The Ringer NFL Show - The Players We Hate But Have to Rank

Episode Date: August 19, 2022

Every year there are players that we don’t really want on our teams, but we have to rank them. Today, we discuss those players. We finish the show by reading a few listener emails. (3:07) - Derrick Henry, Titans (6:45) - Cam Akers, Rams (12:52) - Nick Chubb, Browns (20:37) - JK Dobbins, Ravens (21:54) - Josh Jacobs, Raiders (25:36) - Antonio Gibson, Commanders (29:46) - Damien Harris, Patriots (38:41) - Emails Check out The Ringer’s Fantasy Football Draft Guide for rankings, tiers, sleepers, and more! Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Danny Hyfitts, and I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Korlbeck. And today, we are discussing the players. hate but have to rank. Every year, there's guys that we don't really want on our teams, but we have to put them somewhere. You guys know what I'm talking about. Yeah, it's like as officially as fantasy football analysts, we can't just ignore certain players and leave them off our rankings completely. Maybe we put them down further than a lot of other people have them, but we can't completely leave them off because I think we're aware. Some of these players are going to accumulate stats. However, we just never going to pick these guys. Like, even if

they're ranked, we're just never going to pick them probably. Everybody knows the experience of sitting there in your draft, and there's one guy who was ranked like 40th, and you're on pick 80, and no one's taking them because nobody wants them. Looking at you, Josh Jacobs. So we're going to get at all those guys. Yeah, Josh Jacobs.

We're talking about Josh Jacobs. Before we get into all that, we do have news. The Deshawn Watson's suspension news came today. DeShon Watson has been suspended for 11 games. We have not ranked DeShon Watson yet because we actually thought he would miss the whole season. He's only going to miss 11 games.

You can hear the Ringer NFL show if you want more of a breakdown for that. For fantasy purposes, DK. Craig and I confirm. and we're not going to rank him still. Right. I mean, just for fantasy, we're ranking guys we think you should draft

and we don't really think it makes sense to have a player on your bench that won't be able to play for you until December because suspension is basically the entire fantasy regular season. Right. There's a buy week in there too, I believe. So it's like he's missing 12 weeks out of the 14 week. And even if you have an IR spot on your roster,

you can't put suspended players on your IR spot, typically. Typically, yeah. So it's just, it doesn't make any sense. Like, it's just going to be. with a different quarterback, honestly, at this point. So he's, he's, Deshawn will not be playing football until December. And beyond that, and I'm only speaking for myself here is I don't want Deshawn Watson on my team this year.

It's supposed to be fun. I'm not going to have fun rooting for Deshawn Watson this year. It's just, if I have Deshawn Watson on my team, it's going to make me feel icky. And I just, I just don't want to show on my team this year. So for fantasy purposes, we don't think he's worth drafting. And even if he was playing more games, I still would not want him on my team anyway. So no good segue out of that. But here we go.

We're going to do the players we hate but have to rank. And to be clear, we don't actually hate these people. They probably have good personalities in many cases. No, I hate Derek Henry personally. El Tractor Sito? How can you hate a guy with the nickname El Tractor Sito? Derek Henry is the first guy on our list, my list. I don't know what we call it.

We have him ranked half PPR sixth overall. He's our fourth running back after Jonathan Taylor, McCaffrey, and Echler. but I think I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth here because if I was in a draft and I had the sixth pick and he was there, I don't think I'd take him. So why do you rank them? So you're lying to us all. It's the whole point of a ranking.

Well, this is what we're going to try to unpack on this episode. Derek Henry, for me personally, I don't enjoy the risk of him breaking down this year. I think it's too high for me. The man's logged over 2,000 carries over the past seven years. That's incredible. That's crazy. I have the bad taste of my mouth from when he came back.

He broke his foot last year. He came back in the playoffs. He had 20 carries against the Bengals for 61 yards and a touchdown. It was ugly. He basically just plotted forward for three yards and fell down. That was eight months ago, to be fair. That's what I'm saying. The bad taste of my mouth is still there because now I can see what might be.

And Brandon Thorne of Establish the Run does an offensive line ranking every year. And this year he has the Titans offensive line as the 28th best in the league. This just isn't the same Titans team that Derek Henry was kind of flourishing. in, I feel like, for the past few seasons. A lot of their offensive line has changed, or they're gone. Roger Saffold is gone. Taylor Lawan has been playing as well. And the offense just might be the worst of Henry's career.

A.J. Brown's obviously gone. Julio Jones is gone. They got Robert Woods coming off on ACL, and he's in his 30s. The vibes around this offense are awful. No, Tando Hill was way worse last year. His worst year on the Titans, Arthur Smith is gone. It's just not my vibe this year. And I have to rank him because I know,

that there's still a chance that he gets 340 carries. It's going to say, you have to rank him because he's one of like three running backs in the NFL are going to get a three down workload, right? But I totally agree with everything you just said at the same time. So he's like a fantasy conundrum for me. I'm going to end up probably taking it. But I think here's how I'm going to, here's how I would like picture Derek Henry. If you're in many leagues, you'll take Derek Henry and not sweat it.

If you're in like one or two leagues, if you just play one league with your friends and that's the one thing, Like, it's got to be damn scary to take Derek Henry that early, right? Like, that's just kind of how, you know, I put my wrap my mind around it because I'm like, I'm willing to take Henry at five or six. You know we're weirdos, right? You know, most normal people stroll into their draft and just take Derek Henry and are really happy about it? What's wrong with us?

