Top 10 RB Rankings + Austin Ekeler Joins the Show! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/9

When you're playing fantasy football, the biggest advantage you can have in the game is a true three-down workhorse running back that dominates for you. We break down our top 10 guys in today's episode. Make sure you subscribe, like this video. Leave us some comments on the guys that we snubbed and enjoy. Captain's Log 2259.55. I have traveled far and wide across the universe. I have been to countless galaxies and met fascinating beings of all kinds. And yet, nothing gets me jacked up like preparing for my fantasy football draft. When it comes to preparing for competition of such importance, I leave nothing to chance. The ultimate draft kit from the fantasy footballers is the only tool you need to prevail. Trust me, I teleport to alien planets on the ridge, and there is nothing better.

tiered rankings, video profiles, custom scoring support, and even a super sick mobile app. Set your destination for a fantasy football championship and engage to ultimate draft kit.com. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome into the podcast. The fantasy footballer's pot. Yes. All my worst nightmares came true immediately. Immediately. All the talk before the show was maybe the lungs are back. You know what I mean? Maybe I've got the ability to do the intro. You took a special loisange? I thought. I thought I even did some like dry runs where like sound came out. It was perfectly fine. But clearly during the intro, there's like an octave that I hit that has been deleted. So Foot Clan know that I'm not. That was great. I'm not trying to change the intro. But you're just not back to 100% yet. The next time will be more terrifying.

Oh, yeah. I mean, tomorrow's show, who knows what's going to come out. And the greatest part is as the intro music. So I have to try every day now? Absolutely. As the intro music was going, Mike's slacking, do it. Do it. And if you ever wonder. You got me a little hyped. If you ever wonder, do we, do we edit the podcast? Edit the podcast when we make mistakes. No, we drive the bus right over one another. The only situation where the podcast gets edited. Over the last, this is show 1,262 is when Jason has to poop. Hey, Mike has to poop sometimes and stop the show. I've been known. It's when either of these two guys has to poop. I've never had a poop stop. Brooks, have you ever had a poop stop? No poop stop. Al back in the building, no poop stop. No, I've run out before in the middle of a show. Oh, yeah, because you can do that. If we're talking about this, Brooks takes a potty break like every third show. Yeah. Be right back. You mean before it begins? No, I mean like during the show. We always get BRB.

Got a pee-pee. I don't know if it's every third show. Every second. I think he controls his bells a little bit better than that. Well, that's an introduction to an episode. Tuesday, August 9th, the fantasy footballers running back rankings on today's show. We have an interview with great friend of the show, Austin Echler, running back for the Chargers. One of the players in the NFL that really appreciates and understands fantasy football's value. what it means to the game, unlike Bill Belichick, who, you know, I don't want to, like, get actually mad at it. Look, I understand players don't need to pay attention to it during their, like, they have a job to do. Yeah. It's to go play football, win games. It doesn't matter the stats. Go win the game. I respect that. That's how you should play. But I do take a small issue with,

any vitriol towards what is actually making your game grow. So you may not care about it, but you should be able to appreciate how it's made the game grow because it grows the fan base. You know, my almost 11-year-old son knows every player from every other team. He buys Justin Herbert shirts and Patrick Mahalm's shirts. And, you know, it's just it amplifies the game. And Austin understands that. So the thing, though, for Belichick is this isn't the first time. that he has, like, made disparaging comments, not just about fantasy, but, like, he's kind of said the same thing about using analytics, and the Patriots are using analytics. And he, like, he, like, you know, disguises the name of, like, social media is, like, he doesn't know what's going on. He knows exactly what is going on. So those comments coming from him, I take him with a green assault there.

