Top 10 RB Rankings + CeeDee Saga - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/9

They brought in more weapons, and I view that as a good thing, not a bad thing for Pacheco. Because Pacheco within the running back core is going to be the guy. So I just want this offense to click and be awesome. He'll be out there. They'll be winning games. And he's also a big bodied back with extreme breakaway speed who isn't 30. He's a big body back. Who isn't 30 like Derek Henry. He's 25 years old. He's in his prime. So I'm, I really, really like the outcomes. I feel bad for the grass the way Pacheco runs, but I don't see outside of him getting injured. I don't see how he is, you know, the running back 24. We've seen players that are probably not elite talents have elite seasons in Kansas City with like McKinnon being a double-digit touchdown player late in his career and some, you know, Clyde has had success despite not looking good. I was.

interested in this information here, Mike. How do you react to it? Pacheco was 24th out of 35 qualified running backs in elusive rating, 27th innovated tackles, 21st in fantasy points per opportunity, and 26th in yards per touch. So the efficiency numbers statistically weren't there, but obviously you're attached to the best offense in football. Yeah, it's a, you know, Certain ways to look at a running back of more and more with running backs being in tandems, like we need efficient guys. You know, because the view of the three-down running back, that is for the most part, that is, it's almost gone from the NFL. So he doesn't have the deficiency part, but he has the volume and the high-powered offense. So I think that that can.

overpower and combat these efficiency numbers. And it was looking at last year of the snaps. It, I mean, it's just, it's an ascending chart of when the year started, it was not full-time Isaiah Pacheco. And he was not, I mean, if you remember where he was being drafted, it was actually quite late. The ADP and the crowd was not sure that Isaiah Pacheco could retain being a seventh round pick. and still stealing the job from Clyde Edwards Allaire. And it took kind of over the course of the year for us to really get there, opening at 48%, 51% of the snaps, 42, and then by the end, after the by week, 60, high 70s, and then finishing with a game where he's a 90% snap guy. I don't think he's 90, but we get him into that 70, maybe low 80s, and looking at the depth chart, I think that that is in the range of outcomes where powerful offense, getting all the volume,

Volume can be the king in fantasy football at the running back position. And I'm like he is an absolute smash draft if I'm getting a running back in his area. Number eight. 27 year old Saquan Barkley coming in at number eight in our rankings. Jason has him at seven. I got him a nine. Mike at 10. Just got paid three years, 37 million, 26 million guaranteed by Philadelphia. That's going to be really painful for Giants fans this year. at seeing him run out there in the green. But what is your overarching view? Like after an off season of thinking about Saquan in this offense, seeing him have to do everything in New York for so long. I'm curious where you're at now with some time. I have risen on Saquan Berkeley since. When it first came, there was a lot of fears for me about goal line opportunities.

touchdowns, whether it will be okay for him. And then you look back and you think about DeAndre Swift. DeAndre Swift had a really good year. It trailed off a little bit at the end, but the Eagles trailed off a little bit at the end. But Swift was good because of his yards before contact. Swift was number one. I believe the highest percentage of his yards came from yards before contact because their offensive line is great. And he had goal line opportunities. Swift had 14 carries inside the five-yard line last year. With this offensive line, if you give 14 carries to Sequin inside the five-yard line, the tush-push will go down for Jalen Hertz because Sequin will actually break the plane of the goal. You know, Sequin only had eight last year. And if you look at like running back inside the 10, the New York Giants last year were 30th. The Eagles were fourth. And that's not...

carries, that's running back carries. So I do think the opportunity for him to finally be on a good offense is really, really good. You know, did he look bad last year? It's hard to tell when you got 11 defenders. It's hard to tell. You got 11 defenders just trying to tackle you and ignore the other 10 players on offense. Mike, any thoughts on Sequin? He's just, he is so difficult of, I got him in RB10 and this is one of those I don't feel. great about having them that low. It's more of a matter of, I just have... What's the range of outcomes for Seguan then to you? Like where... What's the range of where you can finish? Can you finish top five? Yes. The issue of... Can you finish 18? Yes. That's the problem with the range of outcomes for me when I'm looking at the entirety of the situation for Sequan Berkeley. Swift was, I mean, at least in terms of running back attempts, like...

