Fantasy Football - The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy RBs + Wheel of Shame - Podcast for 1/22

I can't imagine I won't be in on Christian McCaffrey, but I don't know if he'll be, I'll be in on him. Let me help you. Well, Bijon's going to be the top one pick, but it's like Gibbs, you know. Yeah, Montgomery could be gone. If Gibbs was alone, there are. Jamar Chase, if you want to go wide receiver, you know. I'm just, just pure running backs. There's going to be guys that I will consider over McCaffrey. Underdog shared this. This was Christian McCaffrey's. Third time topping 400 touches in a season. Obviously, he's been a workforce many times. That is also a scary number. The other two times that he did it, the following season he played three games and four games. Yeah. That was kind of the arguments. How do you think he is so fresh at 29 years old? The off seasons? Yeah, full year off seasons. Yeah. What if they did that proactively for somebody? Yeah. Just every other year. Like, we're going to get a good draft pick this year.

You're going to sit out. You're going to be healthy for next year. We're going to have more ammunition. Now, it's obviously the touch threshold is not everything. There's a bunch of other variables. But if you want to put that into action, you know, last year, Sequin Barclay on that huge season where he's just touching the ball like every play, that was one of the red flags is, hey, Berkeley's a bit older. He hit this number that. that we have seen statistically when running backs hit this number of this threshold of carries and touches things don't really go well the next year you realize this was a career high by the way for total opportunities that makes sense 440 it makes sense and they had the whole team was hurt like the wide receiver room was just devastated

for about half the year. And then you won't have kiddle going into next year. You might have some more wide receivers that they bring in because they either need to resign Jennings or draft somebody or do both. Pierce always heard all year, like you said. We'll see. Having said all of those things, I mean, he's great. He's great. The receiving numbers, he would have been a wide receiver one with just the receiving work. He will still be able to do that. Maybe the big players are gone from the ground. It's a more inefficient. But he's still going to catch the ball a ton. Number two, Jonathan Taylor in fantasy points. His consistency rank, though, was number five. And it's really a tale of two halves for Jonathan Taylor. The first half, he was the number four in consistency. You had one, two, three. Bejohn didn't catch him. You had four different number one overall finishes before week 10 by week 10 for Jonathan Taylor. In the second half, his highest finish on a week was running back 13.

41% great, 65% good, 12% bust games, 11 fantasy points less against top defenses. If you look at that first half of the year, he did dominate Denver's defense, but then it was like Tennessee twice. His two number one overall finishes, Tennessee twice, Atlanta once, Las Vegas. So. It got tougher in the second half and you lost Daniel Jones. I was going to say it's really tough to know how he would have done. Obviously, week two against Denver's awesome offense when they were with Daniel Jones. He was the number one running back on the week that week. It's a shame that when they played Houston and Jacksonville twice and Seattle, these great defenses at the end of the year, we didn't get to see what the real Colts would have done with Jonathan Taylor. Houston twice, Jacksonville twice, Seattle and Kansas City.

The Kansas, so week 12, 13, that's Kansas City, Houston. Those were Daniel Jones games. 12 and 13? Yeah. Okay. So the Houston, one of the Houston games. The injury. So two Jacksonville's. Injury was the beginning of the Jacksonville game. It's tough. I mean, you don't, you didn't have the threat. You had the Rivers games. But this is not like, like we know this. Like Johnson Taylor was the number one overall fantasy running back in 2021. He's been through the dark ages at quarterback. You got some life from Daniel Jones, and suddenly he's the number one back again. But that disparity between top and bottom defense is worth paying attention to if you don't have the threat in the passing game. And then home road splits. He was 10 points better at home. It was like a pretty huge disparity in both of those situations. Yeah, you don't want it. It's very normal, but that large of a split for both is. At home against the bad defense, you better count on a boom game. And then the question of.

What's the quarterback situation? Daniel Jones, as of this recording, is not under contract. I would, I think. Recovering from Achilles surgery. I think we all project he'll be on the team if it's just a franchise or tag or something else. But to start the year, for the first month, it might be Riley Leonard. I was going to say Anthony Richardson. Or yeah, or Anthony Richardson. Oh, yeah. He had the busted eye. I mean, I think there's a good chance that those guys are placeholders until Daniel Jones can come back. And I think the team would be even happier, assuming it's like a one-year deal with Daniel Jones, a redemption deal, a chance to go back to the market, which maybe somebody pays him more than that elsewhere. But they'd love to see Richardson do well. If next year is kind of an inverse of this year, because he doesn't have the healthiest version of the Colts to start, Daniel Jones, maybe doesn't start week one. And when he comes back in week four or five, he's not completely ready. But maybe the second half of the year, the Colts are clicking.

