Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - Early RB Rankings: Top 10 Countdown, Dream Draft Picks - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/18

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Top 10 RB rankings! On today’s fantasy football podcast, find out which highly ranked running backs carry the most risk. Is a big bounce-back season coming for Jonathan Taylor? Will the Rams continue to lean on Kyren Williams? Just one week until the NFL Draft! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast. -- Fantasy Football Podcast for April 18th, 2024. Get the lowest price on the 2024 UDK at UltimateDraftKit.com - Dynasty Pass content available NOW with the UDK+ 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,

including a new chance to win cash every minute in the app. Get into the game with Monopoly Double Play at McDonald's. While supplies last, one in five chances to win game piece prizes at outset, chances to win Double Play prizes based on time of code entry, and draw prizes based on number of entries in each draw. See rules in the app. Get a credit card annual fee waiver and earn C-plus points faster with the Scotiabank Ultimate Package and bank more entertainment. Learn more at scotiabank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotiabank. You're richer than you think. Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Welcome in. Thursday episode of the Fantasy Footballers. Jason Moore is here. Hello. Mike Wright also came to work today. I thought we were doing like an accent thing. That's an accent? Yeah. Oh, was that's an accent? yeah oh was there

oh was it like an hello? yeah I was going cockney sounded like an obnoxious accent hey I bet I'm Andy Holloway and scene top 10 running backs on the show today early rankings

we just counted it down from 20 to 11 on the Tuesday show. Excited to get into the top 10. And you know, the draft is now one week away. Very soon. One week. So that should be really, really fun, especially if you join us

on draft night. We'll be live on NFL Plus at the end of round one. So you'll want to catch that, a live fantasy reaction special, Thursday, April 25th. So please, stop by. It will be a good time. Yeah. How are you doing today, Jay?

I'm doing great. I'm very excited for this week leading up to the draft. There's always such crazy news that ends up coming out, all sorts of nonsensical things leaked about players. Oh, this team is totally into this guy now. This is the week to plug them ears. Plug your

ears is just a bunch of smoking nonsense. Until the day before. The day before the draft, then all of a sudden some real stuff sometimes gets leaked out. It's tough. I mean, the stuff I don't like is definitely nonsense. Right. The stuff that I do like, it's probably true.

I like how every year we can get to the draft and go, wait a minute. They didn't do anything. They lied again? They were making that up? We are doing draft predictions next week. Super fun. So that will be, I know you're really excited to get a bunch of them wrong again, like we all will. Well, we usually get most of them wrong, and by we, I mean the entire planet.

Every mock draft or everyone out there, you see like the best mock drafts of all time. The majority is still wrong, but I think we do a pretty good job. The ultimate draft kit available right now. It will be updated for the third time following the NFL draft. And so Dynasty Leagues with the UDK plus. You want to check that out, ultimatedraftkit.com. We do have an announcement. And dare I say, this is an opportunity to remind you why you should listen to all the episodes.

Yeah. Because sometimes we say stuff that we only say once. This is one of those moments. And we don't even tweet it. Nope. We don't even, we don't email, we don't tweet, we don't talk about it ever again. Now before, not after. We are here for our fans. And we know that you listening right now are our fans.

And so, we are seeking help. We are looking for new writers. We do this once a year where we bring in a couple more people to the writing team. We have a great group here. We were just on a big Zoom call. It was a big family last night. It is an awesome time writing together. We are looking for the best and the brightest.

And if that is you, you can go to footclanhelp.com. We are only saying this once. You can apply there. Hopefully you have some writing samples some writing samples here it says for kyle sanity please submit a writing sample to let us know you can write i would highly recommend you do that it is the most important part of the writing job yeah i mean writing we're uh we're looking for good peoples with great football knowledge. Probably around four new writers?

Yeah, I mean, it really depends on who applies. If five great ones apply, then we'll have five. If one great one applies, sorry, we got one. So this is the only mention of it. FootClanHelp.com We'll be going through all the applications to join the writing staff

and that'll be fun. It's always an exciting time to meet some new people and add them to the team. Going through the submissions is one of the most fun, worst times that you'll ever have. Because with the reading and the words. Right. You're not. Yeah, you see me.

I feel seen. Yeah, it's just there's there's so many things video of you reading your article yes read me your word oh no somebody's gonna do that now oh my bad i'm not the one always going i check uh a couple layers left all right quick question of the day what is one dream draft pick you want to happen during the nfl draft anything you want for whatever reason you want. So just a dream situation. Mine's the layup. You want me to go first?

Sure. All of ours is yours, Mike. But it's selfish, and yet it's for everyone. It's the selfish thing, but it's the right thing. Yes. Sometimes it's okay to be selfish. It is okay. It is absolutely. Marvin Harrison, Jr it's the right thing. Sometimes it's okay to be selfish. It is okay. It is absolutely.

Marvin Harrison Jr. to the Arizona Cardinals. Marv is going to go early in the draft. There aren't very many teams, unless a team moves up and shocks us, but there are not many situations where there's a franchise quarterback. He can be the number one. It can be a great offense. And it works out for everybody. It works out for Cardinal fans.

It works out for fantasy football fans. It works out for the people who have the 101 in rookie drafts in single quarterback where you don't have the situation that the Patriots take him, and then the Cardinals take Malik Nabors, and you go, oh, no. It's another Clyde versus Johnny Taylor situation. So let's just let this happen. Let us have this.

Just play it by the – go chalk. The way that CJ Stroud just spoke from the podium yesterday about Marvin Harrison, I don't know if you guys saw this. I did not. Yeah, I did watch it. He basically just said at the end, he's like, the team's at the top. Just be smart. Don't be dumb.

