Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - The TRUTH About Fantasy RB's in 2016, Part 2

I don't. I don't. Other than his great games, he was bad. I mean, that's the story to me when you say something like that. Well, but he ended up the fifth most... I mean, if you want to chase that narrative, you're saying other than, so three games he was good, 12 games he was meh. No, no. Just because he averaged 54 yards doesn't mean 12 games he was meh. He had games that he wasn't great in, and he had games where he scored in, and he had multiple scores in. Right.

It's not like every game other than the three. He went out there and put up exactly 54 yards and 0.3 touchdowns. He had games where he won your weeks, and clearly, fifth most consistent running back at the position regardless of that situation. Yeah, the reason why is he had several of his low yardage games. You know, week three, he had 28 yards, but he got a touchdown.

You know, he had 42 yards a couple weeks later, but he got a touchdown, and 45 and got a touchdown. So, you know, he had some of his, though, they coincided where his low yardage games. He scored. He scored. And so his consistency was actually pretty good. I mean, Melvin Gordon had three games over 100 yards on the season. And we look at Melvin Gordon. We say, hey, look at the season he had. Look how he carried people with the touchdowns, yardage games. I just. JJ had four. Right. Other than Zeke.

David Johnson and Lev Bell, this is called playing running back to me. I mean, defenses who you're playing. I'm impressed with JHA's season. I'm not the biggest fan of JHAA long term, but he proved me wrong this year. My only point was versus where people will draft. Well, let's look at how he played against top defenses and bottom defenses. J.J.I. About 12 points a game against the top defenses, 74 rushing yards a game. Against bottom 16, he was at 105 yards per game.

That was five games. So if you look at this year, 10 of his 15 games played were against top 16 rushing defenses. So that's impressive to me. When you play twice as many games against difficult rushing defenses still perform, I'm impressed with that too. So we'll run through just a couple names of the early because what I'm talking about is on fantasy football calculator, the latest mock draft, he's the eighth running back taken off the board in the second round.

which is funny. I mean, running backs are going early once again. But here's so. Jay Jai or Carlos Hyde. I would take Ajai. Yeah, I'll go hide. Ajai or Lamar Miller. I'll take Lamar Miller. As would I. Ingram. I mean, that's going to depend. You know what it's crazy because I just haven't handed Ajai the starting job in my head.

That's what I was just going to say. It depends on what they do in the starting job. Yeah, let's say he's the starter. Yeah, that's close. I'll probably take, I'll probably take Ingram and a PPR and a Jai and a standard. And the last one, Latavius, assuming he's back in Oakland. I'll take, I guess I'll take a Jai. That's, that's, yeah, I mean, those are good questions. He's going to be a tough guy to, to.

get a handle on let's talk about frank gore number 12 on this list because of course are we talking about next year or this year oh you last year too frank gore always there it is to change his number to number 12 i feel like all the running back ones walk into the room and then he's like he pokes out from back behind the group and says hey guys and then they're like frank who let you on he's like

I have, I'm number 12. It's like, this is my house. This is where I, this is where I live. I was hosting this party, fellas. Before you were born. Yeah, pretty much. 16 games, 263 carries over 1,000 yards, and four touchdowns. Obviously, it was a year in which the Alphins of Lines struggled immensely, yet he still got it done. I think he's the least sexy player to own. Maybe out of the top 24 running back. You just, you didn't.

You never have faith that you're going to get a boom, boom game. And you don't. He only had one top five game on the year, but he didn't bust, and he had 12 top 25 games. So if 12 weeks, you've got basically an RB2 or better, where you draft Frank Gore allows you, I mean, you're going to be able to have him, you're going to have a whole team of solid draft picks before you can then draft your RB2 or better.

late. I mean, Frank Gore is always great. And I don't see a reason for that change barring them going out. He'll be 34 years old next year. That's like when the draft starts will be 34. I mean, when the league starts, yeah. Is there any chance he just straight retires? I would say there is. I don't know about that. They need help at the running back position. Yes, they do. Their backups are, you know, sorry, sorry Robert Turbin. I think that they need help. So they will probably go out and draft another wide receiver. Well, Bobby Turbin's a free agent.

So he will probably not be there. All right. Anything else about Frank Gore? Eighth most consistent player. We talked about how many, no bust games. You know, he just, if he could be at two, I'll take him as a two. At top, verse top and bottom defenses, he's relatively the same. He's Frank Gore. He's staying. Frank Gore. Drafted in the, what, six round last year? Oh, he was drafted in 1988. Frank Gore. Yeah. Frank Gore. Yeah.

Latavius Murray came in at number 13, missed a couple games during this season, had 195 carries 78 yards, and then Bladow, 12 touchdowns. So he basically offset the fears of the Jalen Richard and DeAndre Washington platoon by scoring.

