Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Rookie Rundown RB & TE, News, Mailbag

Possibly. We don't even know if he's going to be reinstated, but my thought process was a top five potential guy in Josh Gordon in the third round just doesn't happen. Then round four, I took, oh man, who's my other running back? Oh, Mark Ingram and Jordan Reed, Rule 86 in the fifth round. That's where we're at. Nice. For those who are wanting to know. Just curious. And you can follow along where we're tweeting it out and things like that. Yeah, you can follow Mike at FF Hitman if you want to.

Keep track of that dynasty mock. So back to Todd Gurley. Now this is, I have to clarify this with, I don't dislike Todd Gurley at all. I'm just not as high as the other two guys simply because of the offense that he is on. You mean the Peyton Manning led offense? Yeah, possible. Just over the last eight games, he only got over 70 yards three times, which I'd like a little bit more consistency.

However, I'm with you guys. You can't really argue his final line. It was a monster year for him and even missing a couple games at the beginning of the season. So I just, I believe that there could be a cap on his ceiling until they get a capable quarterback. And that's very fair. I'm going to do this with Gurley. I'm not going to do this with every running backer. We'll be here all day.

And we'll do it eventually on this offseason. But I'd love to hear a projected line from all of us for Todd Gurley next year. And to give the listeners an understanding last year was 229 carries for 11006 yards and 10 touchdowns. And so presuming health and playing 16 games. Sure. What do you think his line will be, Jason?

I'm going to go 1,400 yards on the ground, and I'm going to stick with the 10 touchdowns. Okay. Give them double-digit touchdowns, 1,400 yards on the ground. He doesn't catch the ball a ton. He's not inept at it, so, you know, as far as through the air, I would say 25 catches for 250 yards, something like that. I'm going to go with, like, about 1,250 on the ground. All right, and touchdowns?

It'll be right around the same. Maybe a little bit of regression there. All right. I'm right around 1,300 yards, 1,500 yards. Probably agree with you, Jason, on the touchdowns. But here's what I do believe. I think he's going to more than double his reception numbers. I think Gurley's going to be an all-out weapon, third down weapon. I would put him at 50 catches next year. Wow.

50 catches and probably 450 on the ground. And so that will make him in consideration for a very high running guy. That's the number one pick. Yeah. A guy with 1,300 yards and 50 catches. And now you know why one of us is the highest on him in the studio. There you go. Speaking of touchdowns. Melvin Gordon, I'll take your 10 touchdowns and I'll raise you negative 10 touchdown. Yeah, that's where I was going. Melvin Gordon touched the ball over 200 times. It got zero.

touchdowns. Average three and a half yards of carry. He was the second running back off the board. So here's the thing. When we're talking about, is he going to be better or worse next year? Better. How do you not get better than that? But at the same time, do you think he is a talented NFL running back given what you saw from his rookie year? If I could draft Melvin Gordon as my RB2.

Next year, I would be thrilled. And I probably will be able to. Because of the age and the offense and the chance for him to ascend, I would love that as my two. The ability to have a guy come in. Look, the bar has been set low. It has been set very low. I expected to see Melvin Gordon probably not put up very different numbers in this.

but have five or six touchdowns and a couple of long touchdowns, a couple of game-breaking type of touchdowns. But this was an offense that was all over the map. This was goodbye Keenan Allen. We're in a losing streak. We've got tumult everywhere. I mean, I just think, I don't see how Gordon can be worse. Am I crazy? The only way Gordon could be worse is if they decide.

He's not who we thought he was when we drafted him, and we're not going to force ourselves. Because they really forced getting the ball to him. The pressure will be on early in the season for Melvin Gordon. So you're right there. If the pressure's on and he doesn't deliver after four or five games and they have somebody else, that would be the scary part. Yep. I'll come in here with one sunshine, right? Hold on, hold on. What? Just realizing this. If that happens again, do you know who the biggest beneficiary of the Trent Richardson, Melvin Gordon situation is?

Who's that? It's the same guy. It's Donald Brown. Donald Brown looked like a superstar behind Trent Richardson when you saw him plotting. I just think it's funny. He's behind Melvin Gordon. Sure. Anyway, go ahead. The one ray of sunshine. I will give you. Kent Wizz and Hunt is back. Ken Wizz and Hunt is back. He's a coordinator. He's back. He is a solid O coordinator. He is a bad head coach, but he is a solid O coordinator in 2013.

Ryan Matthews and only 14 games had over 1,200 yards on the ground. If you remember that Ryan Matthews was just a beast that year. So let's see what he can scheme up. If they can get some offensive line health going, getting Keenan Allen back. I expect Gordon to certainly improve upon this fantasy performance. So is that, if he was your two, though, would you be pretty worried? Going into next year? Yeah.

Or would you be okay with that? I would be okay with it because in my head that means that my wide receivers are amazing. Okay. Well, it's interesting too because this is an offseason which the Chargers have a lot of unknowns. You have Antonio Gates is a free agent. Malcolm Floyd's a free agent. Ladarius Green's a free agent. This offense could look a lot different going into next year, is all I'm saying. So they obviously need to solidify an offensive line to help Melvin Gordon.

