Fantasy Football Today - Five Big Topics: Rookie RBs, Herbert, Hilton and More (12/14 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

We recap the Steelers-Bills (2:15) to start the show. Are there any must-start Steelers at this point? Can you trust Diontae Johnson? And don't be so quick to get away from Cole Beasley next week ... News and notes (10:50) and we get into our Five Big Topics first by discussing what we got right and wrong this year and what we can learn for next season (13:40), followed by a Justin Herbert discussion (21:05). I think we might have figured out what's going on with Herbert lately ... Miles Sanders (27:10)! Do we trust him next week? Also, who is the surprise must-start during the Fantasy playoffs (30:00)? And how are we ranking the rookie RBs rest of season (32:30)? ... Email us at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Want winning picks each morning in under 10 minutes? Subscribe to 'The Early Edge: A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast' on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. Five big topics after Fantasy Week 14, including those rookie running backs who are surging right now. How many of them are going to lead you to fantasy gold? And listen, you wanted 20 touches from Ronald Jones.

Well, you got 19 of them, and now you got a broken pinky. So we'll talk about the Bucs' backfield and recap last night's kind of stinker game. Adam Azer with Chris Towers and Ben Schrager. Happy Monday. Chris, Ben, do either of you have a case of the Mondays? No, no. We've got football tonight.

I'm feeling great. I wanted to quote the actual line from the movie, but it's not appropriate for a family-friendly podcast. Hell no, man. Maybe that one? One of my favorite line readings in any movie ever is the way he responds to that question. Yeah, I don't even know what he said,

but it's something I remember. I remember the rest of it. Yeah. Ben, any idea what we're talking about? No idea. Nope. A classic Diedrich Bader performance. Shout to our guy, Diedrich.

Yeah, so I think you're talking about the guy who from, oh, the Cleveland Rocks show. The Drew Carey show. I think they should name the baseball team Cleveland Rocks. That would be super lame. What would the logo be? I don't know. There are more creative people that come up with the logo.

I would only be okay with it if it was like a... You remember Pokemon Geodude? The rock Pokemon who's jacked and he's got muscles? Sure. If it was him playing a guitar, that's the only way I would accept it. Fine. Cleveland Rocks. Okay, well, Ben, you've seen a lot of movies per our recommendations, but Office Space will be better than all of them.

So make sure you see Office Space. All right. Office Space office space all right so our topics today that we will get to are about uh things we got wrong and right from our pre-season analysis justin herbert struggles a surprising fantasy star lately uh something along those lines like a surprising player who is you know emerging for the fantasy playoffs. That's the line. Miles Sanders and rookie running backs. In the meantime, Buffalo 26, Pittsburgh 15. So excited to watch this game. And then I watched the game

and it was really boring for the first half. Just really, really boring. And yeah, what are our big fantasy takeaways? Chris, what do you got for the Bills and Steelers? The Steelers offense is a real mess and uh at this point i'm not sure do they have a single must start player right now i don't think james connor is that that running game has been awful for a long time i deontay

johnson certainly isn't anymore. He played less than half of their snaps. He ran on 22 of their dropbacks. They had 38. Well, you know what happened. He dropped two balls early in the game and he got benched until the third of the fourth quarter. I would say Deontay Johnson would be

a must start if he were not. If Mike Tom was like, no matter what happens, I'm not benching Deontay Johnson. But I don't think you can rely on that anymore. I think Claypool played four snaps in the second half. He is fading a little bit. Juju, at least in PPR, is giving you a bit of a floor and he caught a touchdown. But their offense is so boring. Good grief. I still think Ebron is probably a top 12 tight end. I don't know if you're going to find 12 you like better than him, but I agree with the sentiment. There's nobody you're excited about

on the Steelers. They've got Cincinnati this week, so I don't know how you approach that. It's a tough situation because you start everyone against Cincinnati. That's the way we do this

thing I can't really in everyone at this point right like Claypool snaps aren't there Deontay Johnson could get benched at any time James Washington could be good for a touchdown but he also may not play much so I think Ebron I think that's a good call Ebron's probably the one must start guy I can't get away from Juju against the Bengals because I think you know obviously Roethlisberger needs reliable receivers right now and I feel like Juju is definitely that, you know, the other guys can't hang on to the ball.

