Early RB Rankings: Top 10 Countdown + Player Debates, One More Ride - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/13

was a little surprising at the time. He was, you know, everyone, not everyone, but the majority of people out there, the number one running back on the board, you know, coming out of, of Alabama, and we were excited for Josh Jacobs, and then he got the first round draft capital, and he was the running back 18, and it was disappointing. That's a good fantasy football year, only 13 games to be a top 20 running back, but it was disappointing, and then he just kind of kept being. Good, just not great. He was not meeting the expectations. So then to have a true breakout season in year four, year four for a running back to do this when they've had three years of opportunities is strange. And to me, that's why I'm hesitant of like, how do you jump from, from, you know, basically 300 opportunities a year to over 400.

Your efficiency marks go crazy. You're better than you've ever been. And that not just being an outlier year. That was Josh McDaniel's first season as heck yes. Yes, it was. That's the big change to me. That's funny. If you wanted to say this is going to be the new norm, it's because this was a new system. He was playing in with a new coach that decided to give him the ball 404 times. Normally when you see that many opportunities, you don't see the efficiency increase. So that's where it's scary about it. That's where it's like when I watched him on the field. And I put my.

whatever, dynasty money where my mouth is. Like I went out and pursued Josh Jacobs on purpose because I think he's undervalued, which, look, everybody doesn't think that otherwise it couldn't have got him. His story is so complicated, like you said, because he's been a top 20 running back all four years of his career. He's been in the top 10 before. Last year was just the year where he went into a new category in tier where people don't know if he's going to be there. Yeah, it's really the opportunities. If you know for sure he's going to get the same opportunities,

then there's no way he's not a top six fantasy back, even if he's a little bit less efficient. One other fear that is worth mentioning right now is not that they go and add another running back in the draft, but that they actually use the draft capital that they've been rumored, you know, trading up from seven or even at seven grabbing someone like Will Levis. That would be... You know, if Will Levis gets drafted by the Raiders, then that means that Jimmy Garoppolo is probably going to play half the season. And at some point, they're going to make the change to Will Levis. And that will be bad for the offense, bad for the whole fantasy output of the Raiders. Thoughts upon calling him Elvis. Will Lewis? Yeah, it just kind of sounds like. I like just botching his name, calling him Levi's. Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's not a lot of positivity around.

Will Levis. Not for the dynasty community. The NFL still really sweaty, real sweaty to get Levis on that team. He just feels, it feels like every year there needs, it's like the fantasy community needs a Zach Wilson to hate. Yes. And it feels like he was nominated for that. Which, by the way, he is in the fit and form of a Josh Cutler. I mean, he is ready to come into the league. Josh Cutler. Are you combining or Jay Cutler? We're just matching people together. To be fair to the dynasty community, the dynasty community, we weren't big fans of Mitchell Trebisky when that happened. We weren't huge fans of Zach Wilson when that happened. The NFL does get some things wrong. And there's a lot of us. We're the crowd source. They are the experts. They are the ones who literally their paycheck is determined. Are you good enough to locate who the good players are?

There's millions of us watching it going, that's not the guy. He can't see a pass rush. I know that the, now we're going to keep it going. We're just going to kill Levis. Elvis. Elvis. I saw a report they approved a new helmet for concussions for quarterbacks. Yes, that is true. And it actually dints. So that will be interesting if they use it. It's supposed to reduce. Concussions when you hit the ground by 7% over the current models. Okay. But part of the effect is the exterior shell will dint a little bit. So like a car, like we have a crumple zone. Right. So we will visually. Makes a lot of sense. I think we will visually see it and will, you know, you see crumple, you think bad. Right. But they will actually be better for the players. I hope part of that new, you know, helmet is like in the visor, maybe show your peripheral because.

Will Levis has no peripheral vision whatsoever. And that would really help him a lot. Protect him. On to Kenneth Walker to continue the discussion on Kenneth Walker, Jason at four, me at six, Mike at eight. We all like him a lot. I think Rashad Penny is gone. Had a great rookie season. There was a tiny lull that, you know, if you watch the games, you noticed it. kind of from week 13 on. I mean, he burst onto the scene. You got hurt, though. Yeah, the first, but he got hurt twice. And that's another thing worth discussing when you contrast and compare these players. That's one area where, you know, Josh Jacobs has been pretty healthy. He played all of last year. Oh, you remember last year he got injured. He did the pump fake. Every time he got injured, they gave him more work.

