Fantasy Football Today - Sophomore RBs With Huge Upside (02/24 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

We're diving into the 2021 rookie running back class to identify the best sophomore RBs for 2022 ... Dave's favorite sophomore RB and Chris's least favorite (1:30) ... Breaking down the Big 6 sophomore RBs (6:00) with Najee Harris (8:00), Javonte Williams (15:00), Elijah Mitchell (24:00), Michael Carter (35:00), Travis Etienne (40:00), Rhamondre Stevenson (45:00) ... The rest of the sophomore RBs (53:00), including sleepers with upside like Kenneth Gainwell and Jaret Patterson. 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 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. What's up, YouTube? Thanks for watching. We appreciate it. Now do us a favor. Hit that little like button. We like you.

We would appreciate it if you like us back. That's how it works. You know, we give a little give and take. So hit that like button. We appreciate it. And we'll have a great show for you today on Fantasy Football Today. Welcome to the show i'm jamie eisenberg that's day richard that's chris towers as you see no adam azar we kicked him off

for a day he's going to take a little bit of a break he'll be back next week but we have a fun show for you we're going to review the 2021 rookie running back class the sophomore class of 2022 it's going to get a little confusing so it's the second year running backs going into the upcoming season i'm going to take a look at what they did a year ago, but most importantly, what their outlook is obviously for the upcoming season. So before we get into it a little bit, just want to make sure that you a little taste of what we're talking about here. So Dave and Chris, I want to ask you what your favorite or who your favorite running back is from the 2022 sophomore class, not named Najee Harris or Javante Williams. I'm not giving you the easy way out.

So Dave, who's your favorite non-Harris, non-Javante guy? Can I go with a guy that averaged less than five PPR points per game, three PPR points per game, less than one PPR? How about a guy that didn't play a game? I'm looking forward to drafting Travis Etienne. I think the change in coaching staff is going to be good for him. Just the fact that the previous regime in Jacksonville totally mismanaged the running backs.

I know what we're getting into with Doug Peterson when it comes to running backs. And I'm not expecting Travis ETN to be a bell cow by any means, but I do think he can work in that passing downs role. You know, that he's familiar with Trevor Lawrence. They were obviously together at Clemson. We know that he's working his way back from the Liz Frank injury I think in PPR leagues he's got some pretty good upside could be in the range of catching four

passes a week you do the math that's over 50 catches on the balance of the season touchdowns might be hard to come by rushing yards might not be plentiful but those receiving yards and I think the playing time in general, I think that's got a chance to be really good for ETN, provided that he makes that full recovery. And don't forget, James Robinson, torn Achilles, we don't know when he's going to be back. So there might be a path there for ETN to at least begin the season,

getting a little bit more work than what we might see by the midpoint or by the end of the year could get you off to a good start in fantasy. We'll talk about ETN coming up a little bit. The number 27 running back in PPR for Dave, number 22 for Chris. So Chris is the high guy on Travis ETN. So Chris, you get the other side of this. You can use Najee Harris or Javante Williams. Who is the one running back from this class that you are avoiding?

And obviously cost matters because Harris probably a first round pick, maybe even Javante a first round pick. But which of the guys do you think you're going to probably steer clear of from this group? Yeah, I'm going to be the low guy on Elijah Mitchell, I imagine. I have him as RB24, and that was with a little bit of massaging because when I first did it, he was like RB27, and I think I'm just going to be a little lower on the 49ers offense in general than most people because I'm really worried about what

that's going to look like with Trey Lance. It's not that I don't think Trey Lance is going to be good, but I would be surprised if he was a very productive passer in year one. Yes, it is Kyle Shanahan's offense. Those guys are going to make a lot of plays after the catch and that'll help, but I'm not expecting 4,000 yards yards from him and i think he's probably going to be a really productive rusher and so you add all those things up and it's just like i'm not sure there's going to be enough touches for the non-quarterbacks for everybody to to live up to expectations and elijah mitchell's case i think he's not going to have much of a passing game role especially with lance at qb and so you're really relying on him to be a really,

really efficient rusher who gets a lot of touchdowns. And it's entirely possible he does that, but it's also entirely possible that Trey Lance is a big factor in the red zone as a rusher. And it's entirely possible that, you know, the way the 49ers treat their running backs, they tend to be a little mercurial about it. And so maybe Trey Sermon impresses them with his blocking in training camp

and all of a sudden he's a factor again. You know, so it's just, I don't know how high the ceiling is for Elijah Mitchell in order to make him worth drafting as much more than a low-end RB2 for me. All right, should be a fun debate when we get to Mitchell because Dave has him as the number 17 running back in PPR. And we did see Mitchell play two games with Trey Lance last season, one very good, but it was against the Houston Texans,

one mediocre, and that was against the Arizona Cardinals. That was earlier in the season, week five. The Texans game came in week 17. We'll dive more into Elijah Mitchell. And I guess we should probably talk about who exactly the running backs we're looking at here. So it's Najee Harris, Javante Williams, Elijah Mitchell, Michael Carter, Travis Etienne, and Ramondre Stevenson.

That's the big six. We're going to talk about some of the other guys like Kenneth Gamewell, Trey Sermon as well a little bit later in the show. But we're going to focus a lot of our attention on probably the top six guys that will get drafted from this class. But that's going to be coming up a little bit. I want to let you know what we're going to be doing next week. So Monday we have our 2021 rookie wide receiver review evaluations

looking ahead to 2022. So same thing. We did the quarterbacks earlier this week, doing the running back today. Going to get to wide receivers on Monday, tight ends on Tuesday. And then next Thursday we'll do some dynasty rankings and some trade values in regard to some of your dynasty questions, dynasty leagues. We'll also obviously have a lot of combine news coming out. NFL combine will be in Indianapolis starting next week. So coaches, GMs, they'll be talking. And then obviously a lot of interviews going on with

the incoming rookie class. So I'll be there in Indy giving some reports and you can check a lot of that out on CBS Sports HQ. All right, let's get to the uh the six sophomore running backs that we're looking at but before we go there i just want to say last year at this time we were probably talking about six sophomore running backs coming off some pretty impressive rookie campaigns so the guys from the 2019 class going excuse me 2020 class going into 2021 so Jonathan Taylor I'm going based on ADP uh how these six guys were potentially drafted or at least looked at uh at this point last season so we got Jonathan Taylor Clyde Edwards Hilaire DeAndre Swift AJ Dillon and the two guys that suffered injuries Cam Akers and JK Dobbins but at this point last year we were talking about Taylor

as a breakout candidate Swift as a breakout candidate Akers as a breakout candidate Dobbins as a breakout candidate we Akers as a breakout candidate, Dobbins as a breakout candidate. We had some expectations that Clyde Edwards-Hilaire would bounce back and then A.J. Dillon stepping into a bigger role, especially once Jamal Williams left the Packers. We thought maybe a big split coming there for the Packers. But as things sort of shook out for this group, again, Akers missed most of the season with the Achilles injury. Dobbins missed the entire season with a torn ACL.

