The TRUTH: RBs Part 1 + Saquon Smash! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 1/23

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The fantasy footballers back with you Thursday, January 23rd, Jason Moore. Mike Wright, Andy Holloway. Welcome in one and all. Another fine episode for you on this Thursday. It's like we just recorded yesterday.

Feels that way. Feels that way. Happy to have you with us. We got news to talk about mostly coaching staff related. Mostly. Mostly. Let me look. All. It is. Exclusively. It is 100% of the news content. We're not there yet, though. So there's still time for, you know, a player breaking news to find its way in. And we have the truth. Of the running back position starting today, the top 10 running backs. So that'll be fun. Jason is always, you know, he can always play spoiler if he wants. He did say running back for awesome. They crushed. Spoiler. He, you, you, you had alluded to something special for Sequin, like you were going to make a whole new style or something. Yep. Did that happen? That did happen. Okay. That did have, I'll get there when we get there, but, uh, you don't want to tease it out. This is the tease is that.

Sequin has something new for him that we have never done before to ensure that he is in the truthful spot because this episode's about the truth. And if an algorithm is not reflecting the truth, then that's not the algorithm we're going to use. You made a new one. You added, you added like a... I took him. I just took him out of it. I'm going to be honest with you. I played around with it for a long time to try to get it to work. An algorithm was... We stopped using the algorithm. No, we used the algorithm for everyone except Sakewan. I took him out because it couldn't place him at one because it can't give enough bonus points for what he did for 30 plus point games. I guess we're not just teasing it out. But, well, you know, we'll talk about him. I'm guessing somewhere around first when we get into the truth of running backs. That sounds fair. You can go to join the foot.com if you want to become a supporter of the show. Get the bonus weekly episode called the Footcast, where we answer your questions each and every week.

During the offseason, it's nice to get an extra episode so you can do that over there. Access to all the premium tools and resources as well. That's join thefoot.com. And it's a good time to remind you if you are, you know, it's off-season's percolating. And if you're looking for a new league, if you're looking for more like-minded people, Papa Josh would love it if I told you to head to ballersdiscord.com. Join our free Discord channel. I don't know if Papa Josh, you know the number of active members off the top of your head. I'm really putting you on the spot. We're at 59.2,000. Okay. Okay. So that's a lot. That's quite a few. I thought you were going to. You could find some leagues over there. I thought you were going to tease out that we are mere days away from a really big Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday?

Some call it that. Some call it that. When you said days away, I was like, what is in a couple days? Because we're still weeks away. Oh, I forgot there's the week off. Yeah. Whatever. So that would be a weeks away type of thing. It's mere weeks away. Mears and days away. That's great news for me because we are building out this year's Dynasty Pass, which will be live on a really big Sunday where there's another big game. Months away. Look, when you're in the weeds, man, you're like, uh-oh. So you're feeling good right now because you just realize you got another week. You just got more time. You got more time to get it done. Yeah, I'm putting everything on pause. Oh, you're just going to keep. I get to take a week off now. The hair takes a nap and he ends up winning, right? Is that what happened? That's the one I've seen. Hmm. I thought it was, yeah, okay, we'll see. So it should be ready. It should be ready by Super Bowl Sunday.

The ultimate draft kick always begins. We'll talk about it more. I guess in the next few weeks. In the next few years. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA insurance. The Jets are hiring former Lions defensive coordinator. Aaron Glenn is their next head coach. He was a first round pick by the Jets. When you got to type, you got to type. You know, the unproven. up and coming first time defensive head coach. How sad are Rex Ryan's teeth right now? Oh, man. There. His teeth? Oh, well, because that's all you can think of when you think of Rex Ryan. If you look at Rex Ryan, you got a big old smile. What? Mike. What? Mike. Mike. Is this a joke? Is Mike playing us right now? I don't know. I don't know if you guys know this. There's a big Rex Ryan factoid out there. Oh, I know about the feet. Oh, I know about the feet.