They just, they were like, this is how we heal you. Yeah, it was unbelievable. He's like hobbled and they're just like, give him the ball again. So Walker, I think we know is an electric player. You're going to have big plays with Kenneth Walker. You hope that you could see his targets go up. And you also hope this team doesn't do what I think is going to do, which is, you know, find some peripheral support at running back for Kenneth Walker because. came into the year injured, got hurt once during the year. They've had years of dealing with Rashad Penny's injuries. And because of how foundational the running game is in a P. Carroll offense, I doubt that they're going to want to go into the season and say, hey, it's DJ Dallas behind Kenneth Walker. End of story. Yeah, that's why they're one of the scariest landing spots to me for Bijon Robinson. They have two first round picks. Their second.

first rounder is at 20, which is a spot where any team could justify, whether it's a need or not, could justify taking someone that's probably top five on their overall player list, who's a clear first round pick. Most teams don't have more than 14, 15 first round graded players, and you know every team has him graded as a first rounder. If you're at 20 with your second first rounder, You lost Rashad Penny, you had some injuries. I could easily see them pulling the trigger. I think it would be good for them as a franchise. But for fantasy football purposes, that is... Where was Walker taken? Second round? Second round. Second round. Second round, Kenneth Walker, that is not out of the realm of possibility. It would be rough. My...

hesitation with Walker is just the past catching. He averaged 2.3 targets a game, and that's juiced... Same quarterback coming back. And that's juiced up by... There was a game, like an outlier game where he had eight targets. Other than that, you're seeing, you know, pretty much the two a game. So that part concerns me. He definitely overproduced in the touchdown column, but I mean, that's kind of the profile of who Kenneth Walker is. So while I really, really like him, I'm just, you know, talking that Josh Jacobs or Kenneth Walker, I have Jacobs just slightly ahead of Kenneth Walker. I don't know if that means on draft day that I can do that because he's so exciting and so young and you feel like you haven't, you haven't seen the true ceiling of Kenneth Walker while you probably have seen the ceiling of Josh Jacobs.

So that's a very difficult discussion and decision between those two guys. The only other thing to mention is he did have 17, 15 plus yard runs, which is obviously a feather in his cap, but also something that can be a little bit variable over time. Tony Pollard comes in at number five. Wow. Tony Pollard, interestingly enough, half a year older than Josh Jacobs, which doesn't compute in my brain. No, that doesn't. Are we sure about that? Yeah. Well, you have to remember, Josh Jacobs came into the league at 12 years old. I mean, he was so young when he was drafted. Which maybe something else to be said about the time it took to become elite. I don't know. Maybe. Tony Pollard, he's the best ball RB 11 right now. We all have him higher than that. He finishes the RB7 and fantasy. This was sharing time with Ezekiel. This was under 200 carries.

I mean, this is awesome. I mean, Tony Pollard should have a huge opportunity. There was a part of his career before the middle of last year. We had never had 15 rushing attempts in a single game at any level as a running back. So I don't, what I want to know is get into the head of Mr. McCarthy. Oh, don't go there. It's dark. Is it? I mean, like there's no lights on. Okay. Well, if. We know Zeke's gone. He's had a ton of opportunities over the years. We know McCarthy wants to run the football. They've made the... Too many points. Yeah, they were scoring too much, too fast. Now they want to score too much too slow. How do they possibly go into the season with Tony Pollard and Ronald Jones? Yeah, they absolutely can't. I would...