Taylor finished as the number one running back in fantasy, so he was more than lived up to the expectations. Edward Solaire, a dud, 10.9 PPR points per game for him. Swift was solid, did miss some time with a shoulder injury, but 15.2 PPR points per game. Had a very impressive sophomore campaign for the majority of the season. And then A.J. Dillon didn't necessarily take a huge role, still the Aaron Jones show for the most part in Green Bay,

Dillon averaging 10.1 PPR points per game. So all over the place, two injuries, huge successful season for Jonathan Taylor, good season for DeAndre Swift, and then mediocre for Edward Solaire and A.J. Dillon. So we'll see how this group of sophomore running backs sort of follows that group. And again, the group we're looking at here is Najee Harris, Javante Williams, Elijah Mitchell, Michael Carter, Travis Etienne, and Ramondre Stevenson. So let's start with Najee Harris. So he's going to be the one that's drafted first. He's the fifth running back in PPR for me. I'm the high guy of the three of us. I think he might actually have him in his top four. Chris has him

at number six. Dave, you're the low guy at number seven. This was a guy who finished number two in PPR last season, led all running backs and receptions, which I think if you would have made a bet on that going into the 2021 campaign, would have been a nice payday for you. Had 74 catches just ahead of Austin Eckler. Finished with 1,200 rushing yards, seven touchdowns, 74 catches, 467 yards, and three touchdowns on 94 targets.

The targets were tied for the lead with Eckler, but remember Eckler missed the one game due to COVID and an ankle injury. He averaged 16.8 PPR points per game. Harris had seven games with at least 20 PPR points, 12 games with at least 16 PPR points. So he was obviously very impressive. So I'm going to ask you guys a question, or at least a key question in my mind regarding each of these running backs. So Dave, I'll start with you. First off with Harris, we know the situation in Pittsburgh, new quarterback, no more Ben Roethlisberger. How much does the quarterback matter for Najee Harris going into a sophomore season? I think it matters a considerable amount. And I, I'm worried that if defenses see a quarterback that they're not afraid of,

they're going to focus more on stopping the run. If it's Mason Rudolph, you know, how many times is the defense going to call for the safeties to play back on first and ten or second and long something like that even second and short actually that's when the safeties will be crowding up toward the line of scrimmage the linebackers will be focused on nausea play action might work great for the steelers in that regard but that doesn't necessarily help nausea harris much. I will absolutely raise the roof on Najee Harris if they do improve on Mason Rudolph at quarterback, especially if they make a big splash at quarterback. And they also have to improve the offensive line.

I mean, the fact that the offensive line, the fact that Najee did as well as he did with that offensive line, I think that's a testament to Najee. But it also has to do with the fact that he had so much work. Tons of carries. When you total it up with the postseason as well, it's either close to 400 or it was over 400. I'm not sure if we've got the exact number for him.

But he was just as consistent in terms of getting to that 15-point mark in PPR as Jonathan Taylor. He was tied for first in consistency with Taylor. He just wasn't as boom as Taylor was. He didn't have as many games with huge points like Taylor did. You said it, Jamie. He averaged just under 17 PPR points per game. That's still nothing to sneeze at.

That ranked eighth among running backs last year. Does he have room to improve on that? I think if the Steelers make the improvements I just talked about, offensive line gets a little bit stronger, quarterback is a little bit better, forces defenses to respect the pass a little bit more. I think things open up for Harris and his efficiency could take a nice step forward from where it was last year. So Chris, Dave says the quarterback matters. And I think that's probably, you know, maybe an obvious statement for all of us to say that, you know, the quarterback is clearly going to be impactful for the running back there.

But one thing that Dave said, I don't know if I necessarily, I don't want to say disagree with or even agree with, but Roethlisberger, I don't know how much he scared people. And he was obviously not the same type of guy. And I don't know. I mean, obviously Mason Rudolph, we could all look at and say probably downgrade. But I just don't know if this offense could get worse. You know, the offensive line could close up some injuries. You know, the quarterback situation might be worse.

I mean, you know, clearly could be the case, but it wasn't exactly great. So if it's Mason Rudolph, if it's a Jameis Winston, if it's a Jimmy Garoppolo, you know, where do you view Najee Harris in terms of that type of potential production? You know, when you said, I don't know if the offense can get worse. I, I, I feel like I, I,

it made me think of the New York giants last season where that was kind of an argument in favor of them. It's like, well, they can't get worse. And then they just kept getting worse and worse and worse. Things can always get worse is the point. The thing about like Najee is Ben Roethlisberger wasn't scaring anybody with

his ability to throw down field last season nor nor his willingness to throw down field because he really wasn't particularly interested in doing that very often and that was the case for two years in a row so defense is new but the thing is Najee Harris, I'm looking at the next gen stats. He faced eight plus defenders in the box on 14.6% of his rush attempts. It's very low. That's really low. Yeah. And the thing about that is that's largely a product of how the offense lines up. The Steelers play three wide receivers very often.

They very rarely play two tight ends or two running backs so when you've got three wide receivers or four wide receivers or five wide receivers on the field you're not going to have a lot of defenders in the box no matter whether teams think you're you're rushing game is a threat or you're passing it isn't that's just kind of how it works and so i would imagine the offense is going to look a lot like that at least in terms of how they line up so I think that'll still be the case for him but yeah the quarterback matters and the the biggest question for me is how much of Najee Harris's work in the passing game was a result of Ben Roethlisberger's unwillingness to throw the ball down the field how much of it was

his unwillingness to hold the ball and potentially take how much of it was his unwillingness to hold the ball and potentially take sacks, because that was a big problem for the Steelers' offense. And then there's just the fact that if you take out the 1-14 catch game, Najee Harris was a good but not great pass catcher. His pace, if you take that one out, was like 65 catches. And that makes a difference.

That could be a point per game over the course of a full season. So I do have some concerns about what the passing game role is going to look like without Roethlisberger. But the offense as a whole, I don't think it's going to get much worse. And there is a chance it gets better. Even if they had Jimmy Garoppolo, I think that would help. Agreed. I'm not particularly worried about Najee Harris.