I mean, I, everyone listening. But you can't see that on glance. Here's a thing. That's all I know about. Anyone listening right now who has seen Rex Ryan, that's a regular, that's just a good big smile. Let me find him. I'm going to dive deeper. I don't understand what's happening. I feel like we're being gaslit right now because. So if you search for Rex Ryan teeth, Mike, the first thing you will see are the illuminated teeth? He's got LEDs inside them. The very first thing on Reddit, why are Rex Ryan's teeth so white? That's it. He's also comes up on the what's the worst celebrity veneers we've ever seen thread.

very recently. You pretty much need sunglasses if you're face-to-face with Rex Ryan. Or only one on our side is Rex Ryan and his weirdly white teeth. I think I maybe found an old photo. Oh, you found a photo of just normal teeth? Yeah, these are these are laser beams. Yes, okay. Thank you. So the picture I put in there, that's not the same teeth. No, he did. That's what the veneers are. They're a new set of teeth. He's got the Ross from Friends teeth. Those are some. White teeth. Thank you for joining. I'm seeing the picture. I just can't believe you haven't seen Rex Ryan in the last few years. I don't tune into Rex Ryan anything. He's always on ESPN. I don't tune into anything Rex Ryan. Yes, Mr. Ryan, what shade would you like to go on these teeth? Get those out of here. Bring me a sheet of paper. I'll show you how white I want it.

I think. Is Translust it an option? I think the point was those teeth don't have a head coaching job. Right. Oh, that's where this is. Yeah. Congrats. Um, Leon, so fantasy football wise, this is as of right now a total. Yeah. I mean, defense of head coaches. These guys, they got to find the OC. Some of them can. And. He has done a great job with Detroit. Sure. He has done. I think the hire is fine. Even with injuries, they've played very hard for him. I think that the hire is, I mean, coordinators for this type of rise of a team, those guys deserve a chance. Yeah. Like you're a part of it. But being the fantasy show, is like, okay, that's great. Who's your OC? Even taking fantasy out of it, I can't imagine I would.

If I was a general manager, I would be very hesitant. I mean, I don't know, Aaron Glenn. I haven't interviewed him and been blown away and been won over. I think he did an amazing job. But I do think building a franchise, it puts you at a disadvantage if you have a defensive head coach. Because if your offense clicks and does well for a defensive mind head coach, you're going to lose your OC. He's going to become a head coach. And then you've got to keep recycling. Well, and this is, you know, Dan Campbell. And, you know, Ben Johnson leaving. And then you have this news, which is very good for a player we were worried about. Baker Mayfield is not losing his offensive coordinator. They decided the Buccaneers did to offer Liam Cohen a bag of money to turn down the potential Jacksonville job. I think Liam Cohen went to Jacksonville and was like, nah. They fired their GM today.

Jacksonville. Yes. Trent Balchie is fired. But Liam Cohen is staying, so Baker Mayfield will not have a new OC again. Great news. And that's exciting. And the Patriots are expected to hire, once again, for the third time, at least the third time, Josh McDaniels is their offensive coordinator to join Mike Rabel. What are they doing? Yeah, I mean, you said for fantasy football purposes, you know, with the Jets, we're not sure. We're not sure until Aaron Glenn finds his offensive guy. Vrable has found his offensive guy. We have plenty of data here. How do you feel about the third try here? I feel like they are assembling the hits, the greatest hits of Patriots. Romeo Cornell on the way back soon? Just wait. Just wait. Who is the other of the former Notre Dame coach? O'Brien? No, no, no. Oh, oh, that would do it. That was not. Oh, my gosh. Oh, he's got a serious X-M show now.

Charlie Wise. Yeah, there's Kyle. Thank you, thank you. All right, Kevin O'Connell. Did you want to talk about Rex Ryan's teeth, Kyle? Yeah, were you aware of his teeth? I don't care about his teeth. But were you aware of his teeth? I'm proud of you for not caring. You're a better man than us. Were you aware? Not really. That's another man who has not watched Rex Ryan. I don't know how you can ever watch and not be aware. They're like flashlights in his mouth. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, thank you, Jason. Yeah, I'm sorry. The Vikings have agreed to a moment. How did you, guys, I'm just learning about this. So this is, I'm trying to get all this information in real time. Sign me up. How do I get, how do I get teeth this white? Yeah, you can read menus at dark restaurants now. It's amazing.