Don't be dumb. Like, he's clearly the best wide receiver. So, yeah, Cardinals fans, as we three are, want him. But it makes sense. I mean, they don't have a wide receiver. Right. Michael Wilson is their current wide receiver one. That's insane and if you

caught my song on socials i'm gonna save so much money so much money because i will never have a need for pants never go back to that store again i will never go they will be gone hometown team selects marvin harrison your pants will fly off and you'll never need to wear them again exactly all right so outside of our hometown teams, the next most important thing are our personal takes. You know what mine would be. You know what it is. I'm going to write down what I think it is.

There's no way you don't write it down because it's like a weird. Well, which team? It's a weird, like, stupid competitive, like. Is it Bills? Win or lose situation. I didn't even want to die on the Adonai Mitchell Hill, but it's like Adonai Mitchell to the Bills. And you will be dying.

Unless this happens. I'm going to be so upset if AD goes to the Bills. Because Jason and I have slightly differing viewpoints on Adonai Mitchell's, I guess, outlook. Yeah, prospects in the NFL. It's become a fun draft day situation. And I did say to you yesterday when we were talking about it further, because I know you watched more film on him,

and then you talked about his profile, and there's lots of reasons on both sides. That's why players go ahead of other players for reasons. But I was like you know how much the landing spot is going to define this so significantly as well as not just what round but the team and so it's fun to have the debates i really like adonai mitchell i think he profiles to be a really impactful nfl wide receiver i won't think that if he goes to carolina i will think that if he goes to buffalo so if it think that if he goes to Buffalo. So if it backs you into loving him on accident, that's

funny to me. So that's what I'm rooting for. I get that. And you can add the Chiefs. I mean, it could be the Bills or the Chiefs. Well, mine is Troy Franklin, a player that I think is a very very talented I think he's very talented, so I want the same thing for him. I want him to go to a quality landing spot. So I've got Troy Franklin to thing for him. I want him to go to a quality landing spot.

So I've got Troy Franklin to the Chiefs. I saw that mocked like a month ago and got very excited. Let's have that happen. All right. Into the news we go. News and notes from around the league. This is being recorded slightly before you listen to it on Thursday. So if some news that is super obvious is missed,

that's why I'm telling you what we know right now, including Cortland Sutton not showing up to voluntary workouts. He wants a new contract. I saw a stat he has 10 starting quarterbacks in seven years. That's not a way to get a rapport going. Like sometimes you just draw the short straw as a wide receiver. I think McLaurin's drawn that. I think for most of DJ Moore's career, that was the case.

For Cortland Sutton, it certainly has been. And like the two outcomes for Sutton right now are, if he goes back to, you know, if he's happy in Denver and plays this year, it's like rookie quarterback or Jarrett Stenum. So congrats. Congrats on probably two more quarterbacks this year. So he's like, please pay me now. My stats will be awful at the end of the year.

Yeah. And last year he was 59 for 770, but he had 10 touchdowns with Russell, who has always had a knack for getting the ball into the end zone. So he's a scary pick without really knowing who the quarterback is. Also, the Broncos don't have, like, isn't Russell Wilson the third highest cap hit on the team or something like that? Yeah.

No, Russell's the biggest, but Sutton's the third highest right now. Yeah, so, I mean, you might see something restructured with him. It doesn't even make sense. He's under contract for two more years of like... It's his guarantee. He only has two million more guaranteed. Yeah, I don't see them changing this. If you look at their roster and who's on their roster long term,

this is a team that's going to... Retool. In two years, it will be 100% Sean Payton's team from the ground up. There won't be a single holdover, so I don't see any long-term deal coming for Sutton, which the last time I said that Cortland Sutton was not going to get a long-term deal. While I said that, news broke the contract.

The news that we have missed that that's very possible will you check and see if courtland just signed an extension we'll take a look there is not a there's a non-zero chance but between recording and when this comes out it's happening it's gonna be great you just earned him so much money yeah um dolphins are planning to pick up the fifth year for waddle jalen waddle makes. He's been a very, very good wide receiver despite our disappointment in his fantasy production versus ADP last year. He's been great on the NFL field. And a disappointment about availability play-to-play.

Sure. That does factor into how I think about Jalen Waddle. He's fragile. Even though he doesn't miss a lot of games, he somehow misses a lot of plays. He still impacts the majority of games, though, and I think that's what matters to the Dolphins. All right, that is all I have for news right now.

And like I said, if we miss anything as of this recording, we'll pick it up on the next episode of the show. Let's jump in. Running Bags. All right. Yesterday we talked about, or sorry, on Tuesday, we talked about the 20 through 11 as we count down the top 10 running backs in our early rankings.

This is not the same rankings you'll see in the UDK when it releases on June 1st. Those rankings, factoring in all of the rookies, they are all statted top to bottom every team every player every stat and sometimes we're even surprised by our own uh you know the stats versus our gut this is more like hey who would we take right now who did right who do we think profiles to be the top 10 running backs it's our consensus ranking so we don't have perfect agreement it's just the average and so uh we talked about a particular stat on the wide receiver episode. And I believe the number was about 3.7 top 10 wide receivers

per year repeat as top 10 options. So year to year, there's turnover. Over the last 10 years, 2.9 running backs repeat as top 10 running backs from the previous years. The most that has ever happened was five, and that was in 2020. So there were people that drafted running backs and were happier that year. But 2.9 is the average. Injuries are always a factor in that number. So, you know, you can't really really you don't go into the draft going like man i hope i can guess which four of these top 10 have a random catastrophic injury and it makes sense that they're drafted where they're drafted

it's just a reality that you don't you don't build your team and and i think i've learned this so much over the last 10 years of of this show is like you don't build your team, and I think I've learned this so much over the last 10 years of this show, is you don't build your team and just your top three picks, you're like, all right, I'm set. You have to have that mentality that you just build depth and strength for your roster top to bottom, pick one through your last pick, and realize that some things are going to happen. Yeah, this is why at the top of the draft you have such a, not a battle, but you know, whatever, a disagreement on how do I build my team?