And generally speaking, the high volume, low efficiency rookie running back is a good bet to make. Those guys tend to work out in fantasy. And so I'm not fading Najee Harris at all. He's RB six for me. And I think the volume is going to carry him even if the offense around him isn't elite. Yeah. It's been a good track record for Mike Tomlin clearly with featuring one guy and that continued in 2021. I don't think it will change in 2022 barring something, you know, dramatic shift without the quarterback that's been there for the majority of the Tomlin tenure. So it could

be a running quarterback. You know, again, we know that they're very interested in Malik Willis, so that could maybe change some things as well. I think, you know, Roethlisberger being a statue has helped Najee Harris reception total as well, you know, on top of what Chris said, holding the ball and his, you know, lack of wanting to throw the ball down the field. So we'll see if a mobile quarterback maybe changes some things there as well. But Najee Harris in a good spot going into a sophomore campaign. And the same thing for Javante Williams, assuming that we don't see the Broncos add somebody of significance or bring

back somebody like Melvin Gordon. So what we saw from Williams last year, clearly in a split with Gordon for the majority of the season, but we got that one game, got that one game where Melvin Gordon didn't play. It was week 13 against the Chiefs. And what we saw from Williams was just absolutely amazing. 23 carries, 102 yards. Six catches for 76 yards and a touchdown on nine targets.

He had eight games last season with at least 15 total touches. And in those eight games, he averaged 14 PPR points per game. So there was some duds. He had a five. He had a four. He had some big ones, obviously. You factor in the Chiefs game there. So there was some highs. There was some lows. But again, you take the balance had a four. He had some big ones, obviously. You factor in the Chiefs game there. So there was some highs, there was some lows.

But again, you take the balance of the season. He's around 14 points per game. You hope to see a little bit better than that. But I think that's kind of the floor of what you can expect if he's in a solo act, getting at least the minimum touches for a feature guy. So first question, Chris, I'll start with you. Very similar to the Pittsburgh situation. How much does the quarterback matter in Denver when it comes to Javante Williams?

Let's assume for this scenario here, he is by himself in terms of being the lead guy without somebody of significance joining him in the backfield. It matters. Especially if it's Drew Locke, I'm going to be pretty down on the Broncos offense, and I would be shocked if it was. But yeah, it obviously matters because we

don't know, you know, if it's going to be Teddy Bridgewater again, that's probably not a bad thing because we know Teddy Bridgewater's not necessarily the kind of guy who's going to force the ball down the field. So there should be a decent number of targets there, but you also want someone who's going to move the ball down or move the ball down the field efficiently. And I'm not sure Teddy Bridgewater is the guy who's going to get the most out of that offense, as we saw. So you hope for an upgrade, but if Javante Williams is the lead guy, if they don't bring back Melvin Gordon, if Mike Boone is the primary backup in Denver next season

or somebody like that, then yeah, I think the sky's the limit for Javante Williams because he's clearly a talented player. And this is a situation where unless they get Aaron Rodgers, they're probably going to lean on the running game. And if they do get Aaron Rodgers, well, he's going to get a bunch of touchdowns anyway, so it won't really matter. So I think there's a lot to like about giovante williams and his situation but if melvin gordon returns then it it starts to get a little dicey i would still expect giovante williams to be the lead back but it becomes a much bigger question because

it was giovante williams week about 11 times in 2021 and it never actually worked out except for the one game Melvin Gordon missed but you know they were pretty adamant and it's a different coaching staff so we don't know what that's going to look like but yeah they were pretty adamant that uh Javante Williams and Melvin Gordon they didn't see much difference between them at least yeah we're all ranking Javante based on the expectation that he's not going to have significant competition chris you're the high guy you have him at nine i have him at 10 dave you have him at 11 so we're all back to back to back this is again his ppr uh so dave let's uh do a little different spin on this here so they get their quarterback let's say they get aaron rogers

let's say they get you know uh deshaun watson or you know a tear down james winstonis Winston. Wow, they're going to get both of them, huh? I'm sorry? They're going to get both of them, Rogers and Watson? Potentially, but they get some upgrade over Teddy Bridgewater, a Drew Locke combination, you know, somebody that we're excited about. But they do bring back somebody or bring in somebody of, you know, some level of significance, a Melvin Gordon, a James Conner, somebody that, you know, at least could be in the veteran mold or, you know, it's just somebody that's going to make us go, ew, why did they do that?

Now, where do you view Javante Williams? So quarterback better, backfield situation. Quarterback better, but still, let's just for the sake of the argument, make it Melvin Gordon. I just think it's easier to kind of picture that. And I'd almost root for something like that because now we're talking about Melvin Gordon a year older, someone that i think the

front office still likes and respects based on what he did this past year i i think we've got to make mention of who the new head coach is in town and we we can't say with absolute certainty that he's going to have a completely different approach to his running backs than what vix fangio and pat schirmer had where they insisted on this 50-50 split. There were weeks where we were just shaking our heads and marveling at how close to 50-50 Melvin Gordon and Javante Williams were. I would think that with Nathaniel Hackett there, he would recognize better talent and put that talent on the field a little bit more. Hackett has also been a boon for running backs when he's been a play caller.

I'm just looking. This is very basic stuff. The three places where he's been an offensive coordinator in some of them, he's called the plays and some of them he hasn't, but the running backs have let them, they've been top 12 in the league in rush attempts, one, two, three,

four times in eight years. So half the time they are leading the pack. A couple of times they were literally first in rush attempts, first or second in yards. There have been some dynamic run games with Nathaniel Hackett as the offensive coordinator for his team. I am encouraged by that. I am hoping that the Broncos, who have a good offensive line already, they could improve on that and make it even better, can continue to run the football. If there's a lot of work there, there won't be if it's Aaron

Rodgers or Deshaun Watson, a quarterback. If they get Jimmy Garoppolo, then there might be a lot of work there, there won't be if it's Aaron Rodgers or Deshaun Watson, a quarterback. If they get Jimmy Garoppolo, then there might be a lot of work there and it might be okay. We might see in the neighborhood of 17 touches per game for Javante Williams and the neighborhood of 10 to 12 for a Melvin Gordon in this situation. If the quarterback is good, if it's an Aaron Rodgers, if it's a Deshaun Watson, I will be a little bit more nervous and it'll be especially worse if Melvin Gordon's there. That team might veer toward the pass quite a bit more than the run. If it's a Jimmy Garoppolo with Melvin Gordon and Javante Williams,

I'll probably take the chance on Javante Williams. I don't know if I'll have him ranked 11th, which is where I have him now. He might come down a tad from there, but he would still be somebody that I would target as, at worst, a quality RB2 on draft day. I imagine I would be putting him on my radar starting in round three, and I'm not sure he would last that long because there will be so much excitement over him as a second-year rusher with all kinds of upside.

It really does come down. The talent isn't the question here, just like Najee. Talent is great. He might even be more talented than Najee. Some of the metrics that we talked about with Najee, Javante was better. It's about the situation, and it's about how much work he'll get, and it's about what that passing game will look like in Denver.

