Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Early RB Rankings, Fantasy News & Mailbag

Be careful with coach speak and the things said in the offseason. They like to say many good things about their players. So here's a chance to put that into effect. Jay Gruden came out and said they let Alfred Morris go in free agency because they are very excited about Matt Jones. How excited are you guys about Matt Jones running back for the Washington Redskins? Opportunity, I would say I'm pretty excited. I think he's going to get a tremendous opportunity.

We've seen flashes of the talent moves quite well for a big guy. So it's there. Will I draft or expect him to do great things? No. And Chris Thompson is back, who is the pass catching back. And then the last note, just because I don't want, the hype was so great, especially from myself. I completely concede this point on Amir Abdullah, but they were talking about him up in Detroit. So do not forget.

the talent level at Abdullah has combined with an opportunity, similar to Matt Jones, where don't throw them in the garbage, because they could be starting running backs, and that's what you need. But speaking of starting running backs, one through 12, before we get to that, we want to thank our good friends of the show, pristine auction. Look, Foot Clan, you've got to decorate the house. You've got to decorate those rooms, and what better to do it with some sweet...

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Running backs. Whole running backs. The time is here, gentlemen. We have put pen to paper. We have studied the tape. We have looked at the teams. I really hope you do your rankings in pen. On like a notebook. I happen to really like writing things more than I do typing them. And I don't know if that's because I'm getting older. No, I agree. But there is a connection to memory when you write things.

But I do my rankings in Excel. Stay water. So let's do this. We've got our, these are our consensus running back rankings. One through 12, we're going to highlight these guys, maybe have a few debates, but number one, probably not too many debates on this one. Levion Bell, what say you?

Is Leveon Bell deserving of this spot? Is there an argument against him in this spot? Yeah, there is an argument against him. And the argument against him, his health is his knee is whether or not they're going to come back next year and say, you know, we brought him back. And when they brought him back last year, you know, he had a knee injury, not just the suspension. He got over that and they brought him in and he just got the workload. He was the guy. And now...

Is there that thought in the coach's mind where you say, okay, we're going to bring him back, but we're not going to give him the same amount of workload, make sure he's around. We need him in the playoffs. Would that be the concern to either of you two? No, it's not concerning to me at all, simply because the knee injury he got this year was just one of those fluky tackles. His leg got stuck underneath him. Levy on Bell gives that team the best chance to win.

and Mike Tomlin knows that that's why he gives him the work. He was on a pace of 19 carries and four catches of game. That's 301 carries and 64 catches, which is just absolutely ridiculous on the high power offense that is the Pittsburgh Steelers. There's just, there's not, there's not much you can say about Lev Bell other than he is, he's at the top of all three of our boards. I would be hard to find, it would be hard pressed to find someone who thinks that Lev Bell isn't,

a top two back, in my opinion. I don't know how much to add to that. I mean, obviously the catches for Lev Bell separate him from the competition. He's a great runner. I think everybody agrees with that, patient runner. But to your question, I am not fearful of a limited workload. There are certain players, I think this goes, this is true of most superstars in any situation. There are certain players where you just, it would take away so much of their value.

to limit them in some capacity. So much of what Love Bell does is get loose in the short passing game is, you know, you have the ability to give him the ball in a situation that you need big yards. And I just don't think in the modern NFL where you could lose to anybody on any week, it's going to be a, oh, let's monitor his reps. I think what it will be, if you want one thing, they will make sure he is a healthy running back before he is on the field. That's what I believe.

Yeah, so would that possibly go into the beginning of the season? Could he miss a game? It doesn't look like it. No, it doesn't. But it is, that would be the thing to monitor and change your draft position for him. Now, we had him suspended last year, right, for two games, and the debate was how much do you move Love Bell? Because he would have been the number one guaranteed. Eddie Lacey snuck in there, other guys snuck in, Adrian Peterson appropriately because you were going to miss two games. So if he was going to miss a little bit of time and it wasn't suspension,

because suspension, you come back healthy, you would have to move him down. He'd move down my board a little bit if I knew he was going to miss him time. Yeah, you move down a couple spots. And also, it's worth noting. I don't know if you said this, Andy, but just to reiterate or say for the first time, these rankings are in our preferred scoring format, half point EPR. Oh, yeah, it's a very good point. So now, Lev Bell is actually my number one on my board in all formats, including standard.

But he does get that huge bump because he's such a good pass catching back. It worked in that area so much. And when Martavis Bryant being out, maybe even more. All right. Well, Lev Bell was number one, and that is a good point, Jason. Now, these are also ranking. We will post all the rankings in all the scoring formats on the website when they're completed, the early season rankings, and they will change. Yes. That's the one thing if you listened to the show last Thursday. These things will change based on...