Because the number for the wide receivers repeating, that's a way stronger probability that one of the top ten of last year is going to repeat. We discussed that number as a bad thing. Right. We discussed it as like, look how few we need. Slightly better number. I mean, it's one more player.

Yeah, but in the game, 30% more. In the game of probability, it's an advantage. But if you hit on the running back. That math is right. I'm going to let, one of the ways I trust Jason is with this weird math that I can't do. I got to think about it. If three running backs repeat, right, 2.9, one more would be 30% of three.

Yeah, you tell them. Yeah, whatever you tell them, man. Whatever you say, man. All right. It's also one more of 10. Right, but probability. Point being, but if you hit on the running back. More valuable.

And then they repeat. Yeah, it provides way more value to your team, but the number is lower, so do you go with the wide receiver? That is just, to me, that kind of encapsulates a lot of the arguments of, do I go wide receiver early or do I go running back early? You can get into the psychology too of just like the experience you had last year is not the one you want to have this year if it went bad.

So sometimes people, you know, they don't just go with the numbers. They go with the emotions. And like if I've missed on running backs for two years in a row, maybe I'm making a pivot to wide receiver because I saw that guy that made the wide receiver pick and it worked out well for him or her. So I still think finding running back is the greatest advantage in fantasy football

if you hit on one early, but that doesn't mean that I am locked in. We want to stay water. We want to see how the draft flows. And let's jump into the top 10. Number 10, Isaiah Pacheco, 25 years old. Jason and Mike, you both have them at 10. I remember going through the early rankings when we were putting our numbers in there. I was a little surprised

you were both as bullish as you were. I have him at 13, outside the top 12. But all of us have him currently ranked higher than his best ball ADP. It's true, which is 14. So a lot of opportunities, solid workload. It

all worked itself out last year. 4.6 a carry. Runs like he is absolutely. Wait, we probably have his player drop here. I mean, just furious at the ground. Nothing more in his life than turf and grass. He hates it. He is so angry with that ground, the way that he runs.

It is. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Man, could you imagine being like a gardener watching this man run or someone that cares for this lawn? I mean, you've got to really have a problem with Pacheco. Unless he's aerating. Oh, very nice. Yeah, have like the big cleats on.

He's just like, hey, Pacheco. It's his training regimen. They're like, hey, Pacheco, get off the field. We just receded. Put on the super cleats. Tear that thing up. He's vicious. That's a good plan.

But what happened with the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl two years in a row now has shifted them to a defensive team, to a team that, look, they lost Tyreek a couple years ago. Travis Kelsey is getting older. We saw Travis Kelsey purposely used less in the games through the second half of the year to save him. He might not like it, but it was brilliant. It was smart. It is good football. It's the reason why in the NBA,

people are resting stars nowadays that they didn't use to. It's like, you know, what matters is winning the championship at the end of the year and having our players fresh. Pacheco is becoming like, I mean, you'll never be able to say he's the center of this offense, right? You have Patrick Mahomes, but he really is becoming part of their identity. And it really happened more and more as the season went on, through the playoffs. He's their dude. I would be really surprised if next week they do something to usurp this,

and so, yeah, I've got him in my top 10, which obviously if we talk about how few players repeat year after year, well, that means that the majority of players are new this year to that top 10. Pacheco wasn't there. I've got him inside right now. Got 18 opportunities a game, 84 total yards per game. This is what he was averaging. That's nice.

And then he's seventh among all running backs in red zone touches. That's where we want. We'd love for him to get more. Or if you have Pacheco, you'd love for him to get more carries inside the five. If you have Mahomes, you want them to never run the ball ever. They also did what many teams have done this offseason and bring back a not very good player to be the backup

like they did Chase Edmonds in Tampa, A.J. Dillon in Green Bay. They brought back Clyde in a one-year deal. Number nine, Travis Etienne. His best ball ADP is RB11. He's 25 years old. I have him at eight.

Jason at nine, Mike at 11. He was the RB3 last year. I don't think it's necessary to get too far in the weeds and try to criticize that performance. I know the consistency wasn't there, but he also won you so many weeks on his own. It showed his capability. The team said before last season they wanted to reduce his workload.

They didn't do it. They couldn't do it. They said the same thing this year. I don't believe they will, and I believe he is so talented. So to me, he's one of the players very likely to end up on my rosters because of where I have him ranked compared to, you know, if he's two or three running backs later, I'd rather have him over Pacheco. You guys have him not very far off either.

So I think we all have a great deal of confidence that ETN is going to be the workhorse for Jacksonville. I thought, like when I was ranking ETN, I knew I would have him lower than most people. I was kind of surprised to find out that his best ball ADP is right where I have him. So, I mean, it's nice that at least my overarching thoughts on ETN are not far off from the confidence that people have. But for me, I mean, the second half was brutal.

It was brutal. It was a 17-game pace of 800 rushing yards. The reception's very nice, but in the fantasy playoffs, like if you had ETN, we were just talking about dynasty running backs and you were flexing on us that you have these guys. And it's like, well, why didn't you win the championship? You're like, well, in the playoffs these three guys

really hurt people. And I'm not just saying these two really terrible weeks at the worst possible time. That happens. But just the second half of the season being not great, mixed with, it comes down to what Andy's talking about.