I would be so, like if you ended up having the exact season Jonathan Taylor had this year in reverse, where at the beginning of the year, he was ho-hum, he was good, not great. He was like a running back two. He wasn't crushing you any of those weeks. You know, all those tough matchups without Daniel Jones, it was the running back 20, 22, 17, 13. Like, you're fine. But then the rest of the season, you go on that heater through the playoffs and. We would be talking about him as the league winner right now. So he's got that potential in him. Yeah, I like that. So next year, I'm going to be very bullish towards Jonathan Taylor. So Anthony Richardson, I just did a quick look. We have, I'm seeing 15 documented starts. He has surpassed 270 passing yards one time. He did it. I bring that up because Riley Leonard in that last game of the year.

Threw for 270. Now it's the last game. Wacky stuff happens. He looked okay in his opportunities this year. But that will be, I think it'll be a camp battle between Leonard and Richardson. That was the game against the Texans, right? Is that when? Let me double check it. Richardson completed one pass this year to himself. Impressive. That was it. Yeah, final week was against Jacksonville. Bejohn Robinson at number three. Nope, that was last year. Sorry. Houston. You're right. I want to get it right, man. Bejohn Robinson was number three, consistency rank of number three. First half, number five inconsistency, second half, number three inconsistency. Jason guaranteed the indestructible. Bejan Robinson, it happened. 17 games played. 12% bust games. He had two bust games. One was week 18? Yeah, who cares? 76% good games. 47% great games. If you compare it to last year, very similar. Last year was 38% great, 81% good.

with no bust games. Honestly, his season was very, very comparable to last year. He dominated bad defenses. The good defenses, he was nine point differential, which was significant. This is very common for the running back position in general. Don't be alarmed by any of that. I mean, CMC was six points worse against good defenses. Jonathan Taylor was 11 worse. You don't want huge splits on both sides of defenses and home road. No, and Bejohn was even on the home road situation. He was great. I mean, he had a couple of those more significant breakaway game winning, week winning type of performances towards the back of the season, number one overall in week 13, and then four, seven, and two in the playoffs. So, you know.

I don't know how much there is to say about him. He's just dominant. I think the back half, if we look at him being better, he was great with Michael Pennix. He was on pace for over 2,000 all-purpose yards and 70 receptions. You were so thrilled with what you were getting from him with Michael Pennix. But he was even better with Kirk Cousins. What do you think they do? Because I've seen more comments now about Cousins being their starter next year. I don't. know if they will have a choice health-wise. Panics not being ready? Right. It was the same ACL, right? We have the new re-injury of it. Kyle, am I remembering that right? Kyle would be the one to know. It was, what, week 11, partially torn left ACL? They were five and two with Kirk Cousins once he started. They won four in a row to end the season and tie for the division lead.

Cousin's best chance to start is to at least start a little bit of the season for Atlanta. Absolutely. But there's a deadline, right? When's the deadline for the money? Yeah, there's a renegotiation. They did something with the contract where it's the, like right around league year starting. They have to make a decision. Yeah, he was Bijan, number one in forced miss tackles on rush attempts, number one in yards after contact, number one in all running backs and percentage of teams first read targets. Number one in. awesome per play. Yes. Like you just, when you watch and you go, oh, that was awesome. Like on a per play basis. Nobody can cut like him, man. It's unbelievable. No, he is very unique. So the Michael Pennix was he tore. Stay safe. He store. I make no future predictions on help. Pennix tore his right ACL twice in college. So, and then this one was a partially torn on the left. Oh, just to even it out. Yeah, it's not great. And what does the team do with Tyler Algier?

who will be a free agent. Yes. Yes. They bring him into Seattle to be the new Charbonnet for Walker for you. That's what they do. The most upsetting thing about... I mean, Algiers is a great player. Algiers will be very good player. He's a good player. He is eight rushing touchdowns. The problem is twofold. That feels bad. Sometimes you get really frustrated when a player who is inferior on the goal line is getting used on the goal line because maybe he's bigger or something. But this wasn't a bad thing to do for the Falcons. Alger was really good on the goal line and they constantly used him to success, which is what hurts the most about Bijan. Because if Bijan had...

all the opportunity inside the five that say Christian McCaffrey got percentage-wise of his team or Jonathan Taylor got percentage-wise of his team. Bejohn Robinson would probably be the number one running back on this season. For sure, would have been. Number four, Jamir Gibbs, 23 years old. Consistency rank of 11 for Jamir Gibbs. It was not a pleasant fantasy playoffs for Gibbs. Right before that, he was pretty much on fire. He had... Two number one finishes, weeks 12 and 14. But a consistency gap of, you know, four to 11. That's a big deal. In the first half, he was 12th in consistency, eighth in the second half. It got better. There's talk of David Montgomery and the team parting because Montgomery is a good player. It's the unfortunate situation that who do you want on the field? You want Gibbs on the field. You just can't, it's a little bit.

