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

Question mark city. Okay, so the reason being you had major injury this year, Justin Forset and Lorenzo. Taliaferro. I should have let you go. Lorenzo, yes. Yeah, Lorenzo is good. I like him. Justin Forset, we saw he can be very solid. So there is, there is the potential for just a fantasy train wreck at the running back position in Baltimore, never really knowing who it's going to be.

They haven't made any kind of announcement of who will be starting. Fawcett didn't have a kind of a debilitating injury. He broke his arm, so that, once that heals, he's good to go. It's not like he... Pretty debilitating. Well, for the season. He didn't tear his knee up. It's not a degenerative situation. You just get better and you get back on the field. Absolutely. But you're still a year older. Yeah, he is a year older. And he, Foresat started slow, but he started to really pick up his play before...

Aaron Donald destroyed his life. If you want to make being a fantasy analyst very, very difficult, here's what you do. I've got the recipe. You are Baltimore. And you get your quarterback injured and your number one wide receiver injured and your rookie wide receiver injured and you're starting running back injured. And you're starting running back injured. And you, you know, they're a big, a big bounce back candidate for me next year just as a team.

But that makes projecting right now those guys very difficult. I don't think DeVorese Allen is a, I think he's an NFL player and an NFL running back. I do think that. I think if he was in a different situation, maybe I'd like him a little bit better. His value really came from past catching. Passing game, yep. Mark Trussman back again next year, second season in that offense. Right, but those, the dump-offs when Javorese, I'm trying to recall.

I know he had the Dolphin game where he had 12 catches, whatever it was, but that was not Joe Flacco, right? That was Shob. Yes, you are correct. So when Buck Allen was getting all those dump-off passes, that wasn't Flacco doing it, and Flacco was going to be back. Yeah, to me, give me four set or give me death. Okay, all right. That's the only one I want to want to. Speaking of death, let's move on to David Cobb.

David Cobb was 2.8 to carry in his debut season, couldn't get on the field, didn't make a contribution. Is David Cobb a bust, or is he not? Too early to tell if he's a bust, he barely was used. He only had 50 carries. He was on IR designated to return, so he missed most of the season. But, you know, I'm not looking for... He certainly didn't make a mark when he returned. I'm not looking for the starting running back for the Tennessee Titans. Really? With Marriota back there?

Well, unless Marriota is the starting running back, then no. Well, I was going to say, are you not looking because you are the starting running back? Did you get that job? I'm simply saying, I don't think that that offense is going to be one that does very well. I don't think it's going to be a high-powered offense. And whoever the starting running back is there,

which is going to be a question mark, is going to change. I think through the season with Malarkey there, you're going to have, you know, okay, we're going to give it this guy this week, this guy that week. I don't want any part of it. So to me, David Cobb had a bust year as a rookie and is going to... This is like 28th scoring offense. They were not a good scoring offense. Yeah. And David Cobb, he really only had one game where they fully committed to him. It was the final week of the season.

19 carries, 73 yards and a touchdown. It's 3.8 carry. It's not terrible. So they hand him the job. Where does he go? How does he finish? If they give him that job. If they give him the job and he's a starting running back, he's going to, he should be a, he should be a two at the least. We were talking about Matt Jones. Right. Would you like him more or less than Matt Jones if he, if those guys were both handed the job? Ooh, that's, that's interesting. I would go.

I'd probably go with Matt Jones there in that situation. And I would say give me a four set or give me death. All right. Let's talk about three more guys. Jay Ajai, Thomas Rawls, and Carlos Williams. Very interesting because you talk about, I guess we'll get to him. We'll get to Carlos. He has a nose for the end zone as well. But Jay Ajai is somebody who Jason brought up on the show the other day. So why don't you talk a little bit about him?

Sure. The expectation right now is that Lamar Miller isn't going to be able to be resigned. They have money that they need to spend at other positions to give Lamar Miller a good contract when he is essentially the number one running back free agent for other teams to go and try to acquire. He probably isn't back. It wouldn't shock me if he's back. But in a world where he leaves, Jay Ajai, in a world without Lamar Miller, Jay Ajai showed.

last year that he was capable of playing in the NFL. There were questions from where he, I mean, he has one of the best college careers of anyone ever. I, I forget how many touchdowns he scored. I don't remember. I just remember thinking it was, 40,000. It was straight Super Tecmo Bowl numbers. And. First round. Yes. So. It was 28 on the ground. And four in the air. Yes, 28 touchdowns on the ground.

That's pretty good. Pretty good. And so for me, what I saw, I watched a lot of the Dolphins games last year with a focus on the running back position. And if he's gone, J. Ajai is going to be fully capable in the passing game, in the running game, to be a productive running back. And I definitely would project him much higher next year than what he showed this year. The question marks are the offense.

I mean, it's, Lamar Miller was great when they would actually give him the ball. It's a completely new coaching unit. So for Lamar Miller to stay in Miami, I think they're going to have to overpay him, which I don't believe that they will do that. If you're Lamar Miller, I mean, I know that it's a new coaching staff and everything, but you really want to go back after years and years of just feeling like your soul is being sucked away because they won't give you an opportunity. I'd go elsewhere. You should just retire.

Yeah. Go Calvin. She just retired. It's been a good run. See ya. I know I'm in line for a big contract, but... Yeah. Calvin will donate that money. He'll come back for a year and donate that money. All right, so... That's so generous. Thomas Rawls, he's in the discussion with Gurley and with David Johnson. He had an incredible year, 147 for 8.30 and 5.6 per carry. And he could catch the ball a little bit. However...