Can they find a player to spell Travis Etienne? Because the team has repeatedly said over and over, that's what they want to do. But right now, they probably don't have that ability. He caught 58 passes. Yeah, that's delightful. And he's don't have that ability. He caught 58 passes. Yeah, that's delightful. And he's very capable in that area. So to me, he has a nice baseline.

Great touchdown upside. We saw it multiple times last year when he went on runs of three straight games, two touchdowns a game. I have a great deal of confidence because there's not a lot of young, talented workhorse backs that catch the ball. He's in that category. Yeah, and he there's not a lot of young talented workhorse backs that catch the ball he's in that category yeah and he plays for not a bad offense you know right even if this is not an elite offense there'll be plenty of scoring opportunities that's really where his fantasy points came but 73 targets on the course of a season when you take out cal calvin ridley

and replace him with gabe davis you expect his involvement will stay there. The running back core projects to stay the same this offseason and projects to be poopy behind him. So I think Travis Etienne is a pretty safe pick with decent upside. Like he obviously, I mean, he finishes the running back three. So he's got the upside to finish in the top five. All right, quick break and back with number eight on the rankings. All right, at number eight comes Newly Yoked. I don't know if you saw the picture.

Oh, I haven't. Devon Achan. Tell me I got to go look up some Achan pictures. I'm in. Yeah, he's 22 years old. What do you do with H.A.N. is, I think, a player that is going to be exhilarating slash frustrating. I think that's the truth.

Like, if you're taking of our top 10 running backs, there's nobody that I think I would feel less confident as my one. Dude, I know. Were you laughing at that or were you looking at the picture? No, I'm laughing at that. I'm laughing at what you said because I am in complete agreement. I am an A-chan stan. He's a nervous number one.

I was all in on A-chan last year. Had him in a lot of leagues because I believed in him and the talent and all that. It was a wildly fun, awesome electric ride. I'm just so terrified, man. It's like- You love Moser. You talked about it on the last show too. Absolutely. I love this running scheme. I think there's going to be a ton of points, and I think Devon A-Chan is going to be great. It's basically this. If you know, and we don't, but if you know for sure

that no matter how explosive a player is, he's going to miss a ton of games. If you know you're not going to have him for six or seven games, is that a good draft pick? And the answer's going to be no. That's too many. But what if three to four? Three to four is fine because most running backs

miss two games. So, you know, if he's missing three or four and he's explosive in the others, I'm totally down for that. But when I stare down drafting Devon Achan, I really do have like – I feel like I'm like, I love this player. He's so great in the system. He's going to be great when he's on the field. I'm not confident he's going to be on the field.

Six and a half games he missed last year. Three separate injuries if you include the preseason. So he missed week one, missed a four game stretch, played one attempt and missed the rest of that game and then was out the following week. When he was on the field, it was

explosive. It was dynamic. It was must-see television. He had 800 rushing yards. He ran the ball 103 times. He was, I mean, watching him, he was the most fun player to watch last year. It makes sense. Him and C.J. Stroud were easily like, I just could not take my eyes away. Every single time you handed him the ball and you run that little, you know,

that little zone read where he just, you get your foot in the ground and he's gone. Let me illustrate. Explosive plays, he was number one in yards over expectation per attempt. Number two was CMC, but the difference, he was at 2.87. CMC was 1.32. He averaged 7.7 every time he touched the football. And the pictures I was talking about was just that he's coming into camp having put on weight, which for him, you've got to be thrilled to see that

because durability, I'm sure that that was the message of the offseason. These guys aren't stupid. They want to be there and contribute every single week, and he wasn't able to do that. He probably had a lot of frustrating games on the sidelines saying, I want to play football. So you come back, you prepare yourself. If it really is a two-man show without –

there were times last year because of injury that other players got worked in, whether it was Jeff Wilson getting snaps here and there, or I think Salvin Ahmed was still part of the situation last year, right? I do very much think it's going to be a two-man show, barring injuries to either H-Han or Mostert. That is what they want. They want it to be a 50-50 split. So exciting draft pick.

And a tiny little bonus nugget. He lined up in the slot. We call that an H-Han nugget. Yes, that's fine. That's fine. Tiny little bonus nugget. Yeah. He lined up in the slot

on 35% of his pass place. That's the highest percentage among running backs. Smaller sample because he missed so many games. But are you comfortable with him as your one? We talked about it. I don't think I am. I think

I'm going to watch from afar. It would just be shifting things. You've got to do the mosaic puzzle in your head of like, I'm drafting him as my one because I have to. If I don't draft him as my one, I will not get him on my team. So this other guy that I'm going to draft, maybe he's a little bit more of the consistent type of an archetype. There will be no play I'm more of.

I think I would do. At the end, if I'm set up where I'm in kind of that range where it makes sense to take A-chan, I'm going to do it. I don't think there's a player I'd be more of. There will be many players I'm more afraid to have on the opposite side of my team this year. I think I had to play against Devon Aitken like three times last year because it got traded or at least a couple times.

And it was like – it was torture because every play could end your week. So, very dynamic, exciting player that we have sitting at eight. Yeah, I'm in. Wait, you're back in? I'm back in. Oh, gosh. Just going through the – You saw the pictures. I can figure out the rest.