I think that's a part of it. It's a big part of it, just health too. I mean, they were ravaged to say the least. Okay. So a lot of bounceback potential, it sounds like. Anything to add on Gordon, Jason? No, Gordon should be a good value in the draft next year because I don't think people are going to be very high on him. There's going to be other rookies coming in that they're going to value as high as they do Gordon, and his opportunity should be there for, you know, to...

be able to get his first NFL touchdown. I bet Gordon still goes in the top six rounds. Yeah, I was thinking that too. I mean, if he has the role, if they just say it's his role, he's going to climb up the board. I'll tell you what's definitely going to climb up the board. What's interesting, since we were, we kind of brought up the dynasty mock that I'm in, we are almost around six. No Gordon? Melvin Gordon is still available. Hey, I would take Melvin Gordon in round six. Yeah, I'm...

I'm considering it. All right. All right, let's talk about T.J. Yeldin. I think he's an interesting guy to discuss because he had a good rookie year over for a carry, 182 for 740, scored a couple times on the ground, scored one in the air, was really kind of the guy, right? He got thrown into it, had some injury issues, only 12 games. But I like him. I like what I see from him because he's just reliable.

Well, he's reliable other than what I think you alluded to, which was the injury concern. My big problem with T.J. Yeldon is actually the fact that I think Dynard Robinson was so bad and so disliked by that coaching staff that I expect that they're going to go out and add another running back this year and try to not, because T.J. Yeldon was the show. When he was healthy and he was in, he got the workload. Except. Except.

The one game where they gave Toby Gerhard three straight goal line carries. That was absurd. But those were like his only carries that game. I mean, the point here is I don't expect him next year to have the same percentage of workload as he had this current year, which means possible regression. Maybe that you can argue that's better for guys, keep him healthy 16 games. I would expect more of the same.

total numbers for Yelda next year. Did you mention this? I was, I'm not sure if you said this, but they already came out and said they have to get a backup running back. Well, I didn't mention that they said that, but that's what the expectation almost has to be. They said Robinson wasn't good enough. Right. And they have to get a guy in there. That being said, I still like Yeldin quite a bit next year. Let me ask you this. It's the best question that you've ever heard.

In the last five minutes. I already know what the question is. Is it T.J. Eldon or Melvin Gordon? Oh, T.J. Yeldon, for sure. Ooh. It's pretty close, but I'll go with Yelden. I'll go Yelden there. I will, too. All right, let's talk about a guy that could have been in consideration for that quick question of the day. However, the fact that he was not chosen tells me a little bit about whether Mike believes he will be the guy. And that is Amir Abdullah. Well, there's also the factor of,

How much should you double down on the Abdullah Express? I think that we got to watch what happens here with Joyke Bell, how that situation shakes out. Because coming into the last year, I really felt strongly that Joyc Bell would not be with the team moving forward into 2016. I still think that that is likely just with his age, what he would.

What his contract is at. You don't like 29-year-old guys. Oh, I don't like 29-year-old guys who've had a whole bunch of surgeries on their knees and their Achilles. That's called time off, bro. There's rest. It's resting up for next year. But Abdullah, so he finished 143 carries, almost 600 yards and two touchdowns. He was over four yards of carry. Where they really underutilized him was the pass game. I thought he would excel.

Instead, Theo Riddick, I believe, was the most targeted running back. And first or second. And looked great. Yeah, Theoretic is great in that role. So you have to imagine Theo Riddick is still locked into that role because he excelled so much. I don't know if Amir Abdullah can be the first and second down guy, and then you go to Theoretic. That seems a little strange.

But they have to figure out a way to use him. He's a second round pick. You can't just say, oh, we're moving on the next year. So they will try to get him involved. We saw the Detroit Lions offense really turn around once they made some old coordinator changes. Like multiple? I guess you can only make one, one a year. So they made the change to Jim Bob Cooter. They played a lot better. And over the final five games,

It wasn't an amazingly high volume of touches, but Abdullah did average over five yards of carry on the ground. Yeah, that's my problem with Amir Abdullah is that for him to run well, right, he got over 5.3 in those final five games. But in three of those five games, he had less than 10 carries total. Yeah, that's low volume. So it's like if in those games where it's like, hey, he's got the opportunity, he's going to get the volume. He didn't seem to be able to produce.

And so for fantasy purposes, you have to get a guy who's going to have enough volume and produce with volume. He seemed like if he had too much volume, he wasn't able to really produce. He can't fumble. He cannot fumbles for a big problem. Oh, he can. He's exceptionally good at fumbling that ball.

It's going to have a lot to say about Amir Abdullah. I mean, obviously a talented guy, but I don't know if his career is going to project out like Darren Sprouls more than he will, a prolific top tier back. Amir Abdullah's fumbled a touchdown ratio was two to one. Not good. Two fumbles to one touchdown? Yeah. Well. Better than Melvin Gordon's ratio. That is true. I believe Melvin Gordon fumbled as many times as Amir Abdullah did it. Only four?

Only? Yeah, only four. I thought Gore, he got four or five. Him in my head, Melva Gordon fumbled at least once a game, so. Yeah, neither one of them could hold on. He fumbled your heart away. He certainly fumbled your heart away. I don't know how many. I'm looking right. Five. In your face. Yeah. In whose face exactly? Chargers. All right. Tevin Coleman's the next guy that was drafted last year. Look, his season is one that you really can't.

I don't know how to properly analyze it. Let's put it that way. Because he started the year. Look, he had a 4.5 a clip. He looked explosive to me. With 20 carries in the first game. Yeah, he looked really good. However, we know the story, right? We know this story. Devonta Freeman. Yeah. Seven Coleman got injured?