We're overthinking. Are we overthinking this? I don't know. I think because the downside of catching him on the year where he collapses is just so terrifying. You don't want to be holding the bag. Yeah. I'm literally willing to never have him on my team.

for my entire life. Just so I don't... Yes. I just don't want the year he collapsed so I'll never draft him. You know what? That's actually really true because look,

some of this is about, you know, math and he doesn't catch passes. You know what else is really about? If you haven't like really been in on Derek Henry and like Derek Henry hasn't been taking you to glory in the past years,

you can't get in now because what if he screws you down? What if not only did he destroy you in years past when he was not on your team? But he destroys your current team when he's on your team. Like that's the worst case. If you've had them in the past, you know, it's almost like you have this license to go get them again because you have the good memories.

But you can't only have the bad Derek Henry season. I didn't know that. I didn't know there was so much psychology involved with drafting Derek Henry. It's all psychology. It's true, though. The human existence is your emotions driving you and then coming up with a rationalization for why you acted. The crux of fantasy football this season is would you draft Derek Henry at fifth? Well, on that note, it's similar.

Well, it's interesting what Craig said to me about Derek. Eric Henry because when we were talking with this, D.K., you also mentioned Cam Acres, and they're very similar in that they both had, I mean, different injuries, but bad injuries. Derek Henry broke his foot, Camacres, Torres, Achilles before the season. And they both came back in the playoffs when we both just assumed they were out for the season. They both

look bad in the playoffs. And I think of both Camacres and Derek Henry as, isn't it good that they came back? Not bad that they came back really fast and looked bad, but they came back. So, I don't know, Dika, how are you feeling about Camakers? Cam Acres is another one that just, man, it's so tough for me. And I've seen him. and I've done like a couple of mocks lately and I've done a couple drafts lately and he falls further

like he's falling way further than you think I think like based on what the what the rankings we've seen and the ADP that I've seen like that doesn't match my experience like he's falling into the fifth sixth seventh round you know and so to me that's just it's worrisome for multiple reasons number one the injury still worries me like I know I recognize that he came back last year but he just didn't look good he didn't look like the guy that we expected him to be um the rank Ram's offensive line potentially could be taking a pretty big step back here. This season, you know, there's a lot of variables that go into him, like, having this bounce back after what we saw last year.

And a lot of us are very much banking on the idea that, oh, he's just going to get volume. That's the big thing. But I think there's some doubt now, too, that he's going to get the type of volume you need to really be a top-tier running back. Sean McVeigh has been kind of saying lately that he sees this as he has two starting running backs with Darrell Henderson and Acres. They drafted a running back in the fourth or fifth round. I can't remember if it was the fourth or fifth,

but in the middle rounds. They have the opportunity here to, like they're going to be maybe potentially way more pass-heavy just because that's where the bulk of their talent lies in the receiver position with Alan Robinson and Cooper Cup. There's just a million reasons I can kind of talk myself out at Camakers. And by the way, even with volume last year, down the stretch, I was looking this up.

He had in the wild-collar round, he had 18 touches, he scored 10 fantasy points, half PPR. In the divisional round, 27 touches, and he scored 4.3 fantasy points. What was his line that day? What was his stat? Oh, my God. I don't understand the obsession with Cam Acres' playoffs stats.

He came back from an Achilles injury in five months. We didn't even know that was possible. The fact that the Rams decided he was worth playing in the playoffs, five months removed from the Achilles injury, is in and of itself incredible. The stats to me are irrelevant. That was like eight months ago. like obviously he's healed.

You think they're irrelevant? I don't think they're irrelevant. I think they're completely irrelevant. He's a five-month Achilles injury recovery. How, what world's supposed to be good? We didn't know that was fucking possible until he came back and did it. They're irrelevant because they confirm your priors. That's why they're irrelevant to you.

If he ran for 200 yards in one of those games in the playoffs, don't you think we'd call that relevant? We'd be like, oh my God, Cam Acres, so incredible. What a return. Imagine what he can do with six more months. Okay, fine, that's true. I'm not saying the stats are relevant. I'm saying the fact that he played poorly is irrelevant because the fact that he was cleared to participate in the game five months after his Achilles tear when an Achilles is supposed to take nine months.

So he almost beat the project. He almost cut the recovery time in half. The fact he was healthy enough to play on like three playoff games to me suggest the recovery was like borderline miraculous. Okay. I think my point is more just like we have never seen him be really good. like there's been maybe flashes here. That's a better point. Here, okay, here's the stat line, by the way.

This was against Tampa Bay, who, of course, has a very good defensive line and they shut people down. But 24 rushes for 48 yards. Like, come on. Two yards for carry. It's just, that's like what's in the front of my mind. This is like what Craig was saying exactly. It's like sort of just the taste of my mouth. We don't know if Cammakers is any good.

That's just like kind of the bottom line here. We don't know if you're any good. Such a shift for Cam. I was so into him last year, and I can't believe, like, the image of him in my mind now in fantasy football is so different than where it was.

I used to think he was, like, the sexiest breakout, next, like, big time, hyped up, Dalvin Cook type running back. And now I look at his name, and I'm like, eh. I mean, I do want to dispute that he's never looked good.

He did have, he had 170 yards in week 14 the year before he got hurt. I should couch that. I should say he hasn't consistently, like he hasn't really ever done it before consistently overseas. He's kind of, he's flashed.

