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

Hey, it's me, the guy who introduces the show. Listen to my amazing voice. Now, check out the amazing Ultimate Draft Kit. The guy's been all offseason creating this bad boy, and they keep it updated all off season. It's got their full projections, breakouts, sleepers, bus, over a hundred player profile videos. It's even got a mobile app. Has my incredible voice lulled you into a deep sense of trust and commitment? Perfect. Now check out Ultimate DraftKit.com and get ready to win your league. Now, back to the show. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Back with you Friday, August 9th, another episode of the podcast.

Another delicious episode, nutritious. Don't get me hungry. No seed oils on today's episode. Very nice. Yeah, trying to keep it healthy. Oh, yeah, for the gut. Yeah, I mean, we got to keep it tight, got to keep it right. Season is here. Do you guys watch any preseason last night? I actually did. I watched a decent amount of it. And for those who watched it with me, you know why I had to. Say it's football time in Italian because, whoof, that was, look, it's back. We're happy. We're just, we're ready to get into some actual real stuff. There wasn't much happening. No, no, it's not. You know, if you just watch pretty much the first quarter of each game, which is where you're going to see some starters. You saw nothing. You saw, you saw absolutely nothing from, from the two teams. I think.

To me, looking through the games, watching them, I watched them this morning. And I mean, there's only two takeaways that I can even gleam from both games. All right. What do you got? And they were both from the Giants. One, Malik neighbors obviously not good. No targets. Yeah, there's just cardio can. Just, I mean, out there running nothing. So wash out. Freak out, man. No, but the real only takeaway was Tyrone Tracy does. appear to already be established as the guy behind Devon Singletary. I mean, you know, some of these guys, I don't worry too much when a rookie is further down. Like Jalen Polk, he was not a starter, even though they had two starters out with injury. I don't care. It's the first week of the preseason. The only thing that matters to me is like, was a guy up? You know, if he's already up, that means he's got the opportunity. Should he?

you know, stink with it and, you know, it can go away. But that's a really good sign. So Tyrone Tracy is my only real takeaway. Not Eric Gray's four for 52 and two touchdowns. Nope. In the follow up. No, not not after the... Because we know those two are competing and he obviously had a great performance. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, who are you performing against what time of the game as far as how I look at preseason? All right. A couple headlines before we jump into an interesting quick question. We've got the running back.

top 10 rankings countdown today. But you can head over to ultimate draft kit.com right now. I want to a point of clarity said something on the show that showed up in the support requests. Uh-oh. What'd you do? I made a big deal of the ADP comparison tool, which is awesome and is available to use if you have the UDK. What I didn't specify or realize in the moment. was that it is currently only available on the web version of the UDK, which I learned quickly yesterday. So if you want to use the specific average draft position comparison tool that shows you sleeper and Yahoo and ESPN and underdog and all of that, it is currently only on the web version. So.

A little shortcut for you. If you have the Ultimate Draft Kit, if you just go to myudk.com, that works. That'll take you right to the dashboard. Click on the ADP comparison tool in the research tab, and you can use it there. It is not yet on the app version. However, I bet it will be soon after what happened yesterday. Thanks, Andy. So UltimatedraftKit.com, if you don't have it yet, that's headline number one. You can follow this show, a reminder for the season. First, click follow on the podcast app. Leave us a review if you are so inclined on Apple Podcasts. You can follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts wherever you're listening. We appreciate that. And you can follow the show also on Twitter, also known as X at theFF Ballers. And you can watch the show on YouTube, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Subscribe. Click the bell. That way you're a part of our Sunday Live.

And any, I mean, we've got a live stream coming up. Ooh, a week from today. We're going to give away a UDK for life. This is a promotion we do every year. So that live stream's coming up as well. If you don't want to miss your opportunity for that, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballer, subscribe, click that bell. Am I missing anything? I don't think so. Have I covered all the bases? Al, Al, I'm looking at you. No, I think you got it. All right. If we missed anything, it is Al's fault from here on out. Got it? That'll work. Okay. Quick question of the day, guys. Does the relationship exist between, what is the relationship, essentially, between rookie quarterbacks and the performance of their running backs? We've talked a lot about how rookie quarterbacks cap upside on wide receivers and the only wide receivers that have ever really had, you know, exponential success with rookie quarterbacks have been Steve Smith and Larry Fitzgerald and.

