The TRUTH About Fantasy RBs: Part 1 + Playoff Reactions - Fantasy Football Podcast for 1/25

Well, I think they have to. Obviously, he's not built for the workload. They had a big problem this year with the backup running back position. They let Latavius Murray go because they thought Tony, Tony James Jones, Brooks, Jr. would be a good backup. And then he got injured. And then they brought back eventually marking room. And that kind of healed it. But what they do with the backup running back, or even just running back at all, I think it will be really interesting this year because they need to bring it in.

Another serviceable guy. Offensive line got worse. Four different quarterbacks. We talked about it. But they were ranked the fourth preseason offensive line by Pro Football Focus ended up 18. So that doesn't help when you're making a quarterback transition to not have the same level of protection and blocking. Cordarral Patterson ended up number nine. He was the WaverWire Wonder Footy Award winner. It's crazy. He's the RB9.

Yeah, I mean, and he was the number one in the first half, inconsistency. Ended up 14th inconsistency. So how bad was that? That was real bad. I was 32nd inconsistency in the second half. Basically, what you should have done with Cordero Patterson, genuinely. And maybe I would have, my season ends up different, is you should have benched him pretty much. You probably should have benched him from the halfway point of the year. I think he should have traded him. Well, sure, sure. I'm just saying like... I mean, like, functionally...

You would have been better off because what he was to you in the first half was never prescriptive for the second half. And you thought every, I did. I thought every week I put him out there, you were going to get these 522, 21, 18, 13, 7, the number one most consistent player in the first half. I think what it says to me is that when these guys come out of an unexpected situation for first half of the year dominance, you should unload them. Remember how good Mike Davis was?

in relief of Christian McCaffrey. He was awesome. And he finished the year good, but he actually sucked the second half of the year. It was very similar to Cordero Patterson, where it's like he finished top 10 at the running back position, but he kind of sucked the second half of last year. These guys who you just really don't expect to be good, maybe when they have a great first half of the season, you capitalize on the trade value. You should at least consider it. And the truth is...

No player needs this episode more than Cordero. Because if you, let's say you don't listen. God forbid. You don't listen to the show. What an idiot. And you go into the draft. You go into draft prep in August. Guess who was the number nine running back last year? I'm going to guess Cordero Patterson. Yeah, Cordero Patterson. I mean, if that's the metric you're basing it on, it's like, okay, I think we would acknowledge based on the second half of the year, you know.

If you had him, you know what went on. But if you didn't have him on your roster and you see number nine overall top 10 finish, I don't know. That's what can be deceptive. Well, it's really a matter of whether or not he returns to Atlanta. He's a free agent. I think that they know that they need to fix the running back position and they're going to go out and try to sign some guys or draft some guys, whether or not he comes back.

If they draft a running back and bring him back, which is what I think happens. I think he will resign because he's not going to have a better opportunity somewhere else. He became a fan favorite and clearly an important weapon to the offense. If he comes back and they draft a third or fourth round rookie, what in the world do you do with Cordero? He's nothing. That's how I view it too. It's the right answer. Plus, they can fix their wide receiver position.

And by fix, I mean, yes, fix, because what they had last year was completely broken. Kyle Pitts, fixed wide receiver core, complimentary running back. Everything changes for Cordero. He'll go back to being what he's been in his whole career, which is gadget tree. And I think that there will be a lot of players who draft Cordero high, hoping to get what they saw for a stretch this year, finished as the running back nine. So if he does return to Atlanta, it's going to be a trap.

What was so discouraging is that he was something that was working in the offense. And even then, once they got Russell Gage back, it was irrelevant. Yeah. They stopped throwing him the football. It's annoying. Antonio Gibson, number 10, finishing out today's show, consistency of 19. He was a turd. Okay. He was an absolute turd for fantasy. Because I love Antonio Gibson. I absolutely think he's great. But he pretty much stunk the first half of the year.