And I said that. He's flashed at times. But I don't know that we really know he's like a high level, you know, high volume guy. You know what I mean? And the Darrell Henderson thing, which we haven't mentioned yet. Yeah, Darrell Henderson. I mean, Darrell Henderson himself is explosive. And I think we saw on the Super Bowl, like he came in and he was

catching passes and kind of doing some thing, doing his thing in that area. They can't really trust Darrell Henderson to be a, I don't think, at every down work loader type guy, but he has shown the explosiveness, and he's shown flashes, too, in his ability to catch passes. So maybe they have, you know, maybe he's stealing all the pass catching work. And they drafted a guy who's a really good pass catcher. Dicke, I feel like you're talking yourself out of KMakers even more right now than you already were. Yeah. I think I had already begun to talk myself out of it. And then this week, I'm especially just, I guess, down on it, based on kind of the things that we're hearing from Sean McVeigh and just generally speaking,

And right now, at this time of year, it's like vibes. The vibes are terrible around Cam Acres. So I'm going to be moving him down. I'm going to be moving him down. The idea behind this episode was guys that we have to rank, but we just will never take them. And I think I have Acres ranked too high. And I would never take him this high. I need to move them down.

Like, what am I doing with my life? I'm moving them down. Well, it's not never. What it is is there's guys that in theory you should have higher, but you're like, how low would it? It's like limbo. How low can you go? How low would you actually?

have to drop this player to select them. And sometimes a guy like, when you're like, I'm out on this running back with the Achilles injury, it's like hard. Okay, Craig, you mentioned Derek Henry, but do you have another like non-injured running back? Yeah, I literally never think about Nick Chup. He never once crosses my mind.

And nor has he ever in his career. And it's the same thing this year. It's, he is, the rounds of one of the best lines in the league. You're obligated to rank him. Yes, I have to rank him. I understand he's good. He squats 7,000 pounds. He's very talented at running the football.

He's actually maybe one of the better runners of the football in the league. Well, everyone loves to say best pure runner, which is another way of saying doesn't work on his receiving. Right. He's never averaged less than five yards to carry, which I thought was kind of crazy. But he's just like the prototypical high floor low ceiling guy. Like, you can pencil him in for like 1,000 to 1,200 yards

and like 8-ish touchdowns. He's had 8 touchdowns in every year but one. and the year that he didn't have eight touchdowns, he had 12, and that's when the Browns were 11 and 5. I don't think the Browns are going to be 11 and 5 this year. Obviously, their quarterback is likely going to be Kobe Preset for the first 11 games at least, and they're in a really tough division,

and Kareem Hunt's still there. Even if Kreme Hunt gets hurt, we've learned that Nick Chubb does not inherit the Kareem Hunt role. He is a two-down back through and through, and that's it. So, yeah, you know, like, you know exactly what you're going to get from Nick Chub. The Browns, I don't think you're going to be that good, he'll be what he is

and I like drafting upside with players and I like to envision what they could be Nick Chubb is just like he is what he is There's no there's no bigger gulf between who we love as a player and who we love as a fantasy person fantasy like asset I guess than Nick Chub right?

That's a fun that's like a fun exercise the players we like love in real life but yeah but like just don't want them on your team just complete pure apathy we all love Nick Chubb like I guess we said we hate these guys Nick Chubb's great like he's so much fun to watch, but I just don't want him on my fantasy.

It's so funny that James Connor, a guy who we think is not nearly as good as Nick Chubb, we have him ranked ahead of him just because of his situation. That's why a lot of people think fantasy football is lame. Well, this is why, like... Don't get high fits going on this, yeah. This is what Robert Mays would always say why he sucks of fantasy, because he just takes players who are good at football.

And we're like, dude, that's not what we're doing. I honestly, this is one of the biggest lessons you have to learn when you first start doing fantasy. I swear to God, like, you just can't take good players all the time. you have to like plug your nose take bad players yeah yeah I mean

we have Chubb as the RB 14 going 25th overall so which is right in the middle of the third round I'm not as high on like Javante Williams as other people but like I'd rather Javante Williams than Nick Chubb because Nick Chubb is better than Javante Williams but like Javante Williams

is way more chance to be like the number two number one running back this season than Nick Chub does does in my mind like way better way better this is a fun that's a great point there's almost zero scenario in which Nick Chubb finishes as the best running back in fantasy

I don't know what would have I guess he'd have to run for like 22 touchdown Craig let me ask you this question and this is not why we have him ranked here but I just want to know if this would change your opinion if they trade Kareem Hunt which doesn't sound like it's going to happen but you never know if they trade him

does that change your mind at all because in my mind it's like no then they'll just go to Derenus Johnson and they've done that in the past when Hunt was not playing Dernis takes over that third down roll so no I mean I might tick them up a little bit, but in general, I don't think so. This is a funny exercise, and I've heard Evan Silva talk about this all the time. It's like basically putting your money where your mouth is.

Like, you have your rankings. We all have our rankings. And then when we're actually doing drafts, if we're actually willing to, like, live up to our rankings and do that, and it's like a gut check. And so this is essentially what we're doing here. Because creating rankings is almost like building a financial model, like based off data. But then when it actually becomes time to invest in stocks, you just go with your gut. Okay, well, God damn. You've got a window into Craig's mind.

