Early Top 10 RB Rankings + Ball Boys, Yeti Analysis - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/12

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No matter the shift. Call 1-800 Granger. Click Granger. Or just stop by, Granger, for the ones who get it done. Hey, this is John DeTaylor, running back for the Indianapolis Carts, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. A fantasy footballer's podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome, man.

Tuesday, April 12th, the fantasy footballers, back with you. Mike, the fantasy hitman, right, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Excited to be with you today. Early top 10 running back rankings show. You guys ready to fight? Always. Oh, yeah. I live to fight. Mike. My early RB4 is sensational.

And you will not want to miss it. No, I expect us to get into some very, very contentious friendship threatening debates today on the show. So it'll be fun. Ultimate draftkid.com. Head over there. You can pre-order the UDK, number one tool to get ready for your upcoming drafts. If you're into Dynasty, you can get access to the Dynasty Pass right now. That is available.

Ultimate DraftGit.com, Twitter at the FFBallers. If you want to follow the show, you can watch it at YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Make sure you follow us. If you're listening on a podcast app, follow the show on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. So you get notified of every early rankings episode and the other ones too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a follow specific for early ranking shows. No, no. You're going to get regular ranking shows. Right.

late ranking shows? Oh, we should do. We should do it way too. Everyone does the way too early mock draft. Yeah. We should do the way too late ranking shows and really. Oh, man. Week four. Pretty accurate. I thought you were going to say we should mock draft like 2025. Oh, no. No, Mike. Way too early. That would be silly. I'm just saying like after the season's over, if we do a ranking show, we will be really good dialing it in.

Al Borland's here, Judge Giamatti, the Borgogun, all behind the scenes. Oh, yeah. There we go. Al, how you doing today? Doing great, thank you. Nice and sweaty over there? Always. Always sweaty. Borgogan. How you doing? I'm alive. We need a name for the gang. Oh, for the crew. Like a posse? Yeah. Well, I mean, like, you know, Dan Patrick has the Danettes. Oh, no. And like all shows, like the lackeys.

They get a title. They get a name. Because individualizing them is too much credit. It is. Exactly right. Exactly. Bring them down. Make them ours. Maybe the Foot Clan. You know, the Dan Nets. That's a pro move, Dan. It is. Those are like. But there's three of us. Yeah, I know. So it's going to be the Jason Nets. I get it. The Jam Squad. The Jam Squad? Well, I get it. Jason Andy Mike. Oh. It's not good. Let us know, Footclans. Give us some ideas. I think we will take.

Some Foot Clan ideas here, and that will cement them into just a group we can refer to. That way we don't have to one-on-one them. I like that. I'm sure they're big fans of this plan. Quick question of the day. How much do you factor in offensive line when ranking and drafting? We're doing the running back rankings on today's show, so it's a good question. People often ask this in the off-season. How much do you consider the offensive line? Jason, what do you think? Yeah, I consider it in the extremes.

you know, if you are one of the worst in the league or one of the best in the league, they matter. But for the most part, most NFL teams are on a sliding scale between that. And I'm not, I think it would, you know, you'd have a lot of hubris to be like, well, this offensive line is 3% better than that one. So they're going to have more run blocking holes open up. I don't do it other than the extremes. But to give.

concrete examples to that. Like last year Miami was known, like you went into the year going, this is one of the worst, if not the worst offensive line imaginable. That was part of what I didn't like about Gaskin. And then the big free agent acquisitions that happened for the Chargers. And that really helped that offense and Echler. And when I apply it to this year and I look at who's just the worst of the worst, that's the Steelers. I mean, garbage.

I don't know if you guys know this. Do you know who they signed at offensive line? Yes, I do. Three year 15 million? You're going to know the name. Mason Cole is their savior. They also added James Daniels, though. I mean. Who they gave him more money than Cole. Yes, but Mason Cole, if you are uninitiated. The former center for the Cardinals, right? That is right. Who was the biggest problem?

we had on the roster. And now he's going to go over to a bad offensive line and let... And fix it. Yeah, he's going to let players come right at Mitchell Trubisky immediately. So that's going to be bad. And on the flip side, I look at a team that has spent a lot of money this offseason and really upgraded. That's the Cincinnati Bengals. I am pro Joe Mixing this year. Yeah. And Kyle, you bring up a great point. I mean, continuity matters.

with an offensive line. Sometimes just duration of being able to play together as a unit. It does a lot for pass protection, for run blocking. I definitely, it's funny because this is all in the context of running backs, but I actually consider it pretty severely when it comes to young quarterbacks as well. I am fairly certain Justin Field season is going to be tremendously bad. I think the Bears' offensive line, the money that they are not spending, the rebuilding.