But you can't figure out upside like this. Yeah, you really can't. He can win you weeks. How many touchdowns can these two guys have? Well, the thing with A-Chan is A-Chan's touchdowns are going to be A-Chan's touchdowns are going to be from outside the five. You know, Raheem Mostert, when they get to the goal line, A-Chan's not going to be there. But A-chan's touchdowns are going to be from outside the five. You know, Raheem Mostert, when they get to the goal line,

A-chan's not going to be there. But A-chan can easily bring a 20, 30, 40, 80-yard touchdown all the time, and that kind of explosiveness is very rare. Right now, you don't technically have to take him as your RB1. He is being drafted as an RB1, as the RB8, but that's about the middle of the second round. So if you wanted to go RB, RB, you could go Bijon and A-chan, someone that has a little bit higher volume, you feel safer with his.

That would be a pretty exciting tandem. The two numbers that are very tough is touchdowns, smaller guy, how predictable will they be to repeat, especially long touchdowns, very hard to repeat and then the the insane numbers are not going to be the remainder of his career he's not going when you get more opportunity you're not going to be 7.7 a touch you're not going to you know he even had games last year where the big play didn't happen and he played a bunch of snaps and that ended up being you know um running back 51 for a week when he was 7 for 24.

If he gets more work, he'll be okay, regardless of those. It's just a little bit of a gamble, but a fun one. In the end, you've just got to take your gamble on the injury. I do believe if he's healthy and he's active, he's going to score a lot of fantasy points for your team. At number six, we have two players that are tied there, so we'll start with Saquon Barkley. It's Barkley and Gibbs.

Saquon arrives in Philadelphia, and it's exciting. It's exciting to have the opportunity to see him play someplace else. He has always been such a, like, put it all on my back to support this offense situation. He helped people last year. He really did. It's just new home. I mean, he was tough.

Running back five, then 46, then eight, then 35, then five. It was like, can he get into the end zone for a team that doesn't get to the end zone very often he was six on the year i mean i mean when they when they lost daniel jones and they're playing a hodgepodge of backup quarterbacks with no wide receivers a poor offensive line it was like a sacrificial lamb out there. It was just keep giving the ball to Saquon and hope he can do something. And every other game he did. And every other game it was like, I'm tired.

I'm just sick of this. I'm thrilled that he's out of New York and he's playing behind. He's going from a bad offensive line to one of the best offensive lines. He's going to see giant holes to run through, and you've got Jalen Hurts at quarterback, two great wide receivers. I think he helps the passing, and I think the passing game helps him. The issue will always be around the goal line. I don't care if you've got Saquon.

If you're at the one, unless the tush push no longer works without Kelsey there, which I still think it's more Jalen Hurts than Kelsey under center, I believe he's going to score. He's going to be involved in the passing game. He's going to see running lanes he hasn't seen in forever. He's going to be a workhorse running back for a great offense. I'm going to go on record. I have no concern about Tush Push whatsoever. You brought him in there. There's a different type of

like, he's a different archetype of running back than what you've had. He's the man. He's the man. Last year, if they were on the two, they could Tush Push to the one, then Tush-push again. Like, he's going to get opportunities. He only scored six times and ended up the RB12. I am putting that out of my mind. I'm making a formal declaration of that.

Now, you could see an offense that's more well-rounded. You know, you've got pass catchers. You just paid Devontae Smith. You've got Goddard. You've got A.J. Brown. You've got, you know, the legs of Jalen Hurts. And so there could be games where Saquon Barkley's just not as big of a factor as you knew he was going to be in New York in terms of opportunities, but it will be made up for in efficiency, I think.

It's completely fair to put that outside of your mind because, again, when they get to the one, it will be a touch push. But there were 14 carries inside the five for DeAndre Swift last year. He had the opportunity. And he got them to the one. Oh, he was so good at it. And Saquon will get them to the... Zero, to the zero. To the kick.

So I think this is a really exciting thing to see. Saquon is still in his prime. He has not aged out. He's not over a cliff. He might not be breaking away 70-yard touchdowns on the reg anymore like he did rookie season, but this is going to be a great experiment. And you want to talk about someone that you can have a little bit more confidence in both the workload and the durability. I would put my chips much more on the Saquon side

than the A-chan if they're next to each other in a draft. Mike, talk to me about Jameer Gibbs, 22 years old. There's a similar conversation with him and Devon A-chan. They're both 22. They're both big play guys. They both have great offenses. Last year, Gibbs managed to finish as the RB10. He was a my guy.

It was not great early. No, it took a while. But then he had his time in the sun, finishing 3-2-1 in the middle of the year, 7-3-3 in 15 and 16. But there was some volatility because David Montgomery is a very good running back. Yeah, so he finishes the year with 182 carries. And it started pretty slow in those first four games. And then he was injured before the team really started to trust him a bit more.

But 180 carries, over five yards in attempt. And on top of that, 71 targets, which that was the thing you knew you could kind of basically guarantee of when they took him in the draft, when the Lions took him in the draft, which was a big shock of last year. If you've kind of lost context, I mean, that was so wild. But you felt like, okay, well, the pass catching is going to be safe. How much of the groundwork are we going to get? And the answer over the second half was we got a ton of it.

When it comes to red zone carries, you know, like once he was back from the injury, he was doing okay with that. He runs inside the five over the last three games, two against Minnesota, two against Dallas, not successful, and then one more against Minnesota two against Dallas not successful and then one more against Minnesota so he is it is it is very very similar oh even with most sort of Montgomery so the most yeah the the Dolphins and the Lions running back situation seems very aligned of like it is it doesn't feel like a bad strat to be like just crossfade like okay so i'll get

david montgomery some leagues i'll go h and montgomery some i'll take gibbs at the top and then i'll take mostard a little bit later and i'm just going to diversify that way jason do you do you believe that both teams because this is what i believe that they will give both the young guys a little bit more work this year but neither of the old guys are done therefore you know it doesn't make sense you know Monty fifth and red zone touches is that your view that there'll be more opportunity for both of the young guys I do think they'll get both second year players slightly more involved but certainly not they don't want them to usurp him and become the workhorse back. These are teams that want two awesome backs.

