The Ringer NFL Show - A Crash Course on the 2020 Running Back Draft Class | The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Draft guru Danny Kelly feeds Danny Heifetz and Craig Horlbeck digestible nuggets on this year's class of running backs. DK compares running backs to archetypes from the standout 2017 class of Christian McCaffrey, Leonard Fournette, Alvin Kamara, and Dalvin Cook; guesses which RB could join the 1000/1000 club; and determines which under-the-radar RB from 2020 could become the next Alvin Kamara. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. We hope The Ringer can provide you entertainment and companionship during this time. So as always, feel free to check out The Ringer.com, where we're still covering the latest in sports, pop culture, tech, and media. And the Ringer's YouTube channel can provide endless amounts of entertainment. You can find that at YouTube.com slash The Ringer. Welcome to the Dantasy Football Podcast on the Ringer NFL show, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Danny Hyfits, and I'm joined as always! by my co-host and my co-danny,

the hero we need and the analyst we deserve the Dark Knight himself. Danny Kelly! How are you doing, D.K.? I am doing well, man. How are you doing? I'm wonderful. Honestly, mostly because Craig is shaking his head and just disgust of how I did that intro, and that just makes me feel even sweeter.

It brings me life if it helps. It really gets me going, so I appreciate it. That one you had a few. little extra little, you know, bits of flare in it. I like it. I just want to get the people going. How are you doing, Craig? I'm good. I turned the camera on just so you could see me shake my head. But yeah, it's, the

scream is evolving. It's getting a little throatier, like a little Louis Armstrongie. I'm excited to see where it goes. Yeah, that's, I say you get to Carnegie Hall, right? Just practice. But I, you know, it's almost Passover, guys. That doesn't mean much to me, but yeah. Well, it's

kind of like in theme, because, you know, it's very plague heavy. Oh, geez. Darkness for three days, locusts, all that jazz. Pest and livestock boils. But I've decided to brave all of it to be here with you guys. Because you know what you do in the darkness? You grind tape.

The dark night. Three days of the dark night. Wow. That's what the draft is. Oh, that was good. We rounded about to that. Let's catapult off of that one. Yeah, we're going to keep it rolling.

All right. So the NFL draft is in two weeks. and we're going to look at the players in the draft through a lens of Dynasty Fantasy Football Leagues. For those who are not familiar, Dynasty leagues are like regular fantasy football leagues, but you get to keep your players. Forever.

Every year, what you do is you draft rookies and you keep it in with new blood. If you're not in a Dynasty League, we highly recommend it. But even if you're not and don't want to be in one, it's still okay, because this is a good exercise because fundamentally what looking at rookies through dynasty lenses,

these are players we think will be productive for a long period of time. So whether or not you do dynasty, it's still an useful exercise and it kind of cuts right to the heart of what draft analysis is about. Who's going to produce on the field? So for this one, we're going to focus on running backs in this episode. But who has time to learn about every running back in the draft? Like, please. Some of us have lives.

So D.K. has done it for us. This thankless man has already watched every snap of every running back in all of college football history to bring to us today. And because we don't have time and our tiny brains can't quite. understand all of his information. To help us download this, we're going to force him to compare people in this class to one of the most fun running back classes in recent memory, which is the 2017 running back's class. Craig, do you want to run through the bonkers 2017 running back draft class?

I would love to. So in the first round, at the fourth pick, our boy, Leonard Fournett went to the Jags. Then, four picks later, Christian McCaffrey. Second round, Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixin. Third round, Alvin Kamara, Kareem Hunt, James Connor, and then later in the draft, Tariq, Marlon Mack, Aaron Jones, and in the seventh round, Chris Carson to the Seahawks. Yeah.

Insane. What a class. That was just an incredible class. I mean, even in the middle rounds, there was like really, really good players. It's basically like a third of the starting running backs in the league. It just makes you think, like, a few years from now, all the guys that are coming into the draft right now are going to represent, like, the entire foundation of the running back group.

Because there's just so much turnover in that, in that position in general. Like Todd Gurley now is on his way out. And he was the superstar for the few years. It's absolutely ludicrous how much the running back position turns over. And that's why this is the most important episode for fantasy purposes to be looking at. Because the rookie running backs are almost always the position that produces immediately and are good immediately. Yeah.