I'm with you. He's the only one in my top 24 next week. There are kind of two teams in that same situation because there's also the Buccaneers who have the Falcons this week. Who from the Buccaneers passing game can you rely on? It's a weird spot for both of those teams. I'm kind of willing to throw out this past game.

I said it so much on Sunday, but for the Bucs, they had the ball for 21 minutes and Tom Brady threw 23 passes. Right, but what about the previous six? Well, you had three straight games with Chris Godwin getting 15 or more PPR points. He was about six catches, 80, 90 yards. That was kind of what I expect from him. Mike Evans is their red zone guy.

Him and Gronk, their end zone guy, I should say. And you don't start Antonio Brown. Gronk is the really tough one because I feel like you feel obligated to start him, but he could get two targets. He's been so inconsistent with targets since Antonio Brown came along.

Yeah, that just makes it sound like there's one guy you start from that offense for sure. Who is that? That's Chris Godwin. But Evans scores all the touchdowns. Evans is a touchdown guy. I'd rather start Evans than any of the non-Juju Steelers wide receivers. He's definitely

not a top 24 wide receiver because he's 25th on the season in points per game, and that's with 11 touchdowns. He's not a top 24 wide receiver. Because he's 25th on the season in points per game. And that's with 11 touchdowns. He's having a Julius Thomas season. He played a lot. He played hurt a lot. That's fine. He hasn't been...

Well, I'm just saying, you know, he's played hurt a lot. But he's got the Falcons. You know, if you're playing a neutral matchup, I can see what you're saying, but he's got the Falcons. Hopefully he's good. All right, what about the Bills, Ben? What are your takeaways for the Bills? Beasley getting peppered with targets was great

because we knew Stephon Diggs is great. He's going to continue to be an awesome, reliable guy, but Beasley, 10 targets in this game was great to see. He only had 5 for 41, so not the best fantasy game, but still it's Diggs and it's Beasley and that's it. So I think Beasley is a guy who could be a startable flex,

maybe even sneak into the wide receiver three conversation every single week. Yeah, it seemed like Josh Allen should have scored more fantasy points. He had a pretty bad first half. It was really good in the second half, came away with 21 fantasy points. The decision that many were agonizing over Tannehill versus Josh Allen was

almost a tie. There were so many quarterbacks that finished with around 20 to 22 fantasy points this week. Um, that might end up being that it might end up putting you in the top 10. Uh, it was a weird weekend, some hot of some elite performances.

And then the 2021, 22 range, a lot there. If you had any faith in Devin Singletary, that's gone. Zach Moss had more carries, had the red zone, the goal line work. The goal line work, he didn't get in. So only seven touches, eight touches

for Singletary and 13 for Moss. Forget them. And yeah, I think to follow up on Ben's point about Beasley, he's played four games without John Brown. He's had double digit targets in three of them. Brown will be out next week at Denver. And I think Beasley is somebody he can go back to.

Final thoughts? Gabriel Davis, another touchdown. That's three straight games. I'm really excited to draft Gabriel Davis in the late rounds next year. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I will be if John Brown and Cole Be the late rounds next year. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I will be, if John Brown and Cole Beasley are both there,

but yeah, we'll see. I see. I think he's good. And you know, I started him in a 14 team deep lineup league. And you know, he has upside every week with the big play potential.

Yeah. He's breezed over James Connor and he's going to be a very tough decision in the next few weeks because he was almost a must start going into this week i don't know that i told many people to sit the guy it made too much sense to start him but he looks really bad just not a good running back yeah it's just neither of those situations buffalo or pittsburgh you know i i don't know if any of those guys are great talents. I think James Conner's pretty good. The situations are just bad.