I mean, I don't even think Ronald Jones will end up on this roster. If he does, whatever, he'll be a third string, four string guy. They have to bring someone else in. He can be the running back five right now because as the depth chart stands, you just mentioned it. And he was the running back seven while being the backup running back last year. And he is the clear cut. leader right now. He's the only main running back they have for a team that wants to run the ball more. He's so explosive, so electric. I would expect his efficiency numbers to come down. But we saw him last year with a lot of games with a large opportunity, right? If Zeke was missing time, you know, you have a game of 28 opportunities, 21, 20, 24, lots of games where he, and in those games, running back seven, running back one, running back two, running back six.

outstanding performance. I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility that Zeke comes back. They've left kind of the door open for that. I don't think, you know, if Dalvin Cook were released, that they, you know, he could go there. They're going to add another big back. And I, I would be surprised if Tony Pollard stays this high in the rankings. It's just where he is right now. A month from now, but obviously we know his potential. He is an outstanding talent. When you guys were talking on the dynasty show about. specifically Jemir Gibbs and Devon A-Chane. This was the one of the examples of a player with fewer opportunities historically that made a big mark that came to mind, where Tony Pollard was kind of, he's been living in second fiddle land, but still being good for fantasy when you wanted to play him. That's what you would kind of hope you could get out of those smaller.

Backs. Well, Tony Pollard has been an often comp for Jemir Gibbs because you're talking about someone who's really good in the past game, very fast, electric, and smaller. And then you have to remember that Tony Pollard weighs not small. He weighed into 210 pounds at the draft. So when we're talking about this 200-pound weight threshold, it's like, yeah, he cleared it by 10. And we call him small. Right. Tony Pollard's a small back, you know. But he's not. Yeah, no, he's just smaller than Zik was. Jonathan Taylor comes in at four. Last year, Jonathan Taylor was your number one pick in fantasy drafts, or at least a lot of them, not ours. Yeah. 24 years old, 192 carries, injury-riddled season, 28 receptions. I think we know that Jonathan Taylor has number one overall potential,

new coach, new quarterback, possibly a rookie. I think that there are some question marks around this offense. We've seen the retreads come through at quarterback for Indianapolis for a while. And the retreads have not been great. But at times, they have at least been able to move the offense. So you do run the risk of a rookie coming in and maybe, like Mike, do you view Jonathan Taylor as a better or worse fantasy asset if it's an Anthony Richardson? Worse. Okay. Definitely worst. Because we have the history of the numbers. One, rookie quarterback not moving the offense. Two, Anthony Richardson is a developmental quarterback who, if he comes in week one for whatever team he gets drafted by, and he just like, holy crap, it's already there. That will be very shocking to me. And then if it's Anthony Richardson on the Colt, mobile quarterbacks.

They run. Every single time a quarterback scrambles and runs, that's a checkdown that has now been taken away from the running back position. So he's, he is extremely difficult because he's so, so good. Do not forget the two years ago. Don't forget what he did on the field. Just a dominant force for the NFL, dominant for fantasy football. So that still exists. And I don't think that don't let the downturn of the offense. completely take you off of Jonathan Taylor because he's that good that he can carry. It would take a lot for him to get back into that elite number one status. I was just going to say, like, where are you with the offensive line? Because I think that was the actual problem last year in a lot of ways for Indianapolis. I mean, you have, you had Desmond Ritter getting snaps in Atlanta, and the Atlanta running game was great. Desmond Ritter was not great.

You also had other situations like Malik Willis getting starts in Tennessee. The running game was bad with Malik Willis at quarterback, and you had to manage him so much. This offensive line disappointed, if I recall last year compared to where it came into the season as. To me, it might come. Sometimes the quarterback might be more window dressing there. Do you agree with that? Oh, for sure. I mean, the offensive line going into last year, you thought that was a strength of the team. Then it turned out to be a weakness. They've got to address that in the draft if they can. But I am in on Jonathan Taylor. I mean, I think that the real issue for Jonathan Taylor, yes, the offensive line was an issue. But you've seen running backs with bad offensive lines and running backs with good offensive lines, you know, be good for fantasy football. My concern was the injury. He had this lingering ankle injury the whole year, even after the season was still dealing with this.