And so that does give me pause and concern because you have both Richard and Washington coming into their second year. You have Murray who did see a massively reduced workload when you talk about total carries on the year. I'm curious, do you guys have his beginning and end of year splits? Maybe we should look at... I have his game log in front of me where... I mean, it's really good.

where so through week 14 uh he held in our half point scoring format he had under 10 points just once assuming you don't count the games he did not play against him which i i will not do that but he had he only scored four points against baltimore he was eight for 19 on the ground but other than that double digits man double digits and then it really slowed down at the end of the year the last three weeks he was he was single digits

You know, what I would say about Latavius Murray is more about the Raiders themselves. The Raiders are a phenomenal running team. The problem is there's three running backs there that were all actively involved. Obviously, they did not have a top 12 PPR running back, but as a team compared to other teams, they were the fifth most fantasy points among all NFL teams at the running back position. So I think hopefully next year they can kind of figure out.

Well, Latavius is a free agent. We don't know that he's going to be back with Oakland. That's going to be one of the more interesting situations. I wouldn't pay them. I wouldn't pay him about it. Yeah, I don't think they will. I think that he will be moving on. Yeah. And then DeWash and Richard will hold it down. If that's the case and they had the fifth most fancy points. It reminds me of like, you know, the Saints for a couple years. Right. Pretty much led the league in rushing. But it was shared. You know, it was shared across Sproles and Bush.

maybe even McAllister back in the day. And Robinson and Pierre Thomas. Yeah. So, I mean, the offensive line produces fantasy points. And so if Latavius leaves, we'll be talking about where to take Washington, where to take Rashard in next year's draft. So, you know, Murray, a lot of question marks. Yes. But definitely got it done in the end zone. All right. Before we move on and talk about Isaiah Crowell, I want to thank today's sponsor, Blue Apron.

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Number 14. Yeah, you're talking about eating crow, right? Isaiah Crowell came in at number 14. Maybe he's less sexy to play than Frank Gore. Maybe that's the actual. Yes, he definitely is. 198 carries, seven touchdowns. His offense is far worse. You need. Give me Colts offense. You need fantasy vegetables. We've talked about this before. Frank Gore. Isaiah Crowell was a vegetable this year.

Without question. I'd argue that Murray, Latavius Murray this year, was less, you know, not a sexy food. He was a cabbage, a cabbage of touchdowns. These are guys I love as the two. You know what I mean? I love those as my number two running back. I don't know if I love Isaiah Coel. Yeah, I was just going to say. But he ended up here. I would not have liked Isaiah Crowell as.

my running back two or even three, it was very hard to play, very hard to start. But 10 top 25 games. Exactly. He had a lot of big blow-up games. It was very hard to predict those. They, bizarrely, you know, all of a sudden this year, he became a pass catching back where, you know, in a PPR league, Isaiah Crowell was even more valuable. And he had never really done that before. He had Duke Johnson. And he was the hotness. He was the.

The PPR hot in his last offseason. Every, you know, every third game, they had a change of quarterback, which is just always, you know, it's like, okay, he caught six passes last week. Maybe he's going to do this. And then it's like, oh, well, there's a new quarterback. It was just very difficult. And I expect going forward next year, I don't see why the Cleveland Brown situation is going to be any less difficult to predict. So I'm just saying he's a hard guy to put your trust in. Seven of 16 games in single digits. Exactly.

He's also a restricted free agent, so he may or may not be back with the Cleveland Browns. Carlos Hyde comes in at number 15. Last year was drafted very high. 37 was the ADP in Standard League's 42 in PPR leagues. You know, it was a weird year for Carlos Hyde. I think it was a year that for those that are truthers, he gave you enough to make you think, okay, all right, well, maybe, you know, maybe next year. For those of you that doubted him, he gave you enough ammo to say, all right, can't stay healthy.

Can't do enough. The offense, the team, you know, he was Carlos Hyde. The problem now is that Chip Kelly is gone. And the way that Chip Kelly ran that offense and focused on playing fast and got the running backs heavily involved, Carlos Hyde takes a hit to me with that system. Does he? Yeah. Even if it's Kyle Shanahan? Carlos Hyde's running style.

I feel like matched the style of running that Chip Kelly did better. You came into this year talking about, you know, facing nickel coverage and how good Carlos Hyde was at that. And Chip Kelly's teams usually face the most nickel coverage. Things like that are going to change. Carlos Hyde was really, really good during a couple spurts during the year. Like really good. Yeah, the first five weeks of the season was on fire. And then weeks.

11 through 14 on fire again. It was basically injuries. Yeah, he had, he had lulls in between there. So can he stay healthy? Yeah, he's proven that he can't do that yet. The health is the biggest question for me. Carlos Hyde's talents, there is zero questions for me. I think he's an excellent, excellent running back. And Kyle Shanahan, I know I'm talking about him a lot lately, but look what his running backs have done in the past. Look what they're doing right now. You remember Alfred Morris?

In Washington, that was Kyle Shanahan. And you look at Kevin Coleman, what he's doing right now. You look at Devante Freeman. So it's just, Kyle Shanahan runs a very friendly running back system. And so if, if Kay Shy moves over to San Francisco, there is zero hit to me for what Carlos Hyde did last year. Good news, guys. Brandon Marshall is not open to taking a pay cut. Oh, yeah. You didn't hear that? Well, he's cut.