The TRUTH: Top Tier Fantasy RBs in 2019 - Fantasy Football Podcast

They had some pretty nice fantasy finishes, top ten finishes on that side of the ball. You wonder how much the Giants are making this move based on that or based on, you know, sticking it to the Cowboys in some capacity. And, yeah, brain drain? Yeah, I mean, I think you can brain drain easier than making him your offensive coordinator. But, yeah, obviously this is, nobody has more intimate knowledge on the roster of the Cowboys.

than Jason Garrett on planet Earth right now. And he goes in division to become the offensive coordinator. We'll see cowboys at least twice a year. That's pretty cool. It's an interesting hire. He stays in division. It's going to be weird seeing him on that sideline. He'll still be in blue. Yeah. He's just going to save money on the shirts and have them. Just inside out. Inside out. You can still see the stitching of the cowboy of the star. It's funny.

Oh, that would be brutal. And John D. Philippo, the aforementioned fired offensive coordinator from the Jaguars, I believe he went and is now the quarterback's coach for the Bears, right? Working with Mitch Trubisky. He likes the challenge. Good luck. He's one of those guys who really likes a challenge. All right, we've got running back truth. We ready to jump into that? Yep. Let's do it. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers.

But the truth, you just handle the truth. All right, we're diving into the running back position. Just finished our two wide receiver truth episodes. If you didn't catch them, go back and listen. They were last week's episodes of the show. But we're looking at running backs now. There's a really good article up on the website by Jeff Greenwood, the fantasy footballers.com. It's a 25 running back statistics article from 2019, if you want to reflect a little bit more on the position. But just as a quick reminder, we're digging into...

the consistency of the running back position. And we're looking at the fantasy finishes in terms of, you know, how many great games did a player have? And we define that as more than 22 fantasy points. How many good games where they went out and put up more than 10? And how many were bust games? There were fewer than seven fantasy points. They really hurt you on the week and comparing their fantasy finish with the truth of their season. How consistent were they, right?

Yeah, I mean, you know, it doesn't matter if a guy finishes super great in a position but didn't help you win a championship or win enough games to get to the playoffs. Those things are things we need to analyze at this point in the season. And when it comes to running backs, the top end running backs, which we're talking about today, are the most consistent category in fantasy football. Obviously, not necessarily.

based on the draft season getting everything right or wrong. But now that you look at, okay, from top to bottom, the best finishing running backs, these are the guys that just week in and week out got the job done. What is amazing and holds true for the umpteenth year in a row is when you compare ADP data with how running backs finished and you just look at the curve of...

Where was value in the draft? It is so incredibly top heavy every year. It held true again. The best running backs are taken earlier in the draft. It doesn't mean you're getting everything right. It's just the ones who pop were always taken early. And that's compared to other positions. You're saying you're finding more consistency at running back at the top of the draft. Exactly. You look at rounds 10, 11 at wide receiver. There were some big names, tight-in quarterback. A lot of these guys went late. And when you talk about, you know, the top 24 running max,

Very few of them actually. The fantasy industry is just getting so much smarter on pegging the next running backs in line. We still obviously make mistakes, but invest early in running backs is the point. Yeah, I mean, you still had situations at the top of the years, and we'll talk about him, Sequin, Nixon, that didn't help you early. But when you start at the top, you've got to start with the MVP of fantasy football. Christian McCaffrey.

Number one in fantasy finish, number one in consistency rank. We have consistency charts on the website. And when you look at this season for Christian McCaffrey, it is just unbelievable. I know. What a loser in week two, am I right? Right. I mean, 70% of the time he's putting up not just a good game, but a great game, a more than 22 fantasy point game, a top 10 finish type of game. There were two weeks.

this season where he did not finish as a top 10 running back. It's impossible. And he did that with backup quarterbacks. Just a really bad situation on the offense. This was a ludicrous year for McCaffrey. I mean, look, his reception total was second in the NFL. Like, I'm saying in wide receivers. You look at wide receivers. 116 receptions, 1,000 5 yards.

Four touchdown. That's absurd. You get two players in one roster spot when you have Christian McCaffrey. 44% of his total fantasy production came via the air. Only 18 whiteouts in NFL history have that 116 catch total. Honestly, I think it's actually less because I'm looking at the list right now and there's a couple duplicates in here. Like Wes Welker did it a few times and Chris Carter has two seasons. So that's just total seasons.

Yes. So if you cut down... 18 wide receiver seasons. Wow. I had 116 or more. Yeah. I mean, if you basically, if he stubbed his toe on the first play of all his road games, and you only counted the home games, he's the running back 11 on the year. He's still an RB1. So the only question out there that we have is if you don't take CMC at 101 next year, are you legally insane? Is that enough of a reason to be committed? I can't fathom.

the rationale next year to get, you know, Sequin, okay, uh, Garrett's going to take over. He's worked with Zeke for so long, uh, but what, I mean, new coach. New coach. I mean, that that's, that's the only, like, Jarl, coach of the team. I mean, yeah, there's going to be the, the fire festival was a disaster. There's going to be change and there's going to be narratives to try to have talking. There aren't, though. There really aren't. Like.