I mean, you don't even need to do the old person thing with your phone at all. You just hold it closer to your face. Hey, Rex, can you smile for me? Rex, read for the table. I can't get these desserts. I can't make it out. The power is out. Let's go to Rex's room. I have to imagine in the dark he clothes. Like, legit. They're pretty white. That's wild. Didn't know this was going to be the podcast today. Kevin O'Connell, multi-year extension with the Vikings. The best part here is. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. The best part is how completely outdated this is. Like, yeah, this is not irrelevant. No personnel. This has nothing to do with anything going on. This is an old thing that happened. This is everything. And that's what today's episode is about. Do you think the newfound confidence, though, with these chompers was that he could go back in there and get the job? He thought he could shine bright in that room. Yeah, he did. Okay. Kevin O'Connor. Third try here. Kevin O'Connor multi-year deal.

Of course. With Minnesota. The, man, the whole teams want to trade for Kevin O'Connell thing. That just, like, I don't doubt it was true. Like, yeah. I would have, I would have loved for my franchise if we don't have a good coaching solution to be like, oh, that guy? He's turned around the Minnesota Vikings program with Sam Darnold. He didn't have a contract, though, right? He was about, he was about to be up, yeah. Okay. So maybe that was what kind of. spurned those rumors. But yeah, so he's back. That's great news. All right. We will have a full coaching changes episode in late February. Oh, so much Rex Ryan in that episode. I wish. Now, Mike, now that you're aware. Yeah. How disappointed are you who didn't get the job? Oh, so, man. So disappointed. 2025 would have been lit. You know? The content.

that we could have come out. That's all that matters. We're pulling all these things off just, this is off the top of the head. If you gave me some time in the lab, do you think about good teeth jokes? You didn't know about it in five minutes ago, so just imagine what you could do. This is great. Congrats everybody. I'm not even here. He is. It was rumored. They called him in for a second interview, but he was getting his teeth whitening. He could not make it, and that's why he didn't get the job. Sorry, is it a Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, because that's what teeth whitened. Does he not drink coffee or anything? You know what it is? It's been more amplified. Oh, I can't believe we're still talking about this. It's been more amplified because he's on ESPN and he gets the orange put on.

Yes, I can see that. So they put the orange on. He's got the skin tanner on. And when you've got that combined with the teeth at this level. Like everyone's your teeth, they stain. Is there like a, like a stain repellent you can put on your teeth? I think veneers don't stain. That's not possible. This is accurate. But also good night, man. Yeah. Good night. I am just looking at pictures. This is great stuff. After picture. Ladies and gentlemen out there who were not aware of this, go search. And if you find a picture of Rex Ryan in. All these pictures in Slack are killing me. Here's what I want you to do right now. Because we're recording this the day before. The Falcon, I want the picture you just shared in Slack. I want you to no context, tweet it right now. Yes. Tweet that picture. Do not say a thing.

People will find it tomorrow. That guy is going to a rave. It's impressive. All right. He's ready. Guys. His glow teeth on. Yeah. This is the truth about Rex Ryan episode. We're going to get to running backs. I promise. It's the offseason. Yeah. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USA.com slash insurance. Here we go. You want answers. I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Did you make that graphic, Falcon? Or was that something you found? He wishes Grock. Oh, Grock made that for you? Okay. Moving on. To a rather important position in fantasy football this year, the running backs, the top 10 running backs, what is the truth? We look at consistency. We look at performances relative to their fantasy finish and tell you the impact that these guys really made on your team. So you have a proper evaluation of the season and an outlook.

for next season that is right and fair. And we often bring up, like, you can go back and listen to these again in about six months because when you're getting ready to draft, there are players who have, there are distortions to how consistent and helpful they were for your team. For sure. We'll talk about a couple of them today that, you know, we've got to figure out what the truth is. I think there's one player on today's show that I'm not sure what the, I'm not sure what the truth is. So hopefully you two can illuminate that for. Everyone and myself included. I can't think of anything. Yeah, you just say illuminate. You think about them teeth, man. Um, 2024 crushed for running backs. Most total. In the rushing department. Yeah, we're on the ground. Yeah. Because it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I assumed. Yeah. I got what you're saying. Receiving production for running backs. Yeah. Actually, oh, was down overall. The most total rushing fantasy points for running back since 2011.

the second most rushing touchdowns since 2011. And the receiving production did take a step back. It's the fewest receiving yards at the position since 2011. You know, I'm not surprised in some regard that that number has, you know, some of the more prolific running backs in the receiving game aren't there anymore. They're getting older. Yeah, I mean, Austin Eccler. for a long stretch was 100 receptions a year. And McCaffrey missed basically the whole year. So it does make sense. And Camara got injured as well. Yeah. So, you know, here we go. We're going to talk about the top 10 running backs. And I'm, you know, the breakdown here, 21 points is a great game. So we look at how many great games they had. Good games are 12 or more points. Bus games fewer than seven. We don't count missed games due to injury against their consistency score.