So those are the guys that lead to production. And then an interesting little tool we have is that if you look at fantasy football calculator, we can actually look at how people in dynasty leagues were drafted. those players, which is a fancy way of saying, we can look at how people in 2017 thought these guys would produce. So if we look at the average draft position, Craig, you want to run through how those guys were drafted on average in Dynasty Leagues in 2017. Yeah, so it went pretty chalk to start off.

It went Fournette, McCaffrey, Nixon, Dalvin Cook. And then at fifth, Samajai P. Rine, if we all remember him. What? Redskins. and then Alvin Kamara, Deontay Foreman, who has, we actually don't know if he would have been good or not. He suffered a torn Achilles and then a torn bicep. Then Kareem Hunt, Jamal Williams.

Jeremy McNichols from Boise. People love dudes from Boise. If you go to Boise and you're good, you are getting drafted. Can I make it matter? Can I admit something? I've never heard of Jeremy McNichols until we were preparing for this box. Dude, people loved him. I'm telling you, if you're like a running back from Boise,

people fucking love you. I don't know if it's because that one time. Remember the guy. who proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend in Boise? Oh, after the Statue of Liberty. Yes. I believe that since that moment, if you were running back at Boise State, you just, you're locked in. Oh, because everyone, like the proposal factor. Everyone thought he was going to propose. Wow. Well, they just remember the Boise running backs and so they'd always assume they're always good. Anyway, to continue, Chris Carson, Marlon Mack, Wayne Galman, shouts out high fits, Joseph Williams and James Connor.

Joe, is that Joe, who's Joseph Williams? I don't know. Is that Joe Williams? Okay, Joe Williams from the 49ers. I remember. Oh, Joe Williams. Okay. The larger point here is that Samaji P. Ryan went ahead of Alvin Kamara. And even in a good year, people don't know anything.

And we can only just pray to hope the topic, except for Danny Kelly, who knows everything. But again, we're going to, look, comparing players and past drafts to current ones is not always a good use of a rubric. It's kind of like a mental shortcut. In fact, it's been banned in many front offices. The Houston Rockets were one of the first teams. Darry did not allow any player comparisons in his draft room

unless there was a player of a different race to prevent from cognitive bias and it's often just you're fitting a square peg into a round hole because that's what you know and familiar with.

Yeah. But we don't do this for, you know, not everyone does this for living. We don't all have time. Sometimes the best way is the comparison. We have time is limited.

So because time is limited, we are going to force Danny Kelly at Zoom point to compare players to the players from 2016. 17 class so we can understand what we're getting into. And to be clear, we're not necessarily talking about skill sets, although it is also skill set comparison, bonus points.

We're looking for like archetypes, like just to get a gist of who these guys are and might be in the NFL. So without further ado, DK, we're starting out with the vaunted, beloved Leonard Fournette and the Leonard Fournett Award, which is of the big three. running backs in this draft class who have produced in college and look like they're going to be great. Who might be,

even if they are productive, we might look back on and maybe think it wasn't the best pick a few years ago. First of all, there's three main guys pretty much the consensus top three, the top three guys that are being taken in rookie drafts prior to the draft right now. Jonathan Taylor from Wisconsin,

J.K. Dobbins from Ohio State and Andre Swift from Georgia. Now, I'm going to quickly, run through kind of like the main hiccups that each of these guys might have in the pros and the reasons to be a little bit worried about him. Number one, Jonathan Taylor. Pass catching is a big red flag. He was not a big pass catcher at Wisconsin. He only had like 42 catches in his total three seasons there, so they just didn't use him on third down, hardly ever. He had a serious fumbling issue. There was a lot of fumbles there. That doesn't always translate to the

pros, and we saw that with Miles Sanders. Like, that was a big knock on him coming into the league. He's done fine. it doesn't always matter, but sometimes if a guy goes to a huge fumbling spate, he's going to get bench. So that's a slight concern. And then, of course, 926 touches in college. That's a lot of wear and tear.