He was the manual. After the by week, 80% of the running back attempt, 78%. This is a utilization that if Sequin still has it, top three is in the range of outcomes. We've got to make sure we get some of those targets. But he is one of my scariest players of the year because the delta is, it's gigantic to me. All right, moving on. Number seven. I hit the button. in the middle of me talking. Allow me to interrupt myself. I assume that had to have been Al Bowling back there because you're enough sake one. All right, we're moving on to number seven. Travis E.TN. It was a heck of a year for him last season, especially to start the year. He was the number two running back behind CMC through the first eight weeks of the year. Those are impactful fantasy weeks.

That is a fundamental part of the regular season. How scared are you? Because I'm scared. He was in the first half, like you just said, he was, you know, the running back three, second half, running back 32. It was so bad. Which is the truth. Yeah, I'm not that scared at all. I got him at seven. He's just too important to this offense. And there is, you can't pretend that you have a depth chart behind him. You don't. You just don't have that. You might have a snap here or there with some other players. But Etienne is too, you know, he's young. He's in that prime age for a running back with an offense that has already been able to lean on him and see great success. I feel pretty confident. I'm not worried about the season breaking up the way that it did. The offensive line had struggles. Trevor Lawrence had injury issues.

But I am leaning on the 340 opportunities to bear itself out this year. That's where I'm at. Yeah, I totally get it. I've drafted a couple shares of ETN, love the 73 targets, the involvement in the past game, the fact that you lose Calvin Ridley and you're bringing in kind of more unknown commodities and Brian Thomas and Gabe Davis was not a target hog. So you expect him to still be involved in the receiving game and obviously he is someone that can score from distance. There's a lot of reasons. There's a lot of reasons to like him. However, if I compare him like to the aforementioned Sequin, he's two years younger. I don't know that he's any more explosive than Sequin right now. I expect the Eagles to be a far better offense. It's just a matter of maybe E.T.N. gets more targets. I would rather have Barclay. And I've been in a couple places there in that second round where this is the decision. Like they...

They're both still on the board, and you're deciding between Ety and Barkley. Usually I go with the younger guy, but this time I'm going to go offense. Where would you be between those two players? Well, to me, part of it is the injury usage concern that I think exists for Sequin, where he missed three games last year due to injury. Again, we've dealt with that multiple times in his history. So I think. I think you're going to have at least 50 more opportunities in the offense for ETN. Now, whether that translates to more fantasy points, I think is in fair debate based on the two offenses. ETN is, he's a player that just probably won't find his way onto any of my teams because a lot because of what Jay mentioned of, the decision of, okay, it's Sequin Barclay or ETN. It's Kyron Williams or ETN. Devon Aitchan is going just after.

Travis E.T.N. And the, I don't know, man. I get it. You feel like you're not going to be able to pull the trigger on that name versus those other offenses? Yes. And I get it. I get it. What I'm saying, I understand just how horrifically bad Tank Bigsby was as a rookie. We just mentioned like Kenneth Walker. Like, no, I'm not hearing anything about Kenneth Walker in training camp, Buzz. I'm not hearing anything about Zach Charbonny. I'm not hearing any. So it's like, okay, that's a wash. I'm not hearing anything about Travis ETN, not necessarily the worst thing in the world, but they are pumping up Tank Bigsby again. And so that just... They're pumping him up as far as what we hope we can get from him, not as far as what he's doing. That's the problem. Like, Tank Biggsby's nothing, guys. I think that that'll be the biggest mistake that you make. I'm not saying you have to take ETN, but thinking about Tank Biggsby at all is a waste of brain cells. I think tank...

Bigsby is Benedict Arnold. I really do. I mean, he's a traitor to America? He's a traitor to the Jaguar. He was, he was a spy. I mean, he was so good. He was the other team's best player whenever he was on the field. He just constantly gave the ball to the other team. So this is like having a discussion about, um, Mari DiMarcato or, um, Michael Carter and Arizona who both are better players than Tank Bigsby. Like this is not. We cannot live in the past with Ting Biggsman. I'm saying I understand that. But for a player who's supposed to be as good as Travis E.T.N. is getting all the work that he got last year with the team saying we have to lessen the workload. And he finishes the year at 3.8 yards per carry. That to me is you got to figure out how to get that guy off the field to rest a little bit more.