Yeah, except at least Conner, first half of the season, he was a stud, must-start, top-20 overall type of player. And then Pouncey got hurt, and I figured with Pouncey coming back, with Conner coming back, they'd be able to get their run game going.

So this was quite disappointing. And yeah. Look, we thought, well, you got to start Zeke against the Bengals. That didn't work. Are we going to start Conor against the Bengals next week? He's probably an RB2, but there's like 25 RB2s.

Always. Yeah, he'll find his like 25 RB2s. Always. Yeah, he'll find his way into the top 24. Okay. All right, we got Monday Night Football props. Go to cbssports.com slash props. We're giving away $1,000 every week for Monday Night Football props. Answer seven prop questions

about the Ravens and the Browns. All right, so what's the question this week, Ben? What's one of them? Most passing yards. It's Baker against Lamar, obviously. Wow. And I don't think Baker gets it. I think Baker kind of falls apart in this game after getting hyped up everywhere last week. Easy matchup, great play. But I think Lamar actually has a good game. I think neither of them go over 250 yards. I think Lamar wins it with like 215.

Okay, I'll sign on to that. I'll co-sign. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, I think you probably give a slight edge to Baker, but if Jackson has better odds, I think he's probably the better choice. I would guess he's... It's just a prop game, so you just got to pick either one. I think I would go with Mayfield, but I don't feel super confident

in either way. And Wednesday's a big day. Wednesday is signing day. December 16th coming right up. And CBS Sports HQ is bringing you wall-to-wall coverage from 9am to 6pm. See where your team's class ends up in the 24-7

sports rankings, the industry standard. And yes, I am on 24-7 all the time around signing day, and I'll be watching HQ all the time. Live announcements throughout the day, including Flip Watch, rankings, leapfrogs, and of course, signing alerts. So no matter what D1 school you root

for, we'll have you covered with breakdowns of all the teams. So that's nine hours of programming. That's amazing. CBS Sports HQ is going to be your home for winners and losers, top classes, and diamonds in the rough to remember. Watch on the CBS Sports app on your connected TV and your mobile device. That's what I was trying to say. It's going to be an awesome show. All right, news and notes. Leonard Fournette is rostered in 78% of leagues. He might be a top waiver wire priority. Ronald Jones has

a fractured pinky. I'm not sure what to expect if Jones misses in terms of workload between probably McCoy and Fournette mostly. But I don't know how you'd leave him unrostered, put it that way. We'll have time to talk about that throughout the week. Quarterback news.

Matthew Stafford's got bad ribs. He may not play this week. He may not play again this season. We just don't know. But Daryl Bevel said he's not sure about his status for the rest of the year. Alex Smith, leg injury. Jacksonville's going with Gardner Minshew. Philadelphia's going with Jalen Hurts. No surprises there, I guess.

Brandon Allen for the Bengals. He hurt his leg and he may not be able to play this week against Pittsburgh. Matt Rule said he's planning on having Christian McCaffrey play again this year. Not necessarily this week. Could be another Mike Davis week. David Johnson expected back this week at the Colts. Did not realize Keenan Allen hurt his back. He hurt his back apparently in like the third quarter, but he left in the fourth quarter. So he and Mike Williams both with back injuries. Other than that, we've got a lot of offensive line injuries. You probably don't want to hear about them, but two on the Chargers offensive line,

two on the Steelers, two for the Cardinals. The Colts lost Darius Leonard and Xavier Rhodes to injuries. Not sure how serious they are, but those are big pieces on their defense. Derrick Henry has now an NFL record. He has four games with 200 rushing yards and multiple rushing touchdowns. Doug Marone, who just faced him, said, I don't think we could get any more people up there. I mean, if you don't win your championship and you have Derrick Henry at this point, it's a disappointment, right?

He's amazing. I mean, you just don't see games like that that frequently. I mean, without catches, I guess. It's the combination of his incredible skills and the way they run their offense. It's just a perfect combination for fantasy. He's going for 2,000 yards this year. Wow.