If he's healthy coming back, he's, to me, a top six. He's, like, locked in as he's just so good. He's a Derek Henry caliber athlete on the field. And he still had, you know, he had a week where he was the running back two, the running back one. Massive performances just couldn't keep that ankle healthy. And I've been seeing him a lot of the times at the one-two turn, the very back of the first round. And when he falls to the... 10th, 11th, 12th pick. That's where I'm scooping them up, and I feel good about it. Yeah, you should. That's a steal. Saquan at three comes back on the franchise tag. Last year, 1,300 yards on the ground, 10 rushing touchdowns, 57 receiving or receptions. And then not a lot of yards, 338 through the air. That was, who was the running back we talked about on the last show? That was a...

had 50 plus receptions, but a ridiculous 30 or 300-something yards. Was it Aaron Jones? I think it was. I mean, 338 receiving yards is a... Yeah, 59 for 395. Yeah, this is a low number on 57 receptions. He did finish as the RB6. I think the Giants are going to be a competitive football team that if I had to bet on it, I think they're going to end up above 500. Sure. So that's one of the reasons I have Sequin ranked so high. Very few players get to play every down. Sequin gets to do that. Still an elite talent, but the clock is running out, I think, on Sequin in terms of predictability. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously still young enough where you're not saying, oh, he's aging out and going to be inefficient. We do see that peak...

peak running back performance by age is usually around 24. That's not to say that you're bad at 27, but it's to say you're not at your absolute peak, you know, the apex of your career. You look at the targets that he had last year. And like you said, Andy, he didn't do much with him. It was very, very inefficient under six yards of reception, which is pretty terrible. But he had a ton of targets. He was back finally to being the Saquan Barkley that got over 70 targets, and that's what you want to see, but you've got to keep in mind how unbelievably putrid their depth chart was at wide receiver. There was not a lot of great options to throw the ball to, and this was the first time we've seen Sequin with Daniel Jones really soak up those checkdowns. So I think it's going to be somewhere in between this next year where I don't think he is plus 70 targets again.

But hopefully the efficiency comes up and it makes it fine. He's a good pick because you know he's got the goal line, he's got the receiving work, and he's a talented three down back. But I'm not excited as in I think that he's going to be just a top three running back. I don't see that in the range of outcomes personally. Interestingly enough, number two is Austin Echler, who also. wasn't that efficient in the receiving game. He had the same, I think, yards per catch or at Sequin, but he caught 107 of them, not 57. 127 targets in the offense. He's kind of come out and said, hey, I'm probably back in Los Angeles for another year. Good luck chasing the bag at almost 29 years old, Austin. You'd probably get it. But, you know, last year it started with trepidation.

Yes. This show, you know, Jason had invested an early pick on Austin Echler. He was shaken in his boots and then he won the title with those boots. Thank you, Austin. Austin Eccler was the running back one last year. Also the running back one in week 17 championship week. Thank you, Austin. Red zone monster for two straight years. Red zone touchdowns had 16 of them tied with Jamal Williams for the lead. More red zone touchdowns in the last two years than Derek Henry and Nick Chubb. combined. So when they're down there, Austin is yelling very loudly for the ball. I don't know if you heard that. But he just screamed, Justin! Justin! Justin! Screaming like Damar de Rosen's daughter at the NBA game? That was funny. Elite. Screaming like all the kids on my son's basketball team at 11 years old, where they are all just... Everybody's open. Everybody. They just yell the name of the kid with the ball. Yeah.

That's all they do. Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody, Cody. At first, my son is playing basketball, same age and, you know, same type of basketball. At first I was very impressed that he knew all of his teammates' names so quickly, and then I realized why. It's like, oh, it's because you have to know whose name to shout when they are touching that orange thing. Austin Echler, is there downside here with Austin Echler? You guys have them both at number two. I actually put them at five. in part because, look, this red zone efficiency is insane. I know it's two years in a row. Also, does this team start to make plans in some fashion for the future at the running back position? Because Austin Echler, they gave him permission to seek a trade this offseason. Because they knew that he wouldn't get one. They knew what the answer would be. But again, that's not one of those like, you know, I don't tell my best friends to seek a trade.