He got injured again, same type of situation as maybe Fawcett where it was a fracture. Hopefully he can recover and be fine. If he's fine and he's got the job and there's no Marshawn Lynch, Thomas Rawls is going to end the year with how many yards? How many yards? Over 1,000. Is he the guy? If he is given the job, and we've been talking about this in the office where...

It sure seems like he is, but Pete Carroll, Peach Cobbler up there in Seattle loves competition, so they're going to bring somebody in. I imagine that Chris and Michael will be back, but Rawls already beat him out so you think he can do it again. Because up in Seattle, you win the competition, you play. But if Rawls is the guy, and especially they're going to, I think this helps him even more. If they let Russell Wilson open it up like we've been talking about and just,

improve the power, the scoring of the offense in Seattle. That only helps things for me for Thomas Rawls, up his touchdown potential. And we saw just monster, monster games from Thomas Rawls this year when he would fill in for Lynch in spot starts. And that's another thing. Marshal Lynch stunk. He had a bad year. And Thomas Rawls was playing on the same team dominating.

So the fresh legs, the youth of Thomas Rawls, I think leads him to be, he'll be a strong first round pick. I don't know if I would take him in the first round, but he'll go in the second round at the latest. What I liked was that you saw Rawls have that kind of success in the new offense.

In the new passing-oriented, more efficient, a little bit different offense. You remember when Marshall Lynch came back, they had to go and tell him, Tom Cable, had to come and say, look, this is not the team you left. This is not the same team that you were on when you got hurt. And it's nice to see Rawls is obviously young. He runs with an edge. Everything you saw with your eyes said, this guy is prolific potential. And like David Johnson, on an offense that can score a lot of points.

Yeah, the difference to me is simply that you've got, when we're talking about David Johnson, Todd Gurley, and Thomas Rawls, you have three great fantasy options for sophomore years this next year. But David Johnson and Todd Gurley are physical specimens that the 5-9, Todd Rawls, isn't. You know, he went undrafted. There were character issues, which, of course, you don't like, but you like that that's part of the reason.

He went undrafted as opposed to just... He wasn't talented. He is talented, but he wasn't expected to be as talented as the other two guys, even aside from the character issue. So I'm going to lean towards that with David Johnson and Todd Gurley over the Thomas Rolls. All right, and we... The Thomas. The Thomas. Now, we accidentally skipped him a fifth round pick, Carlos Williams. We didn't really skip him because we're talking about him right now. So he had...

How many touchdowns? Seven touchdowns on the ground was somebody who was explosive. Now, he only had 93 attempts, right? So he wasn't qualified for that stat we gave earlier, which was like over five or five with 100 attempts. He had 93 attempts. He was 5.6, the same as Thomas Rawls. He's dynamic. I like him more than having Kevin Coleman as a backup by any. Oh, it was just going to say. So.

What is his ceiling, though? Is his ceiling is just attached to LaShawn McCoy's knees? 100%. Because if LaShawn McCoy is in, he is the guy there. And we saw Carlos Williams have success even when LaShawn McCoy was there, but not bankable success, not startable success from a fantasy roster. You couldn't put him in and hope for that touchdown, even though he kept doing it. And you're not going to be able to do it next year. However, he is probably the same. I would go Ryan Matthews, Carlos Williams, Tavin Coleman, as far as.

the three most valuable handcuffs to own next year. And if I have LaShawn McCoy, I'm spending high on Carlos Williams. If you were to project out his touchdowns per touch, and given the same amount of touches as Devante Freeman, Carlos Williams would have scored 29 touchdowns. So just to show his efficiency...

and his big playability, I thought that would be funny to look at. So I'm not projecting 29 touchdowns if McCoy goes down with an off-season injury. But he's what you love as a franchise who drafts the guy in the fifth round, and you can say, boy, if my starter went down, we wouldn't skip a beat really. I mean, you lose a little bit of what you can do with LaShaul McCoy that you can't do with Carlos Williams, but you've got a runner who looks like, I mean, 22 years old.

and a lot of burst. So I like Carlos Williams, but he's in that above Tavin Coleman handcuff, should be drafted, probably. Yes. And somebody who was really good this year, a really, really good player. So we're done with the rookie rundown with those positions. We're going to go ahead and get into the mailbag. We're going to go ahead and extend the episode into the mailbag. Mailbag. All right, let's move from back to back episodes. It's just frozen. Oh, is it? Yeah.

Just got to let it go, Mike. Let's read the best mailbag of all time here. All right. If you have a question, you can submit one on the website, the fantasy footballers.com, or you can call our voicemail number 302-464 TFFB. Jason calls us the best because someone named Liz comes to his defense. Well, your Queen Elsa joke was not lost on me. All right, thank you. Dear Jason, I feel like you've been getting an inordinate amount of crap from Andy about your adventurous grammar.

That's the best. You should register that domain immediately. In the last few episodes, next time, feel free to point out that he's been pronouncing vehemently wrong for at least the entire 2015 season. Thank you in advance because it kills me every time. Thank you, Liz. You make me feel small.

Liz, you are bright and intelligent and beautiful. And thank you, Liz, coming to my defense. Anyone else that wants to come to my defense, please visit the website and submitress.com. Go to adventurous grammar.com. Slash repertoir. Where everyone plays good. But I did confirm I was pronouncing that word very, very wrong. I was leaving an in-out of the word.