Is he really close to that? He must be, right? Where is he? He needs 150 game and then a couple 100 games. And he has very good matchups. Oh, yeah. So he needs what? Like 450 basically?

469. So he needs to average 156. Yeah, he's got a good chance. And the Eagles, three defensive backs left with injuries. That's kind of a bummer. Five big topics. Let's start with this one.

How would you pronounce this man's last name? His first name is Michael. His last name is S-I-M-I-O-N-E. Simeone. Simeone. We're going to go long O. Simeone long Simeone okay reflecting on your analysis from this season what did you get right and why what did you get wrong and how can you approve upon it Chris why don't you kick it off um so I think my my biggest win this season and it set me up for a lot of success was my draft strategy of basically trying to grab

one of I would say you could just say the first tier of running backs which is not just those guys who are going in the top seven Dalvin Cook Alvin Kamara etc but one of the first like two round running backs and this season in ADP there were 14 of them in CBS scoring leagues. It goes down to Kenyon Drake in ADP. And then there's a little gap. I think one of those guys and then really don't look at running back for the next six rounds. Get four starting wide receivers, especially in a three wide receiver league.

Maybe an early quarterback because I think another thing is the running quarterbacks are the guys you need to pay up for um and then take a lot of shots at running back because that third round through like sixth round tier of running backs this year was just an absolute disaster uh yeah i I mean, it typically is. There are going to be some wins in there, but it's just not a good spot for running backs. I had a similar strategy, but yours worked better. I mean, I was more

in the two running backs with my first two picks, and then a bunch of wide receivers, basically. Of course, nothing set in stone, but yeah, this was just a really good year for replacement running backs. I mean, 0RB, great year for 0RB

after a terrible year for 0RB. So you never know how these things are going to work out. Okay, so that's what went right for you. Ben, what went right for you? I avoided the rookie running backs at their price tags, and that went right for a very, very long time. Obviously, it's hurting a little bit right now with Jonathan Taylor and cam acres, but my general strategy of not paying up for these rookie running backs because of, you know, the COVID off season, the weird off season,

it worked out and I was able to load up on some guys, but yeah, right now it's, it's kind of going the other direction, right? Jonathan Taylor, J.K. Dobbins, maybe. All these rookie running backs could be amazing. But avoiding those paid off. And also, in leagues that I got, Travis Kelsey. That was another one where in non-expert leagues, you could have gotten Travis Kelsey in the early second round, and I did, and that paid off very well.

Yeah, that was a great pick. For me, it was the year two wide receiver analysis. I was very proud of that, And it's worked out pretty well. And I would expand it to just say year two players. You know, if you're going to get, other than running backs, you know, running backs, they, year one,

they obviously can break out quite a bit. But yeah, the quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends, the guys who make these huge leaps that we could not have seen possible, a lot of times they're year two. So I think it's just sports. Fantasy baseball, I feel the same way.

You want to be young. You want young fantasy teams. Year two is something I'm going to be peppering forever and ever, basically. So that's what went right for us. What went wrong, Chris? Not much for Chris this year. Well well week 14 went very wrong for me um yeah i'm trying to figure it out and i guess come back to me okay i'm not trying to show off or anything i'm just i'm i'm i want to have a good answer all right ben what went wrong for you it was lamar jackson the one

single player. And you could probably group my homes in there too, in leagues where he fell a little bit, but I was, oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm getting them in the third round because it's not early. I just got, you know, two top guys. Well, guess what? This year, a lot of the top two round picks got hurt. Not many busted, but a lot of them got hurt. And when you spend a third round pick on your Lamar Jackson or your Patrick Mahomes, it did not pay off. And unfortunately, I think it was the right move necessarily. If you got a first round talent and a second round talent and Lamar Jackson was pretty good and not as great as last year, but still a top three quarterback, it could

have worked out, but boy, did he fall off. Yeah. For me, I would say it was, well, first of all, the rookie wide receivers were a lot better than I anticipated and I didn't really have a lot of them, but this is the hardest part of fantasy. It's like the Steelers completely changed their offense. The bills completely changed their offense. There's just no way to forecast that. So two players that I was so wrong about were Juju Smith-Schuster, who I felt could be a dark horse to be the number one wide receiver in fantasy. But they don't throw the ball downfield and they spread the ball around. So, but it's just so different. And Stefan Diggs, while I love Stefan Diggs as a player,