So where are you taking Chubb then? Are you taking Chubb? Put all of it in the high-risk thing, yeah. Are you taking Nick Chubb or Zeke Elliott? Ah, Zeke. Wow, okay. Are you taking Nick Chubber, Michael Pittman? In a vacuum, Pittman.

No, in your draft. Well, who else is on my team? It's round three. You have a running back and a receiver. Pitman. If I have no running back, back, so maybe I would take Chubb. And I, if I started with Cam Acres.

Chub. Okay. There we go. And my rankings I actually have right there. It goes Javante, Zeke, Chubb, Acres. So they're all right. Well, we're going to update our rankings to reflect their cowardice with all these players.

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You know how in basketball they have the thing where you can psych people out? I was trying to psych out High Fitz without, you know. You did. I saw your arm waving. Oh, no, don't trip with the T.R. That one was shorter than others. Yeah, it was. It's getting easier for you.

Okay. I want to go through the guys that I kind of, I think I've approached this. differently than you. I think that right from the jump with my rankings this year, I knew that these people exist for me, these players where it's like, you know what? I was more confident just, you know what? I don't like this guy. I'm putting him like 25 spots lower than other people have them and I don't care. Like I just don't care. And I did it. And we're lower. And you know what? It's one of the reasons I hope people like our rankings is it's like if use our rankings, you're probably getting more of the players we like and less of the players that we hate.

So number one guy for me is serious. All the middle round running backs, I've just dumped 20 spots, sometimes 30 lower than they're supposed to be ranked. Because like, JK Dobbins for the Ravens. Like he's a perfectly good running back, flawed because he doesn't really catch passes. When he's totally healthy, he's a good running back.

He's, I don't think he's going to be totally healthy this season. Like he's coming back from the ACL, like Sequin, not the same way specifically, but like Seek Juan, it wasn't just a torn ACL. It was like a different kind of recovery.

He also had LCL damage. That's two ligaments. It's not like some nice, clean recovery. Yeah. Did you see the injury that happened? When it happened, he like got his knee bent backwards.

He planted his foot. It's just so tough. Oh, yeah. So again, there was that whole brouhaha where Ian Rappaport for an NFL network reported. Jacob Adams won't play in week one. Got about that. And Jake Dobbins was like, actually, I will. And I don't like your fake-ass doctors, which I love and I will use that term forever.

But even if Jake Adams comes back, I don't think he's getting some normal workload. If he comes back and plays a fraction of what he used to play in Snapwise, like, who cares? Not who cares. This is a long way of just hyping up Mike Davis again, isn't it? Yeah. I freaking knew it. Mike Davis, week one starter.

He is probably. He honestly probably is going to be the week. If Mike Davis becomes like the league winner because he just like is playing in like every defense in the NFL is like, yeah, we're not going to let Lamar Jackson get the read option handed off to Mike Davis. And like it's good for real defense. But fantasy, Mike Davis just gets all these carries that would be like the funniest possible outcome for me this season. But yeah, Dobbins. And then these other middle around running backs to Josh Jacobs. I know I've said it over and over.

But like Josh Jacobs had the fourth most carries in the NFL since he entered the league. The only running backs have gotten more carries since Josh Jacobs entered the league are like Derek Henry, Dalvin Cook, Zeke Elliott. And despite that, Jacobs has never been a top 12 player with points per game. And so if you've never been a top 12 running back points per game and he's getting a ton of carries, what happens when Josh McDaniels is the coach? He didn't draft him and he's going to have like Amir Abdullah taking passing snaps and they got some mere white. Like they have these other guys. I'm like, what's the upside of Josh Jacobs? I don't see it.

Yeah, I mean, this is the tough part because I have. always thought, and I've been sort of a Josh Jacobs defender over the years because I think he's in real life a good player. But the situation he's in now, he's going to be getting the least valuable touches in this offense probably. He's going to be splitting. He may be splitting time with Samir White from like day one. It sounds like this coaching staff and this crew like loves Zemir White. This is an administration or whatever front office coaching staff that doesn't have any connection to Josh Jacobs. So for all that, for all we know, they could just like immediately turn to Amir White and have him be the starter at some point during the season.

And like you said, Abdullah is going to be, it's looking more and more like he's going to be the past catching back for them in that James White role. And so he's going to have arguably we could, like there's a world. This would be like a really hot take, but there's a world where we should rank Abdullah higher. Like not higher. No, I wouldn't rank him higher, but I guess they look at it. I mean, think about James White is finished as like a top 12 running back in the past.

I mean, I'm not saying he's, I'm not saying he's James White. And this is not, their car is not Tom Brady. So this is apples to oranges. I get that. But that would be a really hot take I'm saying. I'm not actually going to do this. It would be a good. That's a good take purge.

Shit, I should say that. Okay, I'll bring that back up later. So I think here's where I look at John, here's the way I look at guy like Jacob's, or like a Miles Sanders for the Eagles, is it's not that they're going to be bad. It's not that they're bad players either. They're good players.