Well, they didn't tell him to seek a trade. They gave him permission. He asked if he could seek a trade. They wanted a contract extension and they couldn't come to terms so that then he said, well, can we look for a trade? And they're like, yeah, sure, go ahead. And no contract extension, though. I mean, there's obviously a difference in opinion of his value by this organization. Certainly. I think it's just the positional value. The NFL is not going to pay running backs probably ever again, and it sucks to be a running back, but that's the world they're living in. In the meantime, you can also make the argument that he is in a contract year again.

He's betting on himself so that he can go out and sign something big, one last contract before he retires. And from the advantage of the chargers, they don't need to worry about the long-term wear and tear on Austin Echler. They're going to get as much juice out of the squeeze as they can. And I think that they'll give him the ball a ton and not worry about the ramifications. So I like Austin a lot this next year. The inefficiency in the receiving game. was certainly a problem this year, but it hasn't been over the last several, 9.2 yards per reception, 7.5, 10.8. I mean, he's always been one of the best past catching backs in the league. So I'm not worried about that. And when you've got a guy who's able to catch the ball 100 times, it's really hard to have him not as the number one running back, but then the number one running back can do that too. Chargers have the 21st pick. So you talked about the 20s, the Bejohn zone. They also have 54.

You know, if they took a Gibbs A-Chane type of player that could eat into his receptions. But he's been kind of impervious. Number one, we all got him there, Christian McCaffrey. I do think that San Francisco Christian McCaffrey, who, by the way, last year, 1100 yards, eight rushing touchdowns, 85 receptions, five receiving touchdowns. I do think San Francisco version of Christian McCaffrey has a slightly bigger variance in terms of. it could just not be his game. It could be a game where Elijah Mitchell comes in and happens to burst through the line for the touchdowns. When Elijah Mitchell came back, it was a little bit less Christian McCaffrey. We also know he was managing some injuries. They invested in him. He's number one for a reason. I'm just trying to find some reason to not like Christian McCaffrey, but there aren't really any of them. I mean,

Yeah, you're not going to dislike Christian McCaffrey. He's unbelievable. He's talented in every facet of the game. He has been invested in... Even throw in the ball. Absolutely. Better than Jimmy G. I'm looking at these game logs and they're just ridiculous. They are ridiculous. But if you want to find the red flag, it is the Elijah Mitchell issue. Elijah Mitchell was there for only four weeks when Christian McCaffrey got to the team. And during those four weeks, Christian wasn't bad. You know, 15 fantasy points, 14 fantasy points. One of the, his worst game, 6.9 fantasy points, not that nice. No. Those were when Elijah Mitchell was active. And then, you know, those games where Elijah Mitchell was injured and it was all Christian McCaffrey and the snaps weren't.

What you saw when Elijah Mitchell was there was 65%, 66%, 63% of the snaps. Elijah Mitchell gets injured, and all of a sudden it's 82%, 89%, running back 1, running back 2, running back 5. Those were the monstrous performances. And so I do worry that the peak extreme upside that you hope for in Christian McCaffrey isn't going to be realized unless another injury happens to his running back meets. Yeah, I just think you're going to have, I would say, three or four games this year where you're like, oh, that wasn't, that wasn't a McCaffrey game. Yeah, what the heck, McCaffrey. That's not what you've come to expect. Running back 14. But let's not pretend Elijah Mitchell's not getting hurt. That's a good point. I mean, or losing a depth chart battle because that's just what Shannon manages to do. So McCaffrey rounds out our top 10 countdown here at the running back position.

Look, things are going to change quite a bit, but it's nice to get a lay of the land. Like Bijon absent from this list of top 20, he will be in this list of the top 20. No question, no question. So Bejohn is currently the running back four in baseball. Oh, man. So he is ahead of Sequin. People are thirsty. Brise Hall up there, Kenner, Josh Jacobs, yeah. I just don't know what to do with that information. I don't know what to do with it. Let them be excited. I know what to do with it. It's not draft them right now. I mean, genuinely, like, I love Bijan, but not all the landing spots are running back forward. I mean, I feel like you should drop Breeshal over Bijon. Sure. Like, I just don't, like, like, you know, they're going to have Aaron Rogers. He's ahead of schedule. He's proven it at the NFL level. He can catch the football. I mean, his, Bijon had games where he was barely.