Top 10 running back rankings on the show. Some news to talk about. Ultimate draft kit.com. Get in there now. Right now. Go check it out. The UDK Plus with the draft analyzer. We will break down your team, strengths, weaknesses, what you can do to improve, which fantasy footballer most connects with your team. Hope it's me. Compared to our rankings, which are updating all the time in the Ultimate Draft Kit. A couple other... quick announcements. We will be choosing the listener league winners very soon. No more submissions. It's over. But 1,000 plus incredible submissions. Thank you so much for the time effort. Jason is nodding his head because he feels the same way I do. Yeah. I mean, when you get over a thousand entries, you know, these aren't just like go to listenerleague.com and click I want in. These are people that are.

did something to try to get into the league. And a thousand of you out there sending them in, just thank you. Appreciate it. It's humbling. And we do have a free Discord server, which we have a community event tonight on the Discord server, some football trivia. And you can check that out. That's going to be 6.30 p.m. Pacific 9.30 Eastern. And you can go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com, click the Discord icon in the upper right corner or go to discord.g.g slash fantasy footballers. It's going to be fun. Is Papa Josh running that? Papa Josh is running that. And it's, like I said, the channel is free. So it's a great place to go. I think you can win a free jersey too. You can. Yeah. Okay. All right. Way to be informed there, Al. Just want the people to know what's at stake here. Do you know what jersey were giving away?

Or to keep that a mystery? Please don't know. I have no idea. Yeah. I just want the people to be informed. NFL professional offensive player of some sort. It's a kicker. Oh, no. Don't say that. We would never do that. Well, I mean, if it was Justin Tucker. Yeah, he's in a different category, right? He is. Yes, he is. With his new contract. Like, just who, I hate fantasy football kickers. Me too. But. Justin Tucker's the man. The dude is elite. That guy is winning football games. It's about demeanor, though. Like Justin Tucker. He's yours. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? He's like, he's a big guy in a little body, but you know what I mean? He just thinks he's. Well, and it's just his swag levels. That's what I mean. Off the chart. Helps when you can, when you're the best of all time. Yes. All right. Let's jump into the news. News and notes from around the league. J.K. Dobbins has been activated off the PUP.

Okay. We also got news, and I love the news. Well, I don't love the news, but the way it's worded, Ravens running back Gus Edwards is, quote, probably doubtful for week one, which, frankly, I think that works in reverse, right? Doubtful to be, doubtful to be probable as well. Right? Yeah. The thing about the word doubtful is probability is already included in the definition of doubtful. So who? So probably being doubtful is weird. But this is really important news. It's still early, month away. It is early. But what happened a couple months ago was when we thought that the, after the NFL draft, when.

The Ravens didn't do anything to address the position. I know they drafted Tyler Beatty, but he was literally their 11th player pick. They did not go hard after running back. You assumed that the timeline based on the ACL injuries that were reported and the timeline of when they happened last year, you thought both backs would be healthy, ready to go for training camp. So when we heard that J.K. Dobbins wasn't, we started worrying, well, was it not a simple ACL? Turns out it wasn't. It was more complicated. There were ligaments involved. And, you know, now he's looking good. Gus Edwards is well behind that. And they got injured the same week. So I'm starting to wonder if it's not just a straightforward ACL injury. And the depth chart is, you know, I, I drafted a lot of Gus Edwards in underdog a couple months ago. And whoops. Yeah. This news I hadn't seen until this morning. So we're still chasing details. But Darren Waller has remained out of practice and has not practiced since July 30th.

We've got preseason week one a few days away. He obviously did not play in the Hall of Fame game. Only missed three practices so far, but head coach Josh McDaniels, no details given on the absence. So just something to be mindful of. I wouldn't overreact yet. Yeah, and I'm certainly not saying that he is not dealing with an injury. But didn't we get reports a little bit ago that he's trying to get a new contract? as well, the waller risks. So I don't know. Maybe that's affecting things as well as, you know, if only I had a bigger bag of money, my injury may heal up faster. James Winston's going to miss a few days, won't play in the preseason opener due to a foot injury. Right now the report is just they're going to use caution with him and it's nothing to be seriously concerned about. What else do we have? Oh, this is big news, Jason. Why don't you break this news because it broke your heart?