I'm very worried about Justin Fields. You saw Zach Wilson last year's struggle. I mean, being constantly pressured as a young quarterback. And then in the inverse, you saw the improvements that the Chargers made on the offensive line and what that translated to for Justin Herbert's fantasy value. But the extremes is the best prescription for the fantasy football player is when a team has made extreme improvements.

or the inverse, I think that that's where you see the biggest impact. Mike, do you have any thoughts? Yeah, it can't. It's not everything for running baskets. Jason, your example of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Their offensive line this year, perhaps are terrible. Last year, they were, in fact, terrible. They were not good. Didn't stop Najee Harris from voluming his way to being an elite fantasy player. Voluming. I like that. Just, just go.

Coining new phrases. Yeah. But it's not everything, but yes, it's a, it's one of the variables, one of the inputs when you're thinking about rankings. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. All right. If you have been following NFL news at all over the weekend, Dway Haskins died, a traffic accident. He was hit when crossing a freeway.

Absolutely tragic news. Yeah. Kind of shocked the entire NFL world. He was 24 years old, 15th overall pick in 2019 to Washington. And I guess the one thing I'll say is just the outpouring of, you know, people coming out and talking about Dwayne Haskins and just how much he was beloved in that organization by the...

by the coaching staff, by teammates. Teammates. I mean, it was just clear that he had made a tremendous mark on that organization. And it's just really sad. It's really sad. Devastatingly sad. 24 years old is, man, that's, that's rough. Hold your loved ones. Yeah. And so that's, yeah, just like the one kind of positive. It always takes a tragedy. Unfortunately, just us as humans is what we do. But like the outpouring was the most notable thing for me. So like.

Let your people know, man. If you love somebody, let them know. Don't hide it. Your tomorrow is not assured. Yeah. Melvin Gordon is in discussions with the Ravens on a potential deal. This was a rumor brought up. Stop that. So massive implications if it happens. Stop that. Yeah, we brought up a couple shows ago that with the current outlook for Dobbins and Gus Edwards, their running back room is great.

If they're 100% ready, which they don't know now, so they have to bring in another running back, either in the draft or in free agency, I feel like, the second I heard this news, I just, this just screamed to me like, hey, Denver. Oh, we're in talks. Right. Like this, this was, this to me was like when Leonard Fournett was going to the Patriots. It was like, oh, yeah, look, they're bringing them in. They're, they're going to take a look. You want to lose them, Tampa?

It does, I think, tease out an interesting discussion on dynasty value of young running backs. Because there are players like J.K. Dobbins, who are elevated in dynasty rankings, long-term rankings, simply due to age. And the projected path-skill set. Yes, but maybe not, right? I mean, because...

If Melvin Gordon is signed here, his long-term value is completely changed forever. So I guess my point is just like we bring up, I bring up all the time when you want to win a dynasty, you can't just be paying attention to age and hoping players evolve. You also have to grab a few players that already have established what they're going to be and then use them in that time. Like there is a non-zero chance that Melvin Gordon.

is more valuable in a dynasty league than J.K. Dobbins right now. Sure. That he belongs ahead of J.K. Dobbins in terms of long-term value in a dynasty league, which sounds insane. But there's an actual chance that that happens, despite the age gap, because if Dobbins is coming off this injury, multiple backs, does he ever get handed the backfield back? Does he recover from the ACL in year one? Those question marks do emerge. So sometimes it's the, you know, it's the.

What is it the bird in hand? Bird in hand. I was going to go bird in a bush. And I knew that I was going to. It's two birds in a bush, Andy. Thank you for knowing what I was talking about. If Melvin signs a two year with the Baltimore Ravens, okay, now I believe that would put him in line with Dobbins to be on the same timeline for contract extension or when they expire. Now Dobbins needs a new contract. Is he going to land somewhere where he can?

Take over. So you aren't you aren't incorrect in that statement. And that's what a thing that can make rank dynasty rankings right now is with the running back position. It's so difficult. Because look at the draft. We know that running backs will be drafted. And they're going to go to teams that already have established running backs on the team because the NFL.

It says, we need multiple bodies in here. They don't play the fantasy football one-back system. So it's just these types of, there's landmines, they just, they pop up. And you, like, who expected? Oh, you know what? I think Melvin Gordon will end up on the Baltimore Ravens. Or Leonard Fournette to the Bucks when he originally came over there. Right. And you could have said, oh, everybody, Keishon Vaughn. Keishon Vaughn and Ronald Jones. They're good to go.

It also speaks. ETN last year in the draft to James Robinson and the Jags. Assuming this conversation actually happened, right? Leverage or not. It also speaks to the potential health of J.K. Dobbins or the confidence of the team in J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards to be able to just walk back in and be the starter. They cannot do that. They cannot go into training camp with just those two guys because they don't know for sure that they're healthy. So.

Yeah, you have to bring someone in. Another suggestion here for the crew of the ball boys. What do we think about the ball boys? The ball boys. I mean, I like it because it's inherently slightly demeaning. They're not on the starting team. They're not men. They're boys. You know, and so that part is good. Well, like ball men. No, that's not going to work. That's not going to work.