And Jason, just to make sure we left week 18 out again. We did. Week 18 does not apply here. So number one, I guess in a new category, Sequin Barclay. Yes. He was the number one most consistent running back by our consistency metrics, 44% great, 75% good, only 6% bust games. It was one bust game. It looks like that was week six. against Cleveland. Yeah, I mean, one bust game is great. When we were looking at the actual algorithm that's been, you know, tweaked and honed in on for a decade now, at what we believe is the most accurate representation of the truth of these players, you actually had Jemir Gibbs and Bijan Robinson, who had no bus games, the entire season, kind of grading out ahead of Sequin from a consistency standpoint, which makes sense because you didn't have that bust. But I can't in good conscience.

good conscience say that Sequin was behind those guys in truth because our great games by our metric and half PPR are north of 21 fantasy points. That's a great game. If your player goes out and scores 22 points, you had a great output from that and they should be scored as such. When a player goes out in half PPR and goes north of 30, that's... that is, you know, a weak winning performance. We don't score for that because it's not very common. You know, Jemir Gibbs had one of them. We don't award bonus points for that. Right. Karen Williams had one of them. You know, you had... Sequin had five. Sequin had five. Yeah. Five times. He just flat won the week for you. So I was like, no, I don't, I don't want to skew and add in these crazy outlier games for, you know...

that ruined the other player's rankings. I'm just taking Seguan out, putting him where he belongs with the crown on his head. And then, I mean, there was nothing bad about Sequin. Seven runs of 40 plus yards. That's more than Todd Gurley ever had in his career. Four runs of 60 plus yards. Not including the playoffs, which he's already done it. Yeah, four runs of 60 plus is the same amount that CMC has his entire career. So there were breakaway runs and a lot of that came. As a result of Saquan's talent and ability being combined with the elite offensive line production, 66.2% of his rushing yards came before contact that is the highest rate among running backs with 200 plus carries in the last 10 years. The offensive line, it was basically like sometimes you should take the layup in fantasy and not figure out why it's going to fail.

I guess because you knew Sequin was doing everything with nothing in New York. And then you knew that players in Philadelphia were succeeding at such a great level just because of the offensive line. Diadre Swift, Miles Sanders, those players did not depart and look special. And then you say, okay, we're going to give you the best offensive line to the best player or one of the best players at the position. Here's what should happen. It did happen. This is a case of it happened exactly how you would predict it to happen. if everything comes together. I think the, because I was on the side, you know, guilty of I was not off, not anti-sick one, but I was a little nervous, a little skeptical of what the changes that were going to happen. And it's like, well, Jalen Hertz is good for, you know, what, 10 plus rushing touchdowns. Can this offense with.

AJ Brenner, Devonte, because like passing touchdowns are going to happen too. And you have to just slot in 10 plus to Jalen Hertz. How about 14? How does Barkley? Yeah, you got 14 this year. How about 14? And Barkley's at 13. Like that was, I think that was the bigger surprise to me. It wasn't the Barkley's going to rip off huge games. Because like, because he, like his athletic profile, this is what he, he's one of very few running backs in the league. that can hit a 75-yard rushing touchdown. Not everybody can do that. People get caught. Sequin Barkley will not be caught. But to get to the point where you're like 13 touchdowns is that was the part that I was hesitant and nervous about coming through. And I mean, the egg is on my face. That was. It did not work out that way. It was across everything. I mean, obviously he could have broken the rushing record if he played in week 18. So it wasn't just touchdowns. It wasn't just big plays.

