The TRUTH About Fantasy RBs in 2018, Part 1

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Hey, Foot Clan, were you a fantasy football champion like I was in 2018? Well, then you've got to head over to fantasy champs and get yourself some of these sweet championship rings. I'm running out of fingers over here, but the rings are so nice at fantasy champs. You've got to check them out. They've got trophies, too, and all sorts of swag to make sure that everybody in your life can know that you are a champion. Use the promo code.

Ballers to save 10% at Fantasychamps.com. This is Hall of Fame of Marshall Falk and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Coming to you from pristineauction.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, let's do a show. Okay. We are all present and accounted for. Yes.

Jason is regrettably swagging out with his, if you're on YouTube, you can see it, the Foot Clan title championship t-shirt. I remember when you were the Dynasty League champ, Andy. All the way back to last year? Yeah. Yeah. Not anymore. Last year is, like, 2018, and that's still me. Yeah. I don't like that outcome, but here we are. And you're going to wear that shirt out. I have no doubt. Yeah, I haven't taken it off since I got it.

You can also get, we did throw up the 2018 nickname shirt on shopballers.com. Did you know that? I was not aware. You looked very surprised. I'm just making a little transaction. A little note. You go on. I got to pick something up over here. Shopballers. The nickname shirts up, the championship gears up. So that's shopballers.com. Welcome into the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy, Mike and Jason back again. Mike, how are you doing?

I'm doing delightful. You just, you refer to it as we threw up the shirt. And there was a strange image. Yeah, we did. It was more of an expression. We vomited a beautiful picture right onto the front of your chest. Check it out. Oh, why is it on the, that's where it is on a shirt. Idiot. We didn't vomit on the back. Come on, Mike. It costs more to print on the back and the front. That's why we went front. Um.

Every day. We charge you double. Every day. We charge you double if we throw up on the front and the back. All right. Goodness. Let's get into the truth. If you're still with us. They're not. I hope you enjoyed. Everyone's gone. Last week's episodes, the truth about the fantasy wide receiver position. We went through the top 10 on the Tuesday show. And from 11 to I don't even know where we ended, but we talked about. 72.

We talked about the details, right? Sometimes you see the fantasy finish, and today we'll look at running backs and how they've finished in fantasy, but then what their consistency was, week to week. What you actually had as a fantasy owner on your roster, we'll see how they played against top-level defenses. When you look to next year's strength of schedule, are these guys that are going to break down against the best defenses in the league? Are they kind of workhors? And we're going to look at all those today at the running back position, and I'm excited because...

These episodes are important. We want to set the table for victory next year. Yeah, I mean, he's a good friend. Yeah, dear friend. In years past. Great dinner, Mr. Vic. Oh, Victoria. That was not good. But, uh, yeah, in years past, there you go. Brooks. Oh, Brooks. Oh, don't even pull him. Move on. No, he's shaking his head, no. No, bro, of course not. Mike, you got to know by now. Um, yeah, no, I mean, in years past, it's been really illuminating to see.

Certain players, Jaye, I remember a couple years ago, he had the monstrous season that was very Derek Henry, and it came in a few games. So, yeah, we'll take a look at all the top most important running backs. All right, and before we do that, we've got a quick question. Is now the time to propose rule changes in your league? That is the question. No. Okay. I agree. Now is the time to.

start planting seeds for your proposed rule changes. I don't think that. So you're lobbying right now. Yes. You have become a lobbyist in your league. This is the lobby period. This is the lobby. You are listening to the fantasy footballers in right now the extended by week, as we call the offseason here. Not everybody in your league is paying attention right now, which is.

probably why you're going to win next year in your league. But they're not wanting to vote on this stuff right now. But now is when you start planting the seeds for getting rid of kickers. For example. Hey, Marv. Hey, Marv. You know what would be nice next year? Maybe we don't bring the kickers back. Are you hairy? We should vote on that later. He's Harry from home alone right now. That is the only Marv I can think of. You don't play with a bunch of Marves in your league?

It's a hot name now. Not since the 50s. Defeating my point. Or is it the Martian? No, no, no. All right. It's neither. It's a hypothetical player in your league. But, yeah, I mean, you can always chat. Look, now is the time to continue keeping conversations alive. Yeah, make the notes right now. Make the votes later. Notes now, votes later. You got to make your notes so you can get the votes. All right. So.

We mentioned this last week. We don't have news on the show today. We're going to get you caught up with all the news. We'll reflect on those incredible AFC and NFC title games. No words. No words are coming to me right now to describe what happened. I'll be honest. I expected the Patriots to show up in Kansas City. But I did not expect that. I mean, I did not expect.

No, no. Wow. It's almost like I have no idea what happened. Yeah, we're recording this. What happened? Ahead of time as we are in Tampa Bay at the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. So we recorded these truth episodes a little bit ahead of time. So we'll catch you up on all the news, our reaction to those games, and everything next week. All right? Sound pretty good. Sounds great. In lieu of news, just remember, you can still get that news on the sleeper app. So check that out. Download the sleeper app. Put your league on there.