It's the reason I'm dropping them so much is that it's their, they're like silent killers. Because the players you have to take. instead of them or actually league winning material. Like to get Josh Jacobs or Jake Dodman, you have to pass on like Cortland Sutton for the Broncos or Jared Judy for the Broncos

or Marquis Brown for the Cardinals or D.K. Metcalfe for the Seahawks or Mike Williams for the charges or Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray or Amon Ross St. Brown or Gabe Davis. Now, I don't know how those guys' seasons are going to go, but the odds that one of those dudes just becomes like

a top 10 player at the position or one of those quarterbacks is the number one overall quarterback is like so much higher than the odds that Josh Jacobs or J.K. Dobbins becomes a top three or top four running back. And so you can take J.K. Dobbins. You could take Josh Jacobs. You could take even Miles Sanders. And like they could be fine. They might even be better than we expect. But the opportunity cost of what you've given up is like there's such a better potential outcome for the other guys in that range that I'm like, eh. I mean, they have to fall 20 or 30 rounds past they're usually going. So like on ESPN, I'm not taking Jakey Dobbins in the 40s or anywhere close to it. Yeah, like this is what, like, Cooper Cup last year was drafted in like the third and fourth round. That could be Gabe Davis this year. And Jammar Chase went in the 60s. Right. You should be

drafting guys who within their range of outcomes could be a top 10 player at their position. And that's just pretty much impossible for somebody like Josh Jacobs. Jacobs is going to need to have like a Damien Harris-styley season where he scores like 18 touchdowns. Yes, that's the only scenario. Like that's the upside. Yeah. Are awesome on offense and he just keeps punching in touchdowns, which I guess is possible. But not likely. But doesn't feel likely. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the range you guys you want. Okay. D.K., speaking of middle round running. Yeah, I mean, this is a guy that's in the same range, but the storylines, the narratives around this guy are truly atrocious right now. And I'm like, I can't overstate how bad the vibes are. I know I've said vibes several times in the show.

The vibes are atrocious with Antonio Gibson of the commanders who, came in and again in the preseason week one you can't necessarily take too much from what happens in preseason week one but it's important to note that he came in as a starter, fumbled, was benched and then came back later in the game and ran with the twos

and he was taken off the field on third downs in those situations too. So he may end up like obviously he's I think he's still like in line to probably be the starter. This is our buddy Ben Standing from the athletic talk about this in an article recently. He said basically write it in pencil that he's

going to be the starter, but not Penn, because there's a few weeks here left, and things are really trending down for Antonio Gibson. He has been seen at practice doing non-returner special teams rep. So he's not like a punt or kick returner. He's like on the special teams like coverage units, which is really, really bad sign for what should be your starting running back. I think that was a punishment for fumbling. Yes, and fumbling has been an issue. And that's something that it seems increasingly like Ron Rivera just like hates that. He talked about it in his post-cared impressor. The O.C., Scott Turner was talking about how you just cannot fumble the ball.

That gives away possessions. You can't do that. Especially on a team with Carson Wentz, where you're already pretty liable for some turnovers. The running back can't be fumbling the football. Good point. And the other thing is this is something that we talked about even last year. There's just not a lot of natural, I think, like, instincts as a runner that Antonio Gibson,

he didn't have like a college career where he could learn, you know, rush lanes and picking the right hole and reading defense and going downhill and all that because he was a receiver in college. And that has been a problem. This is something that we've heard last year that he's not running with the like picking the right run lanes,

all that stuff. After the first post game, after the first preseason game, Rivera told reporters that he needs to run harder. And in theory or in reality, that just means he needs to like get downhill. Stop dancing. Get downhill. And you could read between the lines with what he said on backup Brian Robinson.

And this is what Ron Rivera said on Robinson. I was happy and impressed with him the way he ran some things. He wasn't perfect on his tracks, but he runs so hard he was able to gain positive yardage. That's great to see from a back. Like to me, this is just sub-tweeting Antonio Gibson, right? He's basically saying this is what we want our starter to do, and our starter doesn't do that. You know what's funny about Gibson? when he came into the NFL, like two years ago,

D.K. and I had one of our most heated arguments we've had, like over the course of that year, because I basically said, Antonio Gibson had 33 carries in college. Yeah. And so how was this guy going to step in as a rookie and be an effective running back? And the irony is he was the most effective running back.

His most effective running back season was immediately as a rookie. And then he's basically, like, gotten downhill in the eyes of the coaches every preceding season. Yeah. Like he hasn't actually turned to. up. He started out great with very little experience and then just keeps going down and down and down. He was an RB1

that year. He was an RB1 in 2020. People were taught, we were, I mean all of us were like, Rivera's that he sees Antonio Gibson as a McCaffrey type. All out of sorts because of that. Look what happened. Yeah. Who would have guessed that the guy who was a receiver in college

can't play running back in the NFL? I love that we were all in on this. I think, so there's still a world in which he kind of gets, this is like a motivational tactic by Washington to try to light a fire under his ass and maybe that maybe we end up looking like complete overreactor reactionary idiots and Antonio Gibson turns into an RB1 but like to me I'm like I think there's more odds he's the backup this year you know what I don't really put much faith in motivational tactics from the Washington commanders that's fair maybe Dan Snyder can like zoom in from his super yacht where he's hiding from subpoenas

wait I'm gonna do my next our final player we hate but have to draft and then I want to you guys are questioned about these dead zone running back. So this next guy, Damien Harris, another player who I just give 1% thought to during the fantasy offseason. I completely forgot that he had 15 touchdowns last year. Second most in the league, rushing touchdowns.

Damien Harris. He was the RB 15. It's like not bad. He ran for 900 yards, he had 100 receiving. It's so funny how quickly narratives change in fantasy football. Yeah. Maybe 12 months ago we were talking about

how good Damien Harris is as a runner. He was PFF's highest graded readyback over the past two seasons. And we were all in on that. Him as a talent. I think D.K. loved Damian Harris. Bill loved Damien Harris. No, I was a remandre guy.