So there's a little bit of worry there. Moving to Dobbins, he came in undersized at 207 pounds in the combine. He didn't run. We don't have a full athletic profile on him. We do know he was very, very athletic coming out of high school. So that's not a huge concern, but his lack of size might be considering he is a downhill

interior runner kind of by style. And so that might not necessarily mesh in the pros going forward. Wait, can I ask a dumb question? Yes. When you say lack of size, it's not a height thing, right? It's about weight. It's about build. Right.

It's more like, you know, Jonathan Taylor's like 220 pounds. J.K. Dobbin came in under 207. I mean, even Alvin Camara, I think, was like 215 at the combine. So coming in under 210, there's just concerns about your ability, number one, to like move the pile, pack power as a runner. And number two, like durability is a thing to, you know, these guys are getting hit 30 times a game or whatever. If you're under 210 pounds, it's just a little bit of a red flag. It's not necessarily anything because, you know, there's certainly guys that are small that have panned out.

But, you know, it's a concern. I'm actually wondering now what, how, how heavy was Christian McCaffrey when it came in? So this is actually an interesting one because I believe he was 205 pounds coming out of high school or coming out of college. So another big concern that did not translate to the NFL. So it is a concern, but does it mean he's absolutely not going to be a bell cow guy? No. And then finally, Dandre Swift from Georgia, you know, he's a, he's known mostly as like a pass catcher. He's like very versatile runner who can also factor into the passing game.

But the big kind of question mark on him is workload because he's never been about Belcal in college. I think he carried the ball more than 25 times. He never carried the ball more than 25 times in a game in college. And he went over 20 carries just three games. So he was very much a committee back in college. And translating that to the pros is a projection. So there are significant, legitimate concerns with each of these guys that said, I think personally they're all going to be stud fantasy players.

If I have to pick one, you guys are making me pick one guy who I'd be most worried about. going into the NFL. It's probably Swift, honestly. I think Taylor is pretty much as safe as you can get just based on his analytical profile, his athletic profile. Everything about him, his stats, just he's just a stud. He's really, really fast, athletic, all that. J.K. Dobbins, obviously, there's some concerns there. But for me, Swift, the biggest thing is just his usage in college. And, you know, can a guy go from being a committee back in college to a full-time, Belco, bell cow back in the pros, sure it happens, but his analytical profile, his statistical profile,

is not nearly as strong as Dobbins and Taylor. So that's really kind of what, but I'm going with the numbers on this one because I just think that could be the biggest red flag here, but that said, I really like him. Yeah, Georgia kind of took over that,

they had the running back line of succession in Georgia was nuts. Like Alabama had the absurd line from like Mark Ingram through Derek Henry through T.J. Yeldon and stuff. And then Georgia kind of had Todd Gurley to Nick Chubb. And we were all kind of waiting for the next guy, like capital G guy, to kind of emerge out of Georgia. We heard about DeAndre Swift.

Keith Marshall is this really fast dude. And then Swift was kind of supposed to be it. And then never quite popped the way I think we had envisioned him being. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly not from the way that they used him as like a like I said, heavy, heavy belcow type runner. He was in a rotation. I mean, in fact, last year in 2018, he split reps with Elijah Holyfield, who ended up going undrafted, hasn't turned into anything in the pros. So that's, you know, it's slightly a concern.

And yes, he is the son of a lot of, of Vanderholyfield. Yes. So again, dumb question. If you can't get the majority of your snaps in Georgia, and I understand sometimes there's time shares because of absurd talent, but. Right. That doesn't seem to have been the case with the guys DeAndre Swift are sharing with necessarily. Like, what are the odds that DeAndr Swift gets a big workload? in the NFL.

Yeah. And so, and a lot of people, and I think right now, in fact, at least last time I checked, which was yesterday, DeAndre Swift is the odds-on favorite to be the first back taken. That's why I'm asking. Yeah. This is very much a early projection,

and we don't have a major, major variable here, which is draft capital, which is one of the strongest correlations for fantasy production there is, for running backs, is how high are they taken in the draft? Because if you're taking a guy in the first round and running back in the first round, most more often than not,

in fact, the vast majority of times. Yeah, you're going to run the hell out of them. Better not lose the job. Shout out of Rashad Penny. Yeah, which is, you know, it always comes back to Rashad Penny. But, I mean, Penny was like a really high rookie draft pick in his time

because Seahawks took him in the first round. They're a run-heavy team. Like, all those things added up. The Seahawks are just weirdos. But like the vast majority of the time, these teams end up running these guys, you know, very, very heavy workloads.