If Aaron Rodgers goes to Denver, he's a first-round pick, Javante. I don't think there's any way he's – Hold on. I don't think he should be. I think he will be. I think he will be. No, I think the excitement level is going to be off the charts. That's a fair counter, Dave, that if it does have competition and maybe it still brings him down to the second round. But if it's the combination of Nathaniel Hackett, Aaron Rodgers, I mean, what you've seen from that running back situation in Green Bay, which I would assume carry over a little bit, you know, to what they, what they would do is the second leading receiver in that tenure has been the running back, you

know, and so Devontae Williams role in the passing game, I think would be pretty impressive. Now we'd have to see what leaves the Broncos to go back to Green Bay. If in fact, they make that type of movement again, if Devontae Adams were to come with him, but if you tell me Aaron Rogers is in Denver and Nathaniel Hackett's the coach, i think you're gonna see davante williams role in the passing game be pretty successful and we saw that at times last season he wasn't exactly the most prolific prolific or proficient uh pass catching running back there but he did have the opportunity to catch the ball a little bit especially in that game when there was no melvin gordon so i would where where do you put Javante Williams? Where would you take him? Give me a pick. If he's the lead back, there's no Melvin Gordon, there's no James

Connor, and it's Aaron Rodgers or Deshaun Watson at quarterback. So main guy, stud quarterback in Denver, Hackett's the head coach. Where are you comfortable taking Javante Williams? I've got my number in my head. If the quarterback situation in Pittsburgh is not good, then I will replace Najee Harris with Javante Williams at five. There you go. I right. I will say Deshaun Watson and Aaron Rodgers. That to me is a pretty big difference. I don't know if Deshaun Watson would necessarily cause me to raise Javante Williams a huge amount just because I think the offense will be a lot better if he's obviously I'm not expecting him to play a full six or 17 games even if he is cleared to play but the offense should be better there will be more touchdown opportunities

deshaun watson has never thrown to his running backs that's true and so that would be a difference yeah but it's i think deshaun watson right takes a lot of sacks so he doesn't dump it off to his running backs and he scrambles a lot. So I think that's a big part of it. Remember what I used to say about what his check down was? Deshaun Watson's check down was the deep ball to Will Fuller. So I would imagine that in this scenario, the check down would be a deep ball to either Tim Patrick or Cortland Sutton,

something like that. Maybe it's Will Fuller. Maybe Will Fuller follows him there. Who the hell knows? We're going crazy here. But I agree with you, Jamie. I think that you've got to put Javante ahead of Najee. Assuming things don't change dramatically in Pittsburgh,

I would put him seventh overall. And I would take him with a first-round pick in that dreamy scenario. Yeah, it's going to be a situation, I think, for the most part, he's not escaping round two. Again, it's got to be somebody better than melvin gordon at this point i think to drive the price down for him uh but the quarterbacks look look we gave the the two rosie situations there could be a pretty bad one chris mentioned it could be drew lock and then there's melvin gordon still there and then

it's really ugly potentially for what giovante williams ceiling could be but uh again something we'll have to keep an eye on moving forward for uh for the broncos let's move now to the next guy here and we're going basically looking at uh where our rankings are in our you know um again, something we'll have to keep an eye on moving forward for the Broncos. Let's move now to the next guy here. And we're going basically looking at where our rankings are and how we're ranking these guys essentially in terms of the conversation, but not necessarily how we view these guys across the board. But Elijah Mitchell, next guy we're going to look at here. Chris already told you he's the one that he's the most concerned about, 24th for him.

Dave is the most optimistic on Mitchell. He has him at 17. I'm right in the middle there at 22. So what we saw from Mitchell in his rookie season, he missed six games, various injuries, had a knee problem, hand injury, chest injury, shoulder injury, missed a game with a concussion. So he missed some time.

He had nine games with at least 17 carries, including five with at least 21. So he was the workhorse for the 49ers when he was on the field for the most part. But his role in the past, again, I'm sure this is what concerns you, Chris, he had five games with no catches and only one game with more than three catches in his rookie campaign campaign. We talked about, you know, Trey Lance, we'll get into this a little bit more,

but he did play the two games with Trey Lance week five at Arizona, nine carries for 43 yards, two catches for 19 yards on two targets. And then the week 17 game against Houston, 21 carries for 85 yards, two catches for 11 yards, scored a touchdown through the air, but also two targets. So we know kind of what the 49er situation is there. So Chris gave you a little bit of a take on that. So Dave, I'll come to you first.

So Trey Lance, we expect him at this point to be the starting cornerback for the 49ers. It might be Tom Brady. Who knows if he comes out of retirement and decides to go to San Francisco. Still could be Jimmy Garoppolo. There's always that scenario that plays out. But at this point, we assume Lance can be the starter. So you like the situation, apparently, based on the ranking of Mitchell.

So is Trey Lance good or bad for Elijah Mitchell next season? No, I think there's no question that it's not great for Elijah Mitchell. But I think that Mitchell is still going to be – he will at least begin the season as the 49ers' top running back. And when I put him at RB17, it is very much in pencil. For now, he's ahead of J.K. Dobbins. He's ahead of Cam Akers. He's ahead of Leonard Fournette.

All we need is some good news on Dobbins or Leonard Fournette going to a team where I think he'll continue to see a lead role. Those guys will pop ahead of him. Cam Akers, I'm not ready to put Cam Akers ahead of Elijah Mitchell. I didn't like what I saw from Cam Akers in the the playoffs i want to see him be a little bit more explosive if we see that and if we see the rams don't add to that backfield during the offseason then acres could also jump out of elijah mitchell so i don't love elijah mitchell at rb 17 but i think he's worth taking as a number two fantasy running back we talked about eight in the box

and we saw we saw last year that na Najee Harris didn't see that a lot. Guess who saw the third most snaps of eight men in the box last year? It was Elijah Mitchell, 39.6% of his carries, eight in the box. That could be a byproduct of what Chris talked about, how the 49ers line up. They use a lot of fullbacks. They use a lot of tight ends. So that could be why there were so many eight in the box.

Guess what? He was super efficient, 4.8 yards per carry. Fifth best of any running back with 100 plus carries, regardless of their percentage of eight in the box. So he crushed it there. He was ninth in consistency in PPR leagues. He got you at least 15 PPR points, 55% of the time. And there's still room for improvement. He was not great in terms of rush EPA.