I just was looking at a team that was run heavy year after year after year after year and i just didn't see them doing this and i i guess i didn't see josh allen taking this kind of leap either so when you you know you do run into a risk when you downgrade players because of the offense they are in and you try to get like you try to understand the offensive philosophy if it changes you're going to get screwed. And it could have happened with the Seahawks guys, for example. And it did happen to me with Stefan Diggs. That's exactly the point I was going to make. Yeah, I don't have a great explanation for Juju.

I mean, they are one of the highest volume passing teams in the NFL, but they just have such a lame passing attack. So that was a big miss for me. Really held me back. Probably my most owned player. And then I can't really say I regret my analysis of Stefan Diggs, but maybe I should have taken a shot

in one or two leagues and gambled on him, and I didn't. Yeah, and to build on that, I think the biggest thing for me would probably just be getting too locked into volume projections for teams. And so looking at – I had a lot of stuff on Diggs.

It worked out, but that was mostly just because he was going so late. He was like wide receiver 25 in a lot of leagues, and so I just thought that was great value. But I don't have much of Seattle, especially DK Maccabee. I don't have much of Adam Thielen at all, really. And Tennessee, AJ Brown, I have a little bit of him, but those were all teams, Seattle, Tennessee, and Minnesota, that I just didn't think they would throw the ball enough.

And I think one place that you can get tripped up is just, this is what this team was last year. This is what this team will be before this season. But one volume only matters in as much as, you know, if you're not efficient, you need a lot of volume like Deontay Johnson, Adam Thielen. He's taking basically what Stefan Diggs did last season. And we saw in this Vikings offense that wide receivers could be productive,

even with low volume. And so I think it's just volume is a lot, but it's not everything. And I think there can be too much analysis, myself included, based around projected volume when we're not all actually that good at projecting volume. All right, let's go to our next topic here. Thank you for the question, Michael. Jason, that FF nerd, Draven,

does Austin Eckler's return ruin Justin Herbert's fantasy value? I think it's likely due to coaching. So Ben, you got Herbert who in his last five games, he has 24 points at Miami, which was fine. He had a rushing touchdown, though. He had a huge game against the Jets, but his last three games,

18 points, 4 points, 19 points, and 6 points for passing touchdown leagues. Not cutting it. I don't really get the link necessarily with Eckler, but I can read a quote that's pretty interesting, and I will after you give your analysis.

But the question was, does Eckler's return ruin Justin Herbert's fantasy value? No, I think if Eckler returned four weeks earlier, we would say they were great for each other and they'd both be potential league winners. Justin Herbert is not playing as well as he was four or five weeks ago, and Austin Eckler wasn't on the field,

but there's no correlation there. They're not running the ball even as much as they were in those games when Herbert was doing well, and Eckler is helping him. Balaz're not running the ball even as much as they were in those games when Herbert was doing well. And Eckler is helping him. Balazs was catching the ball fine. Eckler is an amazing catcher out of the backfield. Keenan Allen is not playing as well now as he was four weeks ago. The whole offense is not operating well.

It's not an Austin Eckler thing. It's a Chargers offense thing. It's not like Eckler's vulturing touchdowns either. He hasn't had a rushing touchdown in three. He hasn't had any touchdowns in three games. Chris, what's your take? I think there's some correlation there. I just think it's more about the overall offense.