And so, you know, we'll be able to revisit this once the draft happens and kind of recalibrate how we look at these guys. But yeah, so I think draft capital is the unknown factor here that is going to be very, very important.

On that note, to clarify, though, when we say, when we give DeAndre Swift the Leonard Fernette award, we're not saying DeAndre Swift's going to go forth. Leonard's Frenet went forth.

And that's obviously, you know, with everything we're learning about the running back position, probably too high to take a running back. It's more that it's not just they went fourth. It's even if you went 34th. But if you could have waited and gotten Dalvin Cook in a round later, Alvin Kamara, two rounds later, or Chris Carson six rounds later,

that's where the Leonard Fournette pick looks not so great, even regardless of where it's, you're taking the first guy in a pretty deep group. So that's where I'm, even if DeAndre Swift isn't the first, you know, a top five pick, if he's the first running back taken, and then three years from now, we look back, and he's never more than like a high-end rotation guy, and there's five or six other guys in this class who were, for any period of time, feature running backs, that's where it's really tough to justify the pick, no matter what it was taken if he goes first. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, I think, you know, and again, it's so important to pair him with a team because we're going to find out, like, how much they're going to use him. but, I mean, coming into, like, the offseason, Swift was the by far consensus number one pick in rookie drafts. That's kind of shifted since the early part of the off season, since the combine, Jonathan Taylor's taken over that. He is by far easily the top, I guess, rookie pick and dynasty drafts. How much is that because it's like the best name of running back has had a year?

And he's had some hype for a few years. Yeah. So, I don't know. I'm just looking at that. I'm saying I'm a little bit nervous about picking Swift. lift in the top one or two picks in a rookie draft, even top three, just because there's a slight worry to me that he's going to be like a, you know, rotational guy, not a heavy, heavy rotational guy, but just won't have the, the bell cow reps like Christian McCaffrey

or Sequin Barkley or whatever. Anyone with the, who wins the Leonard-Fernett Award is, is okay in my book. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I just wanted to make sure you're listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcast on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 pods at this point. So let's say you're searching for the rewatchables or the Dave Chang show or the ringer NBA show.

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You can do 0.8 times, 1.2 times, which is my favorite. Everyone sounds like they just had a good cup of coffee. And then there's 1.5 times, 2 times. And if you're completely insane, three times. Anyway, Spotify's app connects directly to many of the best automobiles in the world. It even has a car play feature that's pretty cool. Best of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device, and you're good to go.

Should you be embarrassed that you're not listening to podcasts on Spotify? Well, I don't want to app sham you. But the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Make the move. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Back to yours. Moving on, you mentioned Christian McCaffrey. The next award is the Christian McCaffrey Swiss Army Knife Award.

Yeah. Which goes to who here in the class has the potential to rack up a thousand rushing yards and a thousand receiving yards in a season in their NFL career? So the first guy that kind of came to mind for me on this one was Clyde Edwards-Aler from LSU. And that's simply because I think he's the best receiving back in this class in terms of his natural ability as a pass catcher out of the backfield, route runner. I think Dandre Swift kind of rivals him in this area.

But what separates a layer for me is that he's also, I think he has the style and ability to be a workhorse back in the run game as well. He's not big. I mean, he's like 5'7, but he's stout. He's 207 pounds at 5.7. That's pretty good, like, BMI. He's well-built. He's very, very elusive in the game.

open field. He can run between the tackles. He makes more guys miss than just pure dudes lunging for a cloud of dust. He makes more of those guys do that than anyone in this class. Very, very elusive. Daniel Jeremiah from the NFL network actually comped him to Austin Echler and the way that he thinks he's going to get used. And again, this is all dependent on landing spot. And if he lands on a team that's going to make him the every down bell cow. I think Edwards-Alaher has a chance to that a thousand thousand guy. I mean, again, that's very extremely rare. I think wasn't McCaffrey the first guy to do it?

