Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - Early RB Rankings Countdown: 20-11, Old & (NOT) Busted - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/16

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Running back rankings on today’s fantasy football podcast! Find out where the big names on new teams landed in the early RB rankings. Which mid-round draft picks have the best chance to be a difference maker in 2024? Plus, big news for Nick Chubb and Devonta Smith! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast. -- Fantasy Football Podcast for April 16th, 2024. Dynasty Pass content available now in the UDK+ at UltimateDraftKit.com Connect with the show: Subscribe on YouTube Visit us on the Web Support the Show Follow on Twitter Follow on Instagram Join our Discord Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Monopoly is back at McDonald's, everybody. This is an alert. It's time to get back to Mickey D's. Monopoly Double Play is back at McDonald's, and it's easy to get into the win. First, you peel on pack, and then again in the app. There are millions of prizes to be won,

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Welcome in one and all, the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway, back with you Tuesday, April 16th. Starting to get a little warm outside. Starting to get a little warm outside starting to get a little bit warm here well we are in arizona and if you are unfamiliar what happens on tax day is that the sun changes the sun changes from one version of the sun that is acceptable to be around and then it changes to one where when this morning at 7 a.m i roll the window down in a drive-thru shame on me um 7 a.m drive-thru wow jay it's get after it brother i mean the show's topic just changed i'm telling you this my my window tent is doing great work because when that window came down, the heat of Satan was on my face.

I was like, I need to sunscreen half my face now when I go to work. When you go to your morning drive-thru. When I go to my morning drive-thru, the left side of my face is toast. If he starts coming in and he's half tan and we know it's like a mcdonald's tan um but yeah uh there you go yeah burns like the irs you know what i mean yeah there you go well said uh welcome in we're counting down our early running back rankings today last week we did wide receivers and we got some wide receiver news today that we need to talk about as well a reminder head over to ultimate draftKit.com to pre-order

this year's Ultimate Draft Kit. You can get the UDK Plus and that'll give you access to the Dynasty Pass right away. The UDK is packed with sleepers, breakouts, bus values, all of our projections, the draft analyzer, and probably like

20 things I didn't say. We've got our crew working hard, looking forward to it, and it's pre-order pricing right now at ultimatedraftkit.com. Lots to talk about, so let's jump right into the news. News and notes from around the league. All right, the Eagles have extended Mr. Devontae Smith, three-year, $75 million contract, $51 million guaranteed. So always exciting if you have Devontae Smith on a roster

to know that his future is secure. And can't be said for a couple of his uh fellow draft mates in cd lamb and justin jefferson so far but davante smith sets the standard three years 75 51 guaranteed the eagles are i mean i just love how they run their organization top to bottom they're usually pretty smart with all their decisions but they get out ahead of the whole, you know, if you're first to sign the new contract and you're like, oh no, I've got to set the market. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. Because if you're telling me that you're signing this contract after CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson, or even Brandon Ayuk and all those type of players,

this is really smart. Also, from a dynasty perspective, I love Devonta Smith and he is as good a wide receiver as you can be. And so when you're locked up for a long-term deal, like I have him in my top 10 in dynasty rankings, I've got him ahead of Waddle. I just think he's a, like Waddle's more of an explosive athlete, but he's just not as good a wide receiver. Devonta Smith is as good as you can get at the position. So, yeah, Jefferson was the year before Seedy. I should clarify that. But both of those guys still need contracts. In fact, this morning, just a little while after the Devontae Smith.

It was – the agent had talked to Schefter and was like, hey, if any wide receivers get an extension, you will publish this 30 seconds after. Which was that CeeDee Lamb's not going to participate in voluntary workouts as he awaits his extension, which I believe Kyle said, CeeDee, you don't have to show up for nothing. You wait to get paid.

You're worth it, buddy. And he is. And he should get paid. He will get paid. So Dev worth it, buddy. And he is. And he should get paid. He will get paid. So Devontae Smith circling back there. The thought experiment, you know, we've had the rumblings that get, you know, shut down by A.J. Brown.

But just run through the thought experiment of A.J. Brown wants out someday. Sure. Or departs or is unhappy. Like, Devontae Smith as the number one target for Jalen Hurts is pretty attractive. Mm-hmm. I think he was suffering the most and historically over the last two years suffered the most when, like, all three were healthy. So Dallas Goddard's on the field. He dealt with injuries a couple of times in a row.

But when he's on the field, some dealt with injuries a couple of times in a row but when he's on the field some of the target share certainly yeah you have seen him thrive the most when the consolidation goes down to him and one other target so yeah in the future should something happen where A.J. Brown is not an eagle that's the the fantasy finish you're talking about the capability of I believe a top five wide receiver. T. Higgins says he expects to be playing for the Bengals in 2024. He was at a youth football camp. Some reporters were asking him. And so, you know, he's rumored to be a player on the block during the draft.

There were also rumors about, like, the two big names during the draft that could get traded at wide receiver are Higgins and Ayuk. There were some unverified reports this week about, like, the two big names during the draft that could get traded at wide receiver are Higgins and Ayuk. There were some unverified reports this week of, like, Ayuk formally demanding a trade. They said that wasn't the case. But, you know, I don't think any of us would be surprised if he did because he would like money as well. That's all he wants.