Yeah, but I'm talking about before any of that was a thing and like Damian Harris was the young up and comer. People thought he was great. I love Damian Harris because I thought that one day he would lead the Patriots and rushing touchdowns. Which he did.

You guys made fun of me. Since you brought it up. Yeah, we got to check the tape on that one. It's like the Patriots pound the rock. They give it to Damien Harris. Damien Harris had the second most carries inside the 10 yard line last year, only behind Jonathan Taylor. And the Pats didn't really draft anybody who would steal his workload on first and second down. Obviously, there's a lot of Ramandre hype. James White retired. So Ramonja is going to be on the field a lot. He's going to be the receiving guy. Damien

Harris is not a receiving back. But I don't like Damian Harris, but I don't know why. It's really easy why you don't like him. It's because Damien Harris had the second most touchdowns in the entire league last year, 15, and he was the 15th running back in fantasy points per game. Like, we just saw the absolute best he's going to, like he'll never do better than last year. That's the point. He will never do better than last season because he could have not eight rushing

touchdowns this year and that would still be solid, nine, but like he can't do better than last year. So why are you taking a running back who can't be better, who just at 15th and that's his ceiling? Like, I'd rather have Miles Sanders who scored zero touchdowns last year because at least Miles, you know what I mean? At least Miles Sanders is like a discreet. count, but has a big role.

And like, yeah. Positive regression, baby. Would you rather have Antonio Gibson or Damian Harris? Harris? Probably. Harris. Yeah. Wow.

I think it's Harris, too. I'd rather have, I'd probably rather of Gibson because the thing with the Patriots backfield no one's talking about is that they also have Ty Montgomery, who remember he was like this Packers receiver running back combo who's been hybrid, who's been all over the league. He's in New England too, so it's not just like Damien Harris and Ramangier's Stevenson. Ty Montgomery is going to be part of the Patriots offense. and so I'd rather

like I I'd rather Gibson I think is just probably more explosive You really? Yeah I don't know I mean yeah like they're different styles Like Harris neither like yeah It's like the wire like you only lose if you play I don't want Gibson I don't want Damon Harris

Because again the players you have to Pass on to take these guys The point is you want your running back position Kind of short up with at least one excellent player Or hopefully two By the time you get to these guys if you get, you know, a first round running back, and then if you come back,

and if you get Sake one in the second round, you get Leonard Fernette, you get Aaron Jones. One of the reasons we think you have to get one of the running back in the first three, hopefully, or at least if you can get two, is you don't have to deal with any of this because the upside receivers are later, and you can have your cake and eat it too.

You can get the running backs, the great ones to start for you. You can get all the high upside receivers, and then you can vacuum up all the running backs outside the top 100 to be your backups and hopefully high upside backups. but I don't want to play the game of like, oh,

Damien Harris or Josh Jacobs and my flex. I just don't want to deal with that because they're just, there's nothing exciting about it. Yeah. Trying to avoid stress. This is supposed to be fun. This is why we have them so late. Yahoo's ADP right now or Fantasy Pro's ADP has Antonio Gibson as the 40th ranked

player. We have him in the 80s. We are so down on these guys. And that's why perhaps Hyphitz, at the 80th spot in drafts, are you more willing to take guys like Antonio? Neil Gibson and Josh Jacobs? Yeah, I have Josh Jacobs right there, which again, is insane.

And I think this is the reason we do the show. I'm not really saying that, like, a ranking isn't just a list of like, well, here how the players will finish at the end of the year in exact order. It's like you're also baking in upside, downside floor. So like, I look at Josh Jacobs as a, in the past, Jacobs and Damien Harris were like low ceiling, high floor guys. they had the job, but even if they had their best outcome,

they weren't going to be great. Damien Harris, 15 rushing touchdowns, this is best outcome, still wasn't like elite for you. He was just fine. He was good. But now the floors are coming out on them.

Damian Harris might lose the job to Remandre, might get traded somewhere. Maybe they'd even help him. And then you got Josh Jacobs. Now they're low ceiling, low floor guys, because these guys, Gibson,

Jacobs, Harris, they could all lose their jobs. Miles Sanders, too. Miles Sanders is in the same boat. Miles Sanders is probably the starter for the Eagles. Kenny Gainwell's good. I actually think Miles Sanders I'd rather have at a lower price

than these guys at their current prices. Right. That's what it comes down to for me is I have to wait to like the 80s to be like, okay, yeah, this is actually a really good value and I'll take them at my second running back slot. But that's because all the high upside receivers

and tight-ins and quarterbacks will be gone. Let me ask you guys a question. Out of all these middle-round running backs that we hate but had to rank, J.K. Dobbins, Josh Jacobs, Antonio Gibson, Miles Sanders, Damien Harris. If I told you one of them is going to finish

as a top five running back in the league this year, who do you think it is? Dobbins or Sanders? Dobbins, because if he stays healthy, he could be really good. I just think everyone's really under-rating. Not just the slow recovery from the injury, but also how that could lead to like compensatory injuries for Dobbins.

