The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy RBs + The Perfect Season - Fantasy Football Podcast for 1/25

But I don't know a lot of people that Bijon Robinson was the linchpin of your title run. He was at times pretty good, 18% busts, 53% good, 12% great. He scored four rushing touchdowns on 214 carries. He had four receiving touchdowns. It is criminal. It is criminal. Criminal to draft a running back in the first round at eight overall. And the dude has four rushing touchdowns. Well, he had three carries inside the five. That's what I'm saying. On the, on the, on the 2023 NFL season. NFL coaches, please take note. Please take note. Arthur Smith thought he was super smart and didn't use the players that the, that the team drafted and didn't have success. And now that guy fired. Thank you. That guy, that guy don't got a job. I want that sound clip. I want that to be in the drops.

No, look, Bijon, I think we know that the talent... Use your players. And the ability is there. Bejohn is one of the few players going into next year that has a range of outcomes that goes all the way up to number one or two at the position. Yep. You know, Mixon's not going to fit that, right? I don't think Moester is going to fit that next year, genuinely. Like, I don't think that's possible. There's only a handful of guys that could be number one. And depending on who this new head coach is going to be, as of this recording, we don't know.

But Bijan used properly will be a high floor, high ceiling, league winning player for your team. And he may go lower than he deserves because of the unknown and because we haven't seen it yet. Yeah, I mean, TBD on who the quarterback is, that's going to make a big difference on to how the offense, how you believe in the offense. Obviously, if a coach comes in and starts utilizing Bejohn as a true war course and not giving Tyler Alger a ton of work. and makes him more of the backup as would be appropriate based on talent, Bijon, I think, should have a phenomenal year. And in fact, even this rookie season, which is disappointing. And I would say it's disappointing for two primary reasons. The primary reasons being he was not given opportunities to score touchdowns like he should have been. And like the team had, they just didn't give it to him. And two, because of the first week of the playoffs.

I am one of them. You say, did I win my championship with Bijon and Breece Hall? No, because in week one of the playoffs, they combined for like three fantasy points. It was awful. But if you really look at the season, he was pretty darn good. And if you take out, you remember that game where he got sick and he didn't report it? And then they didn't, he got one carry in the game in the fourth quarter weirdly. And he just wasn't used. If you take that game out, he was consistency score of seven. Now, obviously, you played him that week.

So we don't have them in there. But I'm just saying that wasn't his performance or fault. That was Arthur Smith not reporting an injury. He very rarely busted. And he just broke some hearts. And the other thing I'll say, here's going to be the defining characteristic to me is not going to just be the fact that Arthur Smith has gone. It's going to be who the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons is. Yeah, I agree. If you look at Bejohn Robinson's utilization in the passing game, guys. It was elite. It was elite, but what I was getting in terms of volume, yes, but he caught 58 of his 86 targets, Mike. Rashad White just caught 64 of 70. Okay? How do you not, I mean, that's not Bijon dropping 30 balls. You remember some of those catches where he's catching the ball behind his back? That is a quarterback problem. The quarterback gives you the chance to get on the goal line. The quarterback gives you the ball in an area where you can do something. 58 of 86 targets is not the number.

that is proportionate to his talent inability. I think we'd all agree that if he was in the Rashad White role in Tampa this year, same exact work. As Rashad White. As was Rashad White. He would have been the running back two. 70 targets and the 272 carries is a different ballgame. Bijan would have been the RB2. Yep. So to me that is a quarterback problem. Don't over-emphasize just the head coach, right? Come on, Kirk Cousins. Come on down. Well, I mean, you might be dealing with some very interesting other names. I got a name for you. I got a name for you. Oh, say it. Matt Ryan. Oh, get out of here, you monster. I wanted you to say Joe Flacco. Oh, okay. That'd be great. I mean, Russell Wilson? No. Maybe. No, no, no, no.

