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

Devontha Freeman came in and showed he can be that guy for that team and they never went away from him. And he's more versatile than Coleman. Well, that's what I was going to bring up. That's what I was going to bring up. Tevin Coleman was virtually unused in the passing game on the year. And Devanta Freeman is an exceptional tool in the passing game. So go to next year and a lot of people might say, well, it was because of the injury to Tevin Coleman. They want to get him more involved. And I think they're going to maybe be too high on Tevin Coleman.

and think that Freeman's going to come down. To me, I don't think they can get rid of Freeman in that role because of his past catching ability. Is Kevin Coleman destined to be the very favorite handcuff in fantasy football? Right. Going into next year. Because is there somebody you'd rather own behind somebody? Ryan Matthews. You'd rather have Ryan Matthews than Kevin Coleman? Yes. Yes. 100%. Yeah, I can agree with that. All right. Fair enough.

There you go. But at Kevin Coleman, my one kind of argument for Kevin Coleman, Freeman touched the ball 337 times. I know he's a thick dude, but he's only 5'8, so he just, is he really built to touch the ball 330 times every single year, and you don't expect him to break down? They have to get Coleman involved. Freeman will likely be more valuable.

Because of the pass, he can be in on third downs. He can be in on all passing plays. But Coleman, 87 carries over under. I'm going to take the over. Oh, for sure. All right. So the next two guys, Johnson and Johnson. Yeah. You got Duke and David. Now, Duke Johnson, when I read this, I started thinking to myself, is this theoretic? Right. What do you guys think about Duke Johnson? He's not going to be between the tackles load carrier.

in his career, but he's a weapon, no doubt. I mean, he had 61 catches. I'm not positive, but that, I believe, led all rookie running backs. I have to imagine. Yeah, rookie running back. He had 74 targets. That's sixth most for the running back position. Total. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I think that's a great comparison is theoretic if Cleveland chooses to use him in that situation. He's okay carrying the ball. He did have over 100 carries.

But for under 400 yards, 3.6 a carry. It was pretty rough for Duke. And one of the biggest knocks on him coming out of college was his inability to stay healthy throughout. Maybe he doesn't miss a game, but he just seems to get nicked up a lot. But if they want to focus him into that past catching role, if you recall the, I don't remember who the quarterback was at the time, but he ran a wheel out.

The last side of the field and caught a touchdown. It was McCown. It was McCown? And it was an amazing catch, a wide receiver level of catch. I've seen him make several of those catches. So if they want to use him in that role, which they, I mean, six most targets for running back, that's pretty nice stuff. Could you see him putting up 80 receptions next year?

80 might be a little bit high, but... That's what Riddick did, just so you know. Right, okay. I was just curious as a benchmark, do you think Duke Johnson can... Is 80 the most in the league? Last year, yes. He had 80 on 99 targets. Duke had 61 on 74 targets. And so he would need to take a little bit of a leap. Part of that's just going to be an offense that's more proficient with an offensive line that's better, but I... And really depends on the... That's a stretch probably. Depends on the quarterback. It felt like...

Mansell when he was in, didn't really use Duke Johnson in that role. But it seems like it'll be McCown's team moving forward unless they spend their high pick on a quarterback and they put him in immediately. So I love Duke Johnson and PPR leagues. Yeah, if you're in a PPR league, he is going to be great. And one of the weird things, we knew he was a pass catching back coming out of college. But you remember, in week three, when we were going into week three, Duke Johnson had zero receptions.

And maybe even zero targets. They weren't using him in that role at all in weeks one and two, zero catches. And then all of a sudden they're like, wait a minute.

We forgot. We got Duke Johnson. We can use him. That's his rookie, man. In the passing game. Right. So I do think that he takes a step up and has a better year next year than this year. But you can't get too hot and heavy because he wasn't that good carrying the ball as a running back. So in a PPR league, you can have enough value, I think, there. In a standard league, I'm probably going to avoid him.

Okay, so Mike, why don't you make sure we know who the next guy? David Johnson. All right, it had been too long. Yeah. David Johnson? You want to talk about a pass catching back who can run behind the line. That is David Johnson. His pace after he took over as the starting running back would have been a 72 catch pace better than the aforementioned Duke Johnson. Just looking at that, I mean, he was just behind Gurley on Yards for Kerry.

We're talking about David Johnson here because we ordered this by where they were drafted. But Gurley and Johnson and Rawls are the three rookie running backs that would be projected as a higher tier than everybody else. David Johnson had eight touchdowns on the ground. He had another four through the air. So you look at, you know, my projection of Gurley becoming more of the passing down back or having more volume in that area. You've already got that proven with David Johnson. So in half point and full point,

I know, Mike, I think you're on the camp where you'd rather have David Johnson going into next year than you would talk girly. In half point and full point PPR, yeah, I would. And now, of course, is that assuming that Chris Johnson is not bad? Of course. Right. But it's assuming David Johnson's the main carrier. And that's probably a hot take. So I apologize for torching the studio down with my David Johnson. But like Jason said, four and a half catches a game.

A game for a 72 catch pace over the 16 games would just be ridiculous. And they're high-powered. It's the opposite of the Rams. You have a very high-powered Arizona offense. Yeah, and here's the difference. When you look at a running back and you say, okay, well, how is his offense? The reason that matters is essentially touchdowns. Do they have a nose for the end zone? And David Johnson...