He didn't convert a single third or fourth down with one yard to go over the course of the season. He only had four tries. That might tell you a little bit something about him. And he didn't have a ton of touchdowns. And we know that the touchdowns could be a problem with Trey Lance is there because Lance could also take it in. But we've seen time and again that when there's been a rushing quarterback, the running back becomes much more efficient because defenses have to account for both of those guys. And I think that Trey Lance will continue to bring that rushing element. I think Mitchell has a chance to have a good year yard-wise, total yards, not necessarily getting a ton of catches,

but getting you those rushing yards to be a good No. 2 fantasy running back. And you look at the rest of the running backs in San Francisco, they might add a guy. I think it's almost certain that they will draft somebody. It'll probably be a day-three pick, and that guy will probably come and take some of that work away from Elijah Mitchell. We've seen the 49ers do it year after year. There hasn't been a guy that's repeated as the lead rusher for the 49ers in Kyle Shanahan's tenure there. But I think Mitchell's got the best chance to do it because he functioned so well in that offense last year.

So you brought up something interesting there about adding somebody. So Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson are both expected to be free agents. They could bring back one of them, if not both, probably very cheaply given the situations that they unfolded. Mostert missing all but the beginning of week one. Wilson missing the majority of the season. Both guys were big parts of this offense. And Chris, during the Kyle Shanahan tenure,

it's almost been if you drafted the last of the 49ers backfield on their depth chart, you ended up with the best one because we saw it with Wilson two years ago. We saw it most or three years ago. Last year it was Mitchell, who we thought was going to be an afterthought after they drafted Trey Sermon first of this draft class. So you mentioned this earlier, Chris. Could we see a Trey Sermon revival?

Last year we saw, or this, this past season we saw, you know, Brandon Ayuk was supposed to be their superstar receiver and he was in the doghouse early and then worked his way out of it. Maybe something happened with Trey Sermon, you know, he gets to the, you know, with the full off season program and he impresses them and he's the better of the two. The draft capital for Elijah Mitchell, I think in the drafts that we've done, the PPR and the half PPR,

he's gone in that round four, round five range. So, you know, still being drafted as a mid tier or, you know, at least a number two running back here. Is that going to be a wasted pick? Do you think he's going to be a bust based on what we've seen from Shanahan and his running back? Well, just as a matter of historical trends, fourth round running backs and fifth round running backs tend fifth round running backs tend to be pretty bad picks that's where that rb dead zone starts but you know that doesn't mean elijah mitchell will be um you know i i think part of the problem is not so much that i don't think elijah mitchell can be the leading rusher again or or that i think Kyle Shanahan has any kind of thought where he's

like well he was the lead rusher last year so we got to get someone you know I don't think that's how it works I think it's mostly just that this offense is so it's such a machine when it comes to churning out production at the running back position they're so efficient running the ball and they have been throughout the Kyle Shanahan era and it helps to have Kyle Juszczyk and it helps to have George Kittle so it's everywhere Shanahan has been and so it's not so much that as it's just whoever gets an opportunity to run for the 49ers is probably going to be pretty good at it and so if Elijah Mitchell misses three games and Trey Sermon or whoever gets an opportunity and looks really good then it's like well do they go back to Elijah

Mitchell maybe maybe not and so that's the concern there but I think the bigger concern is just I don't know how you get like RB1 upside out of Elijah Mitchell and I don't mean the RB one but I mean like that 18 17 points per game kind of range because he only hit 17 points per game three times last season once was 16.7 so I think we can just round up and give him that but even then that you know that's that's not great for uh you know a running back you're looking for you're not really looking for the 12 points per game you're not looking for even 15 points per game is sort of you know it's not impossible to find that on waivers or whatever so I think the question for me when I'm looking at Elijah Mitchell and trying to figure out if he's worth taking as my RB2 is can he get to that RB1 threshold and i unless he scores like it's gonna have to be like a

12 to 15 touchdown season like i could see it being a lot like damien harris last season and damien harris was 19th in points per game in ppr scoring despite 15 touchdowns like that's the concern with elijah m Elijah Mitchell is that he runs the ball really really well scores a bunch of touchdowns and it just isn't enough anyway yeah and you have you know they could go more to Debo Samuel you know they could right feature that more you know they're gonna have a mobile quarterback which we haven't seen the math is hard uh yeah I mean you know there are a lot of things that play here. You know,

you have, you have a guy that, that could steal a lot of production. You know, we just, we don't know exactly what Trey Lance is going to look like. We had the conversation the other day with, you know,

Chris Trapasso, you know, breaking down the quarterbacks and, you know, he, he said, you know, he's,

he's a wild card. You know, obviously we just don't know what Trey Lance is going to necessarily do. And it could be a situation where, you know, he's, you know, the Cam Newton effect, you know, where the running backs don't score a lot of it could be a situation where, you know, he's, you know, the Cam Newton effect, you know,

where the running backs don't score a lot of touchdowns. It could be, you know, great. Like what we saw in the, in the Shanahan tenure, you know, where RG three was, was, you know, running, but you know, the running backs were still successful there. Alfred Morris, for example. You know, so I think Morris was the guy there at the time. You can, you can see a lot of things that play, you know, really a lot of things that play here with how the running game goes

for Elijah Mitchell. So he does feel like the one that could kind of sway maybe this class, which is why he's right in the middle. Let's go now to the next guy here, another one who's got a ton of upside, but you could also see the downside, and that's Michael Carter. So Carter, we know, his three best games last season came when it wasn't Zach Wilson playing the majority of the time. So his three best games were week seven at New England.

And that was a game where Wilson got hurt with a knee injury. So he didn't finish the game. Fifteen PPR points in week seven. We get against Cincinnati. That was the huge catch game with Mike White under center. Thirty one PPR points there. Week ten against Buffalo. Again, Joe Flacco started that game.

And then Mike, I think it was Flacco started. Then White came in, if I'm not mistaken. White might have started and Flacco came in, but White played the majority of the game. And he had 17 PPR points there. All three of those games coming again without Zach Wilson under center for the majority of the time. And Carter only had three games. Those were the only three games that Carter had with more than three catches over the course of the season. So he played nine games with Zach Wilson.