Uh, news and information. New information means you make a change to your plans. You don't lock them in unless you want to look stupid. That's the truth. That's the truth. Which, you know, we're prone to do from time to time, but we try to avoid it. Never. All right, so Lev Bell sits there at number one. Now, number two, I can feel it already. It's getting a little hot in here. Do you feel that? Yeah. There's a little bit of heat. Jason's face says it all right here. Now, number two on our consensus rankings.

He's number two on both of your boards. He's number one at my heart, though. Number two on both your boards. He is number three on my board and half point. And that's... David Johnson! Now, everybody's going to look at you sideways. Yeah. Bring it. And they're going to say, well, there's a lot of questions about David Johnson. How in the world... You're the hometown bias. That's what it is. You got him hanging on the wall. That's very, very fair.

And I don't shy away from that, that there is risk involved with David Johnson because the sample size is too small. In five season starts, 90 carries, 440 yards, four touchdowns, 17 catches in five starts for 216 yards and a touchdown, which those numbers are even...

even harder to gauge because of the way the Cardinal season went with the final two games. You had the game against Green Bay that was just a laughable blowout. The defense scored twice. Palmer was on fire, so it's hard to gauge so that that throws into the confusion. Then the final game of the week or final game of the season against Seattle, the team crapped their big boy pants and then just gave up. So it's kind of difficult to really factor those in to the thing.

to his overall production. But to me, just like Levi-on-Bell, it's the past catching that separates David Johnson. He can have a bad game on the ground, give you maybe 30, 40 yards. But you're going to get 40 more yards through the air, and not just yards. David Johnson scores touchdowns through the air. The highest score through the air, the highest amount of touchdowns through the air, Danny Woodhead. Now, David Johnson had four, like I said,

Four, I don't know if I had said that, but David Johnson had four. Here's the other players who had four. Charles Sims, Shane Vereen, James White, and Kyle, we don't even know how to say his last name. Kyle Zhuzrik, the guy from the Ravens who kept screwing up my Justin Forset touchdowns. However, look at all of those names, right? Those aren't high...

elite level running backs. Those are the secondary pass catching running backs. David Johnson is doing that, but he will give you a full-time running back workload on the ground on top of that. That's why the potential is so massive for Johnson. Yeah, part of being the hometown, I mean, we live in Arizona and we are unashamedly Cardinal fans. If you're watching YouTube, you can see that clearly. But that also gives us the advantage of...

really being able to, I mean, we watch with extra intensity all of these games. The speed that David Johnson has off the edge, his ability to catch the ball in stride and make moves and make guys miss is something that is genuinely special. It is not just, so we talk about how opportunity is number one, talent is number two, but when you get that rare combination of, hey, you're the guy who's going to be toting the ball the most.

who's also going to be used in past catching situations, and you are one of what has to be the three or four most talented running backs in the league with that opportunity. It all comes together to push you really high. Anybody who owned David Johnson towards the end of the year understands the impact he had on your team during that time period. There are questions when you get a full 16 game season with workload. Can he hold up? Those questions are going to be there that aren't there for an Adrian Peterson.

Now, you say all that, though, I mean, one thing I love about the past catching, he's averaging 12.7 a catch. Yeah, that's a very high number compared to the rest of the running backs in that category. The touchdown totals last year, eight in limited work as a starter. You had a lot of, you know, one thing you mentioned, Jason, you mentioned three or four things as points for David Johnson. What you didn't mention, or at least I didn't hear it right then, was that the offense for Arizona is a league. It's a prolific offense. This is a team that...

They come back pretty much full strength as they were last year, a 13 and 3 team. You added Chandler Jones on defense. There aren't signs that this team isn't going to compete. And so that's what you love to see from a running back, having a team in that situation. So I do not have him at number two in half or standard, but I do have him at number two in full PPR. My final point I'll throw in is he's the goal line back. Even before he was the full-time featured back.

He was the goal line back for Arizona, and there's no reason to think that Chris Johnson or Ellington will steal that away. All right. Number three on our consensus list is my number two. The president. The president himself. The president-elect. President-elect. Todd Gurley, look, Gurley was as good as you could be as a rookie, pretty much. On an offense that struggled with finding a quarterback, with, you know, moving the ball. He had...

a 4.08 average. He had 10 touchdowns as a rookie. And he showed he could catch the ball a little bit when needed. A little bit. And I think that this is the reason Gurley and Halfpoint in Standard League is my number two overall running back. I think there's upside, obviously, because of the youth. I think the team, despite its insistence upon Case Keenum, the team is all right. And all right is okay to me. You know, you saw Adrian.

Put that on a bumper sticker. All right is okay. Yes. It's the bumper sticker on Adrian Peterson's car. Oh, I say it's on Jeff Fisher's car. Or he should be like, all right is excellence. All right is excellence. Yeah. So you saw Adrian Peterson have prolific years. I think that Gurley is just a talent that you mix with the workload. Like Jason said, you're not in his prolific of an offense. But I think the touchdown numbers are just going to be there for him. And I just love Todd Gurley.