three game suspension. Damn it. All right.

From week four on Alvin, Alvin Camara from week four on Camara dark horse to be third. I think the dark horse might be Antonio Gibson. Oh, boy. He's just in that JD McKissick role. We're deep in the barn now. Barkley, maybe? I've got Barkley, Gibson, Mixon, Stephenson, Gibbs all around 60.

Okay. All right, folks, that's the running backs. We've got Jake Seeley coming on in four minutes to talk about wide receivers. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash fantasy football today. If you're watching the RB breakout episode, it's going to be a new link, a new URL for the wide receivers. So just go back to our homepage and we'll see you then.

See you. Good night, everybody.