If he says, I want a trade, he's just saying, I want a big bag of money. Yes. So whoever's going to give me the big bag of money, that's where I want to go.'s just saying I want a big bag of money yes so whoever's going to give me the big bag of money that's where I want to go is it you San Francisco great everything we're all good now yeah just give me the money I love it here um the Browns I was happy to see this this I was very happy to see this as well for the man it is what I believed in my heart about the situation, but not without great fear, knowing how impactful this player,

his salary, the potential to lose him, but the Browns have restructured Nick Chubb's contract for 2024, reduced his salary cap hit down almost $10 million. It gives him the chance to earn most of it back based on performance, but it keeps him there. He did most of it back based on performance,

but it keeps him there. He did not make our, you know, here's a spoiler. He did not make the top 20. Yeah, you can't put him in the top 20 as of right now, having no clue where he is with the injury. I mean, to be clear, we don't love that Nick Chubb is making less money because he is that guy, but the concern was the Browns, if I'm remembering it correctly, they could have just cut Nick Chubb and said,

we can't guarantee you any money because of how much of an injury risk you are, but at least with this restructure, he'll be there. He'll be able to rehab with their professional facilities. So hopefully he makes it back because everyone loves Nick Chubb. Financially speaking, the harsh and good move would have been to just cut him. Right. This is nice. And for fantasy purposes, it gives you a little bit more confidence in Chubb,

obviously knowing that he's there. Part of the future plans. Yeah. Prior to this restructure, he was someone that I had a lot of trouble considering having on a team. Like, you know, you just don't know if he has any future left, and now I'm confident he does. Matthew Betts, our injury expert,

also mentioned the fact that, like, when he's cleared, it's unlikely he'll be at 100% at any point in 2024. I wouldn't put too much past Nick Chubb. I've seen the workout videos for 10 years. But big-time injury. And he's come back from a devastating knee injury in his past. So that's a feather in the cap for his work ethic. But I was going to say, we have seen like Jamal Charles had a really, really early career ACL that he hopped back from no problemo

and a late career ACL where it was like, eh, it took a little bit more time. And you can argue never really got back to the same Jamal Charles. I would expect that to be similar for a 28-year-old Nick Chubb. The Titans offensive coordinator, Nick Holtz, came out and said the team sees Pollard and Spears as interchangeable. This is not the first time I've seen this language around them. 1A, 1B. They're both going to play a ton, get a ton of carries. Tasha is like, well, our contracts are not interchangeable.

No, no. That guy's getting a lot more money than me. What do you mean we're the same player? I'd definitely be drafting Pollard over Spears. Can we split? Can we pool share tips here? Just like, we're doing the same backfield. I'll put my contract in.

All of mine. You put all yours in. We're just 50-50. Interchangeable. Yeah, and then every other check goes to each guy. And then Rashi Rice update. There were arrest warrants issued for Rashi Rice. One count of aggravated assault.

One count of collision involving serious bodily injury. Six counts of collision involving injury. And he surrendered to police and posted a $40,000 bond. He was going very fast. He was going very fast. Is it Drew Davenport am I correctly quoting that he came out attorney generally very trustworthy

on his insights into the details of these cases I believe his last assessment was an expectation of maybe one to two games whereas he was at the zero game mark before details came out. We do not know anything definitively. It's still a ways away. Am I representing that properly?

I believe so. You are. I believe Drew Davenport, a good follow on X, Drew Davenport FF, doesn't believe that there will be jail time here. The suspension could come from the NFL. TBD, obviously there's more information that can come out, but we'll keep you briefed as well as we can. Alright, unless the Deucer's Alley has any more news

for us, is there anything back there we need to know about? No, sir. We'll jump into the running backs. Running bags. See? Told you. we'll jump into the running backs running bags see told you we did we jumped in efficient now we're into the running backs because of the guy said so

all right wide receivers last week running backs this week and very excited to talk about these guys there there's some very interesting decisions to running backs this week and very excited to talk about these guys. There, there's some very interesting decisions to be made and it's easy. I think when you're talking about dynasty startup drafts, dynasty rosters to,

you know, draw a pretty clear line of, you know, the age situation at running back. Yeah. Everybody wants a young Brees Hall, B. John Robinson-aged superstar. However, there aren't a lot of them. There just aren't.

And there is a lot of trust in, I guess you'd call elder statesmen or proven veterans such as, you know, James Connor, right. And Raheem Moster with 20 touchdowns last year. And, and so the,

the trust we saw in David Montgomery in the beginning of the year over Jameer Gibbs. And so, you know, it is interesting and redraft. I think when you look at that age situation, you know, I don't pay too close of attention to that in a redraft format i don't

know if you guys are any different i mean i i pay attention because the the age cliff it it happens like james connor james connor is the first guy we're going to talk about here at number 20 who he is tied for 20th he has has been a true anomaly of just throughout his entire life, his story from being a cancer survivor, making it into the NFL, being kind of thrust into a starting job that the team had not prepared for in the Pittsburgh Steelers with Le'Veon Bell deciding to hold out. And then James Conner was excellent.

And it seemed like it burned way too bright. James Conner's career was done. Arizona brought him in. We all lamented. We're like, oh, come on. Really? We're giving James Conner that amount of money? And he's come to Arizona, and he's been win on the field.

Fantastic. I have been proven as wrong as possible about James Connor I feel like it's a testament to somebody just working so incredibly hard that he overcomes every obstacle you would have thought worst situation in Arizona which I think you know I guess not because 4.3 a carry in 2022, five a carry last year. He had his first 1,000-yard season. He and David Montgomery are tied at 20, so we're talking about them.

We're talking about Conner now. We'll talk about Montgomery a little bit more in the conversation with Gibbs later. But James Conner is going to be one of the more interesting draft picks. You can see, you can see the story playing out where, you know, his best ball ADP is 20. Arizona will have Kyler Murray from, from week one improvements to the offensive line.