And let's go ahead and get into the truth. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Can't handle it, but you got to. You got to listen up. We're going through the top 10 right here, right now. Remember, we're breaking down consistency on this basis. Great games, more than 22 points. All right, that puts you in that top five on the week on average.

Good games are more than 10 points. That puts you in that RB1, RB2 conversation. Bust games are anything in which the player scored fewer than seven points. That puts you outside the top 50. It makes you really angry on Monday morning, on Tuesday morning, if that happens, especially with these guys at the top of the list, right? Did you specify half point PPR? I did not. Sweet. I wasn't listening. But that question specified it for our listeners. So thank you. Well done. Me. Todd Gurley, number one,

Yet again, he busted all of 0% of the time. He's number one, but his consistency rank was number two. Pretty darn good. 93% of his games weren't just not busts, but they were good, right? They were over 10 points. 79% were great games. That's the kicker. 79% of the time you got a top 5 performance from Todd Gurley. The insane thing is this. Look, I mean,

If you want to know how good he was, how consistent he was, you know, he didn't play a full season. He was injured at the end of the year and missed week 16 and 17, and he was the number one running back on the season. So he was completely dominant, had really one bad game that you were disappointed with. Now, the timing was unfortunate. Week 14? Yeah, it was the beginning of a lot of people's playoffs. But Todd Gurley.

got you to the playoffs. You could overcome that single game. And a lot of people won with Todd Gurley and in the championship weeks. Your spirit animal. My spirit animal, C.J. Anderson stepped right in. And I'm looking through the rest of the running backs we're going to talk about. That's 79% great. I don't see another person in the 70th percentile. I don't see one in the 60th or the 50th percentile for great games. That is correct. That's how dominant.

Todd Gurley was just in pure numbers. The next highest percentage of their games being over that threshold of 22 points is at 47% Alvin Camara. I mean, Todd Gurley. Was it Camara? It was Christian McCaffrey. Or maybe both of them. They're both tied. Yeah, they both have the same. But yeah, no, that's another tier. That's another level. 10th most PPR points per game for running backs in NFL history. He did everything you expected.

when you drafted him in that spot. That's the thing. You needed it. You expected it. And as is often not the case in fantasy, you actually got it. Yeah. I mean, when we talk about the truth, we want to look at what really happened. And what really happened was he was the number one running. He was great. You don't need to continue talking about Todd Gurley. But the one question that's happening right now over and over and over everywhere because of what has happened in the playoffs is do you worry that...

Todd Gurley won't necessarily be a workhorse next year with what CJ Anderson has done at the end of this season in the playoffs. And granted, we don't know how this last weekend went. But, you know, the worries of should they save his legs a little bit if they've got a capable backup who can come in and go over 100 yards? I don't worry about that. And I bring the question up so that I can emphatically say,

Even as a C.J. Anderson truth or, no, I don't worry about it in the slightest. It's nonsense. C.J. Anderson probably won't even. It's pretty close to it, though. I don't think he'll be on the roster, C.J. Anderson. But there will be another running back on the, like, Gurley has been paid to do what he's done the past two years. Sure. Gurley was banged up. And so right now, C.J. Anderson is filling a specific role to give him a breather, protect him from injury. We don't know how hurt he is or isn't.

And so there's a specific role there for him. It doesn't mean, look, we've seen Malcolm Brown, who, you know, Sean McVeigh, when Malcolm Brown went down, humongous loss is what he said. Now, we've seen him out there spelling Gurley, occasionally in a place where you're like, man, I really wish Gurley was back out there. But we haven't been forced into this position. What position? The position of seeing if a backup running back can truly succeed in the system. McVeys never had to see it. And I...

I'm just playing the devil's advocate. I agree with you guys that the overwhelming probability is that Todd Gurley goes right back to being the workhorse next year. But the fact that they're actually having success and thinking maybe I can take some, I can have Todd Gurley last even longer his career if I give the back of running back more opportunity. I think that's the narrative that will scare people. I will be taking Todd Gurley with the number one pick.

I think it's also just in our nature as fantasy players. And this happened last year because in the offseason, you heard a lot of, it wasn't just Gurley at the top. There were people taking other players over Todd Gurley. People wanted to speculate on Lev Bell, right? And other players. It is just in our nature to say, he's done too well. It can't continue. We have to take somebody else and take our shot.

Sometimes that pans out. Sometimes it doesn't, right? If you took that viewpoint with Gurley or DeAndre Hopkins this past year, based on the year before, you got burned by passing on them. So it will be hotly debated. It will be interesting because there are names like this guy on the board. Say Kwan Barkley, coming in at number two, never busted. Zero percent of his games were qualified as a bus. 94% as good, 38% as great. His consistency rank was number four. He amazingly...