The TRUTH About Fantasy RBs in 2018, Part 2

an average NFL running back. You're not watching and play this year. I literally went. With fresh eyes, you were not. No, because I was called out on that, I went back every single touch through the playoffs. I did this.

After watching the games live and went back and watched, he had one great cut on a touchdown run. Everything else was just, look, if you put anyone else in that system, they're going to have great success. And I think they'll be able to replace Damien Williams with a better player. But the point is this, whoever the Kansas City running back is for Andy Reed, he is a great fantasy asset. When I besmirched Damien Williams as a player, I still was the one of the three of us that was the highest on him.

coming in, you know, and I was saying you've got to play him. He's a top 12 running back. It's because of the role. And that's why, you know, the whole argument of running backs don't matter is kind of, it's real. Look, the NFL towards playoff time has been trying their best to prove that narrative. Because CJ Anderson and Damian Williams, they're winning games. It'll be very interesting to see what happens this offseason with them.

I'll see you in June. When Mark Ingram leaves New Orleans, which he is undoubtedly going to do, maybe he lands in Kansas City and destroys Mike's soul. If Mark Ingram landed in Kansas City, Mark Ingram would be very valuable for fantasy football. He sure would. Look, you know, there are players. Here's the thing. Fantasy, here's an overarching point that I want to make about fantasy football because I think is relevant.

And we saw this with the way Tyreek Hill, when we talked through the wide receiver truth episode, and we talked about Tyreek Hill being, he was one thing at a point in his career, and then he became something else. This is a fluid, like players improve. Sometimes we look at players, we see them play, and then it's a static thing in our mind, right? It's like, this is what he is. Right. This is who he is. I thought, you know, I thought Marlon Mac, Jason, was something specific.

In my mind, last year based on what I saw, low yard per carry, wasn't impressed. Totally different thing that you saw it before I did. But this year, I was quick to admit, most explosive running back on that team, most consistent, best player. Players do work at getting better. Players do work at becoming better. I wish they would just be what they are. Yeah, so we could print the stats out. Yeah, that would be much easier. But the thing is, you know, Damien Williams, you listen to the team talk about him, and we'll see what happens.

He earned what he got as an opportunity this year, and he earned the money he got. Regardless of what that means going forward, Andy Reid speaks very highly of him in practice. We'll see what that means the next year. If I'm them, if I'm actually in his shoes, I try to find somebody else. I don't think I can lean on just Damien Williams. That's for sure. Philip Lindsay comes in at number 12 on our running back rankings number 16 by consistency rank. Nobody knew this man's name before the season began outside of Denver Faithful.

And we brought it up a couple times on the show because of the Denver faithful touting him. Yeah. The attention was on Royce Freeman. And here comes Philip Lindsay, who not only goes down there and puts up a top 12 fantasy season despite missing two weeks, but gives you 60% good games, 13% great. You know, as a rookie established himself through the first half of the season, and all of a sudden was this consistent weapon who, week 11, 25 fantasy points, week 12, 17, week 13.

28 was getting into the end zone. Nine touchdowns, guys, on the ground. Over 1,000 yards as a rookie. The tale of Philip Lindsay for me is, one, how incredible the emergence of him, because the attention in the process towards Royce Freeman, yeah, I took the L for loving Royce Freeman, but the process of Denver running back, I think it kind of played out. And you bet against Philip Lindsay because...

Undrafted free agents don't do what he did. He's an absolute complete outlier. But towards the end of the season, things really, they trailed off big time in the past two weeks, or in weeks 15 and 16. Do you think at all it was, this was this just a matter of circumstance, ran into tough matchups? Or did Philip Lindsay actually wear down? Because he is not.

prototypically sized for a running back. He's a smaller back. That's why, you know, smaller back from a smaller school, which is why he wasn't invited to the combine. Right. He did slow down a little bit. I mean, those last three games, you know, two yards of carry, one point seven yards. It wasn't good. But a lot of times, you know, people around NFL circles, they always bring up the rookie wall that it's a real thing. And I'm not worried about him.

not being able to handle the load. You look at guys like Darren Sproles, who are small, and you watch him, and, you know, whenever it comes time to, like, get that tackle, he squirts under for another extra yard or two and avoid some damage. Look, the coaching staff is changing, right? Vic Van Joe is coming in. And, you know, usually... It's the problem for him? It's in my mind, I look at the opposite. This is a team that's going to win on with Bradley Chub and Vaughn Miller. This is a defensive-oriented team. Right, but they're going to run the football.

with a couple of guys. No, no, no. And Mike Munchak is there. One of the best offensive line coaches in the entire game. I'm saying the problem is, let's see where his ADP ends up. Because I imagine it's going to be relatively high. But the new coaching staff has no loyalty to Philip Lindsay, who was great. But they may want a prototypical guy like Royce Freeman. They may want Royce Freeman. They may want an even higher.

A time share, that's my only thing is Philip Lindsay is going to have. So the variable of a changing coaching staff. Exactly. And I was going to bring exactly that narrative up and say that I don't think that's going to happen. Okay. Because Philip Lindsay already dealt with this. He wasn't the highly drafted guy on that previous coaching staff. But what happened was he was the best running back. By a mile. He was great. He was great training camp came out. 5.4 yards per carry. Came out week one.

and had 15 carries. This was something that all the people that did not invest heavily in Philip Lindsay, they saw what then we got to see through the season. He is a great running back. His pro day was like 433 speed. He's, he is really good. And I think with this defensive-minded coach, the consistency that you saw from Philip Lindsay this year, the truth, the truth on Philip Lindsay is he's good. He's really good. And I'm, and I will put stock in him next year. Now he did suffer.

a wrist injury at the end of the season that's going to require three to four months to recover from ligament damage. You know, this is an injury that could lead all the way into training camp and beyond. So that's something to monitor as well. And obviously, whenever you don't have a heavy financial commitment, no matter how good you performed the year before, we talked about this with Alex Collins. Alex Collins last year, there's variables there. But we're in that variable tier. And at least he showed us explosive things on the field.