And yet he's not gonna, he's not gonna rise. No, he's not going to rise in draft positioning because the fatigue and the story, it's just like are we entering the Frank Gore category for James Conner? We could be. His style of play says that I think he can actually age gracefully. He is bigger and stronger.

He's one of those weird players where he has so many runs of 15 yards and, like, no runs more than 20. You know, he's not breaking away down the field, but you just can't tackle him for a while. So he's really, really good. The question really becomes is he – it's weird, and it feels almost silly to talk like this, but he was so much better when the Cardinals were terrible.

And Kyler wasn't there after his injury in the first season. So you just worry a little bit about, is he going to be the same to the offense that he was when they didn't have a quarterback. But we did see at the end of last year when Kyler came back, you know, some confidence building games in Conner's ability. If the Cardinals take that step forward, there's always, every single year, there's a team that goes from worst to first in the division. And you take a look at why it's usually a quarterback change, you know, whether it's you drafted C.J. Stroud, and all of a sudden you had a surprisingly good offense, or maybe you have Kyler from the beginning.

They're definitely a candidate to take a leap forward offensively, which is good for touchdown opportunities. And at this point, looking at the depth chart, the offseason move that the Cardinals made, they brought D.J. Dallas in from the Seattle Seahawks. He's kind of just like he does everything. He's a backup. I'm not going to go horn for DJ Dallas. He's just a special teamer.

Because, yeah, he can play special teams. He can fill in here and there, but he's not a starting caliber running back. And then the rest of the depth chart, like Michael Carter. Yeah, that one gets a horn. Michael Carter gets a horn. It deservedly so. And then Amari DiMarcato, who owes me $72 a fab. I'm still waiting on that.

Do you send an invoice for that? I do. Every month I've sent it over, and I've said, sir. The idea of a plan. Have you looked into collections yet? I ran out of over and I've said sir. The idea of a You haven't done like collections yet? I ran out of fab because I needed you and it didn't work out. The idea and

we are like the biggest proponent. Don't tag Don't tag players. Don't write them letters. Don't yell at them from the stands because they didn't get you what you wanted in fantasy. But you may invoice them for fab. Like you can send them just a formal, no, no emotional commentary, just a formal invoice for fab with a return address.

I accept that. No, the depth chart is not intimidating. The only thing, the only thing that intimidates me about James Connor that I think makes him an appropriate pick at RB 20 versus 10 or something like that is he's going to miss football games. He has missed football. Arizona, two games in his first season, four the year after, four last year. He's missed time. It's just what happens. He's got a violent running style and he handles a lot of work. He's coming into his eighth season.

He's never played a full season, so he will miss games. You have to have that protection, but he's not going to be one of your first draft picks. You're talking about a guy who's probably in the fifth round or so. Yeah, and he was a very, very good league winner last year, but the injury situation, Mike, puts you right on schedule to pay $72

for another Cardinal backup at some point during the year. Cardinals should be adding offensive talent. Hopefully Marvin Harrison, Trey McBride broke out over the back half of the year, so to Jason's point, the offense shifts a little bit more to the passing

game. I just don't think Con Connor can get himself off the field. I mean, he's just too reliable. So, solid RB2. Like, if I had him as an RB2 for my team, I would be thrilled. I agree. With depth, though. I want some depth. So, are we –

I'm pretty sure you said death. I heard death. I want some death. Okay. I would recommend depth over that. Yeah, that's stronger than depth. Okay. Depth.

That's not a good, that's not an easy word. It's not super easy, but it's an important part of life. Depth? Depth, yes. This show's all about life and depth, okay? This is a life and depth type of fantasy analysis show. Depth comes for us all. Yes, it does. Yeah.

All right. I guess we're going to take a quick break and come back with number 18. Well, like I said, we're pressing pause on Montgomery. He's sitting at 20, but we'll talk about him in the context of Gibbs later. We have another tie at 18. This is our consensus early rankings. This is not us statting out every single player for every single team like we do for the UDK. This is the first early gut where we'd take them before the draft as we break it down.

Aaron Jones is at 18. James Cook is at 18. To me, this is one on the way up, one on the way out, personally. I have a ton of respect for what Aaron Jones has done in his career, but I am very hesitant what a 29-year-old Aaron Jones is going to be able to produce fantasy-wise in a new home with a bad quarterback. I don't trust it. So for me, I'm the lowest by far. You guys actually have him at 15 and 17. You think maybe you get, like when Connor switched teams, some resurgent years. I am much more reticent I don't think he's done like I don't think Aaron Jones has lost anything he comes out last year was the running back one in the first week and then if you remember injured himself on like a huge breakaway

run took a while to kind of get back to it but then at the end of the season when he was back on the field he had a really nice stretch run for the Packers, was top 24 each week of the last month. So when I view him as like he's coming over into essentially the Dalvin Cook role, as a later stage, like he— I like that you skipped Madison completely. That was like you went two years back. Well, you don't want that. Well, right.

He's coming right into the role that Madison couldn't come close to filling. Correct. But I think Aaron Jones can. He's not going to go into the Madison role. He's going to go into the Dalvin Cook role. And so if Aaron Jones still has it, you've got a really valuable role on what could be maybe not as good an offense. I mean, it won't be as good as a Kirk-led offense.

So you've got some issues here, but even still, the offense is better for Buffalo, obviously, but the touchdown opportunities are way more in Aaron Jones' favor than James Cook. James Cook just is not part of the touchdown. They tell him you're not allowed to score touchdowns if we're inside the 10. Get off the field.