Or at least one of very few guys to do it. Yeah, one of three. Who else did it? Who else did it? Oh. The list is absurd, though. Like Roger Craig. It's an unbelievable thing to do, though.

So what team do you think he could land on that that could potentially give him that opportunity? We think of like Miami? Yeah, I mean, Miami is definitely a team that needs a running back and has the, I guess, available volume for him. I mean, if you go down the line, there's just really not a lot of teams, I guess. So I don't even look at it anymore, like a team with opportunity because it's actually

short than that. There's not that many coaches that would even adhere to the idea of giving running back, that many, you know, and I don't necessarily know how Brian Flores would go about that. But, you know, you look at the coaches, it's like Mike Vrable, Tennessee. Okay, that kind of makes sense. The Cowboys, it's really just the Jerry Jones thing with Ezekiel Elliott. Like, like, it's almost like you can look at it from that perspective. Yeah.

And I feel like John Gruden with the Raiders and Josh Jacobs made a lot of sense. But yeah, there's not many. There's not many teams. You can be like, yeah, that coach would give by 98% of snaps, which again is why I'm lower than most than Christian McCaffrey this season. Not because he's not just as good as he was four months ago, but it's because he played 98% of Carolina snaps. You don't have to come down.

He can still lead the league at 85%. That's 13% fewer snaps. So I think it's the thousand thousand thing is is rare for a reason. It's because it's a bygone era of football when you can play that much. But I do think Edwards Aller being one of the best pass catchers in his class, he could make a huge immediate impact. Yeah. I mean, I think so like if you look at if you look at there was Aller,

just one last note on him. Like he's not athletically what these other guys are. You know, he's not he's not as I guess flashy as those other guys. But like I said, that that receiving, especially in PBR leagues, is going to make him super valuable. So, yeah. I'm also such a sucker for the name Clyde. Yeah.

Like, I know what's talking of the name. Clyde, oh, Clyde is such a wonderful name. Okay. Next up, the Alvin Kamara Award.

Who are we going to look back on and wonder how everyone passed on a guy like that? Yeah. So there's two guys that really come to mind on this. Number one, the big name for this is Cam Acres from Florida State. He is kind of the consensus either fourth, sometimes third running back in this class. But generally speaking,

he's after J.K. Dobbins, Taylor, and then usually he's after Edwards Slayer. They're kind of like neck and neck, I'd say. But I'm guessing most people are not going to take this guy first among that group. And he could end up being the most productive guy of all, depending on landing spot and all that. Like Camara, he's a former big-time recruit. He was like a five-star guy.

He flew under the radar a little bit in college just because he had to deal with a very poor offensive line situation for pretty much his entire time. time there. In fact, in 2019, per PFF, he was contacted at or behind the line of scrimmage more than any other running back in FBS. So, I mean, he had to deal with the fact that his offensive line was not doing anything for him and he still managed like really good production. He's got great speed, great explosion. And I saw this actually in Dane Bruegler's excellent draft guide from the athletic today. His 1.47 10-yard split was by far the best of the running back group. In fact, it was significantly better than Jonathan Taylor, who is kind of the fast guy of

the group. So what? Whoa. Jonathan Taylor, the borderline Olympic level sprinter, right? Right. Had a slower 10-yard split than Kamakers? Yeah. That was, and that was, Brugler said it was per the official combine, um, testing like laser or whatever. Um, can somebody explain to me? What's, what's a 10-yard split? So the 10-yard split is essentially how fast you got through those first 10 yards of your 40. So he ran a 44740 but his 1.47 10 yards splits

1.47 second 10 yard split was the fastest of the group. This is the part where we remind everyone our 40 yard dash is a completely random number that was first used by like Vince Lombardi 50 years ago and no one knows why or how it was 40 but then he used it and he won a couple Super Bowl so everyone else started doing 40

and now it's the standard for exactly no reason kind of like how we use feet for 12 inches just because it was like some king's foot. And then we just kept using it. And it was like, all right, everyone gets it. So like, the 40 number means nothing. So when you're looking at a running back, when you want to get 10 yards down field,

the 10 yard split is probably a pretty bigger deal than the 40 yard split. Well, yeah, because if you think about it, like all these guys are fast. Like, let's be honest. I want to know how quickly can you get to your top speed. It's about acceleration. Yeah, it's like a zero to 60 essentially for a car. So you're telling me Camakers Beach.