Tariq Cohen comes in at number 13. Wow. Tariq Cohen. Consistency rank of 20. Yeah, he was not. You kind of felt it. 71 reception, 725 yards through the air, five touchdowns, 91 targets, only 99 carries on the ground. He is a past catching weapon. Yeah. 31% of the time he busted for you. 63% of the time good games, 13% great. You benefited from a head coach who knew how to use weapons better than the previous head coach.

But this is kind of, you know, we talked about James White, who came in at number eight on the Tuesday show. Tariq Cohen, there are going to be games in which a player that is this heavily dependent on pass catching is simply not factored in, right? I mean, that's the problem. Yeah, and, you know, what this, the purpose of this episode is to look at the truth of where they finished and do they deserve that kind of credit? And I would say overwhelmingly no for Tariq Cohen.

Could he be awesome and finish there again next year? Absolutely. But his consistency, busting over 30% of the games, part of that was game script. There were certain games that Matt Nagy just said that this isn't what you thought it was going to be. We saw something on that defense is kind of what Matt Nagy said before the season would happen, that he's going to use Howard, he's going to use Cohen, how the opponent, you know, how he sees fit for the matchup. And I think that that,

that gives me pause to rely on Tariq Cohen as my running back too, which is probably where you'll need to draft him as a two. Maybe you could get him as a three, but I don't want him as my two because if you rely on him on a week-in, week-out basis, he'll win you a couple games, he'll lose you a couple games. I want consistency outside of my number one, out of my number one running back. I am actually very interested in Cohen, and I get the bust of 31%. Personally, I'm throwing those first two weeks.

into the garbage because that's when Jordan Howard was getting the five receptions a game. They were testing the watchers. It did not take very long for the team to say, yeah, this is not how we're going to run our offense. And then you saw the hockey stick curve of fantasy dominance for Tariq Cohen Weeks 4 through 13. He was the running back 12. He was averaging over 16 points a game. Yes, you're going to have.

you're going to have week nine show up or like in the playoffs where there was the game where Tari Kohn got four total touches. I mean, some things that just are going to make you rip your hair out. But I think overall Tari Kohn is going to be safe to be a top. I'm not going to save, not safe for top 15, but I think he's a safe top 20 running back. Let me ask you this, because let's put some of these guys on the table. If you're looking right now, right here, reserve the right to be, to change your mind. But.

James White, Philip, Lindsay, and Tariq Cohen. Three interesting names, right? Right. Lindsay, not a long track record. Cohen and White, both very past-catching dependent. How would you rank them, just those three going into next year? Lindsay would be my first by a mile, assuming health towards, you know, the beginning of the season. Then I think I would go Cohen over White, just based on what we saw happened to White win.

When the entire Patriots crew was healthy, he disappeared. That's how I do it as well, Jay. How are you feeling on his teammate? So just Tarek Cohen versus Jordan Howard. Look, they both are utilized a lot, and I don't think that's going to change unless the change that could happen is going to be for the worse. In the sense that...

If something changes, it's going to be because they bring in a new back. They sign a Kareem Hunt for when he's out of his suspension or they draft someone high. I think they'll try to replace Jordan Howard before they replace Tariq Cohen. But in the meantime, Jordan Howard's volume is still there. He's still secure. He's, you know, a 250 plus rush attempt type of guy. He's heading into the last year of his rookie deal, by the way, Jordan Howard. Sure. And I, so I mean.

I think both are... The Bears are one of the many teams that Mark Ingram will sign with this office. He's going to be signing with upwards of 10 non-New Orleans teams. All right. He'll be a saint. Well, he may be a good person. But he ain't going to play in New Orleans. Dorothy Man Tooth was a saint. There's Mike's throwing. Hey, let's talk about Derek Henry because I'm excited to actually see the numbers behind what we already know. Look, Derek Henry, what can you say about a...

47 and a half point week in week 14, followed by heavy carry totals and big performances, 29, 15 points in weeks 15 and 16. The miraculous, unforeseen savior of many fantasy teams. Here is the illustration. Number 14, final finish, number 32, consistency rank. If you have to have me weigh him between those two, I probably end up somewhere in the middle in terms of where he'd be ranked on my early...

2019 rankings. But here, here's the story for Derek Henry last year at least. 50% of his games were busts. Okay, that's outside the top 50. That's a complete trashed your team. Derek Henry. It's a Derek Henry, generally is what's been known in. Half of his games, he trashed your team. That's why he was on waivers. And 50% of his games were considered good and 13% great.

48% of his fantasy points came in weeks 14 through 16. He didn't even surpass 65 total yards until week 14. And one of the reasons I swung and missed on a regression in week 15 is because that week 14 monster performance was the first time he had surpassed 65 rushing yards in like all of last year and this year combined. It doesn't really make sense that a player can do something. Look, I said players change. It's not normally overnight.

It's not normally from one game to the other. And then there's variables of, you know, who's in the backfield with him next year? Is Marcus Mariotta healthy? You no longer have Matt LaFleur, right? You got a very limited stint and you don't even know what you had in Mat LaFloor. There was nothing impressive about that offense last year. So where do you fall with Derek Henry? Because if they give, here's what you know, if they give them 20 carries, you're going to be fine.