The right tackle, strong man Beckton for the Jets. He is expected to miss significant time after suffering an injury. He will have surgery, could miss the whole year. The Jets offensive line was ranked 13th by Pro Football Focus, which is not bad for where they have been the last couple of years going in. And so, you know, I'm a big Breece Hall believer. And I. Breeze Lightning. Oh, go Breeze Lightning. I love Breeze Lightning, and I think he is great. I know they have depth at right tackle, so this shouldn't completely annihilate them. But there was hope with Beckton moving to right tackle that that would become a position of strength, and he is now gone. And I do know that the Jets have a very difficult opening schedule. And by opening, I mean like the first two and a half months. I was going to say the first nine games are like a gauntlet for the Jets, which doesn't really seem fair. Yeah, that's kind of, you know.

kick people while they're down. Part of that is being in a division that's got three very difficult opponents already. Also, you know, just got to let you know. Baker Mayfield has the inside track on the team's starting job. Fingers crossed. But Matt Jow Rule said the team won't name a starting quarterback until later. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah. You don't want your starting quarterback to practice with all of his time. And you can't rush these things. Keep the team guessing. You want that locker room to be kind of ambiguous. You don't let your opponent know your next move. Or your own team. Any other news, Brooksie? No, sir. Nothing new. You guys want to talk some running backs? Let's go. Running bags.

All right, we just got done with a couple of wide receiver rankings episodes. If you are curious where our consensus wide receiver rankings are at, we got through the top 20. You can also see them on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. Today is all about the running backs. Our top 10 and half point per reception, no surprises at the top. Jonathan Taylor, Mike and Jason both have them at number one. I've got them at number two behind CMC. I probably shouldn't. If I'm honest, you know, when you go out and we put every stat projection into the UDK and into these player rankings. And we go through and we project every carry for the team and every pass and every number. And that kind of, you know, we also have a risk rating in there, which talks about the risk of injury and the risk of that prediction coming true. And look, Jonathan Taylor, there's no comparison between the Jonathan Taylor and Christian McCaffrey risk rating.

and McCaffrey, even if there was no injury history between them at all. Taylor would be a much lower risk simply due to being considerably younger than Christian McCaffrey. And being to Hulk? And being, yeah, I've seen some pictures of him this off season. I thought maybe they were an announcement to move him to linebacker. I mean, he is built. And so I say all that to say, seasons go right. I think McCaffrey ends up ahead of Jonathan Taylor. But Jonathan Taylor is much safer. finishes the RB one last year, 1,800 yards on the ground, 18 touchdowns, 40 receptions. When the team noticed what we know about Carson Wins, when they recognized the inaccuracy that is now manifesting in Washington camp, they made a conscious effort to put the ball in Jonathan Taylor's hands over the back half of the year, and he dominated. He was unstoppable. He had 11 RB1 performances in a row.

which is better than Christian McCaffrey's 2019 season, which he was the number one running back at nine straight, was better than Gurley's 2018 season. Todd Gurley was on fire that year, won a lot of people championships. I don't know what there is to say about Jonathan Taylor other than he is a lock for the number one or number two spot in every draft and is going to deliver. Yeah, I mean, he's young. He's proven. He is behind a good offensive line. He has a quarterback upgrade, which can work in both. directions, but I think it's a net neutral in the sense that Matt Ryan might pass the ball a little bit more to Jonathan Taylor on checkdowns. That's great. The offense could score more. That's great. Although the 89 red zone rushing attempts, the most of all time, part of that probably came because it was like, well, we've got Jonathan Taylor.

And we've got Carson Wentz. So let's give the ball to Jonathan Taylor. Now they might throw the ball a little bit more, have more success throwing the ball in the red zone. So there's nothing really negative to say to Jonathan Taylor. The one thing I would say, because a lot of our listeners, everything we do here, all the leagues we plan, the Meglabel league that's coming, our stats by default are half PPR, which is just the right format to play in. But a lot of people playing full PPR. If that's your league, all three of us have Christian McCaffrey as the consensus.

one oh one yeah just to like you know get some analysis here on jonathan taylor of like there there is a world where there is massive touchdown regression for jonathan taylor like that'd be pretty normal for an 18 touchdown right well and just saying like he had 29 carries in in the at the five or closer which is outrageous like that he led the league last year number two was james connor but those 29 attempts only turned into two 12 touchdowns. So like maybe that number goes up, but like just the natural, the natural way that football goes when you put up a massive outlier stat like this, that can come down. But I also, you're mentioning PPR, Jason, with Matt Ryan, I think there is a world where Jonathan Taylor shocks us with how many passes that he actually catches because you're like, look at, you know, it's a different player, but.