He had eight touchdowns on the ground. He had four through the air, and he wasn't the starter for the majority of the year. The guy knows how to score, and he's on a high-scoring team. It's what you look for for those guys that can single-handedly win you weeks and win you leagues. David Johnson, if he is the main guy next year, should be in strong consideration for that number one pick. He's somebody who we saw, for those that aren't.

you know, Arizona locals like we are. I think the ship is sold. Is that sailed? Sailed. Not sold. We sold. For those that aren't Arizona locals, we don't have an ocean, so we sold our ships. We get rid of all ships. The ship has sailed on Andre Ellington as being anything more than kind of a, I guess, I don't know, a Riddick type. You're going to line a guy up in the slot, do some fun things with him. Unless he was more injured than let on, I think it's kind of done.

for Ellington to take away a significant amount of carries from whoever the leadbacks, plural, or leadback is. So I don't think Ellington is somebody to be concerned with. I don't think Ellington's the handcuff necessarily for David Johnson, but just throwing that out there. Also, one name that I don't see on this list, Jason, is Carlos Williams. Oh, yeah. Carlos Williams. So maybe plug him in there. Maybe plug him in there. Let's talk about Matt Jones. Matt Jones is somebody who may have...

More opportunity than the talent that we like, but that's big, right? Like, he's not talented. I'm not saying that. He showed us some good things this year. He showed us some big plays out of the backfield in the passing game, but he also showed us at 3.4 yards per carry between the tackles when he was given the opportunity repeatedly to take the job from Alfred Morris. They were begging him. They actually went to him and begged him to take the job from Alfred Morris, and he said,

I will fumble that trust away a little bit. Yeah, and I saw it in the locker room. There was actually back, there was footage, behind the scenes footage. And they came in to Washington, and they gave Matt Jones a little yellow ticket. He said, It's your job. He said, no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm going to give this to Alf, because I don't really want to be the lead back. However, he should be the lead back moving into next year.

But there's reports Washington's Rich Tandler said there's no lock that he'll be the workhorse running back, kind of like where it's, that's the overall thought is that Matt Jones will be the man. He had eight games of double-digit carries last year. Twice was he over for a carry.

And Chris Thompson's not going anywhere. I think he's going to be the guy that they use as the real past catching back in those situations. I've got a perfect comparison for those guys. All right. And that's what you brought up Chris Thompson. That was what I was going to do. If you wanted me to project, because what we did on the last show is we tried to say, okay, where these guys are going to land kind of compared to where guys finished last year. So my example of him might be a slightly better than Isaiah Crowell type of guy.

which I know sounds crazy, but Isaiah Crowell actually had an okay year. Yeah, he had an okay year. And you've got Chris Thompson in that Duke Johnson role. You've also got James and Crowder that's going to take some of the short passing game away. I don't think there's going to be a lot to go to Matt Jones if he's that between the tackles type of guy. And so outside the top 24, even if he's given the starting job, in my opinion. So do you think he's a solid three or low end three?

I would say any running back in fantasy football who's starting for their team is a solid three, right? I mean, he should be. And I don't think that there were a lot of them, you know, even C.J. Anderson and all of his trials ended up in that three range. So I think a three is very safe for Matt Jones. With a little bit of upside because you've got a guy who's young who's coming into another season here and the team was improving. Yeah, the offense definitely improved over the...

the second half of the year when cousins set phasers to kill. Yeah. And now he's going to set his phasers to... He's going to set his bank account to full. To full. There you go. Thank you for that. All right. Jeremy Langford, guys, is he being talked about enough? Will he be talked about enough? I think he will. He's going to be over talked about it. Yes, he will. He's going to be talked about like he is coming in and going to be the heir apparent to forte and you can now get the new forte.

Because when Forte was gone, Langford showed great. He had a stretch where he was... He was humongous. Ten feet tall. He was a super high scoring fantasy option for a couple weeks, was at or near the top of the running back list. But the problem is that happened due to injury of the guy ahead of him, so he had everything. They're not just going to hand the reins over to Langford. I believe they're going to bring in another back and have...

I don't think Langford is going to take over the show entirely. So he would not get your vehement endorsement? No. Careful. Careful with that word. All right. So I disagree. I think Langford will be the main guy. I'd love to know then where YouTube both have him. I'll have Langford. If he's starting, like where would you have him in your top rank? Probably in the 15 range, RB 15, at least.

Yeah, I guess we're not that far apart then, because I see him as an RB2. What I'm saying is, you know, there's the David Johnson's, the Thomas Rawls where you're saying, where you're saying if the guy, you know, if Marshaun Lynch isn't there, if Chris Johnson isn't there, if Forte isn't there, and those guys leave, all of a sudden we're talking about he could be the best back in the league. That is not Langford at all to me. Yeah, and I...

don't have a different projection for him than you guys do. I do like having the running back that Cutler dumps the ball to. And so in PPR leagues, I would really not mind that. The concern for me, I'll say it's a slight concern, but it was weird. Cadeem Kerry, at the end of the year, all of a sudden, John Fox says, we're going to get you involved, especially on the goal line, Cadeem Cary.

You deserve those end zone touchdowns. In zone touchdowns, our favorite. If I wanted to quote a fantastic sports journalist, end zone touchdowns. That would be me. That would be me. I want all my touchdowns in the end zone. I don't want them on the five. I don't want them on the 10. I want them inside the goal line. But I like Langford. I think he'll be solid. All right. Let's talk about a couple of the guys. Let's talk about Javori sound. Let's talk about David Kopp. Javorious, man.