Reggie Wayne like Keenan. Yeah, prolific Hall of Fame level whiteouts. And they were usually alone on their team at the time. But we haven't talked a lot about the running back position. And so a question came in from Caden talking about DeAndre Swift because he's in that boat, right? Caleb Williams will be the starter. What does the data say about the upside, the floor of running backs with rookie quarterbacks? The data we looked at was basically every quarterback that started at least 10 games for their team. And then how did that running back, the primary number one fantasy finisher finish. And essentially the easiest way to understand this, the big takeaway is they're okay. They've got a safer floor than you might think they're not going to drop off to the 50s and be a complete bust. But it is very rare for them to be.

a strong high-end fantasy finish. The highest fantasy finish was the running back six, and that's, I mean, that'd be awesome. But that was also Austin Echler, who was already, you know, an unbelievable great running back. And a hundred and eight targets mixed with the unbelievable year of Justin Herbert. So that was a little bit more of the outlier. Yeah, another good one was a hundred target season from Leonard Fournette. with Gardner Minshu in his rookie season. So basically, you've got, it's... 59% of the time, the running back was a top 24 running back. 33% of the time, the running back for a rookie quarterback was a top 12. This is the past five years. Is that what that is, five years? So... I see since 2011. I'm sorry, I was looking at the other running backs. So, yeah, when you bring it back to DeAndre Swift, and you say, well, how is he going to do?

Okay, you know, he should be okay. He should, he's not the type of back that to me strikes me as a guy who's going to finish as an RB1, but he's got a really good chance of being an RB2. So, you know, if he even just follows the normal trend, that would be 59% over the last decade. And then, you know, if you say, well, Caleb Williams is better than your average rookie quarterback, we hope, then maybe he's got a better shot than that. The hardest part for me with the Chicago Bears is just the, the investments of ADP that are being put into every single player of the offense. And I guess not every, but the three wide receivers and D'Andre Swift. And it's just it's. And Caleb Williams. But I'm saying of the pass catchers of like there's there will not be enough to go around to satisfy those four players. Like someone someone could come through a big time. But if that happens, that means that there is a huge loser.

in terms of someone at that ADP. So that's my only concern with the Bears. It's just we are very excited for Caleb Williams, and I think people are a little too ahead of the curve for what he can produce. News and notes from Around the League, presented by USAA Insurance. If you were watching preseason football, and you were too screening it as many of us do, you're on social media. you know, like interacting with people, having a good time, and also watching the games. This was the headline. This was the star of last night. And he's covering his face because it is so unbelievably frustrating. A quote came out from the Cowboys owner. Jerry Jones was being asked about C. Lamb and the looming contract extension. And we got the quote, I don't have any urgency to get it done.

which was just an absolute haymaker thrown at all of us who believe in C.D. Lamb of like, what are we doing here? And then C.D. Lamb, the source, like, the actual guy retweets that the, the caption that's going around of Jerry Jones. I don't have any urgency. And his quote was the caption, I should say, from C.D.L. L.O.L. And then. He removed America's team from his bio. And Micah Parsons joined in and retweeted that. It was a fun time. But also, Jerry. Jerry. Jerry. If you are listening, let me encourage you in this. Since you don't think you have a sense of urgency to get the deal done with C.D. Lamb, I think you want to see it happen in your lifetime.

So it's pretty urgent because you's, you're about to die. You are. Whoa. Whoa. I'm saying he is. He's older. He's, he's gone. I mean, what does he do? Oh, yeah. You got the lights off. What is that makes sense. It's just one of those like, like he is, he's got to be next to death story. Was that a threat? It was not a threat. It was an encouragement. It was. He's 81. Yeah, I mean, look, you've made it past, you know, my lineage of family tree. I, you've had a great life. Maybe step aside or, or do yourself an even better thing than stepping aside. Get it done so you can see it. Again, step aside is not a euphemism. Either one. Either one. Okay. Um, look, here, here's the deal. I, it's so, it's so, it's so, it's so, it's so annoying, uh, because.