I mean, they like Ty Chandler too, right? So the Dalvin Cook role was to be everything. This is going to be a subpar offense, at least in my head right now, with multiple backs and Aaron Jones that missed six games last year. So I am hesitant, Mike. You're more in the middle. Running backs under Kevin O'Connell is not good. The rushing percentage, 30th, two consecutive years.

The attempts, 28th, two consecutive years. And last year they couldn't score any touchdowns on the ground. So for me, Aaron Jones is like a – I know it's crazy, but he's like an off-the-board guy know it's crazy but he's like an off the board guy for me really he's 100 off the board because i think where you have to take him is not rb 18 and best ball it's not worth the risk to me like i i mean we just talked about a guy that's two picks later i would take connor over jones every day so um just different opinions there mike did you have any thoughts on j before we talk about Cook?

I'm more in line with Jason. Seeing him close out the season was nice. Now, I mean, three of those games that Jay sided, in three of them, he was 57% of the snaps or fewer. So, I mean, this was still the part-time Aaron Jones that he has always been utilized, or when he's really succeeded, he's been a timeshare back. And I do think that there will be a higher timeshare with Ty Chandler than the immediate signing of Aaron Jones would indicate. But I still think that he has juice and he will have some really explosive games.

So I think that at RB18, it's not terrible. I think it really comes down to whether or not you believe he's post being good. I mean, you could argue about the offense, but, you know, two years ago, Dalvin Cook was the running back 10. The last year, Alexander Madison wasn't the dude. So if Aaron Jones is kind of toast, if he's washed, he's old enough, he's 29.3 years old as of today. So that's where you've got to plant your flag.

I think he is completely on the way out. Like you said, Andy, one guy's on his way up, one guy's on the way out. But if you think he's still got it, he should be. I don't see why he wouldn't be valuable for fantasy. James Cook, 24.6 years old, RB12 in best ball, finished as the RB11 last year. Wow, RB12? Extremely explosive.

He ran for 1,100 yards last season, 54 targets. You know, a lot of talk about Diggs leaving, and oh, Kincaid and Shakir, they're going to step right in. Guess what? James Cook is a big part of the offense, and if you take Diggs off the field, Cook factors in in a tremendous way. I don't feel like the volatility that we saw in the first half of last year is going to resurface with James Cook, personally. I don't think the ride is as smooth or predictable

because he's not prototypical. But I do believe that you won't leave many games. You're entering the Eckler phase of James Cook's career. Well, that would be fantastic. Eckler was a touchdown machine. Yeah, it's hard. When I'm shocked at the running back 12, sure, maybe there's an explosion upcoming here for James Cook,

but he has four rushing touchdowns. Not last year. In his career. Granted, he had four receiving touchdowns. We love seeing that. Eckler finishes the RB6 with three rushing touchdowns. But what were his targets? In 2019.

Yeah, he had 108 targets. Right. I just mean that you didn't – when Eckler began his journey, I'm not saying it's a match on every stat. I'm saying when he began his journey, people didn't pick him because you didn't see the normal path to, you know, this isn't a guy that gets 20 carries and looks like Saquon Barkley's stat line

until he developed into that. Do you have the, I mean, do you have that kind of hesitation with James Cook saying, well, at 12, I have to take him, but I don't know if he's going to be a huge part of the game plan this week. It's, for him, in my opinion, for him to come through at the RB12 price, draft price, he has to see his targets go from last year was 54, caught 44 of them.

That is tremendous. Yeah, where does that need to get to? Ten yards of completion. He's got to get up into the mid-70s, maybe the low 80s for for him to have a chance in my opinion because receiving touchdowns are aside from austin eckler when he went on that heater it's still really hit or miss really fluky for some of these receivers they have spike years and then they just vanish in receiving touchdowns it's wild he was fifth he was third in the nfl in yards from scrimmage.

James Cook was number three. He is a tremendous player. He does not get used near the goal line. But we have seen through research and things, I believe Kyle put out, the Borgannoni put out a great article. Kyle, was that your article about the vacated targets? Yeah, a long time ago yeah so where kyle did a huge study about we always want to plug the new wide receiver in of just gobble gobble give me all those targets go right to this guy vacated targets are actually

there's a strong signal that the running back will see their target share go up so he could get there but i think that is it's it's I have a really, really hard time with wanting James Cook on my roster. The touchdowns are scary. But when I pull back and think about kind of things that hit historically in fantasy football, like you said, Mike, the vacated targets, I go to a running back. What is James Cook? Real superpower for fantasy, it's catching the ball.

It's not the rushing, even though his rushing yards work great. Touchdowns are my big fear, but touchdowns are not a sticky stat either. And if he already finished as the running back 11 whilst not having the touchdowns and he's being drafted at running back 12, maybe you're actually getting him around the floor. And should he have that kind of fluky but you know very possible 10 touchdown season then you're talking about a league winner so I think maybe I've been mentally too low on James Cook he is in a good offense they desperately need him he is the perfect age usually the top peak season for running backs is 24 years old so I need to readjust kind of how I'm viewing James Cook.

I just don't like the archetype. That's why I think he's the – I said I'm not drafting Aaron Jones. For Cook, you just draft him and just like I'm not going to try to figure out how it happens. It's just going to be fine. That's how I feel about him. Kamara at 17. Oh, boy.

Alvin Kamara. He's interesting. This is not my fault. 28.7 years old. Mike has him at 19. I have him at 19. Jason at 14. What you doing?

What are you doing? I'm very comfortable with Jason's ranking because he's on my dynasty team. He finished at RB14. Jason, give us the bullish case for an older Alvin Kamara. Well, he basically missed, what, five games last season. He finished as the running back 14. And during the stretch, if you don't remember. Pretty good case so far.