But Jonathan Taylor's the whole thing is being a sprinter and touchdowns. Right, right. So why is KMakers below Jonathan Taylor? Well, maybe Taylor just keeps getting faster and faster throughout the 40. Well, for starters, Taylor's heavier. So there's obviously that variable that goes into it. Shout out Bill Barnwell. Yeah.

But, I mean, that kind of, I think that what it tells you is that Aker's as an athlete is elite. I mean, he is an absolute freak athlete. And so, yeah, I mean, I think he is kind of, you know, in that second tier of running backs, according to, I guess, the consensus or whatever, but I mean, I think he still has very, very high-end, high-end potential as a fantasy guy, as an NFL player. When he gets into an offense, it actually has an offensive line. Like, the things he could do is pretty incredible. So I'm really interested to see where he goes. I think his athletic profile, his style as a runner.

He's kind of a slasher. I think he reminded me a little bit of the way that Aaron Jones runs. Just kind of like, you know, he looks faster than everybody on the field at times. And yeah, I think that 10-yard split confirmed it. So he's a guy that I'm really, really interested in. And I'll be watching for his landing spot in the upcoming draft. If you had another dart to throw at another Alvin Kumar type guy, who else would it be? Yeah.

So he's technically listed as a receiver, but a lot of people think he's going to be a running back in the NFL. Antonio Gibson from Memphis. He played running back at the Senior Bowl. He was listed as a receiver at the Combine, but he was a little bit of both for Memphis. He ended up with 38 receptions, 735 yards, and eight touchdowns through the air, 33 carries, 369 yards, four touchdowns on the ground. So he only had 71 touches in 2019, but he turned that into 1100 yards and 12 touchdowns. He is the most efficient player, pretty much, in college football, a skill position player in college football. I mean, he's just, like, absolutely absurd what he did with his touches this season.

but I mean the notable thing here he's six foot 228 pounds so he's definitely built like a running back he ran a 43940 at the combine which was one of the best times it would have been tied with jonathan taylor in terms of the running back group he was in the receiver group but yeah he's just an absolute really really good athlete freak athlete so he's another guy who i think you know he might take a couple of years to kind of figure out what he's going to be in the nfl and landing spot could be crucial just because he doesn't have like a real position at this time, but he's very, very interesting. I got to say, what's the next award?

I'm pretty, I just want to say I'm pretty sold on Canemakers. I'm just going to stop my flag in Cammakers now. Anyway, the next award is the Marlon Mac Award, which is just like mid-round, non-flashy draft pick. It's going to have a steady career. Four years from now, he'll be on your fantasy team, putting up good numbers. Who's you got? Yeah. So I would say most people at this point in time would list two guys.

Interbilt's Kishon Vaughn and UCLA's Joshua Kelly, Josh Kelly. So those two are kind of like the mid-range options in fantasy football. I'm going to throw out a different name just for fun. Le Michael P-Rine from Florida. Samaji, I believe he's related to Samaji. Oh, P-Rin's relative. Are you telling me this pod came full circle? Yeah.

I didn't even think about that earlier, yeah. I saw that. I was like P-Rine. There's not many P-Rines out there. Well, maybe that's what happened. It's Passover. Somajia was the first born? Well, I think they're cousins, but yeah.

Oh, okay. I don't quote me that. I believe that's the case. Anyways, he looked pretty solid at the Senior Bowl. Again, he's not super exciting, not like flashy or electric, but he's just solid. I mean, he's 511, 216. He can play on all three downs. He catches the ball really well.

Everything that you hear about him is that he's really good at, like, work ethic, high character, all that stuff. he's the definition of sort of just like a lunch bail back and I think his ability I love a lunch bail back Yeah he's like he's just that guy He's a pickup truck When I was sort of pickup truck Because anyone who's a pickup truck knows the kind of pickup truck really matters

The Chevy love A Chevy love Okay By the way they are cousins just looked it up Cousins wow Yeah and so like The kind of I guess like the profile that I'm thinking about For him is like

you're Malcolm Browns, your Peyton Barbers, you're Jamal Williams, the guys that no one's getting super excited about, but teams like them because they're reliable and they play those guys.