And I think a lot of this was the fact that the Philadelphia Eagles defense was so much better this year that they were in a lot of winning game scripts where Jalen Hertz didn't need to air it out a lot. I don't expect their defense is very young. You know, they're two rookie corners that they both hit on this last year. Jalen Carter, their defensive line. So going forward to next year, you have to imagine it's not going to be necessarily as. lapping the field as this year because big plays are hard to come by. But he should be the number one running back drafted. And there's no reason to look at next year and say that anything shouldn't work as well. I was in the camp too where I was nervous about things going as perfectly as expected. I end up trading Sequin in the preseason and getting Gibbs.

And I lost. Yeah. I lost the trade like that. We're going to talk about Gibbs in a minute. You lost. And the, aside, the touchdowns were like, oh, didn't see, it didn't see it being that great. But one of the bigger concerns was, okay, the Jalen Hertz, mobile quarterback, not a huge passing volume, just in general. We need to be at the top, receiving does have to be in your profile, unless you have an outlier ear. So it's like if. beginning of the year with all of the, oh, there's some unknowns here. He said, okay, Sequin's going to catch 33 passes for 278 yards. You go, oh, he's not the number one running back. No way. No, he's like, he. And tell him that Jalen Hertz is going to score 14 times. Yeah, you're like, pushes. Maybe, maybe Sequin's the top five. Yeah. Did he have such a, so this was a unique season. He is a unique player.

I think it's important to say it was a unique season that will probably not be repeated too because Sequin has had a prolific injury history in recent years avoided that entirely this year, which is super impressive. I feel like we had at least a few times too during the season. We're like, oh, there it is. Yeah. There was the Sequin's done. Oh, no, he's back. He's back. Everything's okay. First 16 game. So he missed the last week, right? Correct. Yeah. So. They set him down. First time he's played six. Okay, he played 16 in 2022 and in 2018. But he's had a lot of years where he's been banged up. And the snap counts haven't been high. He's done okay. Career for a career. Career high in opportunities. So it's impressive. We'll take a break. We'll jump in with number two. Another elder statesman getting it done. Derek Henry, 31 years old, drafted as the RB9 arrives in Baltimore.

has a ho-hum first week. It's okay. Not a great week. First week people were freaked out. No, this is like, yeah. Week one, you're like, why is Derek Henry off the field so much? And then right after that, we got the Harbaugh. We did not bring Sequin Barclay or I'm sorry, Derek Henry. We didn't bring him in here to give him every single touch. And it was, oh, oh, no. This is going to be what the fear side was of he's old. It's on a new team. Week one was when Jason felt so good about Isaiah Pacheco over Derek Henry. Heck, yeah, and week two. I was happy just because Pacheco was good both weeks, but that was wrong. So Derek Henry ends up number two in fantasy points, number four in consistency. He was the number one most consistent in the first half. It did slip to number six in the second half. 38% great, 81% good, 6% bust. There were, despite the amazing season, there were times.

I think that there was some frustration in the amount of snaps that, like, Justice Hill would be getting two-minute drills, certain situations, rarely busted one time. Most consistent season of his career in terms of good games was 24, 81% of the time. So even all those prolific top-tier fantasy seasons, he never had this much consistency as he had in Baltimore. And that's, I mean, you could look at. Got to look at Baltimore's record, right, and how well they played on a regular basis. Kyle's hitting us with this hot stat here. Baltimore was leading or tied on 81% of his rush attempts. This is another one that just played out exactly how you'd be like, oh, perfect scenario for Henry. Put him in a team that was always winning. And we did talk about that a lot because the good Tennessee years, they were winning a lot of games. Well, I mean, that was his career. We brought it up. In wins, this is across his career.

He averages 19.2 fantasy points per game. In losses, 9.8. It is as big a split as any, you know, it's like the historical big bin home road splits. Like it's one of those where you can bank on it. If they're losing, because he's not a pass catching back. If they're really, really losing a game, he can't do what he does. If they're winning, it's because he did what he does. So it's nice when you go to a team where you're like, how many games are they going to win? 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, you know, next year going into next season, you have to imagine they're going to win a lot of games again. Highest yards per carry in the NFL, much better at home, 22.1 fantasy points versus on the road at 16.7. Saw 91% of Baltimore carries inside the five, which is the highest percentage in the NFL, right? And like you said, just amazing when the team is winning.