If you don't remember what he did last year with this offense, it really doesn't look like it's going to retool a lot. They're going to have the same quarterback who's going to dump it down to Kamara, and they've got the same wide receiver core. Maybe they add a wide receiver in the draft, but it's not going to be something that takes the targets away. Here are the game logs of fantasy finishes once Kamara came back from his suspension, right? So he was the running back 12-7, 12-2, 4-22, 14, 14, 2, 20, 16. He was a running back one most of those weeks. At worst, he finished running back two, and then he had one bad week,

running back 44 in week 16 and then got injured. So, like, I think he's really interesting because he's older, he got injured at the end of the year, was suspended to start. I think he's being lost in the shuffle. He seems like as safe a floor player when you are receiving targets at the volume that he had them. I mean, his pace for targets during his healthy games last year was 120 targets. You just talked about the kind of crazy Eckler year where he had 108 targets. He was so hyper-targeted when he was on the field and i don't

see that changing this year his contracts i'm looking at it right now so he's under contract this year and if they had cut him or anything it would have been an 18 million dead cap there's no chance you know what his dead cap is next year oh it's got to be astronomical 10.1 really yeah so like he it seems like he's gonna play for them for two more years like like mostard-esque type of situation and then he still has a six six million dollar dead cap the year after that yeah they love pushing that can i mean it's just his his numbers don't make sense for talking just pure fantasy if a running back with 180 carries, 694 yards. That's 3.9 a carry.

He had five rushing touchdowns. Okay. Caught 75 passes for 466 yards. James Cook, by the way, was 44 catches for 445 yards. So way, way more efficient. One receiving touchdown for Kamara. And yet the running back 14 on the year. I think that's my biggest hesitancy here with Kamara is it was gross.

You don't deserve it. Longest run of the year was 17 yards. Never had a 20-yard run. In standard leagues, he had to be like the running back 32. 3.9 a carry. These numbers are terrible. Well, if you remember, this was the worst team to watch and the worst quarterback to watch.

And the reason why was Alvin Kamara. Because every single play, Derek Carr would drop back. That's not his fault. No, but it was just bad offense. It hurt their team. He wouldn't throw to Olave or to open wide receivers down the field because he just dumps it down. And then the whole defense goes, hey, should we just get right on Kamara

because they're going to throw the ball to him. So, like, every time he'd catch the ball, it's like he didn't even lead him and give him the ball in good opportunities. So, it was catch the ball it's like he didn't even lead him and give him the ball in good opportunities so it was disgusting but it's gonna work for fantasy and i say this strictly out of respect he has no courage that is very respectful you know what i mean yeah he's yellow a coward yeah respectfully yeah yeah yeah yeah and so cowards check it down do you think like when he goes into the bathroom in the morning and he turns on the light that he scares himself in the mirror like he's he turns the light on oh my god oh that's me okay oh no derek i'm sorry i i think that cowards are good for Alvin

Kamara. Yeah. So Raheem Mostert comes in at six. Kick that ball out. Dude, the numbers. We're moving on. They don't make sense. 16 is Raheem Mostert. He is 32 years old. So you can sit there and go, oh, Alvin Kamara his best time is behind him.

He's 28. Mostert's 32. Most are 32. You spoke about it at the beginning, Andy, but just to really take a look at the whole landscape. This year in redraft, you are playing old running backs. That's going to happen. The influx of newer, younger running backs, they didn't pan out. This year's draft class doesn't look great.

Last year, yeah, you got Bijon you got Gibbs but all the rest the Charbonnet the Kendra Miller Tajay Spears Tank like they're not like set up for this year's to take the mantle exactly right so for fantasy at the end of this season you're gonna have older running backs by like by that I mean like 27 28 29, 29, or 32, where they will matter and they will be on the championship winning team. So you can't play scared of the age at running back this year. And there's no greater example than Raheem Mostert. And you have him the highest. So I want to hear from you because this was a player that entered last season

with 19 touchdowns in his entire career. He had 21 last year in 15 games. In 15 games, he was the running back two. He had 20 carries inside the five. I mean, when you look at his numbers on the ground, just the carries and the yardage, like this was almost identical to what James Conner did. Conner was 208 for 1040, right?

And Raheem Mostert was 209 for 1020 or 1012 so it was touchdowns right and that is tough like you're not i mean you're not getting 21 touchdowns this year you're not getting 21 touchdowns but if you had to take the over under on 10 total touchdowns i think you you'd probably be right around there you're you're yeah i mean i'm probably gonna stat him out this is a great offense it's gonna score a ton of points, and when they get down around the goal line, you either have little itty-bitty baby boy, and I love Devon Achan,

but that's not who they're giving the ball to get this touchdown. They're giving it to Mostert, and the easiest way to score touchdowns around the goal line is not passing the ball, it's running the ball. Kyle Shanahan knows that. That's why Christian McCaffrey gets so many touchdowns, and you've got Mike McDaniel coming over, and he's going to do the same thing with Mostert. They're going to do it over and over and over again. They did it last year. He had seven games as a top 10 fantasy

running back and only two games all year where he wasn't a top 24. Mostert is criminally undervalued. This is really good news again for my elderly dynasty team. Thank you, Jason, for really advocating for me to not sell players. I have him at 18, Mike at 18, but all of us are much higher than the consensus. I wanted to bring it up because he's RB24 in basketball. Disgusting. So you're kind of, that's egregious to you. It's egregious. He was the running back two last year in 15 games.