All right. That's the concern. I mean, they did say that last year and they didn't do it. Yeah, because Biggsby was so bad. Yeah. So I just, I'm going to, that's what made this, this conversation is a repeat of why Travis C team was a monster stealing drafts last year. You have to pay more for him this year. Yes. So that's the gamble. Number six. Jonathan Taylor. I think we're, I think we're already to regularly talk about Jonathan Taylor again. It's been too long. We have had to deal with injuries, disappointment, lack of quarterback. And we have not settled into the Jonathan Taylor conversation very often. And he's going as the RB5. So people are ready to, you know, lace them up and put them in there as their RB1 in fantasy football. Question marks around Anthony Richardson hindering his ceiling, the red zone opportunities. The team has come out and been very vocal. They're not going to limit Anthony Richardson.

physically and in any way, slowing him down from running the football. So just like the Tush Push and Sequin Barclay, Richardson and Taylor cannot score on the same play on a rushing touchdown. And this bears out. Since 2015, there has only been one running back who has scored 15 fantasy points per game alongside a quarterback who scored 100 total rushing fantasy points. And you have to assume that if... If Anthony Richardson plays this season, he's scoring 100 fantasy points on the ground. So that means that the ceiling case, 15 plus, and this is half PPR, so 15 plus fantasy points per game, it's really not in the cards for Jonathan Taylor Thomas. But context there, if you look at who scored 15 fantasy points per game last season, you had Christian McCaffrey, Rahim Mostert.

end of list. So it's not, it's not that they, that he can't have an awesome season and go out there and score, um, you know, something really healthy. Can he be the RB one? He cannot be the RV one. I don't think so. I don't think he can be a top three running back. But I, I do think I mean, I've got him at running back six. I think he's going to be a clear awesome running back one. I'm happy to draft him. We just have to be honest that like he, he can't go out there and score. 15 rushing touchdowns. Number five. Kyron Williams comes in at number five. Sean McVeigh historically been a one-back kind of guy. And last offseason, that meant excitement around Cam Acres. That turned into unbelievable production for Kyron Williams. He saw 37% of the team's total opportunities. Comprehend that. Let that sink in. In the 12 games he played, 37% of the team's opportunities were Kyron.

only CMC was higher. It was a wonderful ride. And yet there's some doubt, right? Like if you graph the, you know, the Richter scale of fear around Kyron Williams, it's gone up and down and up and down, a little bit of camp injury. Then he's fine. He's going to be the guy. But then, you know, word comes out that Kyron was a little bit concerned when they drafted Blake Corn. I don't know if you saw that. Like he actually... I didn't see that one. Yeah, he said he was initially scared when they draft the Blake Corman. He's not going to be the focal point. And then the team comes out and reiterates that he's the focal point. So much like Tank Bigsby, and they'd love to give Travis E.T. and opportunities to be efficient and get a rest. I think they want to do that a little bit. What does that mean for the Rams offense? And what does that mean for Kyron's upside? Yeah, I guess.

Point of clarification here, but it is both helpful for Kyron and the aforementioned Jonathan Taylor Thomas. When I said there were only those two guys, Moster and CMC, that scored 15 fantasy points a game. That was looking at the total season ending list because 19.9 points per game was Kyron. He just missed several games, so he wasn't up there. But that's how powerful he was for fantasy football last year. One of my things, we always try to learn lessons, year after year after year. not just lessons that we keep forever, but also lessons of change and adaptation and what the current NFL is doing. One of my big lessons last year was if a guy was great on the field, if he proved that he is awesome and the team goes out and invests and brings in depth and brings in another player and brings in competition, I'm not going to be scared off of awesome. And that was true for Travis E.T.N. last year. That was true for Kenneth Walker last year. I believe it's going to be true of Kairn Williams.

He's so good for this system. You look when he came back from the injury. He was the running back 1, 9, 18, 5, 11, 1, running it at 8.9 a carry 4.2, 4.6, 5.6, 4.7. He's just really, really good. He can catch the ball perfect. He fits this scheme super nice. And he's always been a great back. Like, we love, it's hard to remember because he basically missed his rookie season after having poor draft capital. But in the NFL draft, when we were preparing for that, Kyron was one of our absolute favorites. He's a really good running back. And the team loves him. Bringing him Blake Corum is a smart football move. It's good for the Rams. It might be good for Kyron Williams, even if it takes another point or two away a game. You know, if he's not 19.9 and instead he's 17 and a half points per game, but he plays 17 games. Fantastic. I am not scared off of Kyron. I am, I'm fully in.

