Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Early RB Rankings Part 2

when John Brown was on the field, which he was in and out, you know, his injuries. He was in the slot 45% of the time. Where can Andre Ellington possibly go besides the slot? A lot of people, because we are from Arizona asking for our takes on this, is this matters, this fantasy relevant. There's no way, in my opinion, that Andre Ellington gets ahead of Larry Fitzgerald, John Brown, Geron Brown, or...

J.J. Nelson. John Brown's coming off in ACL, so we don't even know if he'll be ready. And I still put him behind him. But I'm just saying probably fourth or fifth wide receiver, which for fantasy football is irrelevant. What we know is Andre Ellington is, he has pretty solid receiver skills. So if he somehow earned his way onto the field, perhaps he can have some value. But as of right now, I'm not scrambling to.

Add him to my team. This says that the Cardinals will probably be adding another running back, whether that's bringing back Chris Johnson or drafting one. Don't be surprised and don't lower David Johnson when it happens. That's an excellent point. Yeah, there was a report the other day that Ariens wants Johnson at 30 touches a game and that he's too young to be overworked, which is just beautiful noise to the ears of fantasy owners. He averaged, I believe, 23 touches a game last year. The thoughts of him getting more touches is just unbelievable.

Packers coach Mike McCarthy said he thinks Ty Montgomery has the quote ability to be a number one running back. We've had a lot of debates in the office about Time Montgomery. A lot of them have just been based around where we rank him today right now based on what the Packers are bringing to the table, re-signing Kristen Michael, and the potential for them to draft a running back. I obviously believe that they will. Montgomery is an interesting case. Are we talking about him later today?

I don't know if he cracked the top 20. Ty Montgomery did not crack our top 20. Okay. So maybe it's worth talking about him briefly right now. He was one of, he cracks one of our top 20s. Mike, you have him at wide receiver, wide receiver, at running back 16. I do. And I took a look. So Ty Montgomery last year, once he took over as the full-time running back, he essentially averaged 70 total yards a game, which, wow, that's not spectacular by any means. I mean, it's,

low end running back two numbers and then i just projected you know of of him i see a a way that he does get better we saw the ability of him to have monster games when he just destroyed the chicago bears i mean he went full ham so we know that's there we know the ability is there obviously the ability as a pass catcher is there when he had the back-to-back 10 reception games i just i was a wide receiver right i think that if they move forward with

Montgomery and Kristen Michael as the main guys. I think that Montgomery is easily a running back too. Do you guys see the report of Adrian Peterson working out with James Winston? Yes. Yes. I saw that. And I think that that, I mean, I've said from the beginning, one of the best landing spots, if not the best landing spot for Adrian Peterson would be Tampa Bay. They run the highest percentage out of their rushing plays last year were under center.

And that's how. On the center. That's how AP wants to run. I mean, we saw Doug Martin two years ago with this team and with this offensive line be second in the league in yards. So I think it's a good situation for. Yeah, as you say, where would you like initially think he'd be ranked? If Doug Martin doesn't come back, they signed Adrian Peterson. Is he a top 24 guy? Yeah, he would be in the top 24 for me. That makes sense. Where was Doug Martin when this workout was happening?

Uh, nobody knows. Okay. Not with James Winston. Hold back all of your hamster wheel jokes. All right. We're jumping into the rankings. Hey, before we. Oh. Running bags. Well, I was going to say before we got you off. I just want to remind the footland. Hey, the ultimate draft kit is available for pre-order. That's where you're supposed to say speaking of rankings. Oh, yes.

It's like you're a professional. I know. So speaking of rankings, the ultimate draft kit. This is, uh, it's in, we're in preorder right now. This is the absolute cheapest you can get it. I mean, this thing is jam packed jam packed with all kinds of information. Our rankings are tier rankings, video profiles, uh, exclusive.

Matt Harmon reception on the top 50 wide receivers. I mean, there is an unbelievable amount of material in this draft kit. And right now, like I said, this is the cheapest you can possibly get it. So if you want to save a couple bucks, you know you're going to get it. Let's go ahead and pre-order it. Where do you get it, Mike? Ultimate draft kit.com. That's where you get it. All right. Number 11 on our early running back rankings. Again, a reminder, go back. Listen to Tuesday's show if you want to hear our top 10. These are our consensus early rankings.

We went through the top 10 on Tuesday. We were jumping in right now into the second half of that. And number 11, our consensus number 11 running back, the sometimes enigmatic, the difficult to have full confidence in at times, and yet very impressive. Jay Ajai, running back for the Miami Dolphins. Last year, finished the year as number 11 overall in 15 games played. Had...

Some explosive Monster Week winner type of games. He is both your, Andy, and my running back 10. So he would have cracked our top 10. Mike, you have him just outside at 15. And I think we're overall as a show, the three of us, are lower on JJ than the... His average draft position has been very high. Right? Is it... Yeah, 202. Yeah, I mean, foof.