Now, like we said, he's not going to get 21 touchdowns but he's on a great offense he's going to be the at worst 1b what about being 32 years old so a lot's made about that obviously age cliffs are real but he hasn't slowed down yet and you also have to keep in mind, when you look at a human being, Raheem Moser is 32 years old. He spent the first umpteen years of his career not being a running back, not carrying the ball. You know, his rushing attempts by the time he got into year five of his career were a grand total of, let me look this up, 41. 41. 41 carries when he got into his fifth season. So, yeah, he's a little bit older, but he has tread on the tires.

We'll talk more about him in the context of Devon Achan. And they paid him. Yeah, they did. They did. They reworked his contract to give him another, like, commitment year. Like, another year where he's a part of this equation. If Raheem Mostert's best ball ADP sticks at running back 24, he's going to of this equation if raheem mostard's best ball adp sticks at running back 24 he's gonna be on like 100 of mine like there's no way i won't take him by the

time he gets this guy jersey i'm in i'm in on most man over here mostard man and mustard man yeah you love mustard i do bijan and raheem all right we'll take another quick break and come back and talk about I think a controversial name with some fear surrounding it. I hope it's the name that's controversial.

Yes, the name is very offensive. Alright, it's time for that controversial name. 15 mike is the highest at 12 i've got him at 15 jason to 17 it's kenneth walker the third just 23 years old back-to-back seasons finishing at rb 16 and rb 19 i'll be honest i'll hand the baton to Mike to talk about his ranking, which is a little bit higher than best ball ADP. Kenneth Walker is just a confusing player to me. I'm going to just set the table there. He's confusing because there are times when he has the football in his hand

where I think maybe he's the best running back that I've seen that day. And yet, you know, under 1,000 yards, he's missed two games each of the last two years, doesn't catch a ton of passes. So I kind of feel like he's capped. Mike? I think that's a fine stance to have on Kenneth Walker. It's just that he's very explosive. I think he makes

a lot of mistakes, but the athleticism and the strength overcome those mistakes frequently, and then they turn into a lot of touchdowns. We had eight rushing touchdowns last year. As a rookie, it was nine where he wasn't even the starter to begin the year. The Zach Charbonnet, despite our love for him, he looked really overmatched last year just as the backup. And now you have the team saying, we're going to be a high-T team. We want to get back to running the ball. Geno Smith had some unfortunate regression last year from his true superstar breakout campaign a couple years ago.

So it's more of just projecting that Walker will have huge games, and I think that he is locked in to be the far more productive of the timeshare, more running back attempts to go around for this team. And so just young enough and explosive enough that I think he can outperform that ADP. Yeah, the bear case is simply that he doesn't catch passes. He wasn't efficient as a goal line back despite having plenty of touchdowns a lot of times they come from outside of where they are more predictable so if he doesn't get the touchdowns and there's a new coaching regime where we don't know you know the the

loyalty isn't necessarily there I do think he's a great back he's a very explosive athlete but it's like if he's in a timeshare and he doesn't catch the ball and maybe the touchdowns start to move. I know it sounds reminiscent of last year after they brought Charbonnet in, but there's still some yellow flags that just make me go elsewhere. All right. Well, Derek Henry comes in at 14. It seems like he'd be lower if it wasn't for yours truly. I have him at 11, Mike at 14, and Jason at 18.

I am a little shocked at Jason's dunking on Derrick Henry after he just age-boosted Raheem Mostert. Derrick Henry had a horrible year last year, to the tune of 280 for 1167 and 12 in the RB8. He goes into a better situation. Gus Edwards, who I think at times we didn't remember played football, was the RB20 last year. He came in

only to do the touchdown. They said, will you do the touchdown thing? And he's like, again? I don't get to do anything else? That's true, and what's crazy is just doing the touchdown in Baltimore was a top 24 back. To me, this is not me believing Derrick Henry's going to have a volume resurgence.

I don't think that's going to be the case. I think you're actually going to see maybe the lowest volume that we've seen ever from Derrick Henry, or at least in recent memory. But I think he will do the touchdown. I think he will be big, good touchdown. He'll be the touchdown doer for sure. Big, good touchdown. Yeah, I mean, as the touchdown doer, there is a really nice floor for him.

You're not going to have Keaton Mitchell, you know, coming back off the injury as a smaller back doing the touchdown thing. That'll be Derrick Henry's. And Gus is gone. What do you think the floor is, Jay, derrick henry rushing touchdowns oh assuming he's healthy the floor is probably 12 that was our that was rb8 last year um i mean again maybe not the volume though maybe maybe he's 240 for a thousand yards i'm guessing that they don't overwork him through the course of the season. This is a team who's trying to win a Super Bowl,

just like you saw kind of the second half of Travis Kelsey last year. He could do it. He was frustrated that Andy Reid was like not keeping him on the field all the time, and then they got to the playoffs, and it's like, okay, now, hey, it's Kelsey. You see why I was doing that? I could see them doing that a little bit with Derrick Henry. He's going to get the touchdowns.

I think he's got a safe floor as an RB2, but I worry about the upside because he doesn't catch the pass, and I don't think he's going to be a workhorse in Baltimore. Now, we'll have to see what they do with the depth chart. Right now, an injured Keaton Mitchell, Justice Hill, and Derrick Henry, they might just be forced to use him more than I think. If they come out of the draft without a running back, maybe I'll adjust my expectation for more volume. But as of right now, I think he's going to do all the touchdown things, get plenty of work because he's just a great, awesome running back,

but not catch the ball much and be a safe floor RB too. The rushing numbers for Baltimore, granted, they have a rushing quarterback. First in rushing attempts per game, first in rushing rate at 50% of fifth, plays inside the 10. That's the good stuff. I would love to see running back course compared. But still. When you add Lamar Jackson, you're going to be there.