And then Miles Sanders, like, part of me thinks that when a guy, when a running back doesn't score a touchdown, sometimes the team was like, fuck it, we're going to give this guy the ball all the time until he scores touchdowns. Part of me thinks it'd be funny if Miles Sanders led the league in touchdowns

and he just was the starting like the main guy for the Eagles but I just think they rotate too much for that to ever happen with Miles Sanders. DK, what's your pick? Yeah, I don't know. This is such a hard question because I don't think any of them

can finish top five. I mean, honestly, I would probably go with Dobbins too, even though like it is a huge red flag he's coming off the ACL. I just think he is the best player like point blank. Like he's just the best

and he's in an offense that's going to run the hell out of the ball. And the way that Lamar Jackson can kind of like create lanes. Like he's, he's going to average like seven yards of carry, and he's going to score a lot of touchdowns. So, it would have to fall perfectly for him to finish top five. Like, it would have to be a huge outlier season for him.

But I think probably him just because, probably Dobbins, just because of their offense and his skill. But it's not going to happen like that. Yeah, the thing is also, the thing we're never mentioned is all these guys that were talking about these guys because all these teams rotate their running backs, the Patriots, famous. Like unless the Patriots commit, but it's not going to happen. Damian Harris, they're not committing to Damien Harris, Shirley.

We just saw what would happen if they did. I mean, I don't think he's going to get that much touch is. The Raiders, Josh McDaniels, like, they're going to rotate. There's a reason we're talking about this. I think I would pick Josh Jacobs. If basically he just crushes it and the Raiders offense is really good and he becomes the goal lineback. Yeah, and he has like Lagart-Bunt Patriots season where he has like 18 rushing touchdowns. Because I think Josh Jacobs is pretty good.

And maybe the rookie. He is good. I'll do you one even better. it's if Amir Abdullah who's doing the James White roll gets hurt and then D.K., who's always said Josh Jacobs can catch and the Rangers never used him that way, it's basically if Josh Jacobs actually didn't end up backing ass first into being the three-down back and crushing it,

that would actually be kind of interesting. And, like, more often than not, the rookie hype is always overblown. I'm sure, like, for all I know, is Amir White's going to get like two carries a game and he'll just like spell Josh Jacobs when he's tired. Where he fumbles once in week one, and then he gets benched and then we never see him again.

Right. Right. So I think I'd take Jacobs. Yeah, don't you love doing this, this job? I'm already coming around on Jacobs. Yeah, you know what? I got to move Josh Jacobs up 40 spots. This is the crappy part about making, like, going on record and saying shit like this, because then, like, if a guy has a fumble in a bad spot, like the coach gets mad at him, and then you're wrong.

You know what I mean? Like, that sucks. You know how the Duffer Brothers went back and it edited episodes of Stranger Things after it came out? I'm going to do that for all of our pods. Just do really. bad dubbing. We should do that for all our take purges. Yeah.

All our take, I should go back to last year's take purge and be like, I think the Bengals are going to make the Super Bowl. Well, Hyfitz, one of my takes last year, I think in the take purge was that, uh,

demon Harris is like the third best running back on his team or something like that. Yeah, it does. That one didn't work out for me, but that's okay. It's take purge. That's what we do it for. I'll go back and dub that over of you going,

I think, and then it's going to go, Miles Sanders is the worst running back on his team. Yeah, do that. Thank you. Oh, God. All right, you guys want to do some emails?

Yes, do it. All right. Wow, a lot of response to, we talked about lighting your farts on fire. We got a lot of emails about people lighting their farts on fire. For some reason, this does not surprise me. So I want to start with an email from Brian. Well, first of all, wait, do you remember when Craig mentioned the lighting farts on fire? And it was like, no, I don't light my farts on fire. I'm not in the Navy. Yes.

So Brian. That's a Navy thing? Why is that a Navy thing? Well, I just, I just, you know. sometimes I know things. And Brian said, I can let you know, I have extensive,

painful firsthand knowledge of lighting farts on fire. I am a former Navy aviation electrician. I worked with MH60 CERIL helicopters on carriers and on shore squadrons. And whenever we had some downtime during non-flight plan days

or just messing around, it was a common activity to try and light your farts on fire as entertainment. All caps. It works. Yeah, it works. I will say,

do not try this. at home as every once in a while we would get some runaway flames and our military flight line slash flight deck gear is also specially made to be fire retardant so it can withstand the small pocket of fire air protruding from your haunches better than your civilian clothes all that being said the absolute rush of watching your own gas turn into a ball of flame was absolutely worth the risk when I was 19 years old. They're like jet fuel around this worries me. High octane You know, I got to try it. I got to try this.

I know what I'm doing on NFL kickoff. So we also got an email from someone who I don't think was in the Navy. And I'm going to leave this person nameless. And they said, I have successfully lit a fart on fire in my youth. However, I haven't had much success in my adulthood. My wife has watched me try and fail to light a fart on fire too many times to count, including the last time in which I got the lighter too close. It ended up burning a hole in my shorts while we were out.

and had to have her go to Target and buy me a pair of shorts. Wait, they were out? That was, I'm, exactly why I read the email. That, D.K., you read my mind. They were out. When I read this,

all I could think was other than just, wow, your wife's seen you too many times to count light a fart, where are you out that you were lighting farts on fire and then cannot, like, your wife is to go to Target with you just so you can go back home? What, is there, the only acceptable time would be what?

Maybe 4th of July? At a park of friends? At a park? Yes. You're obviously. is somewhere like comfortable enough to be doing this. Also this guy, hey, hold on to your wife. She's a real keeper.