That is tough, like Andy was talking about. Enigmatic. I mean, this guy is a mystery. You have those explosive games, three games over 200 yards, which, I mean, you can't completely write that off. Two of those were against Buffalo. Well, you know, 410 rushing yards against Buffalo. Lucky for him, he gets to play Buffalo twice a year coming up. But aside from those, 60 rushing yards a game.

in those games where he didn't just fully go off. We saw he had one of his bigger games against the Jets over 100 yards. The second time, though, they completely shut him down. So I'm just not sure what to make of Jai. You know, it's football. And in football, you're going to have good games. You're going to have bad games. The best player out there, you know, if you're Antonio Brown, you're going to have some bad games. You're going to get shut down a little bit every now and then. And so for Jajai...

If they go into the season and through draft and through free agency, they have made clear that he is their guy. And heading into, you know, the draft, the fantasy draft weekend after that third preseason game, he's set up. I will probably move him ahead of number 10. Because when you look at how efficient he was in yards after contact and in every...

statistical measure of the quality of his performance, it was pretty good. And I think the Miami Dolphins' offense as a whole, second year with Adam Gase.

continuity at the entire offensive level, the offensive line getting a little bit better. Ryan Tannahill back in year two. Julius Thomas, am I right? Julius Thomas being added. I think their offense takes a slight step forward, which means if J. Ajai is that guy and he's the starting running back, he's one of the very few kind of workhorse backs. The only issue I have with him is he is.

not very efficient in the passing game. He's not. At least he was not. I mean, he had that in college. In college, he was. But he didn't show it at the NFL level. And I don't, like when I statted him out, I thought, man, I see him having a monster year. But when you factor in the receiving numbers and the receiving yards or lack thereof, he fell to my number 10.

One thing I'd add is that, you know, this team as a whole was finding his footing last year. I think it started the year four out of five games they lost and then they went on that big run where they only lost one out of their last, I think, I think out of their next like eight or nine games. And so they were in and of themselves enigmatic, not scoring a lot of points in the beginning of the year, figuring out what they were doing. I see, I feel pretty comfortable with Jaya Jai. Like I'm not worried about him being a monster bust candidate.

personally. But it's the draft price. That's where these are going to be sticking. He won't be on a lot of my teams because of that. But if the opportunity to acquire him at the right price is there, I feel pretty good about him. And obviously any player that can give you, you know, if you want to know why the shine is on a young player versus that kind of tried and true guy that you can draft later.

It's because of those games. It's because of the back-to-back weeks where J.J.I. can basically win you a week on his own. So let's move on to number 12 here. Another guy that I just, you know, you know my story with C. James. Yep. And, you know, I'm going to just say it's happened. Everything that I thought would happen with C.J. Anderson has happened, which is he's a talented player. He's our number 12 consensus.

But there are issues there, guys. There are issues there. He was number 11 in 2014. Since then, number 30, and then last year only played seven games. Yeah, it's a matter if he can't stay on the field, which at this point, yes, you fully have to take that into account. We haven't met as our consensus number 12, but his risk rating, which our risk ratings will be available in the ultimate draft. That's going to be high for CJ Anderson. But you cannot deny the fact that he is.

a good running back and he makes the team better. When he was on the field for his full seven games, Denver as a whole averaged 112 rushing yards a game. Without him, 78. I mean, that's a huge drop off. So he brings a lot. He scored in four of seven games and what is fantastic for the Broncos and for C.J. Anderson, they have upgraded their line. Menelick Watson from Oakland.

They went out and they said, who's got a good offensive line? Oakland and Dallas, good. We'll take one of your players. One of each, please. And they got Ron O'Leary, the guard from Dallas, which is one of the bigger free agent signings of this off season. So it's the opportunity should be there with the health is sketchy, but if he's on the field, he's going to give you fantasy production.

Jason, what are your thoughts on C.J.? I know you made a trade for him in Dynasty. I think you see the opportunity there. I think you saw the fact that he clearly was the better runner than Booker. When he went out, that team did not. I mean, I thought Booker might have been one of the best pickups that anybody could have had for the seven half of the year. I think I was looking at him like, hey, maybe he's a top three guy rest of the season. Didn't pan out. No, and I did go after C.J. Anderson because...

Really, not because I'm madly in love with C.J. Anderson, but because once you get past these top 15 running backs or so, you're falling off a cliff. I mean, you're just out there with hopeful guys like a Dionne Lewis where you're going, maybe he'll get the ball. With C.J. Anderson, the upside is tremendous. The risk. It's stalwart level. Just like Mike said.

That's why we have a risk rating in our draft kit, because he might be our number 12 or number 11 ranked consensus running back. But when I'm in the draft, I'm looking at that risk rating going, yeah, he's in the same tier as someone else, but he's risky. I probably won't draft him. But if he falls to a good spot, I know his upside is there. The only concern I have with him right now is just what they're going to do in the draft.

There's been rumors, you know, they like Christian McCaffrey. Maybe they'll bring in another running back. Maybe they don't trust his health. But if he is out there, he's going to produce. He's involved in the passing game, the running game, the red zone game. He's a really solid running back. You remember that game last year where I had C.J. Anderson and.

He had about, oh, everything was called back. All of his big plays were called back. And I lost by like a point. He was so good in that game. But at the end of the game, his fantasy production was terrible. Yeah. It was that was one of those like if you don't watch the game. He had that open field like triple cut. And the hold was away from the play. It makes all these moves gets into the end zone. And it was like, I don't know, three or four, five of them called back by holding. So I petition the league to remove holding.