The offensive line has been hurt. It's not likely to get better in the next few weeks. And I think there was just some regression due for Justin Herbert. We talked about it all season. He was having arguably the best fantasy season for a rookie quarterback ever. And you should generally bet against outliers. Yes. Every once in a while, you'll have a Derek Henry who just continues to smash expectations. But for the most part, you won't go broke betting against outliers. And in Justin Herbert's case, i think it's just a little bit of regression but also you know he does have his lowest uh his three of his four lowest adot games have been with

austin eckler that's that's that's it right there and i think you know this is something that we saw a little bit with washington when they were featuring j featuring JD McKissick early in Alex Smith's time as a starter to a ridiculous amount. Throwing to your running backs as a strategy can have value, but when it's a primary focus and it's not a primary focus on trying to get them open downfield, but it's like screen pass, you know, dump off. That's when you get in trouble. And I think Justin Herbert's probably leaned on that a little bit too much. And those are just, they're not as valuable as throwing the ball downfield. Those kinds of targets is exactly what the athletic, I don't, I'm sorry, I didn't get the name, but it's the beat reporter for the athletic was writing about it. And he said in total, the chargers, well, first first of all he pointed out that last week this yesterday

was the fewest area arts per attempt all season for herbert and you just said three of the last you said three of his four lowest a dot games were with eckler since his comeback okay in total the chargers ran it 14 times on first down passed it 16 times but a closer look into the context reveals the predictability six of those first down passes were screens. So that brings it to 20 runs and screens compared to 10 dropbacks. Five of those first down dropbacks came inside four minutes in the final drive of the first half. Another two came on the final drive of the fourth quarter.

So the writer was making it clear Anthony Lynn wants to ground and pound and control the clock and keep his defense off the field that is his philosophy and that might really be hurting Justin Herbert it's not something I had considered I think it's a very good point and another tough decision coming because you know the Raiders are so bad on defense they just fired their defensive coordinator well that's Herbert's matchup next week at the Raiders they they don't give up a lot of touchdowns. They've only given up more than two passing touchdowns once all season. So they're bad, but they're not terrible against quarterbacks. Do you envision him being a top 12 guy?

Do you think someone like Trubisky would be ahead of Justin Herbert? I think you can definitely make a case for Trubisky. I would imagine that's the case that Heath is going to make on this podcast many, many times this week. We did the FFT video show earlier today, and he's viewing Trubisky as a top 10 quarterback this week. I think you could make a very strong case for Jalen Hertz ahead of him. If Taysom Hill starts, I think he's probably ahead of him. So yeah, I've been worried about Justin Herbert for a while. Um,

and I, he could pull out of it. He's incredibly talented. That's a great set of weapons he has against him around him. But with the offensive line injuries with Mike Williams and Keenan Allen being banged up, it is, he's no sure thing.

He seemed like a sure thing for a while. He's not that anymore. Okay. We're gonna take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about Miles Sanders right after this on Fantasy Football Today. Whether in the game or in life,

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That means you get six seconds back. Just enough time to visit shopify.com slash POS20. Now that's an efficient ad. Eligibility requirements apply. See See Shopify.com slash POS20 for details. Next question comes from Rick. He just says, Miles Sanders! Exclamation point. Well, what do you think, Ben? Can we trust Miles Sanders next week

against the Cardinals? I don't know about trust, but he's an RB2. He's going to be very startable against the Cardinals. It's an okay matchup. He broke off the huge touchdown run. He had another touchdown. He looked fine in the rest of the game, but the four catches were very, very encouraging. That offense being run with Hurts having a little bit of a read option and posing a running threat unlike Wentz. It's very nice for Sanders. So if you can give me 15 touches next week, I'd feel good about it.

I don't know that that's a guarantee, but 15 touches would be amazing against the Cardinals. Let's look at the rookie running backs because we have a question about this later. We'll get back to it. But who are you starting ahead of Miles Sanders? Miles Sanders is at the Cardinals. James Robinson at Baltimore.