I'm over. I can't believe the combo of the Somaget connection with you calling him a pickup truck, like I feel like I just got run over. Wow. Good one. So P. Ryan is Marlon Mac.

That is amazing. Well done, D.K. Next one up, this one's near and dear to my heart. The Aaron Jones Award, a.k. the small school dude who will be running dudes over soon. Yeah. Like a high upside athletic dude for small school though.

Yeah. So background. Aaron Jones went to UTEP. Yeah. He came out of UTEP, like very athletic guy. He measured in at 5'9, 208, so he was a little bit undersized, but he's obviously made up for that with his explosive ability. I think the guy that fits that role this year is Darrington Evans from Appalachian State. That guy just, he just has some juice as a runner. he's getting right now it's like his area i think it's going to be like third round i think daniel jeremiah said he thinks he's going to get taken in the early third round so he's he's up there with some

teams but the reason being is is teams love his explosiveness he's he ran a four four one at the combine which i believe is second only to jonathan taylor would have been right up there with antonio gipson he is and dan i'll love this he's a little rehem mostert type runner stylistically like really explosive. He sifts through the defense. He kind of slalom's downfield. Yeah, he's just got that, he's got that speed to get to the second level

and then turn it into a home run that I think moster has that Aaron Jones clearly has. He's good in the passing game. In fact, he started out in college as a receiver slash running back, kind of like he didn't have a super defined role. And then he ended up taking over the starting job as a running back. Later in his career, he put up really good numbers this last season. last two seasons.

So he is one of my favorite sleepers this class. I love this. And I also love that we asked for a small school sleeper and you got an Appalachian State guy, which is like the smallest school in college football. It's the archetypal. Archipical? Archipical. Whatever it is.

It's the perfect small school is Appalachian. Yeah. It's exactly. D.K., you are just crushing this. All right, D.K., last award here. This is the Diamond in the Rough, aka the Chris Carson Award, which goes to the guy flying commons. completely under the radar, super undetected.

It has the physical tools to be an above-average starter in the NFL. Yeah. So I got two guys in this group, two guys that I'm kind of keeping an eye on during the draft. These are going to be day three guys almost certainly. First up, Rico Doddle, South Carolina, the opposite of DeAndre Swift in terms of names, a name power. I'm all about name power. I'm actually not, I'm not 100% sure it's pronounced doddle. It might be dowdell, but.

Dowdell. I like to think it's dawdle just because it's funnier. But anyways, I think he's good. I mean, there are certain hits on him that, and there's going to be an absolute reason he drops into day three. Number one is injuries have been a big factor for him throughout his career. He's had major injuries pretty much every season. He's got some issues with fumbling. As I mentioned earlier, like fumbling is not necessarily going to translate to the pros.

Like guys can get over that issue, you know, with coaching and whatever. But those are two knocks on him. So it's probably going to be the reason that he falls into the day three. But, you know, he's good size. He's got, he's like 215, 217 pounds. He ran really well at the Combine. As a fact, he was one of the top athletes of the Combine overall, like speed score and all that. I think he ran into four fours or early four fives.

But, you know, he's just, he's an elusive player. He's got really good jukes. He's effective in the passing game. He was just one of those guys where you turn on the table and you're like, why are not, why are people not talking about this guy more? And, I mean, the context is he was hurt a lot. So if he can say healthy, I think he's the kind of guy who could carve out a role for himself in the NFL. The other guy that I really, really like, I think I like this guy a little bit more than that'll.

In fact, is DJ Dallas from Miami. Great. Another all-name guy. He is a former high school receiver and a quarterback. He actually started out at Miami as a receiver, switched to running back. Again, good side, like a Belkow style size, 510, 217. he's very, very tough physical runner who breaks a lot of tackles. Every time I mention DJ Dallas on Twitter, Miami fans come out of the woodwork.

They absolutely love this guy. Like literally, every time I've ever mentioned him, it's like people are like, oh my God, he is the best guy. Like in terms of character, in terms of his work ethic, in terms of attitude, he's also, you know, good. I think he's actually a good player. He's a good receiver. he's a good returner.