He's talking in the same quote all about the amazing players getting made by other players. Like what an opportunity it's presenting for. Like I'm being inundated with Zeke runs and Dowdle runs and catches by Brandon Cooks. Like incredible negotiations. This is not working. You know what I mean? We're good without him. You know, whatever, take her or leave it. I'm going to have to channel. Mike, I know he's on your dynasty team. I'm going to have to just take the mantle here. You're not doing the job needed to get CD the deal. I'm going to make a guarantee right now. It's done in the next week. I'm making the guarantee right here right now. I'm going to call some people. I'm going to straighten Jerry out. Do you want to know how old Jerry Jones is? He's so old that his actual name is Gerald. They've stopped naming people Gerald.

I mean, that is, anyone know it? That cannot be true. Anyone know it, Gerald? No. I feel like that's. I know one now. They've all, they've all gone. His name is Gerald? His name is Gerald Wayne Jones, Sr. It sure is born October 13th, 19. Oh. I was going to guess, but. It's so wild of, I mean, I made the same argument for Brandon Ayyukov. You did it, man. You were in the middle of the first round and morons in the draft passed on C.D. Lamb. Like the Cardinals. They took other wide receivers instead of C.D. Lamb. Or Isaiah Simmons. You didn't even need a wide receiver at that time, but you said this is the best player on the board. We have identified him. And it has worked out better than you could have possibly imagined. You have a truly elite player. This isn't like this is different than.

the Brandon Ayuk situation because this is not a, we can have a debate of how top tier do you think Brandon Ayuk is as a wide receiver? There is no debate. There's no debate on CD Lamb. He is him. I want you. Give him the money. I want you to tell me what happens to this team if he didn't play football. Oh, brother. We talk about the Cowboys offense as a really good offense. You know, your argument for Rico Dowdle is you want a running back that is part of a top tier offense. If CD Lamb is not on this team, this is a bad off. I mean, I think deck is good enough to be a, a middle of the pack offense, not necessarily like a bottom five, but he doesn't have the weapons to get that done without C. C.D. Lam, I mean, his, his utilization, what was he? He was, he was, he was the receiving game last year. He's 48% of the receiving targets, 53% of the receiving yards.

Of wide receiver. Yes, of wide receivers. 44% of the wide receiver touchdowns. He's what makes it work. All right. I'll get it done. ESPN's Dan Graziano said the Vikings believe they'll have T.J. Hawkinson back at some point during the first half of the season. AKA not week one. Well, yeah, that was known. No, but you would have loved to, I mean, when I first saw this news breaking, I was hoping it was going to say that. Yeah. that he could be back early. It's good to know this now because you don't want to get closer and closer to the actual drafts and still not be sure if week one is in the cards. I do think T.J. Hawkinson is, you know, if you've got an IR spot. Yes, that's fine. You know, highlight him as your last pick in the draft because he'll go undrafted in a lot of these places and then whatever, just throw him on an IR. Yeah, but that, to me, that's it because it's, okay, first half of season.

What kind of person are you? Glass half full? If you are, you're like, oh, first half, you know, maybe week three or week eight. And then he's reacclimating with the devastating knee injury. If you have an IR, I'm okay with it. Yes, but your point is if you don't have an IR, he absolutely cannot be drafted. He cannot be drafted. And then we'll play the game of which week, which week is it that you go after Hawkinson off the waiver wire? I think there's a legitimate case. I'll drive T.J. Hawkinson and throw him on my IR with my last pick. Sure. And there is a very good chance that he won't even retain his IR spot. You know, if week two comes along and I've got a player on my roster that's injured, I'll be like, see you later, Hawkinson. I don't want to deal with your slow start. You were just a free hold, you know, space. But if I need your spot, yeah, Hawkinson is probably going to come back slow. All right. The Colts have said that Anthony Richardson and the starters will play a series or two.