But even stepping back from the rush rate, plays inside the 10, fifth. Get Derrick Henry on an offense, and they maintain anywhere around that, I think 12 is a safe bet for rushing touchdowns. They've also come out and said that they want to, I think, bring the running game back in even better form, more like the Greg Roman days, or at least bend it back a little bit from what they did last year. bring the running game back in even better form, more like the Greg Roman days, or at least bend it back a little bit from what they did last year.

They did lose three offensive linemen. I was going to bring that up. They are odds on favorites to take an offensive lineman in the draft to help repair some of their – they lost two guards and a tackle. Looking at the totality of the running backs, just the team. So the Ravens running backs as a team were the fourth most fantasy points. Okay. Well, look, you consolidate that. Every fantasy player is going to be required by law to select an old man

to be one of the running backs because we're going to enter that territory again. Henry is a perfect UDK prospect because you stat him out or you don't stat him out and you just go, I think he's going to be like this and not use this way. But when you actually stat these guys out and see how many rushing touchdowns he is projected to have and how that compares, I could see him ending up as like my RB6. Joe Mixon comes in at 13.

Houston Texan running back, Joe Mixon. Long term. Yeah, they signed him. They paid him money. And he gets to rejuvenate his career in Houston with a good offense. Last year, 257 for 1034 and nine. That was somehow good enough with the pass catching numbers for RB5 in Cincinnati.

And so, you know, led the NFL in carries inside the 10 last year. So, you know, steady at this point in his career, not explosive necessarily, but reliable. And hard not to be excited when you saw Devin Singletary have success to look at Joe Mixon and say, well, probably a little more versatile, a little bit bigger, definitely going to be a goal line threat. We all have him similarly ranked. Another steady option for fantasy players. We have him at 13.

Joe Mixon is such a difficult player for me to get a gauge on because it seems like almost every off season it felt like the correct bet is to bet against joe mixon where his numbers his efficiency numbers are straight doo-doo when you're talking about on the ground for a guy getting that amount of work. His sophomore season, 4.9, we're like, oh, Joe Mixon's going to be incredible running the ball. Then it was 4-1, 3-6, 4-1, 3.9. Just efficiency's not great, but still getting all of the work.

And then, Andy, the Devon Singletary point, high-powered offense, how do you not get excited about it? And yet, will Mixon make the transition from the team? Will it be really smooth? Will he see targets? Last year, Houston, 15% of their targets went to the running back position. That would be 30th. It's going to be hard to see a lot of targets with three great wide receivers

and one tight end that can catch the ball. Is that 15%? Is that C.J. Stroud and the way that he plays the game and the way that the offense runs, was that the personnel? He just didn't feel like, I want to check it down all the time to guys like Damian Pierce when he's on the field every once in a while. And then Devin Singletary. There are so many questions.

Running backs. I wonder if Kyle knows this question. Ask away. Sorry, just to follow up because you mentioned, like, are the targets going to be there? And we always say, well, when great wide receivers like James Cook, right, you lose Stephon Diggs. So sometimes the running backs benefit from the target share.

Right. So does it work in reverse when Diggs joins your team? If Diggs joins your squad, do the running backs, are they the ones that sacrifice? I'm curious if he knew that question. Like if he knew that Andy was going to ask that? Did you know that he was going to ask that question? No clue. Okay.

He did not know the question. So what about the answer to the question ah that's that's different Kyle look it up TBD TBD TBD but but yet again I mean I have him ranked where his current best ball ADP is but he he it feels like where Andy's shaping up, like Aaron Jones looks like a guy who may not be someone I'm drafting. Joe Mixon, there's so many true green flags about the situation, and yet I find myself hesitant. I am not hesitant. I'm more hesitant in best ball because I don't think he's going to be one of these guys who has these giant explosive games.

But over the course of the season, accumulation, accumulation. So you're talking redraft leagues, your home league. If I can get him as my RB2, heck yeah, brother. Look, Devin Singletary is a fine back. I don't think he's a bad back. I think he's pretty good. I don't think Joe Mixon is a great back. However, Joe Mixon, greater sign, Devin Sing don't think Joe Mixon is a great back. However, Joe Mixon, greater sign, Devin Singletary. Joe Mixon's a better back than Devin Singletary is. And if you look at what happened last year with Devin Singletary, they started the season where Singletary was 21% of snaps, 36% of snaps, 29, 36, 35. it was supposed to be. Damian Pierce. Damian Pierce. But Damian Pierce wasn't good.

So they're like, you know what? Singletary's better. And then once Singletary got 75, 81, 85, rest of the season, he was on the field the majority of the time and he was the back. During that stretch, which was from week 10 on, he was the running back nine. Devin Singletary was. There's a good offense. They paid a lot to get Mixon signed him

long term so there's no doubt week one week five week 10 week 12 no matter how he performs he's the guy yeah no it's a good point and um I feel like this next guy on the list people are believing for very much the same reason Josh Jacobs comes in at 12 on our ranks uh mike is the only one above best ball adp which is at nine i'm at 12 jason at 16 it you know you can't look at last season and say josh jacobs looked great on the football field because he didn't he looked bad 233 for 805 and six fat thor came in caught 37 passes didn't score through the air, finished at RB27, full dud of a season, after leading the National Football League in rushing. Green Bay, a franchise that makes a lot of good decisions,

a head coach that I trust, you know, one of the best in the league. I agree. In my opinion. And so that says something to me about, look, you move on from Aaron Jones, you reset the age clock at running back, you bring in Josh Jacobs, 26 years old, you believe, and again, the Raiders wanted him back. So Pierce, Antonio Pierce believed, and then you have the Packers believing that this guy is going to be worth the trade, be worth the contract, rather.