He scored more than 10 PPR points only twice. And he averaged in those nine games. This is going to make you a little bit scary. Let's make it a little scared to maybe draft him average 6.8 PPR points a game with Zach Wilson under center. So Chris, I'll go to you first on this one. Should Mike White be the starting quarterback for the New York Jets? Probably not. But when it comes to michael carter's and to mike white be the starting quarterback there was a little bit of uh discussion of that at one point in the season but no i i

i don't know if zach wilson's gonna be good but mike white no obviously i'm being i'm i'm joking but in terms of no it's it's a fair concern with we have a Zach Wilson problem for Michael Carter it's possible because you know Zach Wilson you know we mentioned the the Deshaun Watson's dump off was throwing it deep I think Zach Wilson might have a little bit of that in his mentality he looks he's keeping his eyes down field a lot and he's willing to take risks and last season we saw that you know he wasn't quite ready to turn those risks into big production and that's scary because if he's not ready to do that in year two and he's not throwing to Michael Carter then this could be a really bad situation for the running back

because you're not going to have a lot of touchdowns or a lot of targets. But I think there could also be something to the idea that Zach Wilson, with a year under his belt and the experience of getting beat up the way he did, maybe learns to take what's there and dump it off a little more often and not take quite so many risks and not take quite so many hits. And so maybe that helps Michael Carter. I'm not expecting him to have a huge role in the passing game, but I do think there will be, you know, like I have him for a 12% target share, which is fine for a running mag. It's not high. It's not low. It might be a little high that comes out to 50 catches over 17 games i could see that being a little high but i'm choosing to be a little bit

optimistic right now but you can see even being optimistic only gets them to rb21 for me so it's not like you know i i can definitely see how things go wrong, and it's not an ideal situation at all. It's harder to see. 21 for Dave, 21 for me. So we're all on the same page here with Michael Carter. We're expecting him to be more, I think, in line with the guy we saw with Mike White

as opposed to the guy that we saw with Zach Wilson. So, Dave, what will change? What will make Michael Carter more consistent and a better fantasy option in 2022? Sure. I think it's going to be harder to see the upside than it is the downside because we saw so much of the downside last year. There were three games where he had at least 70% of the snaps. He did anywhere from 12 PPR points to mega PPR points in those games.

And I think those games, two of them at least, involve Mike White or not Zach Wilson, I guess I should say. I'm worried about him having a lot of games with 70% of the snaps where he gets a lot of the workload, where he's the main guy. The Jets coaching staff, they come from San Francisco. Here I am parroting it again for the second year in a row. And I know that they're losing some running backs this offseason. I could totally see them adding another one or giving more work to Ty Johnson or Austin Walter that takes Michael Carter off the field. I do think that Zach Wilson can be a better quarterback. I don't necessarily know what that means that he's going to focus on throwing

to the running backs more. You would think that the coaching staff saw what Michael Carter could do, catching those dinks and dunks from Mike White and implement that in their offense last year, and they didn't do it. Could they do it now starting week one this year? Could they completely refurbish that part of their playbook and get Michael Carter involved there? We know that he can do it. Will they do it? I don't know if that's going to happen.

I don't know if I want to draft him on the hope that that happens. I think he's a low-end number two fantasy running back where he is talented, and I think that offensive line will be better, but man, I just, I worry about him getting a lot of games north of 15 touches. Chris projected him for over 50 catches. I think that's hard to do. He didn't have that many games with Zach Wilson where he had three plus catches and that's what he would have to average.

Assuming he plays 17 games to get to that mark. So I'm a little nervous on him. I'm not sure how many touchdowns he would have to average, assuming he plays 17 games, to get to that mark. So I'm a little nervous on him. I'm not sure how many touchdowns he's going to score. I think he's going to end up getting drafted in that RB dead zone, and I think that that's appropriate. We rarely saw last season Wilson miss time with a knee injury. Carter missed three games with the ankle injury. We rarely saw Wilson, Carter, Elijah Moore, and Corey Davis together.

Those were their top four offensive players. And so we'll see what happens. Dave mentioned the backfield. Tevin Coleman's a free agent, so that's the main competition, at least, that he had. But Ty Johnson could be also. Well, Michael Perrin as well, Austin Walter. So we'll see what's happening with the Jets and what they do if they bring somebody else in as well. But Carter's got a lot of upside, but certainly, like Dave said, there's a lot to look with the downside as well. So it'll be interesting to see how fantasy managers treat him and hopefully, more importantly, how the Jets treat him as well. Carter's got a lot of upside, but certainly, like Dave said, there's a lot to look with the downside as well. It'd be interesting

to see how fantasy managers treat him and hopefully more importantly, how the Jets treat him as well. Hey, Jay, can I ask a quick question of everybody? Because this is one that I struggled with, and you just have to give an aim. I don't need rationale. Carter or Zeke? Which one do you take first?

I'm taking Zeke. Jamie? Zeke. Okay. I've got Carter ahead of Zeke right now. Cause I'm just scared of the bottom falling out on Zeke, but that's one that I've gone back and forth with. Yeah. I mean,

you know, I, for me, it would be drafting Zeke with the hope of closer to the first five games than the, the last 12, you know, just with the knee injury,

you know, hopefully being better. Not that I'm buying back into Zeke, but still in the same range. I would rather take the upside of the Cowboys starter than the Jets starter. So this is the guy next is Travis Etienne. Dave said it's his favorite guy, not named Javante Williams or Najee Harris. As we know, last year Etienne missed the entire season

with the Liz Frank injury that he suffered in the preseason. Chris Hasen, the high guy, he's 22 for Chris in PPR. I'm next again, 26, almost like we're the same. Chris is the high guy, I'm the middle guy, and Dave's low guy. Uh, but Dave hasn't one spot behind me at 27. So 22, 26, 27. So again, did not play last year. He said in January, they expect to be ready for training camp. Uh, but as we know, Dave alluded to this earlier, James Robinson suffered that Achilles injury. So if he has the cam makers like response and rebounds and can be ready for the start of the season, which we would all love to see just from a James Robinson perspective, then that matters to what Travis Etienne's probably draft stock will be. But he was the 25th overall selection in the NFL draft as a rookie. And as we know, at Clemson, he was pretty special. So in 2019, he had over 2,000 total yards, over 20 touchdowns, 19 rushing, 4 receiving.

So 37 catches. He was just unbelievable. A lot of people thought he should have come out then. Went back for 2020, not the same success, did have less games, but over 1,400 total yards, 16 total touchdowns, had more receptions in the 2020 campaign, 48 catches for 588 yards. So can do it all. Certainly a very good pass catcher, and as Dave alluded to,

has the relationship with the quarterback there in terms of both those guys coming from Clemson so but Dave you mentioned this you know James Robinson non-James Robinson is going to matter to how fantasy managers treat Travis Etienne so if he does not have that type of competition where do you think he's going to get drafted and if Robinson does return and is ready to go how much will that drive the stock down for Travis Etienne I I think right now I've got him as like a round five round six pick and I don't even know if that if he'll last that long because there will be one or two people in every draft that'll be kind of excited about him and by the time we get to July he won't be at 85 percent like he's saying he'll be at 100% he'll be back in training camp

and the hype could be off the rails with Travis Etienne he could go much much higher I would be excited about him in a PPR or a half PPR league especially if there's no Robinson to begin the year maybe Robinson starts on the pup list I know there's going to be somebody else in the mix this is Doug Peterson we're talking about and Etienne doesn't quite profile as the type of running back that can handle a heavy workload he could do it for a few games and i think no coach would would sweat it but for like half a season three quarters of the season relying on etn to be that guy i'm hard-pressed to believe that that would be the case there will be excitement about him no matter what as long as

he's not sidelined and i don't think that that's going to be the case. I think he's working his way back. I could see him being a full round higher than where I'm saying I have him right now. So around four or five type of pick. Now that's without Robinson. That's with Robinson on the shelf to start the year. If Robinson comes back, I'm sure that's going to quell some of the hype. But look, there's going to be people that are excited to take Williams no matter what the Broncos do, adding somebody to their backfield.