30th inconsistency. 30th inconsistency wasn't very good. He had three games as a top 24 running back. So just basically a good, just like serviceable, not like he won you a week on the first half of the year. And then what happened was he got more and more injured. And so you go, okay, this guy sucked for the whole first half of the year.

and he's more injured. I can't rely on him. I'm not going to start him. I'm not going to play him. And that's when he was good. So you're benching him, and then he's getting these really good performances where, you know, he had four top 10 performances in six weeks from weeks 10 through 15. And every week was like, I can't play him, right? He's injured and he sucked all season. So that's why I just mean he was like,

one of the hardest players to know what to do with to make that decision. And hopefully you played him the second half of the year because he was very good the second half of the year. But you went into every game going, ooh, is he even going to play this week? So what's the truth? What is the truth about Antonio Gibson? Because I think he's a phenomenal talent. I think the truth is he's a quarterback away from being what you want him to be. That's what I think. You know, you talk about what made these guys great, you know, the reliability of Burrough.

with the mixing prediction or Herbert with Eckler's season. Gibson needs consistency on offense from the quarterback position to give you a shot. Okay. So he could be a year away from the Jonathan Taylor year where Naim Hines was stealing everything and all of a sudden J.D. McKissick falls away because Antonio, but he also has to stay healthy. Absolutely. That's the other part. I agree with everything you're saying. If they're able to go and get a Kirk Cousins.

Antonio Gibson will be a first rounder and he'll be great. He'll be worth whatever pick you want to spend on him. But let's go with a more realistic type of free agent acquisition because I think Fitzmagic is done. I don't think Taylor Heinecke is the answer to the question of who's bad at quarterback. Oh, I thought he was the answer to the question of who's my backup. Sure. That's a good backup. But let's say they go and they sign Mitchell Trebisky.

I'm not excited. Or Marcus Marietta. So one of these guys who's, who's a, they're going to come in and it's an upgrade from Taylor Heineke. I don't know if either of those would be an upgrade. I think Mitchell Trubisky is an upgrade. And I'm obviously not a fan of Mitchell Trubisky. I think they'd be the same. I think you've got to give me a more compelling name than those guys. So if that's the case, then the truth is.

The truth is you're not going to be able to rely on him. That's what your summary was. You can't rely on him. Is he a great RB2 to give you those big weeks when he scores? Sure. He had 10 touchdowns again. He found the end zone a bunch last year. That's what got him as high in the rankings as he did as he was. And then this year he still ended up with 10 touchdowns while being banged up. I mean, he fumbled, he got hurt. He was inconsistent. So the truth of Antonio Gibson is you're still waiting.

If Sean Peyton signs Mitchell Trebisky. Sorry. What? John Peyton? Yeah, he goes to the Saints. Is he a good fantasy option? No, I mean, it's fascinating to me. I think it would be identical to how you viewed James Winston. He was decent for fantasy. Which I don't know if they want to go back to the retread. I mean, you're naming retread court. James Winston, former top pick. Mitchell Tobisky, former top pick. Marcus Marietta, former top pick.

Here's a little spoiler alert. They don't get it back. They don't figure it out. They never had it so you can't get it back. Okay, yeah. That's fair. I guess get it back. I was thinking about Carson Wentz being a top pick. Sure. But yeah, look, quarterbacks, man. You kind of need them. Kind of a big deal. If I were Sean Payton, I didn't have one on my walk away too. Last week was, last year was painful. Yeah, I think that is one of my biggest takeaways from this year is.

You know, and I've always believed this, always done this, but to different degrees based on almost recency bias. But I need to remember more and more that I'm willing to be, I'm willing to draft the potentially wrong player by avoiding these bad quarterback led teams. I just don't want to tussle with bad quarterback play. Right, which is another way of saying.

drafting players from good teams is a general is a nice tie-breaking principle for almost everything you do in fantasy because you want to be with opportunities yeah but i i think it's even more than a tiebreaker i think it pushes people up from from below to above like i will move down and draft someone on a better team than someone adp higher on a bad team yeah i agree all right we are done for today

But never fear. We have another episode on Thursday, breaking down the next group of running back. Finding out the truth. We also have a footcast on Thursday. You can find that at Jointhefoot.com. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at theFF ballers.

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