Okay. In the preseason game against the Colts. Against the Colts. That is what I'm reading. The Colts. I'm Ron Burgundy. Thank you. I'm going to go out of Lynn and I'm going to say the Colts win this game. If I'm a betting man on a limb, okay. I'm going to bet on the Colts. Jeremy Fowler of ESPN says the Chargers quote have major plans for Quentin Johnston. Is he going to be a chef? What's he going to be doing for you? Yeah, the word major just implies like, Big, yeah. It's not positive or negative. We don't know. Major plans, like they're hoping to train them. We see a real draft pick in his future. Yeah, that was, you know, how about starter plans? That would help me. Yeah, if you plan to start would have been a bigger, more important piece of news than major plans. Having major plans. Is that like, there's like a vacation coming up? Or.

He's got major plans. Yeah. It's going to Hawaii for two weeks, bro. Major plans. This is not like a little short stay. Could it be, I mean, he doesn't strike me as a special teams type of player, but like, that's like when you have major plans for, but what is major plans for not a starter? Like, I think Quentin Johnson could still end up. Yes, he should. He was a first round pick last year and they, they really need him. I feel like the end of this season, we will be saying the Chargers had minor plans for Quentin Johnston. So I think that's the odds. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. We'll take a break. Come back with our running back countdown. Running bags. One of the things, just to put a bow on the Quentin Johnston stuff and the Chargers, like if you see Jim Harbaugh.

being asked questions. Did you see him get asked about the progress of Justin Herbert? Yes, I did. I don't know. It was fantastic because it was like 30 seconds of him saying, I'm not even qualified to be qualified to be qualified to talk about whether I'm qualified to say whether he's healthy. It was just like. But things are positive. Yeah. That's what he said. It was funny. He's got so he is a fun press conference. Did you also see him? Because he got. There were some consequences for recruiting violations at Michigan that just went through. Did you see his comments on that? Oh, did he? Yeah. Did he go? Not my problem. Well, I mean, he p. Carrolled in the sense that he departed before the consequences. But he came out and he had to, I mean, you should watch it. It's awesome. It's like, I mean, awesome might not be the right word. But he basically just says, like, I live my life with great accountability for mistakes. If I make a mistake, I come out and say, I'm sorry. And then he just goes.

I am not apologizing for this in any way, shape, and form. He's like, I was not aware of anything that happened. I did not do anything. I, you know, like, it doesn't matter. So we got it, I apologize for nothing. Yeah. From Jim Harbaugh? Yeah. Nice. Hard dog. Hard dog living it up. It's a fun watch. So, all right, we're into the, uh, the top 10 running backs. Our consensus half PPR rankings. You can see all the rankings. You can import your customized scoring system, get printable cheat sheets, see it all inside the UDK right now. Ultimate DraftKit.com. This is our top 10 by consensus ranks. Number 10. He's still there. He's a king. Derek Henry comes in at number 10. I am the lowest of the three of us on Derek Henry at 14. Jason has him inside the top 10, Mike at 11. He was the RB 8 last year in Tennessee, struggle of a season for that offense.

But this is Derek Henry. He's led the NFL in yards after contact for four of the last five years, double digit rushing touchdowns for six straight years. I think it's going to be seven. It's going to be seven. He has the running back equivalent in a lot of ways to Mike Evans in terms of longevity, consistency, and defying the age cliff. Is that a fair comparison? Yeah. In looking into running backs, The age cliff and the season cliff, like these are absolutely real things for mere mortals. Like people, just regular human beings. If you're playing running back, 27, 28, things really start to fall apart. But once you get, once you're an outlier, you're an outlier. And for me, it's, I will, I'm going to run with him until the wheels absolutely fall off. Keeps himself in incredible shape.

the team invested in him. His success has always been very correlative to wins and losses. If you look at his entire career, he averages double the fantasy points and wins, and you're on a team now that you expect to win a lot of ball games. Now, he may not have, I would not expect Derek Henry to have the volume, total carry counts that he's had in previous years. I don't think that the Ravens will use him in that way. We've had seasons with Baltimore and Harbaugh where You know, the Gus bus owned the fourth quarter of games that they were well in the lead for. You know, there were a lot of times when they had workhorse backs and then they brought somebody else in to be the efficient closer. But it won't matter, I don't think. I mean, I think Derek Henry's efficiency in three quarters of a win is going to be more valuable than most running backs in four quarters. Yeah, Gus Edwards did not crack 200 rushing attempts last year. He had 13 rushing touchdowns. And from week seven on,