They want each one to spell the other. They each have their own role. It's very similar. When you get down on the 1, 2, 3-yard line, I think it will be more David Montgomery than Gibbs. Now, we did see Gibbs still involved a little bit later in the season, so I don't think they'll completely go away with him the way that I think they will completely go away with A-chan when they're inside the three.

Both these players can score from us. I want all four. I like all four players. I think the explosive upside is worth taking the shot on Gibbs and A-chan, and the left-for-dead value of Mostert and Montgomery, those will be like auto picks for me. They're just- How many games that David Montgomery played in did he not score a touchdown?

Oh, man. So he, just so you know, he played all but three games. So go ahead and tell me how many- Did he not score a touchdown? It had to be like two? It was three games. Three games he didn't score a touchdown. He's great down there.

They're not going to go away from him. With that offensive line, he's got the nose for the end zone. And Coach Campbell's not going to go away from that. Let me give you a snap count. That is the way for the Lions. Snap counts for David Montgomery to end the year, 35-52, 39-39-49. So, huge difference from the top of the year. The top of the year, 79-71, 75.

Yeah, I think that's what you're going to see is 40% to 50% of the work going to David Montgomery. And that's enough, obviously, because he's got the touchdown role. He does not have the pass-catching role. That's like gone all the way to Gibbs. So that's really the downside with Montgomery. But I love both players. And I do think you've got to caution a little bit.

Gibbs had two top three weekly performances in the two weeks that David Montgomery was gone, week seven and eight. So that's kind of pumping that up a bit. When you look at once David Montgomery was back for a couple weeks, like you said, Andy, the end of the season, it was pretty 50-50 on the splits. It's tough. It's worth mentioning I have Gibbs at three overall.

So I have him extremely high. You guys have him at seven. He ends up at six in our rankings. Also, when Gibbs missed time, Montgomery had like a top five number. Yeah, it's built in. You do have, for both of those situations situations if one of them goes out, you have like a top three running back. Which is kind of nice to know that that's

in the realm of possibility. At five, we're going to talk about Jonathan Taylor but we're going to take a quick break first. Alright, Jonathan Taylor. all right jonathan taylor was not a a real party last year uh it was it was a weight it was zach moss emerging it was a re-injury it was greatness when he was out there it was greatness with a quarterback that's no longer there in an offense we didn't get to i mean we didn't get to see jonathan taylor play football

with anthony richardson like we're still we're still waiting to see that right yeah so that is um you know you can't both score a red zone touchdown. And Richardson is very active. Richardson could dump it off to him. You know what I mean. Sure. You're saying that like a Russian. You know what I meant. They can't both run in a touchdown on the goal line.

I mean. Well, no. Genuinely, the way you said that, I was like, they can. They can both score a touchdown. This guy. Anyways, Jonathan Taylor ended up with seven touchdowns last year, missed with a thumb injury weeks 13 to 15, and then the first four weeks with contract fun.

I think we all know the talent of Jonathan Taylor. We are a couple years now removed from the number one overall finish that made him kind of the lock number one pick. I mean, for whatever reason, the facts are the facts. He's finished as the RB 34 and 33 over the last two years. He hasn't got to play full seasons. Doesn't catch, you know, that'll be a thing to pay attention to. Can he catch the ball, you know?

It will be, but once he was on field, it was incredible. His first game back, it was only 15% of the snaps. If you played him that week, which I would have, that would have felt really bad. But from then on, every time he played, he was at least a top 24 running back. It's all green on his consistency chart. And the targets are worth talking about

because the true numbers are a dual-threat quarterback. It does lower the ceiling for running backs. Like this is just, it is played out over time in statistics. So he's here at five. We're not saying Jonathan Taylor's the number one guy, but we're saying he's very, very helpful for your team. And last year, even with, uh, you know, the, with the backup quarterback play where you'd expecting more targets, it was still an average of two targets a game. I mean, this was, this is not a, with the performance he had last year

with the targets, that's not a high bar for Anthony Richardson to choose to dump the ball off instead of running every once in a while I think that with Richardson he will get at least two targets a week yeah the the two targets a week I think that number is relatively safe but it's hard to imagine that with two if that's like what he ends up with that that has like a top three potential. You'd have to have, you know, 14, 15 rushing touchdowns, which is not outside of his potential. Last year, he was the running back eight in points per game, and that is including his 14% snap game where he basically scored 15 fantasy points a game. He's a star player.

Zach Moss is now gone, which is helpful for him to get even more of the workload. We like Shane Steichen's offense, what we saw last year, the pace of play. I'm pretty bullish on Jonathan Taylor. A little worried about the receiving game.

At number four, Kyron Williams. I have him at seven, Jason at two. Those balanced out the four there where Mike has him. Last year, you know, super impressive season. He saw 37% of the Rams rush attempts and targets in the 12 games played. That's not true. 37% of the fantasy points came via touchdown. What,

what is, what are you trying to say here, Kyle, Kyle, you get to chime in and defend yourself. He saw 37% of their attempts and targets when he played. He's basically saying he was 37% of the offense. Okay.