I'm trying to have a discussion. I went through my brain. I went through to find a Saquan argument. There isn't one. Do I get a first round pick along with Saquan if I take him at one-on-one? Otherwise, it's CMC. Yeah, it is. Now, what's incredible here is where, I mean, we're already diving into some truth right out of the gate. Aaron Jones was the number two overall fantasy running back. Aaron Jones of the Packers. I think I read yesterday in a tweet, 23 touchdowns and 18 games played this year.

for Aaron Jones. Yeah. His consistency rank, however, 18 at the running back position. He busted, which is a lower, fewer than seven fantasy points, 31% of the time. 69% of the time he was in, he had a good game and 38% of the time, great games. Now his...

Great games were special. Week five, number one overall. Week eight, number one overall. Week 14, number two overall. These were weeks where if you had Aaron Jones, you ended up on the winning side of the matchup. And in addition to those high upside situations, if you were able to get to the playoffs with Aaron Jones, which a lot of people were not. He's certainly not the easiest to get there. But if you got there, he really helped you.

win the championship because weeks 14, 15, 16, he was two of those who was the top five running back that week had monster performances. But this is the issue, right? Did you get to the playoffs if you had him five bust games is not a small number. There's nobody else in the top 24 running backs who had five bus games. Wow, really? The highest number in the top 12 running backs was two.

Two bust games, and then you've got him here with five games where he just destroyed your roster spot. I don't even, it sounds crazy because it shouldn't be ignored, but I don't even care about the bus games very much when talking about Aaron Jones for 2020. We all know the talent. We've seen the talent out there on the field. We've seen the success of the offense that they're running. 13 and 3, Matt LaFleur. There's some consistency going into next year in scheme and game plan.

What I care about is the touchdown total and how that drove that number two finish and how regression is inevitable heading into next year, which makes Aaron Jones the number one candidate that I have in terms of overdrafted. You know, the number one candidate to be drafted at a higher draft value than what he represents, which means you could be really disappointed because he had 19 touchdowns in the regular season. And where does that go? Does that go to 12? Because that's beautiful if it's 12.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I mean, imagine he gets 10 touchdowns. That's a really good number. Right. Like that's a number that a running back is coming into the year going, I want double-digit touchdowns this year. But now take nine touchdowns away, and he was not very good for your fantasy roster. So he had a rushing touchdown on every 14.75 carries. Now, for some context of the top 20 fantasy running backs, the person who was closest to him,

in that as in like a small number of rushing attempts for every touchdown was Todd Gurley at 18.6. And like I was trying to do some cops of this thing. And he, it's very reminiscent of Alvin Camara from just two years ago where Alvin Camara was scoring on every 13.85 rushing attempts. We all know what happened to Alvin Camara. The touchdown.

regression. I mean, it hit him too strong, honestly. I got, Camara will bounce back. But last year, Camara, every 34 carries turned into a touchdown. Like, that's, that's what, this past season. Yeah. And that's what can happen. I mean, you can go back a bigger amount of years, but LaShawn McCoy had that monster touchdown year. 20 plus. And it followed it up with just a handful of touchdowns. These are, these are why we don't, we don't seek out touchdowns.

There are guys, there are 100% guys that are more efficient. And I don't expect Aaron Jones's number to drop from the, you know, the 15 carries to like what happened to Leonard Fournett this year. But I'm with Andy that, I want to see what happens with that ADP because Aaron Jones, when so, when such a high percent of your fantasy total comes from 16 rushing touchdowns, that's, that's dangerous. Well, and you have to go down to the.

number eight overall running back before you get a carry total less than Aaron Jones. He had 236 carries. Now, it was great to see him involved in the passing game. Number eight, is that where Austin Eccler is? No, it's Mark Ingram. Well, Echler's got to be below him too. Did I miss on Echler there? Yeah, Echler only had 132 carries. Sorry, okay, so that's at six. But I think Aaron Jones is a top eight player for next year. Don't get me wrong, but I think he's going to be drafted.

You know, inside the top four, somebody's shooting for that same type of total. You know, I don't want to take anything away from it. He was really, he was a big difference when it came to facing top running defenses and bottom running defenses too. He scored eight fewer fantasy points per game against top 16 Ds. Yeah, I mean the, the, so what is the truth about Aaron Jones? The truth is.

He was excellent for you this year in total fantasy points. He was very inconsistent. And it came on the back of too many touchdowns for the low volume count to rely on it next year. So you've got a talented back coming into 2020 where he's not going to score as many touchdowns. And you need to not draft him to repeat this performance, even though he's very good. Before we move on to running back number three, I want to thank today's sponsor, simply safe.

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Risk-free trial. You got nothing to lose. Go now to SimplySafe.com slash footballers so they know that our show sent you that's SimplySafe.com slash footballers. All right. Number three, Derek Henry. He was the fifth most consistent running back. 47% of the time he put up a great game. That's an impressive total. 80% good games. 13% bust. Pretty much a beast. 303 carries.