He was the running back 12. So get rid of Gus Edwards and bring in the Yeti on a team that is going to win a lot of games. You know, their win totals one of the highest in the league. And so if you're telling me this is a team that's going to win games, that means they're going to score points, they're going to score touchdowns. And when they get down around the goal line, even though they've got a mobile quarterback in Lamar Jackson, that's not how they have approached the goal line. He isn't a Josh Allen, Jalen, Jalen, Hurt's type of guy that's going to push his way in. They're going to line up the big boys, and they're going to put the biggest boy behind him, and they're just going to have him easily get in the end zone. So Derek Henry, to me, there's only pretty much two ways to look at him.

Do you believe he's going to be up, you know, 12 to 15 touchdowns this season? Or do you think he's aged out? Their offensive line got worse and, you know, you don't want to be the one. I talked about it with Devante Adams. At some point, and this happens to running backs too, you don't want to be the one holding the bag and then you're just left for dead because it's over for that player. And Sean Alexander, who was so, so, so good, so good, so so good. And then a squat. The bear case. for Derek Henry's season is that 25th ranked offensive line, losing the starters, not being efficient on his touches and then having the occasional non-touchdown game where he's not even giving you the floor you needed. Like that would be the kind of, you know, when you're trying to paint the bad picture, do you agree that that would be the case? Like he's got, you know, he's got 13 touches for 40-something yards. He's not going to get in the passing game, is my point. Oh, yeah, of course. Not only does Baltimore not throw the ball.

to the running backs very often, and it will be Justice Hill if they do. But, like, that's the bad game case. I don't think there's anything wrong with that bear case. This is, I mean, like, if Derek Henry were 24 years old, like he would be ranked as a top three running back this year. There's a reason he's down here at 10. So, and because things could go wrong, I just, my chips are on the side of, having watched him last year. And yeah, like, he was, he was the running back eight, and he was getting platooned big time by Tajay Spears last year. I think, Kyle, correct me, Spears may have even out snapped. He did. Derek Henry. And, like, it doesn't matter because he's getting those really high value touches, which are the touchdowns. And I, it would be, even if he fails, it would take a catastrophic event.

to keep him away from 10 rushing touchdowns. Yeah, he was the running back four and the running back eight for a really, really, really bad Tennessee offense the last two years. You transport him to Baltimore, pay him, make him the starter. He's going to be fine. transport him to Baltimore makes me feel like it was like a big effort on a like a flatbed 100% you know what I mean this is massive cargo moving like free willy that's how they take him from game to game they can't put him in they're not chartering him on the team jet that thing can't get off the ground this is a precious man we need we need to put him in a pote mobile number nine

All right, Isaiah Pacheco comes in at number nine. This is above average draft position right now. He's being drafted at RB12. You two are the two highest in this office. He is definitely the guy in Kansas City. So much confidence in the offense and things working for the chiefs. I am, I guess, you know, I'm right at ADP, so it's not like I am. Yeah, you're not out. I'm not pooing on Pacheco. I still look at this offense, and when I think of what I love in a running back for my fantasy team, I love it when they're the identity of the offense, right? Like Chub was and Henry was for years in Berkeley. And I still am going to look at Mahomes and Kelsey and, you know, some weeks Rashi Rice and some other players before I'm looking at Pacheco. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the identity of this team.

Will be Isaiah Pacheco. I'm curious to see how it goes. The identity of the team will be Mahomes for sure. However, I think you're wrong in the sense of the identity of the team wasn't Cream Hunt when Cream Hunt was the running back four. The identity of the team was the passing game. But their offense was so good that the touchdowns flow and Mahomes finds you in the passing game. Andy Reed uses you at the goal line. And Isaiah Pacheco, if you. Watch what they've done, you know, as far as what running backs are on the roster, what running backs they haven't brought back, what they did and didn't do in the draft. He's just the dude. When you listen to Andy Reid talk about the three-down skill set, how he can run a full route tree, how his hands are great, how his protection is great. Isaiah Pacheco is a three-down back for the Kansas City Chiefs who are being underdrafted right now because last year was a down offensive year for them.