Which is an outrageous number. Cause I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I,

I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I, I think I,

I think I, 39%. Yeah. I must not have mental, uh have put targets into my brain there because the rush attempts, obviously, he was their one back kind of guy. Yes. Now I see what you're saying. So from an offensive focal perspective, he was monstrous,

which CMC was the only running back higher than that. But a lot of it was touchdowns. When he was coming out of Notre Dame, Mike and I were very in love with the film. Didn't have the opportunity. And then when he did, it didn't look amazing. But then all of a sudden, it's a breakout campaign for Kyron Williams. Their identity was Kyron Williams down the stretch. This was a home run, league winning option. And now the question for people is do you believe?

Jason is all in. He's got him at two. I've got him at two. That's what he was on a points per game basis last year. You had an outrageous season from Christian McCaffrey, an all-timer where he scored 22.4 fantasy points per game. Kyron was right there with him. Kyron scored 20 fantasy points per game. Kyron was right there with him. Kyron scored 20 fantasy points per

game and half PPR. The third, the number three was three points behind Raheem Mostert scored 17 fantasy points per game. So you've already seen it. And I've got to put him at number two right now before the NFL draft, because he is the only player here that we're talking about on like the top of the top. They're like, I don't know know next week could change things for you know this is McVay has been a one-back guy that's that's gotten fantasy value out of whoever it is if it's girly great if it if he's deciding that um uh Cameron is out of the doghouse and it's him, great. Kyron was awesome. It's just a matter of he could be replaced because he doesn't have the same

pedigree, so we'll see. But two weeks from now, he will be my number two if they don't do anything in the draft. Mike, what's his floor? Assuming we make it through the draft, his floor to me would be – floor is – he's in the top ten regardless. So he seems safe in that point of if we enter the season that he is clearly the guy, the only thing that can take him out is injury.

It won't be he gets removed from the offense or things change Sean McVay is we have a lot of data now for how McVay does things he's really smart he gets his running backs to he gets the defense to empty the box against his running backs which really really helps them the

the red flag which I don't even know if it's a red flag or just like a holy crap is a stat of the only running backs to score 15 total touchdowns in 12 or fewer games over the last 40 years. It's Kyron and Priest Holmes, which not all of our audience is old enough to remember Priest Holmes, but that dude was gnarly. Gnarly. Gnarly. Also, if you're not old enough, you also won't know what that word means.

That is true. That is a word from Priest Holmes era. Is that bad? Yeah, then Mike set you up and then explained it with words you won't understand. Number three is Bijan Robinson. It was bussin' bussin'. Yes, thank you, Mike. Bijan, 22 years old. He sits at number three in ouran Robinson. It was bussing, bussing. Yes. Thank you, Mike. Bijan, 22 years old.

He sits at number three in our early rankings. He had 86 targets with Arthur Smith. He saw a perplexing amount of time on the bench. So this year, expectations are very high. You're going to have a drastically different offensive personnel situation this year. Kirk Cousins, just even how they line up on a weekly basis. There's so much optimism around Atlanta. We can't be let down again, right? I don't think we can. I mean, fantasy football is made to break hearts, so of course we can. But Bijan is coming into a situation where he is in his prime, extraordinarily talented,

and now is finally the workhorse, the projected workhorse, where you're not going to get Algier. We were halfway through the season where we were looking at the numbers of Bijan's carries inside the five and all the players in the league that had more than him and it was like backups to the backups who experienced more goal line opportunities than Bijan while you've got Cordero Patterson and Tyler Algier Arthur Smith in their way down there and the freedom is there. So I do think with this office, we've seen that Kirk is good at checking it down. Dalvin Cook was very valuable in the passing game. So I'm not worried about the, you might go down from 86 targets. I don't think that that is a guarantee though. I mean, you could stay there still as a valuable piece of that. So this is

an offense that projects to be good. They have the easiest strength of schedule going into next season. He's going to be the dude and he's talented. So I don't, I don't see how, I don't see how it goes wrong. Number two is Brees Hall. Also 22 years old. Mike and I haven't met to Jason.

Jason, Jason has him at four, four is, you know, shame like twice as far down as me and Mike have him. Yeah. Double. Uh, double. Yeah, I mean, Brees Hall is just such a good player.

He's just such a good player. He had 95 targets, 76 receptions. He finished at RB4. The offense was one of the worst I've ever seen in my life. And you talk about what Saquon did in New York for a long time. That's what Bresol was doing in New York. I mean, he was just putting the team on his back. The targets led all the running backs.

He's explosive with the ball in his hand. It's just so impressive. They had the least plays inside the five in the entire NFL, and he finished at RB4. If you fix the quarterback, and I don't mean like you have the best quarterback in the league, I mean you move the ball down the field like an adequate, mediocre, middle-of-the-pack offense. If you can just do that, you won't be 31st in red zone plays, you won't be 32nd inside the five, you won't be 29th in points per game. This was with an offensive line that ranked 27th.

So you basically stacked everything against Brees Hall known to man and he said well just throw it to me and I'll figure it out that was the plan that's a lot of the time is hey Brees what the guy what's the what's the play call the call is Brees do something well we can't hand it to him because when we do he's got 12 guys on yeah so we're just gonna throw it right on the other side of that offensive line over and over and over it was great in fact the last 11 games he was on 119 target 97 reception I don't think that's happening well no and that's part of the issue here is like they're gonna have a real offense this year that's gonna look not like some comically inept,

we don't know what else we can do other than dumping the ball off to Brees. Aaron Rodgers will be throwing to two good targets, and the offensive line is better. So you're going to have some give and take here. There's no way Brees catches the same number of balls because he doesn't need to this year. And that's a good thing because the offense is better and his scoring opportunities are up. But it's also awesome that you know he can. I mean, Brees is just, you know, I love Brees Hall. I've got him four, but that's because I love all four backs.