83% good games, 50% great games by our consistency metric. That's awesome. We'll take a break and come back with our top four running backs. All right, before we jump. Just like the Olympics. Before we jump back into the top four. The top four, baby. Yeah. Before we jump back into the rankings countdown, I think he was trying to say that I cut to the ad. at the wrong point, like a three. If I cut at three, then you've got gold silver bronze. We're coming back for our top four. Because we always try to correlate with the Olympics is what Jason's saying. Not always, but maybe while they're happening. So on Saturday, we're going to release a bonus episode of this podcast. We're going to, we're going to re-release the 10 Things to Remember episode from early in February because we would like to remember them. So there'll be a bonus episode coming out on Saturday. And so stay tuned for that, an extra episode of the show.

after we finish up with running backs here, and then we'll be back into rankings countdowns next week. Number four. All right, number four, Jamir Gibbs. Jamir Gibbs coming in at number four is ADP. His average draft position is the RB4 right now, which is I see him going 8, 9, 10, 11, pretty much in every single draft. It seems like if people have to take them earlier than that, they get nervous. But if it's later than that, they feel like they stole. it's always weird to draft the player that you know at 22 years old can score on any play at any given time and yet shares a backfield right like you you are always going into the week saying I think it's going to work out but what happens if they just get dragged down on the two yard line in three straight drives in Montgomery scores yeah it could absolutely happen I mean

When you're drafting David Montgomery and Jemir Gibbs, each one of them, they both have incredible opportunities, should be good for where they're drafted, but they both have a built-in, not just like, oh, what if this guy vultures that guy, but they both have the built-in, what if the other guy gets injured? And you want to talk about the Detroit Lions rushing attack with that offensive line, that scheme. I mean, that's a league winner. And so you've got, I think, in Jemir Gibbs, if David Montgomery is healthy, you already have someone that is essentially a league winner quality player. You know, Montgomery was fully healthy after the by week. And after the by week, you saw Jemir Gibbs already be pretty darn awesome for fantasy football. In those nine games, I mean, from week seven through 16, he was the running back three, averaging 18.9 fantasy points per game.

So you have an incredible upside. He's also, if you think about what I just said, that's from week seven to 16. Because he got off to a slow start. He was a rookie. He's not a rookie this year. He's coming in as the guy and David Montgomery is the backup. You expect him more included, including the receiving game. I mean, you might be hopeful that James and Williams steps up for the first time in his way too long of a career to not have stepped up yet. But Josh Reynolds is gone. And so. Getting Gibbs more involved in the passing game, he's a really exciting prospect for me. When I look at my rankings, I would still take, like, Brees and Jemir Gibbs are basically almost identical in the total fantasy points scored. I would rather have Brees than Gibbs, but that's the tier of fantasy points I expect from Gibbs this year. The confidence in Gibbs can also be helped, like a foundation for it of at the end of the year.

You know, both players are healthy. And Jamir Gibbs is still getting carries inside the five. Like David Montgomery is still absolutely doing his thing. He's getting carries inside the five as well. But like they didn't, it didn't, it was not a full-time role. Like the way when Jamal Williams was there, it was just when you got inside the five, Jamal Williams is going to be the finisher. They've, they spread that out. And I think with this off season, getting more and more. integrated into that part of the of the offense. Jamir Gibbs is a player that despite being in a timeshare, Jamir Gibbs, I think, can finish as the RB1. Number three.

Breeze Hall comes in at number three. I've got him at two. Mike has him at two. So we both have him as the next guy off the board after CMC. Jason has him at four, which means... He's basically tied with Gibbs in scoring, but I do have Bijon ahead of both of those guys. Elite pass catcher, elite weapon in the Jets offense, and showed that despite being on one of the more putrid to watch offensive teams in the history of the NFL, he could still finish at RB4. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Coming off of ACL tear. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. I mean, the only, I don't really know how low Breeze Hall can finish without injury. He's too good. He's too good. The average touchdown for the New York Jets last year came from the 25-yard line, like away from the opponent's goal. Their offense was so.

historically bad, and he was the running back four. Now, his passing volume is going to come down. Yes, it will. Because last year, that offense didn't know what to do. I was praying to spray. With the offensive line being so bad, it was just, hey, run out to the other side of those big guys, and I'll just toss you the ball. That was over and over and over and over, which was great for fantasy. That's why he finishes the running back four. But it's also the reason they did that is because just get the ball in his hands and let him go. It's our best chance at having a good offense.