like Ramandre and Trayvion to a degree. I think Trayvion, you know that he can go to the house on any play. Now, I think Romandre has more fundamental. Romandre has more big play upside than Montgomery. Well, and I think he also just does some of the other stuff better than Trayvon. Like right now, Gibbs does everything that Gibbs, like if they do a contest, Gibbs run around, Monty run around. Monty runs a good round. It ain't as good as Gibbs. Breakaway, all that stuff. So look, if he departs, I think, Gibbs enters a new category, right? We've been sitting here, the committee, the committee back situation forever. His percentage of good games went down this year. His percentage of bus games went up this year. Great games were about the same. He was worse by 10 points against bad defenses, and he was seven points better at home. Man, I'm looking through the names, and I don't want to reveal all the other names just yet because we're doing a, you know.

Countdown type thing here. The variables with... Count up. The variables with pretty much every player we're talking about is wild. Like McCaffrey, not coaching, but you have the George Kittle stuff and all the touches. Jonathan Taylor has a quarterback problem. Bejohn Robinson has a coaching change happening. Yes, he does. Jamir Gibbs has a coaching change with Drew Petzing as his new OC. Devon A. Chen is next. He has a coaching change. This is very interesting. Yeah. Yep. The nice week 10 to 14 was insane for Gibbs. It was awesome. Tough division. Tough divisional opponents on the defensive side. Gibbs has every ability. Like he's one of the guys that you would say could finish number one. Absolutely. So that's the nice thing. This guy could too. Devon A. Chan, again.

New coach situation coming his way, but let's give him his flowers. Yeah, never tell me the odds. Number five. He weighs like 162 pounds or something. He's so good, man. Consistency rank of number two. The second most consistent running back in the game, 94% good games with no busts. Man. Always has breakaway potential. 19% great games. Less of a split against bottom and top defense is so integral to the offense. They have a new head coach, a defensive-minded head coach. Yep. What their offense looks like, we're going to find out who they bring in there to run it. Better at home. But this was the picture of consistency. We have, if you go to the fantasy footballers.com, you search the player profile. You can see the color-coded map of every single game in the game log. She green, baby. Yeah, it's, I can promise you, I don't need to go to the page to see he's an A inconsistency. Yeah, that's correct. So, you know, what more can you say about a guy who overcame?

Drama on the ball club all the time, losses, all that stuff. You always want to be winning, right? Well, they weren't winning. He was still producing. For our consistency score, you guessed that he was an A. But what percentage of games do you think that he had an acceptable game? 100. That would be correct. 100%. He was unbelievable. And two years ago, there were worries after, because McDaniel's been on the hot seat for a while. It's like, what if the coaching? staff changes here because the reason we loved A. Chan when he was drafted, far more than we loved him literally the day before, was this is a perfect scheme to use his skill set, his 4-3-2 speed. And there were worries back then of like if it wasn't that match, A-chan might not be very good for fantasy football as an undersized back that maybe gets only used in the receiving game a little bit or it doesn't get the open lanes. He has been so good.

through his three seasons. I have zero worry about a new regime coming in. He is one of the elite special talents in the NFL. He's established that. So whatever coaching staff is coming in, they're now going to look at this player and say, we're building our offense around him predominantly. I mean, who else on this team are you saying we're building the offense around? Not Waddle. No. And he might be next, but. Some of the rumored names, one of the ones coming to life, if he doesn't get, these are if they don't get head coaching jobs, but like OCs. OC potentials that I'm reading about here from some Miami beatwriters. They just talked through the idea, Joe Brady, right? Like Joe Brady could end up as an offensive coordinator for them. Dable would be somebody that they could be interested in. Anthony Lynn, if you remember him as a head coach. Yeah. He's now a running game coordinator. That might be interesting. Mike Kafka, who is the offensive coordinator for the Giants. But now.

that job is probably gone with Harbaugh, Kingsbury, Mannion, Monkin, if he doesn't go to New York. So there's some, okay, names. I am, I'm not as far too bullish as Jason is. I have no concerns about the player or the talent. But if you get an OC in here who is a diehard running back by committee and is like, no matter what, this is just how I do it. And then I think I'll be a little more nervous. I'm more nervous about the quarterback. There is that too. That's my biggest, because if they are they going to be one of those plays? Is it Gino Smith in Miami, right? Is it? I don't think it'll be Gino. It seems like it will certainly not be Tua. Well, it could just be Quinn yours. And they have, they won too many games to be. And I'm really, as of right now, it's like Mendoza in the draft. And no one else is really interesting.