Yes. DeAndre Swift at Tennessee. That's going to be very close. We'll see how this week in practice goes. It's kind of clear he wasn't 100% here. Cam Akers against the Jets. Yeah. Yes. Clyde Edwards-Elair at against the Jets. Yeah. Yes.

Clyde Edwards-Elair at New Orleans. No. Nope. Jonathan Taylor against Houston. Yes. Yes, please. J.K. Dobbins, I guess we don't know yet. J.K. Dobbins against Jacksonville.

Maybe. Yeah. It really depends on tonight. If it's even split tonight by any means I'll start Sanders yeah I mean I think you know you look at the guys we said yes about and it's definitely definitely yes for Robbins, Akers, and Taylor I think they were the only three we said definitely yes those three guys might just be top 20 picks next season I think Robinson definitely will be and it's it seems at this point kind of likely that Taylor and Akers are going to end up there.

And so that, I mean, it's not necessarily a knock against Sanders that he might be below those guys. Yep. I don't know. You got to love his big playability. How many running backs have had three carries of 74 or more yards in a season? And that's ridiculous. I would love to know that. I'm sure Chris could probably look that up.

Play finder? I think I could find that. Yeah, let's see. He's got three carries of 74 or more yards. But you just wonder if he doesn't get a huge play, what kind of a game are you going to get from him? I'm actually more encouraged by the one-yard touchdown run. That's the kind of stuff that we haven't had from Miles Sanders this year. Those are the kind of plays that help the running backs,

you know, run it up a little bit, but the offense has been so bad. So, you know, that was, it was encouraging to see he'll be an interesting call. I think we're not fully on board as a must-start guy yet, but we're encouraged. Uh, and from Daryl, well, two more. This one from Daryl. Who's the biggest surprise starter emerging for the fantasy playoffs? Ben, I said T.Y. Hilton. Are you kidding me? Go ahead. I feel like somebody else is going to take it. It has to be T.Y. Hilton because

in the leagues that I'm in the playoffs or just my buddies are in the playoffs and they picked up T.Y. Hilton, they're all like, do I start T.Y. Hilton or do I start Allen Robinson? Obviously, this week Robinson paid off. Do I start Hilton or one of those Steelers wide receivers that got me here? At this point, it's probably Hilton because this guy's been incredible. Four touchdowns in the past three games. He's got Houston this week, so his run is going to continue. He plays very well

against the Texans. It's very very well documented and then he has the Steelers after that who just got beat up by Stefan Diggs so T.Y. Hilton was a guy who we were saying drop drop drop and you should have dropped him based on how bad he was but he came back a brand new man yeah he's same same roster percentage as Leonard Fournette 78 percent he's been you know he's playing a little over his head the last three games. Caught 74% of his targets. That's super high for him. Yeah, with a deeper average target.

So you would expect those things to be inversely related. Right, and he's got four touchdowns on 23 targets, one every six targets. I'm worried about a letdown here, but I do think he's emerging. I think he's got to be... I'm assuming Phillip Rivers considers him as the number one receiver now. He's got, what,

17 targets in his last two games? 18 in his last two games. I'm pretty good with him as a start. And you know, justice for Adam Azer, because I remember Heath mocking both of us for the almost touchdowns bit, but T.Y. Hilton actually early on in the season, if you were looking for reasons to be hopeful,

you know, T.Y. Hilton, I think he's fourth in the NFL in defensive pass interference is drawn. And that was mostly early on in the season there were a lot of situations where you know the first five or six weeks of the season he had like three catches for 24 yards but there was one like touchdown that was called back for a holding there was a i think that same game he had a defensive pass interference drawn in the end zone And so there were reasons if you wanted to look for them to think that he wasn't quite cooked yet. And I think we kind of made a similar case for Jarvis Landry. He had had some almost touchdowns and a little bit of bad luck.