Yeah, so the way that it went down, this is a well-run franchise, not just head coaching, but the way that they manage their team as well. They're smart. They tried to get Aaron Jones to restructure his deal. They wanted to keep him. He didn't want to take less money, and they saw an tried to get Aaron Jones to restructure his deal. They wanted to keep him. He didn't want to take less money, and they saw an opportunity to get three years younger and go to Josh Jacobs. And the way they did that was brilliant.

They gave him a bunch of money up front, said, hey, here you go. They structured it to where if it doesn't work out this year, it's pretty much a one-year deal. They can move on, have not that much dead cap, and get out of the contract after this season, going into the 2025 season. So I am a little bit afraid because of the way that they structured this and because of what we saw on the field last year, the inefficiencies with Josh Jacobs, the fact that he was 3.5 a carry. I mean, he just didn't look good. He was very, very inefficient. Now, he hasn't hit an age cliff at 26 that I'm terrified of, but when you get all

this volume on a back that starts getting inefficient, now he changes teams. I don't think he has an infinity leash here, and if he just sucks, I worry about him. Now, he is on the every other year plan of success for fantasy in his career, so if you want to take that analysis, he's gone back and forth, kind of a red light, green light situation. This last year, bad. Maybe it's great. But I find myself a little bit more afraid of Josh Jacobs only because what we saw last year was bad. And so it's like that's where my fear comes from. His situation is great. I think he'll be more utilized in the passing game.

LaFleur's talked about that. So if he hasn't lost it, he should be great for fantasy. But I've got kind of the heebie-jeebies of like, I don't want to draft a guy after watching him suck. Again, I think that's a very fair assessment. I hope that we are going from Fat Thor to the Love and Thunder body. Oh, okay. Or whatever the name of the new movie was because Thor was looking shredded. Much better.

Much more shredded in that movie. And currently, should the Green Bay Packers be putting Josh Jacobs out and get really mad, really frustrated, they pull him out. That's a good point. Who's going in the game, Jay? AJ Dillon. So Josh Jacobs. Fatter Thor. Yeah. out it's a good point who's going in the game jay jay dylan so josh jacobs so fatter thor yeah they're gonna they're gonna be like okay we gotta go back so it's just this is a uh it's it's a bet

on the green bay packers for for me with josh jacobs of the cash i i think that josh jacobs will be close to a three-down running back in a world where we get very few of them. And this is why Emmanuel Wilson should be on Dynasty rosters. Rashad White comes in at 11 to round out our first half of the top 20 running back early rankings. Rashad White was the RB7 last year. I called him Baby CMC because he, or Discount CMC

rather, he was awesome. Fantasy production-wise. Not efficiency on the ground-wise. It was a playoff team. They didn't bring anybody else in to usurp him last year. That was a surprise. The draft, there were eyeballs on it. That's why there was some Sean Tucker belief.

There was belief in Sean Tucker, but again, I don't think this team's going to draft a running back because they paid Chase Edmonds to come back and be Chase Edmonds. I think they loved what they got from White. I don't think it was – you know, these teams don't evaluate players through a single metric like yards per carry. You know, they won a lot of football games. They salted away the clock a lot at the end of games,

which doesn't help your primary running back's numbers. He was one of the best wide receivers, so to speak, in football at the position. He caught 64 of 70 targets. 70 times Baker Mayfield said, I need to throw it to this guy. And 64 times he caught the football. 91%. That's pretty good. That is just so valuable.

He is the same case that you made for Alvin Kamara can be made for White. White was not crazy explosive on the ground. Kamara's numbers were terrible on the ground. And yet you have to keep him on the field. Yeah, obviously TBD, if something changes, I agree with you, Andy, that they are not actively seeking to fix this running back room. When you listen to Todd Bowles talk about this team and about this running back group, they are all in on Rashad White. The fact that they brought Baker Mayfield back, we can be confident in the checkdowns continuing. So if this depth chart stays the same

I think you have to assume similar volume uh so long as he can continue to stay healthy he played 17 games and that's oftentimes the hardest stats to repeat for running backs yeah uh but yeah I mean there's there's not much you cannot like about the situation and obviously he's you know several years younger than Kamara so maybe he is the better bet well he his yards per completion were much better than Alvin Kamara it it comes down to I'm like I'm not necessarily projecting that the Bucs are going to take a running back in day two or anything like that but But the fear for Rashad White is if anything changes volume-wise, things could quickly turn into a disaster.

I mean, you have an offensive coordinator change. That will change. I mean, there's an immediate change for Tampa Bay. But last year, only seven runs over 15 or more yards on 299 rushing attempts. I mean, that truly is something special. I'm sorry, 272 attempts. And then his fantasy points per opportunity, it's below league average. Basically saying, if he's not going to get all those touches, like I said, things could turn quickly

that he doesn't pay off the ADP. Right now, with the situation as it is, okay, you can talk me into Rashad White, but he's more, as of right now, I'd be more scared investing in best ball without the information from the draft. All right. We are looking forward to counting down the top 10 early running back rankings on Thursday's episode.

But that'll do it for today. A reminder, head to ultimatedraftkit.com. Pick that up. Get that preorder pricing. Get into the Dynasty Pass. We'll catch you on Thursday. Thank you for joining us. Goodbye.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.