I'd take Russell over, over Desmond Ritter? Sure, I'm not saying he's not an upgrade, but we're having fun here. I talk about hoping. I'm not hoping in Russell. Listen, listen, you don't want Joe Flacko. You think you do, you don't. I think I do. No, you want him for four games. He's good for four. He's a car with the tread that will last for four games. He's the donut? He's just not. You can replace this and you could drive. Just don't go far. He's the spare tire on the, you don't want that. I don't think. At that age, the amount of interceptions and turnovers, I don't think you do, but we'll find out. Well, don't hear what I'm going to say. The Falcons don't want them. I want them. The turnovers are great for fantasy. Yeah, yeah. The shoe, man. The shoe drops for Joe. At number 10, we'll round out this episode with Jamir Gibbs, and then we'll talk about David Montgomery, who finished at 13. So 10 and 13, consistency rank, very different between them. Gibbs was the higher finisher, but at a 16.

in terms of the consistency rank. Montgomery finished at 13, but was a number five inconsistency. So, you know, we know what the ceiling is for Jimmy or Gibbs. He had 182 rushing attempts and scored 10 times on those. He is so good. He's so good. I mean, when you see him in space, his speed is... Just outstanding. And, you know, going into next year, he should be even better. And I do think he will be great for fantasy. I do think he will be the wrong value pick in this backfield. And I will be all in on David Montgomery. But. Interesting. That's the angle you're taking here. That's where I'm at. Yeah. I mean, you see it in the consistency score. Right. Like, obviously, David Montgomery missed some games. But he was more consistent. Just never busted. Always gets the goal line work.

And one of his bad games was the game he got injured in where he only played 26% of snaps. I think this will be a very, very interesting debate next year because it's hard to argue with, you know, a season where Jemir Gibbs missed some time and still ended up with 71 targets in the passing game. Montgomery had 24 targets. Gibbs will probably be like a first rounder though, right? No, I don't think so. Second, early second round. I understand what you're saying. You're saying you'd take the value. I think it's going to be team dependent for me on what you need, right? Like there are situations where I think David Montgomery may end up in somewhat of a, who did you just bring up that was if he didn't score, he didn't produce? I mean, the Travis ETN situation. I think that that could be a little bit of the problem. You saw Montgomery from week 12 on, you know, it was good but not league like week winning. Right. And then Gibbs had a couple week winning weeks. So it'll be a really interesting dance.

I mean, obviously, if they both cost the same for me to acquire, I'm taking Gibbs. I just think, I think David Montgomery will fall down draft boards worried that, oh, he's going to be completely usurped by Gibbs. And he's not going to be usurped. I mean, he's going to get goal line work and be a big part of this offense. Yeah, they just paid him. 90% of his fancy points came on the ground. Montgomery. Montgomery. You don't like hearing that. That's kind of wild. I mean, that is, I don't know. Naji was better in the second half, right? Oh, maybe. Second half is Naji's time. That's usually when he's shines. Once you've given up. Yes, once he's giving up on nausea. He's like, all right. Noggi, they're talking about moving on from you again. He's like, oh, man, I guess I'll get it together. I mean, Monty was a perfectly proportional 7% great, 7% bust, 64% good. Yeah, he's just, he's tried and true. He was.

As someone who had him on a couple teams, I loved him as my running back too. I just knew I'm getting double digit points from him. Yeah, no, that's fair. You had that experience with him on your team. He was the pass blocker that they trusted too early in the year. We'll see if that is a transition that happens at any point. Elite role inside the 20, like you said, you know he's getting those opportunities as long as the offense stays consistent and upper echelon, which it should be, right? Yeah, absolutely. But man, Gibbs is one of those players. If Montgomery went down, Gibbs could be the number one running back on the year. For sure. The scoring splits against defense, it's interesting. Gibbs was better against tougher opponents. And then Montgomery was, like, that makes sense. If you're just going narrative of, okay, a tougher opponent, maybe they're stronger on the ground. Gibbs is getting a little more receiving work. And then Monty was better against weaker opponents, just beating them up.

Yeah, and if you want to be tantalized by the talent, he was tied, this is Gibbs, for third highest fantasy points per touch ever for a rookie running back. You saw that. I mean, you saw it every time he touched the ball. It was electricity. He is who he thought he was, which is great. Yeah, thank goodness for that. I think that's it. I think we ran it out the top 10. We've got another running back truth episode, part two coming up next Tuesday. We've got a bonus episode of the show. You can go, let's do right now because we deliver one every single week. For all of you that support this show, we appreciate you. Join the foot.com. If you want to head over there and get the bonus episode every single week. Since the beginning of this show, we've been delivering a footcast every week over there. So you can go check that out. You guys have anything else to add? I'm ready for a nap. You're very tired. I'm sweaty.

Right now, I'm sweating in this jacket. What am I doing? I got great news for you, Jason. I could take it off. Yeah. Yeah. I might do that. All right. That'll do it for today's show. Thank you for being back with another one on Tuesday, like we said. Goodbye. 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 the FF ballers.