Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Top 15 Running Backs Part 2

was really going to eat in, what Atlanta, you know, what the people, the crew in Atlanta, the beat writers around the team, what they believed in Devonta Freeman, because I was not a big believer in Freeman. And every single thing that I could uncover pointed towards they love Freeman, they're going to use Freeman, and he is their main running back.

and they'd like to get tevin coleman involved a little bit more and in however they can because they drafted them and in this league you got to keep your running backs fresh but everything pointed that way as the off-season went along

And I got further away from that research, I still just don't like Devanta Freeman. I just don't want to trust him. But he was the number one running back last year who, why would the team, from an NFL standpoint, when you've got a guy who's great in pass protection, great on outlet passes, perfect for that offense, and he did great, why would you go, well, now we have to change? And they won't.

They won't change unless he gives them a reason too early in the season. The big problem with Devante Freeman in perception-wise is, you know, Mike, you talk about how he ended the season. Yes. He had a string of games where he was not above four yards of carry. The string is what impacts people. You know, a guy like Adrian Peterson, he had six games last year where he was under four a carry. Freeman had eight. Okay, so that gives you, that's not a big gap between those two guys, but Freeman strung.

the last, like, five weeks together that way. And that impacted our psyche on him. And he also, the polarity of being so great and then not putting the yards with carry numbers together. But he still got, look, 14, 12, 25, 22, 24 carries. When you get that many carries? Yeah, right, right. But I'm saying, did he wear down? And does the team say, okay, well, he clearly wore down there at the end of the year. We need to get somebody in to take more touches away from him.

I think they'd love to have Coleman be able to do that. He just proved he couldn't yet. So if he... Well, that's not necessarily true because Coleman was good. Remember, Devonta Freeman had the concussion. And when he missed a game and Tevin Coleman had the game, Tevin Coleman had the game, he had a great game. Tevin Coleman was not very good. In the replacement game where he was the starter? He had one game where he was 20 for 80, which is four yards of carry. He had one game that he was nine for 32, one for two for three.

One, four for 40 is the game you're talking about. He had four carries. There's just not evidence to me that Kevin Coleman has shown me anything in the league when you get nine, two, four, and three carries in your game log. Once Freeman came back, I mean, we had that situation where Coleman had the opportunity to take that on, and I think he performed well in his absence. And when Freeman came back, they said, oh, Freeman's a guy.

So why would that team with the same players returning say, uh, unduees? I mean, undoes. Uh, Tevin Coleman's also injured right now. He rolled his foot in practice on the third. So Freeman is getting all the reps. Coleman might be involved in the return game. All right. We're talking Eddie Lacey now. Number 12, uh, a guy that, look, Mike has a lot of confidence in him bouncing back. I do. I do as well. Um, I'm not, I'm not against him. He's just, I mean, we're talking.

11, 12, 13 is how he's ranked. Right. So we're actually in agreement about Eddie Lacey's positioning. Mike, you know, even though we just made the bet between Doug Martin and him. That just means you like Martin more than Lacey. Exactly. He's our consensus number 12 and he's 11, 12 and 13. So Eddie Lacey, you know, opportunity, good offense, lost some weight. You said a couple minutes ago, we can't get inside the guy's head. And I agree with that. But I can look at the numbers on the scale and just say.

I don't know. Maybe it's not because he's motivated because of money. Maybe he just realized he was too fat last year and it has nothing to do with money. Regardless, he has put in work and has changed his body. And what I saw on the field with film last year was that he wasn't able to do the same. He was overweight. He was just a touch slower. And he's always played bigger, right? He's not been a skinny small speedster guy. But...

He's not that way now. He's lost a lot of weight and he's still a bigger, heavier back. And that's what I want. I wouldn't want him changing his body style. I just want it to be more muscle less fat. He had a long leash last year. Yeah. I mean, the coach has enough confidence to let him play. Yeah. And I mean, Starks did get in. There was a lot of controversy throughout the year of McCarthy saying, hey, we're going to let Stark start. But the first two years of Eddie Lacey's career, he is averaged.

almost 11, 160 yards, and 10 touchdowns, and that includes 340 yards receiving. So he's involved. I know that he will be involved in the passing game, and we've seen that he can be great. I don't know if you recall two years ago when he was fit Eddie, the game against the prime time game against the Minnesota Vikings, where Eddie Lacey...

took a dump-off pass from Aaron Rogers and made about seven guys look ridiculous like they didn't belong in the NFL. And he took 70-something yards to the house. So he is actually a very athletic and agile guy. His spin move is incredible. Yeah, he does have a great spin move. So he's got to get the momentum. That's why he, when he's not playing overweight and he gets the screen game going, he gets downhill.

And then he picks up like 10 yards just on trying to tackle him. And they use him around the goal line as well. Oh, yeah. You put him on the Packer offense. You bring Jordy Nelson back. You let the rolls return where they are supposed to be for Green Bay. And I love Eddie Lacey. And the best part is, I mean, where did you say I have him ranked? I'll pull it up. 11. 11.