I think he's got special teams value. He's not like an electric, electric athlete, but he's a good athlete, tough, physical runner. And I think he actually is the type of player that I think some team is just going to be like, all right, in two years from now,

he's going to be like getting starters reps. I have so many thoughts. The first of them is DJ Dallas out of Miami sounds like a producer tag. I don't even know. I don't even know how to describe, like what? an amazing name to end on for DJ Dallas.

My other one is this is the Chris Carson Award, so I have to ask, would either Rico or DJ jump over people? Because Chris Carson is the most is the most sneakily, other than McCaffrey and Ezekiela the number one guy who wants to jump over

people in the open field. The most irresponsible runner. The most irresponsible I think DJ Dallas would probably do that for sure. I mean, he's just... But it's not just that. It's not just that. It's got to jump over or go through because that's when

you go through the brick wall or over it and that's when guys are like just defenders are like really afraid. It's lovely. Dallas on when you turn on his tape, he has those types of runs where there's like three guys around him and you think the defense hasn't wrapped up and then all of a sudden he just

like emerges from the scrum like with the ball and he's just still going. He's like that kind of runner. I really just, I liked his tape a lot. I mean he's again, you know, he's a middle round prospect for a reason. There's certain deficiencies in his game. But I just think,

I just think he's going to be a good player in the NFL. This is beautiful. Yeah. I have one last question. Craig, do you have anything you want to hit? No, go ahead.

Well, let's just run this down one more time. So Lenny Fournette, the running back, who might get taken first, but might not be the best pick looking back later. We're looking at Rolk, the Andre Swift from Georgia.

The Christian McCaffrey, Swiss Army Knife Award, the guy most likely got a thousand, thousand seasons with rushing receiving. And it's Clyde, Edwards, Hilaeer from LSU. The Alvin Kamar Award, the guy we will look back on and wonder how everyone passed on this dude, is Cam Acres from Florida State with an honorable mention to Antonio Gibson from Memphis. The Marlon Mack Award, the mid-round non-flashy draft pick who can have a steady, productive career is La Michael P. Ryan.

Am I pronouncing that correctly? Yep. Related to Samajé. And then the Aaron Jones Award, the Small School Sleeper is Derrington Evans from the Appalachian State. Yeah. The Diamond in the Rough is the Chris Carson Award. The guy flying completely under the radar who's the fiscal tools to be a above average back.

We're giving it to Rico Dottel, Doughtle from South Carolina, and tied with DJ Dallas from Miami, which is unbelievable. Yeah. Both of those guys have unbelievable names. Rico Dottle. Amazing. I have one question left.

Let's do it. Why do we still call it grinding tape? I don't think you watched any tape on any of these guys. I feel like he was on a computer. That is correct. I don't have a tape projector. Streaming tape? Streaming.

Like you were streaming these guys like on YouTube or where you know what I mean? You were string you're grinding the streams. Yeah. It's really kind of silly. A lot of people call it film too. It's like it's not that's not film. It's digital. We really need to update the lexicon.

It's kind of honestly here's the thing. I know this sounds dumb. But it's kind of a metaphor for football in general, right? Yeah. How much do we talk about teams not using optimal strategies, whether it's they, I mean, the Seahawks running the ball too much on first down instead of Ling, Russell Wilson passed. It's like these ideas that were received wisdom that no longer

make current sense. 40 years ago, grinding tape, watching film were accurate terms. And what is a better representation of us still using the old stuff, even though we don't know why anymore? It doesn't make sense than still grinding tape and watching film. No, D.K., we are on the cutting edge. I want you to talk about crushing streams. And binging, you're binging your streams. You binge the stream on Cam Acres and DJ Dallas and you love what you see. Yeah. You know the, uh, you know the stereotype of dads who just like don't listen to directions or maps because they're too smart?

That's just what the NFL is. Yeah. That's true. Wow. That's perfect. Okay. Well, D.K, thank you for binging all the streams. We appreciate you doing it.

So we don't have to. Now everyone you are informed on the running back class. You're welcome. God, thank you, Craig, but thank you so much to DK. And thank you to the streams. You guys, stay safe, stay healthy. Thank you to everyone for listening.