It could be the exact same thing where one or two people in a fantasy league will be excited to take Travis Etienne sight unseen without seeing him play a regular season down in the NFL even with competition there, even if it is James Robinson and he makes the Acres-style comeback. That's when I won't advocate taking him in that round 4-5 range. But if there was a dead zone RB to take that shot on, it would be the young running back

who could potentially be an elite pass catcher. The DeAndre Swift or Austin Eckler model where if Travisvis etn gets used in a way where he gets 70 catches next season which i'm not expecting but if he does it's possible then the path for him to be an r a low-end rb1 you know it starts to clear up because you know i don't think he's going to be this like gigantic part of the the russian game but i think 10 carries to 11 carries per game is probably fair and then you know let's let's say he gets five rushing touchdowns 70 catches 600 receiving yards four or five receiving touchdowns

you know that ends up being about 1400 total yards you know 10 total touchdowns 70 catches that probably gets you into that uh that low end rb1 range and i think that's not the most realistic or most likely outcome for travis etn but it's certainly possible you know doug peterson's history as a head coach when it comes to throwing to running max was all over the place the year they won the super bowl when it comes to throwing to running max was all over the place. The year they won the Superbowl, they barely threw it to their running max at all. I think it was like 50 or 60 total targets.

But then there were some years where, you know, Miles Sanders had 50 catches as a rookie. Darren Spurls had a 55 catch season and Boston Scott and Miles Sanders in 2020 combined for 53. So I think there's I think he's probably the kind of guy who adjusts to the personnel that he has he wasn't throwing it to JJ because JJ wasn't a great pass catcher but if Travis Etienne is this really dynamic playmaker in the passing game that we

think he can be I I think that this is well I only rank him RB21 or RB22. It's entirely possible that he is the guy you want to target from that group just because, like, is the path for him being an RB1 clearer than Michael Carter? I think it is. For sure. Absolutely. Because not only that, look, we're going to gonna see i would hope uh you know that trent balky and the ownership group there and doug peterson we have to build around trevor lawrence we have to improve the offensive line we have to give him some receivers they don't necessarily

need to address this backfield unless robinson's going to miss the entire season which could clearly be the case you know we're we're all excited that Cam Akers came back, you know, five months following an Achilles tear. That doesn't typically happen. So if the recovery is not as smooth and he doesn't have this miraculous situation, then we might see an upgrade over the likes of somebody like Adario Gumbawale just to have some significant help in the backfield there, which could clearly sway how we view, you know, a guy like Travis Etienne.

But if he does enter as the lead back and there is a better offensive line and there's going to be a lot of optimism, however you look at it, that Trevor Lawrence will be better in his second season. And there are some better threats on the outside than a LaVisca Chenault or, you know, Chris Conley and the guys that they were throwing out there after DJ Chark got hurt and Marvin Jones proved that he's, you know, at the tail end of his career. So there'll be upgrades around him all over the place, hopefully. So Travis Etienne could be in a great spot. I'm totally with you there, Chris. I think we can see this guy as somebody that we move up as an industry and even us, you know, just the three of us moving him up in our rankings as we get more optimistic and

better reports about him and probably less optimistic reports about James Robinson. All right. Last of the big six, at least that we're looking at here. And again, you might see here's some of the other names we throw at you after this that you think are better than this guy. But Ramondre Stevenson, in terms of where we have him ranked, is the next guy we're going to look at from this sophomore class. And he is 36 for me, 33rd for Dave, 36 for Chris as well.

So Dave's finally the high guy on somebody here. Ramondre Stevenson as number three running back. And we really didn't see a lot of him as the featured guy. We got that one game. It was week 10 against Cleveland. Damian Harris did not play. There were a lot of weeks where Harris may not play. Harris may not play.

And then he did come back and play. And the other game that Harris missed was week 14. Unfortunately, Stevenson missed that game as well. But in that game against the Browns, Stevenson, 20 carries a hundred yards, two touchdowns,

four catches, 14 yards on five targets. Now he did have another big game in terms of workload. That was in Week 17 against Jacksonville, but Harris played in that game as well. But Stevenson had 19 carries for 107 yards and two touchdowns in that game. So when he got work, he was successful. Unfortunately, he just did not get a lot of work. So, Chris, I'll start with you on this one.

Can Stevenson be at least a starting flex option if Damian Harris is healthy for the majority of the 2022 season? Probably not. I just don't think the workload is going to be there consistently enough in either the rushing or the passing game. For that to be the case, you'd probably need him to find the end zone. And from what we've seen last season especially they it's not like they're looking to move Damian Harris out of that role that was that was kind of the only thing that Damian Harris really did from a fantasy perspective that that made him relevant was all those touchdowns and so

I think if Damian Harris is back Ramadre Stevenson's a pretty iffy fantasy option just someone to stash on your bench you'd have to be pretty desperate to start him if Harris is back, which he's not a free agent, but the Patriots did trade Sonny Michel before he was a free agent, so they seem to view running Max as fairly fungible. But Michel was going into his contract season and obviously had battled some injuries. I think they're pretty more, at least,

at least I would assume they're more optimistic about Harris going into 2022 than they were Michelle, because they did have both Stevenson and, but this is, this is the last year of Harris's rookie contract, right? Yes. But they, now again, they could draft somebody else and they have the similar situation, but they had drafted Stevenson. I think everybody kind of saw that, you know, we were talking about Michelle's getting cut, you know, potentially, you know, based on how things had gone for him

and they were able to make the trade and send him to Los Angeles. Now there could be a change in how they approach these. Remember, no more Josh McDaniels. So he's not the play caller anymore. And James White and Brandon Bolden are both free agents. Now probably Bolden comes back because he's such a key part of the special teams.

But if White leaves, maybe they, you know, make Stevenson more of a pass catcher. So Dave, you're the most optimistic about Stevenson. Same question. Can he succeed if Damian Harris is healthy? I think you'd be hard-pressed to start him as a flex. I've got him as a low-end number three running back, and this is without any rookies being put into our rankings.