Oh my God. She's letting you light your farts on fire. She's buying you shorts after you burn a hole in them. Hold on to her. She's just a saint. She has the patience of a saint. Men are so stupid. Men are just the dumbest people on the planet.

Yeah. Wait, I have a funny story about men just being stupid. We only have a few minutes here, Craig. Okay, I'll go quick. I'll go quick. No, I'm just kidding. We could go forever on this. The SpongeBob four hours later.

My friends and I were away on like a little getaway trip, and we were in a house, and my friend, his name's Chris, he had a packet of electrolytes that you put in your water and it flavors your water. It was like a circular little thing. It was like a little plastic cylinder full of electrolyte powder. And we got back from, I think, dinner or something. And there was four guys, and we all just kind of gravitated to the island in the kitchen. and we started sliding the thing back and forth

and trying to get it to hang over the edge of the counter. Classic guy game. Yes, it quickly became a game and it was like, oh, the first one to get to three times it hangs over the counter, you win. We played that the entire weekend. And what we concluded was that if you locked four women in a house for 10 years,

they would never get to the point of playing that game. Oh, my God. They would never play that. They wouldn't even think of it. Dude, we keep like, when I lived with a bunch of guys in my post-college years, we kept like a running scoreboard of like playing like the game where you flick the little paper football. Paper football, yeah. We painted our fucking table like a football field so we could play this game.

I mean, the perfect example of it is... We have way too much time on our hands. It's like a, like a bachelorette party versus a bachelor party. And the bachelorette party, they're like thought of all these clever ideas and events and places to go in outfits. Guys, they literally show up in a house. and go, should we use that? What should we do?

A piece of plastic to play a game? Literally, all you need to do is just put men in a room. And they'll be fine. Idiots. Yeah. We're like golden retrievers. Just throw us a ball.

It's also so unfair. I know we're not reporting breaking news here, but I don't think it ever truly hit me like the difference between men and women getting ready for something. And obviously it's easier for men to get ready. but it never hit me until I did wedding season this year. I was at so many weddings. You guys went to an incredible amount of weddings.

Oh, I've been to so many damn weddings. Yeah, my brother got married. And, like, my brother got married and his, you know, the bridal party for his wife, fiance at the time, whatever, like, they're getting ready. They are up at, like, the cracker dawn, and they're going to get makeup, and they have to get the makeup done fast enough so that the makeup doesn't run for the photos and all this stuff, and they have to get the dresses and all the stuff, the hair done. and I'm like my brother.

I'm like, okay, so what do you want to do the day of? He's like, I want to go get pancakes. I don't know, like 9.30. Golf. And then like, you know, we'll have like four hours after that. So I was thinking we like go to the gym, get a lift, lift the pancakes off. And then like, we all have time to go to the pool. And then I don't know, shower and just put our tuxes on.

I was like, cool. Sounds easier. You know what's the craziest thing about what you just said, the bride versus the groom getting ready on wedding day? Is that there is an entire team of people in charge. of making sure the bride looks good. No one checks on the groom. No one's in charge of the hair, anything.

They just expect him to show up and look good. No one checks on him. You just hope the best man's like, hey, dude, there's mustard on your cheek. That is all there is. There's nobody in charge of the groom. It's unbelievable. No oversight, Chris.

If I give any advice on this podcast that helps people, it's this. It's not fantasy football. It's like if you were a dude or just, a wedding is coming up in your life to which you were involved. if I can give you any advice, if the wedding is a black tie wedding

and you're in the wedding party, for the love of all that's holy, don't deal with tying the bow tie. Like, do not show up the day of the wedding with your bow tie untied. Because if you end up in like the groom party and no one knows how to tie the bow tie, it is horrible.

Like, have, like, swallow your pride, get the clip on and your life will be so much easier I cannot even explain. Yeah, that's a good call. We should just outlaw a regular bow ties in general.

They should all be clip-ons. Technology's better now. Just accept the clip-on. Don't be the guy in the bathroom trying to get, looking up a YouTube video and trying to like do the bow-tie and like while the bride

is like, where are the photos being taken? It's, no, don't. Spear yourself. Okay. All right. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig. Thank you to Emily, Brittany,

Zach, and everyone else to help me tell me about to have my brother's wedding. Thank you, Lord. Lord. Thank you, Ice Cube. Ice Cube. Definitely haven't done that one before.

No. Nice. What's your favorite Ice Cube song? Nailed it. Or can you not name songs? Today, or it was a good day? Today was a good day? Yeah.

Classic. Did you ever read that post? Someone wrote like a very long post trying to figure out what day it was in the song using the context clues. The song is incredible. They used like the box score. from the basketball game you reference.

It was amazing. Looked up like old weather reports. I feel like it was a Sunday. When did he do a triple double? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like going on stats. They tried to correspond the weather with the game. Interesting.

Underrated Ice Cube song. I did look this up, Craig. But you know how we do it. Great one. I don't know if I know that after that time. Go look it up. You'll recognize it for sure. But yeah.

Great in 21 Jump Street. Ice Cube. Oh my God. Ice Cube and 22 Jump Street is I need to watch that again. It's been a while since I've seen 22. The hardest I've left in a theater. Should we do that for the next

Asked Explain by that? 21 Jump Street. I feel like we'd have to do 21 first. Right. Can skip to the sequel. Do them both. We could do them both. We could just do them both. That's true. Both movies. We could just do both movies. Wow. Wow. A lot to consider. That's a good consideration. Okay. Goodbye, everyone.