same team you had naeem hines right 57 targets this year with uh with cars and wents 77 when it was philip rivers matt ryan is far more like uh philip rivers than he is like cars and went so i just there is a there is a chance that the the targets go up for him all right the uh number two running back for us christian mcalfrey no man it's been a bumpy road the last two years dealing with injury When he's played, even in the midst of those absences, 10 total games the past two years, that's not a lot, but seven top five finishes in those games. That's as many as Dalvin Cook had, and he wasn't hurt. Right now, I like what I'm hearing at a camp about Christian McCaffrey, not just headlines of, you know, we all know he's good. That's not what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the way they're treating him at camp. They're not letting him go three straight days of practice. They're giving him off days to recover.

When he's out there, they're pushing him hard. They're talking about attacking with Christian McCaffrey and he feels great. But I think they're trying to do some things in the preseason to just give him the opportunity to be available, which availability for Christian McCaffrey is production. Yeah, I mean, that's all there is. Christian McCaffrey has never been bad on the football field. If he is available, if he's playing football, he's going to be fantastic. The offense, I think it's an upgrade with. Baker Mayfield, if he wins the job. Chris McCaffrey is someone, I've said this on, you know, if you watch his video in the ultimate draft kit, his, you know, breakdown of him as a player, he should be the 101 unless you're just scared of the risk. And I get that.

You know, he's one of only three players last year in the games that he, you know, wasn't injured in to score on average over 20 fantasy points a game and half PPR. It was Jonathan Taylor and Derek Henry and Chris McCaffrey. He's as good as it gets. He's game script proof. There's no situation down up. There's no situation where he is not incredibly important to the offense. And he's so talented. And you're right. What they've been doing in training camp, and I don't know if you've seen some of the videos recently. But it just reminds you like, man, he's just got another level. He's got another gear to him. The way that he catches the ball is perfection. It's smooth. It's effortless, thoughtless. And so I, you know, if you want to take Christian McCaffrey, honestly, if I'm at the 101 spot now, I know he is in half PPR, my second ranked player. I find myself more often taking Christian McCaffrey just because the upside is that he can catch 100 balls and be a great running back. And no one else has that.

Last year, Christian McCaffrey had a number one overall running back finish on the week and a number five overall finish on the week without a touchdown. Like, that's how ridiculous his usage is, especially in the passing game, that he can score 20 plus points on any week without scoring a touchdown. And there's not a lot of running backs that can do that. I mean, essentially none. Yeah, I was going to say there's one. Yeah. Austin Eichler comes in at number three in our consensus rankings. He's 27 years old. I've met three, Mike at three, Jason at four, finishes the RB four last year. Look, it was a great season. I mean, for Austin Echler, we had him on the show last year. We had wondered if he would get all the red zone opportunities. He managed to score 20 times in the red zone alone. He had over 300 opportunities. This was his biggest jump up in opportunities. And, you know, the question marks are, do they try to take away some of that workload? And that's something we talk.

to him about on the interview later on the show today. But Echler's sitting here. Do you have, like, is this the time when you get to this pick where you're afraid to make the selection because you've seen it for one year? Yeah, I am afraid to make the selection. Ironically, I started a best ball league last night. After talking to Austin Echler, I was at the sixth spot. He was there. I felt compelled to take him. So I did. I love his upside. He was the running back two last year, if you didn't remember. You know, he was that good. But the touchdown regression is almost. Yeah, sorry about that. I said he was R before, but that's where we, that's where his ADP is. He was the two. Yeah, he was the second running back last year. Because he amazingly, despite being a smaller framed guy and getting a massive amount of workload and being on the injury report pretty often, he only missed one game.