So once the rookies go in, he'll be pushed down even more. I love the talent. I love what he can do. I love what he showed. The flashes last year, we didn't see many as a receiver, but we saw that he could do it. We didn't see him much as a pass blocker. There were times where he was not good at that.

But as a runner, as a hard charger, the physical grinder, he was good at that. The problem is that Damian Harris also good at that. So I think it's going to be tough for Stevenson to find a lot of work for as long as Harris is healthy. So Stevenson's the kind of guy that you're going to end up drafting around pick 100 as a stash and hope type of runner. I don't think they're going to move on from Damian Harris. He's got a nice cheap contract. He's given them what they wanted.

I would be nervous that the Patriots find a pass catchingcatching downs replacement for James White, if not bringing back James White at a discount, or both, and that could end up hurting Ramondre Stevenson. Forget about playing time. He might not even be active some days. He's one to watch. The upside is fun to think about with him, but I think he's going to end up being, like I said, right around pick 100.

You're drafting a running back for depth. Yeah, this could be, you know, we get any sort of preseason injury for Damien Harris. Oh, yeah, that changes everything. The lock is going to be very high because, again, we saw the upside in at least the one game, but we know that this is going to be a team that runs the ball a lot and they're going to lean on both these guys. I mean, Stephenson

will get plenty of work. He just won't get the significant type of work that we would hope to see if Harris stays healthy. And I think his upside is higher than damien harris's because i think they'll use him in the passing game more yeah fair point you know i don't really see that from from harris so yeah as dave alluded to the receiving chops a little bit better for stevenson uh based on what we saw in his rookie campaign and look it could be a situation if uh as as dave said if they if they bring back james, probably not going to use Stevenson in that role, but maybe they like him in a pass-catching role

that could be used in tandem with Damian Harris, which would be great for Amadre Stevenson's fantasy upside. So another running back situation to monitor this offseason. All right, take a quick break. When we come back, I'm going to wrap things up here with the rest of the sophomore running backs for 2021 heading into 2022. All right, so here's the other guys that we're looking at here,

and these might be, you know, guys by the time that we get to August are being drafted as sleepers, could have some upside potentially if there's an injury or two or some, you know, moves happen that we might have them ahead of a guy like Stevenson or maybe even somebody like Carter or Travis Etienne. But here's the group of the rest of the 2021 class. You got Kenneth Gainwell, Trey Sermon, Chuba Hubbard, Khalil Herbert, Craig Reynolds, Jared Patterson, Derek Gore, Chris Evans, Kenny Nwagnu, and Larry Roundtree. So it's easy to see the guys at the top. You know, there's some clear-cut handcuffs here. Gainwell could be one, depending on what the Eagles do with Jordan Howard

and Boston Scott. Sermon could be the number two running back to San Francisco if they don't bring back somebody like Raheem Moster, or Jeff Wilson. Hubbard looks like the handcuff to Christian McCaffrey, at least as of now. Herbert did very well as the number two guy in Chicago behind David Montgomery. And then probably the one that stands out the most least to me would be Jared Patterson as the potential number two guy there to Antonio Gibson. We could see Chris Evans maybe supplant, or if they move on from Samadji Pirine, could be the number two guy there for Joe Mixon. So those are the ones that stand out. So, Dave, I know where you have Gainwell ranked,

so I'll start with Chris. So who's your favorite of that group, Chris, if you're looking at it? Gainwell, Sermon, Hubbard, Herbert, Patterson, Evans, any of the other guys that we mentioned. Who's your favorite of that group? Is there somebody that you're going to be targeting in drafts for the late-round pick that maybe could be one of those lottery ticket type guys i think it has to be gain well but if we're not counting gain well

then i think it's probably jared patterson just because we've seen antonio gibson two years in the nfl now he's struggled to stay healthy he's had the toe injury two different two you know the same toe injury in both seasons that's's concerning. Played through the stress fracture last season. So I just think there are, you know, there's a potentially clearer path to him becoming the number one running back for Washington than there might be for any of these other guys, but they all probably need an injury. The thing that I really like about Patterson was, you know,

the five catches for 41 yards in thatson was you know the the five catches for 41 yards in that one game that he got the the starting knot for he only had 12 carries but he ran the ball well got got a goal line touchdown and then the passing game roll if he's going to be you know a four or five targets per game guy and get 12 to 15 carries if he gets the chance to start you know that's probably an RB2. And JD McKissick could be gone, so he could be in that pass-catching role. Quarterback could matter for Washington,

depending on what they do. So lots to like about Derek Patterson. I like that one, Chris, for sure. Dave, I guess Gainwell's yours based on where you have him ranked, and could he maybe be somebody you're looking at ahead of somebody like Ramondre Stevenson, depending on how things go for Philadelphia? Depending on how things go for Philadelphia

and for New England, it's possible that you could look at Gainwell in a PPR league and see that he's going to have a viable role every week. Not that that's been a certainty with this coaching staff. Look at what the Eagles did with their run game last year. They leaned on it a lot, but it wasn't always one guy or even two guys or even the same two guys from week to week to week. So there could be some frustration there with Gainwell, but I like the talent. I like that the coaching staff that's in place in Philadelphia now drafted him.

And I like that they, they're a team that's probably going to continue to try and run the football a lot and throw the football, the running backs a decent amount. I know with Jalen hurts though, that's not a guarantee, but I think that Gainwell has got some nice talent. I'm okay with him being a bench stash in the same type of

vein as remandre stevenson i think i'm drafting stevenson ahead of gainwell for now but we'll see how things shake out if patriots do a lot to add to their run game then it's probably going to hurt stevenson gainwell could move ahead yeah especially again if jordan howard is not brought back and boston sky's restrictive free, maybe he leaves the team as well. So Miles Sanders struggles with injury, struggled last year as well, and we could see a situation where Gainwell may be in a prominent role for a team, as we saw last year, could run the ball quite a bit. So it could be a good spot for somebody like Kenneth Gainwell, Jared Patterson, again, Trey Sermon could be in a good situation.

Also, lots to like about these guys. This is why we're going to hear us say Khalil Herbert, lottery ticket. Chuba Herbert, lottery ticket. You take these guys with late-round picks're going to say you're going to hear us say Khalil Herbert lottery ticket, Chuba Hubbard lottery ticket. You take these guys with late round picks and they could end up paying big dividends. So we'll see how those guys

compare to some of the other six running backs that we talked about previously and should be fun to break down this 2021 running back class a little bit more throughout the course of the offseason.

That'll do it for us today on Fantasy Football Tech. We'll be back on Monday again to look at the wide receiver. So some more fun conversations there with that position and Adam Azer will be back to pilot that show for sure. So for Dave, for Chris, I'm Jamie. Thanks for

listening and watching Fantasy Football Tech.