Now if you've got Aaron Rogers behind a much improved offensive line, you have opportunities to set defenses up for Breece Hall's success. So, I mean, you know, we're at the point now when you talk about Breece and Bijan and CMC where, I mean, these guys, there's really not a downside argument. Yeah, you would not feel like somebody made a mistake if they took their shot on a different name than what we have in this order. Not at all. And like Breast Hall. This is a, like, this is why knee injuries are so tricky because you have both Brees and Javante Williams, who were returning last year from devastating knee injuries. One of them, as the season went on, you saw it more and more. Oh, there's Brees Hall. There's the electric player. There's the burst. It's coming back. And Javante, you just, you never saw it. Like by the end of the year.

You know, those final three games where the offense was entirely Brees Hall, and he's still running for nearly over five a carry. When the defense knows exactly what's going to happen, like, that's the type of back. And there's, like, there's, there's no investment behind him. They took Braylin Allen. Who seems to be lined up to be the number two. Yeah, like an absolute Hulk of a man, but. This was a day three pick of we just, we don't like the backups behind Breece Hall. Let's see if we can find a different one. Breece is the guy. Number two. Bijan comes in at number two. Bejohn actually has a good player behind him at running back. I mean, Tyler Algeria is a good depth running back. He has everything that they would have hoped. Tank Biggsby could have been or any of these names. Yeah, that's fair. What they would love Blank Corum to be. But Bejohn actually has that there. But, you know, from a versatility standpoint.

Dijon comes in at number two. He's going to catch passes. He's going to have explosive plays. He's going to have red zone opportunities. You know, we're excited to see what the new offense is going to look like. Last year, they lined up in 11 personnel just 14% of the time on first down. They have a new offense. Oh, that's low T. 11 personnel is the lowest. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to embarrass yourself by lining up more than two wide outs. But when he did have a chance with three wideouts on the field last year, he had almost six to carry. It's so funny to look at the 11 personnel numbers of the Falcons last year and how good they were when they did that. And how they did not correlate to a change in behavior. Yeah, it was like Drake London was awesome and 11 personnel. Bejohn was awesome and 11 personnel. They got to set up to 12. They ran it at 14% of the time. Yeah, but when I eat healthy, I feel good. Right. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. It's not going to stop you.

No. I'm the Arthur Smith of dietary choices. Arthur had a plan. Just in a quick, like if you're new to football, what that means, 11 personnel means one tight end and one running back, meaning that there's three wide receivers. And when you're in something like 12 personnel, it means you have two tight ends. So you have to remove a wide receiver. Yeah. And a lot of the times that it correlates with kind of spreading the field out, creating more space versus being. Yeah, if you're in 12 personnel with a couple tight-ins, you're going to hit them in the mouth. Yeah, we're big tough guys. You're going to run it up the middle. So Bejohn, you know, if you had to bet on opportunities this season to touch the football, Bejohn, Breece, who's the bet on? I think I would bet on Bejohn. It's really close. And the only reason I would bet on Bejohn is because I think that there's going to be a lot more plays ran by the Falcons, the tempo, the speed than what I'll see from the Jets.

I think if you're talking percentage of backfield touches, it's probably Brees over Bijon because of the competition in that backfield. To me, this question really comes down to, and this is an interesting question, which offense is going to be better? We've got basically two brand new offenses here because you've got two brand new quarterbacks for all intensive purposes. You got Aaron Rogers. And you got too bad Achilles. The mirror situation of these two teams with both they both have top three running backs. They both have the quarterback coming back from the Achilles. They both have a potential superstar wide receiver that we drafted in the same year that we haven't been able to see the fulfillment of that promise. It's like this is weird. So here we go. This is what my question is for you two gentlemen and myself, which offense?