He's come around for sure. Did you find the answer? No. Okay. I had so much faith in you. Well, the perfect football reference didn't have that option but i maybe i can find it another time another way okay from charles rookie running back breakouts how would you rank them rest of season all right so the five i've got or do i have six i have robinson

swift acres edward z layer taylor dobb have six. Ranking them rest of season is interesting. So based on last night's show, you'd have Robinson at the bottom, right? I don't think I'd have him one. I just hate the schedule. Baltimore and Chicago in his next two games. I'm not even going to look at week 17. I think I'd go Akers.

I feel like Akers. No, I think I'd go Taylor. No, I think I'd go Akers I mean, I feel like acres. No, I think I'd go Taylor. No, I think I go acres. No, you go Robinson. Robinson with Minshew is going to get absolutely fed. He's going to get four to five catches a game. I don't really care about the matchups.

He's going to have 15 carries. It's Robinson. I think it's right. I think it's Robinson, but you know, when you're down to the last two or three games of the season schedule can impact that a little bit more. Oh yeah. I think it's Robinson, but when you're down to the last two or three games of the season, schedule can impact that a little bit more. Oh, yeah.

I think it's either Robinson or Akers. I go Akers over Taylor just because Taylor is still, you know, he played like 54% of the snaps or something yesterday, and that's really where he's been at. They're still, you know, yesterday, Naheem Hines played 12 first quarter snaps. Jonathan Taylor played eight. So he's still a little bit game flow dependent

and they're definitely not giving him an every down role. Whereas Cam Akers sure seems like he's the every down back in Los Angeles. Obviously, you know, it's only been two games and Darrell Henderson, Darrell Henderson was injured for one of them, but

yeah, I can't say his name. It's so funny. I love it. Uh-huh. Well, I threw you off. I'm sorry. And so Cam Akers, I think in Thursday night's game, Darl Henderson and Malcolm Brown only played six snaps each. Akers is, I think, right there with Robinson

in terms of expected workload moving forward. The Rams are a team that want to run the ball. I could see us talking about Cam Akers as a first-round pick this offseason. I think when you look at these guys, guys these six guys and let's just say they all had the same schedule then how would you rank them robinson taylor acres swift clyde dobbins robinson acres taylor swift Akers, Taylor, Swift, Dobbins. No. Clyde and Dobbins, but Clyde and Dobbins are much... I think there's a gap.

Well, we'll see what happens with Dobbins tonight. He could change that for sure. Clyde just had 21 touches. That's the funny thing. And yet he's last, almost last. Yeah. It's a really good group right now.

And I feel like Deandre swift has the potential to be number two because he's more involved in the passing game than acres and taylor but we just yeah we just don't know we have to see it we have to see more workload only 11 touches only seven carries last week by the way chris johnson had three carries for more than 70 yards during his 2 000 yard season he also had six carries of at least 40 yards and three more catches of at least 40 yards how about henry last year he probably had yeah because derrick henry had like a-yard screen at one point, too. No, I'm just talking about carries, though. Let's find out. The original question, Chris. Okay, let's look.

We're going to end the show with this. 2019 game log for Derrick Henry. He only had one. Just one 74-yard run. And a 68-yarder. Man, that is really rare. It's not that easy. You don't get that manyyarder. Man, that is really rare. It's not that easy. You don't get that many carries from that distance,

but it is rare. Three carries of 74 more yards. Tremendous stuff. Yeah, he's a big play guy, and I think Jalen Hurts is great for his value. That 82-yard touchdown, that was an RPO, and you could see the defense was just worried about a lot of things besides

Miles Sanders and it was a pretty easy run. That's going to do it for today's show. I want to thank everybody for listening. We'll come back tomorrow with the Waver Wire, the T.Y. Hilton show. Who's the lead of the Waver Wire, Ben? The Mitchell Trubisky show?

Lynn Bowden? The Lynn Bowden show? The Mitchell Trubisky show, I think it's going to be. Jalen Hurts, come on. Oh, it could be the Jalen Hurts Show. Sure. That's what the Eagles game was last night. And for Ben and Chris, I'm Adam. We'll talk to you tomorrow.