This is a dude that wants to be out there, wants to be great for fantasy and does whatever it takes. I love everything about a pass catching running back. That's always the type that I want on a great offense with a great quarterback who doesn't have phenomenal competition around him. And even though they drafted Isaiah Spiller, I still think. All of those things apply to Ostnaker. The only issue I have is that he's not getting 20 touchdowns. I think double digit is fine. You know, 10 touchdowns are great year. But if you take away 10 touchdowns from him. Massive difference. That is enormous. That's going to, you know, and the touchdown regression to the mean for Dalvin Cook on the other side is like, you know, he only had six. I think if both of these guys get 12, all of a sudden, you're probably talking.

about Dalvin Cook ahead of Austin Echler next year. Maybe that's kind of my worry. You had like back in 2019 when Echler had the really big breakout season, he finishes the running back six on the year. And he did that with only 240 opportunities. He had 300 opportunities this year. So the guy is just, he is efficient. It's a lot like Camara. Yeah. I mean, that was the season where he started off as the guy. And then Melvin Gordon came back and he had to split. But he just, he is so. good and so efficient in the passing game that it makes up for lack of touchdowns. And that year when he was the running back six, he only had 11 touchdowns on the year. So I know where you finish fluctuates with where the other running backs did in that particular year as well. But my point being, he doesn't have to score 20 touchdowns to still pay off at the running back 380P. Because if you draft him at the three and he finishes top five or top six,

I mean, you're still going to be pretty happy with that pick. Yeah, I mean, you really, I don't want people to overstate that as they a spill or threat. I think that's the thing we need to understand is he is a rookie. There are a lot of things that contributing as a rookie entails mentally in terms of being able to do pass protection or contribute, you know, you might be thrown into. Like special teams. And so. And he fell in the draft. He's a fourth round rookie. It wasn't like they, you know, they had opportunities to draft him higher if they wanted him. He fell a little bit. And Justin Jackson's gone. Like Justin Jackson was the most talented of the, of the other options. You know, Josh Kelly and Larry Ranchry are not going to threaten Austin Eccler. So stay tuned for our interview with awesome, excellent. Yes. At the end of today's show. Quick break. Back with Derek Henry. Derek Henry. The Yet.

Oh, man. Let's get into it. He's at four in our rankings, five for Mike and I, three for Jason. Let me ask a provocative question before we begin. All right. Was Derek Henry a good pick last year? I think you have to. I like it. I like what you did because I feel like you have to say yes, absolutely. I mean, you're talking about a player who if you picked him. Well, put it this way. I know that in three of, you know, the four main leagues that I consider my main leagues I play in, the champion winner had Derek Henry on their roster. Now, obviously, he did not help them in the championship, but he sure as heck helped him get to the playoffs. And who was the one that didn't? Was it you, Amy? Yeah. I finished. I finished second, though.

Yeah. And had Derek Henry to start the year. He was so good that you couldn't have gotten off to a bad start with Derek Henry. You know, we just talked about how good Christian McCaffrey was. He was 20.1, half PPR points a game in the full healthy games. If you take out his injured games, Jonathan Taylor, even better, 20.8 fantasy points. Here you had Derek Henry at 23 fantasy points per game, and that is including his last, you know, injury plagued game. He was. a man among boys. He was so much better than everyone in football, not named Cooper Cup, a true difference maker. And I am so terrified to draft him right now. He's my running back three, statistically speaking. And I constantly pass him unless I'm at the, you know, he gets to pick eight, pick nine where I feel comfortable because he's 28 years old coming off of a foot injury. And I know he did rest it.

a good amount of time before coming back on that foot injury, which lowers the probability of a re-injury to only 10%, which is a great number, and he was already back plus an offseason. So he should be fully healthy, ready to go, and you don't bet against Derek Henry. That's something I've learned over the last several years, but I am terrified. Is that dumb of me? Is that just being too risk averse to worry about the age and injury? Look, Mike, I'll ask you, if you bet against Derek Henry last year, did you win or lose? You, I mean, it's very similar question. Because I think you could take a victory lap if you bet against him last year. I mean, the whole argument preseason was eventually you break down. He broke down. Yeah. And that's never happened before. Coming off of back to back season. So in 2019, over 300 attempts, 2020, 378 attempts this past year in eight games, 219 attempts. That's insanity. And.