Eddie Lacey has top five upside. Yes, he does. So for the discount, you get to get this year in the draft because of last year's terrible year. Lacey's a guy I love and I'm targeting. All right, let's talk about Thomas Rawls. All Thomas Rawls did last year was come in, replace beast mode.

to the tune of 5.6 yards per carry, ranking him number one in the league on the year out of 41 qualified running backs. He was absolutely a mini-beast mode and offered Seattle incredible, I think, surprising numbers from that position. He looks like he is the guy in that backfield. Now, is he healthy? He's not healthy currently because he had the broken ankle, which also came with some ligament damage.

or ligament or nerve damage and he is on the pup list right now so he is not uh he's not participating in training camp unless there has been breaking news that i have not heard of there has not he is not participating in training camp so it's rawls is i guess i talked about how freeman's tough thomas rawls is very tough as well undrafted rookie uh free agent last year came in was absolutely

He replaced Beast Mode. I mean, he was the new Beast mode. And he looked like he just simply could not be stopped. However, Seattle reloaded their running back farm with ProCise and Collins. So do they have, does the team have full confidence in Thomas Rawls at this point? Everything that I've heard from Seattle from the people down there is that they still expect Thomas Rawls.

to be the starter. But this is one you have to keep your eyes on. You have to see when he gets back. If he misses all of training camp and if he misses preseason games, you can't draft him in the third round. But if he's back, as soon as he is back and healthy and he's playing in preseason games, if he's the starter there in those preseason games, then I'm statting him out as what he is, which is a great running back.

on a running focused team, and yeah, they drafted CJ ProCise, but it's not like they didn't use Fred Jackson in that role last year. Sure. That roles existed, and it's still been a predominant running team. One of the only things that kind of scares me.

A little bit is just, and I need to go back and watch some film on Thomas Rawls, but the rule changes with the chop block on the offensive line with people standing next to each other for this coming season. That was one of those things where when they showed the examples, it was so often showed with the Seattle offensive line. That was part of their running scheme was they would start going out and then the guy on the inside would kind of take the legs out of the guy, open up a giant hole. So I want to watch it to see it. Was Thomas Rawls a beneficiary of those plays?

Would that change? That being said, we've seen him do it in the NFL. He is a very good running back, I believe. And if he's the starter, I'm all in on my Rolls Royce. Yeah, Rawls Royce. Say my, the thing for Rawls, can he duplicate what he did last year when he was playing of being such an effective runner without being involved in the passing game? Marshal on Lynch, that was not his specialty. But he would still get 40 plus targets.

And you probably won't see that from Rawls. Yeah. So I don't know if you can expect Marshawn Lynch type numbers simply because of he won't be on the field as much as Lynch was. One small point. I'm not worried about them restocking their backfield. This is the modern NFL. You can have all the confidence in Thomas Rawls in the world and it won't matter if he breaks his ankle. You know, you can still have confidence a guy. You just have to have somebody behind him that isn't Fred Jackson, that isn't necessarily Christian Michael.

Who's taking the first team reps? Yeah, I know. All right. Number 14 on our list, Latavius Murray, 266 for 1066 and 6. Is that right? That's a lot of sixes. Hey. Is that the right numbers? He is the devil. He is the devil of fantasy football. Wow. That's really laying the hammer down there, Mike. 41 for 232 in the passing game. That's a pretty good volume. Well, it was tremendous volume. That was what Latavius Murray was all about. Volume. 266 carries.

Clearly the most on the Raiders. You know what? The second most carries on the team. Derek Carr? That was Derek Carr with 33 carries. Derek Carr is taking the first team running back reps right now. And I love, it's documented. I love Roy Hulu. It did not work out for him. Who do you love? Roy Hulu. Yeah. He was injured all last year. It just, it did not work out. So there was nobody, really, that the Raiders trusted.

to take carries. And now they have DeAndre Washington. Can Latavius Murray get that same type of workload where his numbers by the end are great, but they show that he is not the most efficient guy with his work. And now you have someone who's going to eat into it. I love the potential for Latavius Murray as being a two on my team. I'd feel really good about that. I think the workload will be there. They have one of the best offensive lines in the league. Be really happy with him as a two.

Yeah, and when it comes to Jack Del Rio, Jack Del Rio has always been a running coach. He has seven years in the top ten of attempts. And attempts are what you look at because maybe they're successful, maybe they're not successful, but does he want to run the ball? And he always pretty much wants to run the ball. That's something that is, I think, what you look for when you try to find a running back today is do they have a coach that wants to run the football?

They gave him all the carries last year. He still performed. And some of the early offseason stuff, I know that a lot of the negativity gets brought up saying that they want to bring someone else in. I think that that's much more so a knock against Hulu than it was on Murray. I think that will keep Murray fresh. I like Latavius Murray this year as an RB2. I don't think he has potential to be a top five guy like a lot of the other guys in this list. So he's not as, you know, when you make that selection and you're going, do I want Latavius Murray?

or someone near him. Normally the guys near him, they're a little bit riskier. Or you could use Eddie Lacey as an example for somebody, you know, like that. You know, you've got a guy that maybe could be a top five. Latavius can't, but he also seems very safe and he seems like he's got a clear handcuff. I would love to go into a year with Latavis Murray and Dandre Washington as a tandem on my team. All right, let me go through. I'm going to give you guys some names here that are going right around Latavius Murray. Matt Forte.

I'll take Murray. Murray. All day. CJ Anderson. I'll take Murray. Murray as well. I would take Anderson. Carlos Hyde. Murray. Murray. DeMarco Murray. I'll take Murray. I'll take Latavius. And then the last one I'll give you is Dionne Lewis. Oh, I'll take Murray. So he catches enough passes for me. So then he is going.