I love Christian McCaffrey. I love Karen Williams. I love Bijan Robinson, and I love Brees Hall. If you look at the numbers, now, do you remember he had 37 carries in the final week? No. So he got the ball 37 times in the final week no so he got the ball 37 times in the final week sorry breeze that's rude if you just took 23 carries off of that game he would

have been under 200 for the year so it shows you like i remember this happening with cleveland years ago with isaiah crowell and the marvin lewis years best laid plans running the football go away if your offensive line can't perform and if you're down by three scores or you can't produce in the passing game and you're just like but you have to keep passing so you know 200 carries is not the breeze hall situation that you want as a team right and so i think that you're going i mean it's so good he had he had a stretch of games last year where he averaged 1.4 a carry three two, 2, 2, 3, 1. So he had a stretch where he was averaging 2.2 a carry over six games. It's not fair.

Which is 450 yards on the year pace for the season. So he had an entire stretch where he didn't exist as a running game. Yeah, in the running game. And ended up as the RB4. So, you know, I personally think he's going to be a great friend to Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers is coming off a devastating injury. He's old. He's not going to be mobile Rodgers like he was before.

And he has shown that above all things, the most valuable thing to Aaron Rodgers is his historical completion percentage. So I think he's willing to take the underneath balls with the running backs. You know, that was one thing he was criticized for tremendously in Green Bay towards the end of his tenure there was, when are you going to threaten the ball downfield anymore? He took the easy stuff. That's what he's going to do coming off an injury.

Breach Hall has RB1 overall potential. You saw Aaron Jones be very valuable for many years in the passing game. 49 receptions, 47 receptions, 52 59 receptions with

Aaron Rodgers. Certainly, Breach is great in the receiving game, and he'll be used that way. And then a player that needs no introduction, Christian McCaffrey sits at number one overall, finished at number one overall, had 1,500 rushing yards, had, what is it, 21 touchdowns?

Seven through the air, 14 on the ground. Had that incredible run of consecutive games with a touchdown. So, you know, you talk about consecutive. What does he have? Running backs with multiple seasons of 24-plus PPR per game. Which that's outrageous. Which is insane. He's, man.

He's broken. He's broken the game. Well, he went to a situation in San Francisco. Yes, he did. Where common sense prevailed like kyle shanahan was like he like did the fantasy thing he said all right i'm gonna run i love running the football so who's the best guy at that all right okay i i need to be able to pass it to my back who's the best at that okay let's just trade stuff for him all right and then when

you get him let's use him like we've traded a bunch of stuff for him like every play i mean it and it doesn't fail like it's just right now you can't put anybody else above him um he would have been the rb5 on the season if you only used his fantasy points from first down. Shout out to Borgogon for that hot stat. He had four games last year where he wasn't an RB1. And don't hear what I'm not saying. He was still an RB2 in all four of those games. But there were only four times he wasn't an absolute weak winner for you. He's invulnerable he's involved well he's gone

down to injury a couple times well when on the field yes he's as guaranteed for production as you can get since maybe lt he's got to be the 101 in every draft and he's just too valuable as a niner you've got a good offense he's unstoppable he's still 27 years old like when you're talking about a guy with this kind of work ethic and the age cliff you expect to be around 30 yeah for that kind of a production yeah dude i saw a a reel of him talking about you know the just how insane his his work ethic is and like basically essentially what his father is like. Yep. Hey, this is what you want? Okay.

We will train for you to become elite NFL. It was the one where he was talking about his diet and everything? Yeah, just how regimented his diet is. In high school, you're in bed at 730. It was. He had no life. There was one game where your social life is pretty tough with that. He's like, there was one game he had in high school, and he cramped up,

and his dad's like, okay, that will never, ever happen again because of this. You're never going to eat that the day before. Because of the hydration plant. It was. You're like, okay. I see it. I get it. You committed everything to being this player.

He's the number one. I couldn't do it. He's the number one pick in fantasy, and generally what I like to do is I don't even put him in the draft pool. I just put him on my team, and then we do the draft. Oh, that's brilliant. You know what I mean? Just keep – I don't even – because it's disrespectful to have him be drafted one. He just – he should be pre-drafted. He's a-draft he's a pre-drafted and so i i generally as the commissioner i'll just put him on my team and everyone's cool with it yeah right i i like

the idea that you just make the pick for everyone though yeah if you have the first pick and you show up you click enter draft from it you start like whyaffrey on my team already? No one gets the first pick this year. I agree with Andy. No one gets it. Look, it's a lot of great words for a guy that was the number one pick when he got hurt and missed time. That can always happen, and 3.7 of them repeat, and McCaffrey could get hurt.

But this is a player that you cannot predict random injury, but you can predict how hard a player works. His body has held up to a huge workload for multiple years. This is just as guaranteed as it gets in fantasy, and you don't need me telling you that. That's our top 10 running backs. Let me run it back. Pacheco at 10, Etienne at 9, Achan at 8.

Then you had Saquon and Gibbs tied at 6. You had Jonathan Taylor sitting at 5, Kyron at 4, Bijan 3, Brees 2, and McCaffrey 1. Do you want to repeat what we said at the top of the show or would you rather not? You're talking about looking for writers? Yeah. If they go to footclanhelp.com and apply, I don't want to repeat it again.

Just let's leave it at the top. Alright, let's close it down. That'd be gnarly, though, if we got some guys. Thanks for joining us. Catch you next week. Goodbye. catch you next week 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 ff ballers