Man, that's what I mean. I don't know what they do. I feel like Tua had that nerve in his brain that was firing like 1, 2, 3, H in. And so you want to see somebody come in with that rapport. But he is too good, in my opinion. That's where I side with Jason, where he's just too good to not. The differentiator between him and the rest of the group and the offense, it's a lot like Gibbs to me in Miami. All right, we'll take a break and we'll run through 6 through 10. This episode is supported by prize picks, whether you're starting a new routine or making picks for the first time, trying something new, well, that can be difficult. But in life and on prize picks, it always feels good to be right. I'm talking to Papa Josh here. It always feels good to be more right than Papa Josh. Look, prize picks now has early payouts. I just found out about this. If your player gets off to a hot start, you've got the option now to cash out on those winnings before the game even finishes.

and they have a social feeds feature. You can share your prize picks with your friends. You can copy lineups from winners with one click. My only rule is you don't follow or accept friend requests from Papa Josh himself. Look, how simple is it to get started? We come from the app development world. We love the prize picks app. It's super easy to use. It's just smart and clean and easy. It's not like anything else out there. It's made the sport watching experience super... fun. It just adds some value to the sport watching experience, and we absolutely love it. So you can download the prize picks app today. Use the code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That is the code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, it's good to be right. So just a real quick follow of HM, interesting stat from, so 2025, he had one rushing touchdown inside the five.

That's for someone that consistent scoring that many fans, it feels impossible. He had five carries inside the five and one touchdown from there. But to me, that's only positive news. He was not reliant on, you know. He also wasn't a 95 reception guy. He was a 67 reception guy. So he still did it on the ground. Right. It wasn't like you're looking at him dipping from 95 to, you know, in a different offense. Yeah, I mean, that's the nice thing. He proved he can do it on the ground. We already knew he could do it through the air. I think there are enough ways to get this talented of a player involved that the new coaching staff, whoever it is, they'll do a good job. The NFL's leading rusher comes in at number six. James Cook, over 1,600 yards on the ground. Consistency rank was number four. Really, the story of James Cook is one of the steals of the draft. I mean, a third round draft pick that finishes in the top six, really number four in consistency.

It was even on both sides, first half, second half. Again, going to have a new offensive coordinator. So we'll see what happens in Buffalo. But he proved, the story of James Cook is that he proved himself to be a true workforce dominator. Yeah, I was more on the side of I didn't want to draft James Cook at his ADP. I was concerned about how many touchdowns he had two years ago. And goodness gracious, man, he just. He was so excellent on this. Pretty much every time he touched the ball, you're like, no, a big play is going to happen here. He had hit that status. And you saw a huge surge in volume because that was one of the other things of like James Cook two years ago. In his bank account? That happened too. There was that. There was that. But two years ago, not the volume he need for the touchdowns he scored, but then everything balanced out and just his greatness.

shown through. It showed itself in the Denver game. He tried other than the fumble, which was a problem. He fumbled six times this year, number one in the NFL. But even, you know, he had a great game against Denver. Yeah, he's, he's a great talent. And the split that he was getting, it was at times in 2024, a three-headed timeshare. You didn't know how much that would, you know, Ray Johnson, yeah, getting more involved. And, and he got over a hundred more carries than the previous year. Yeah. Over 100 more. They were the number one rushing team in football overall. It would make sense, the leading rusher, and then you have Josh Allen on the team too. Derek Henry at 7. 32-year-old Derek Henry came in at 7, consistency rank of 9. Now, who was drafted as the RB 5 off the board. So this is... It took some time. It did take some time. 17th inconsistency in the first half, four in the second half of the season. It gets colder. Once you hit the buy week, things were very good.

Which, again, it's just such a testament to how he trains to be better as the season goes on where the defenders are now bruised and battered and they don't want to tackle this guy. But 24% great games, 59% good, 12% busts. I think I forgot to read those numbers off for cooks. Let me give you those. 31% great, 69% good, 6% bust rate. But back to Henry. Weird year for Baltimore overall. You know, he kind of... It seemed like it wasn't going to happen for him until they hit the bye week. You had Lamar Jackson's injuries. It was very scary. And then what are we doing? We're just doing this over and over and over again until the end of time. It is hard when you factor in his age. I mean, we came into this year saying we weren't worried about it. He looked so fantastic in 2024. I'm glad we did and you stuck with it. He finished very good down the stretch. Honestly, the Baltimore Ravens would be in the playoffs if their team just realized.

Oh, we should be giving Derek Henry the ball more down the stretch. It did happen a few times. Eventually it happened after a little, too little too late. But he is all jokes aside, a human being. And he will be 33. There will be an age where it will catch up. There's only one running back in history age 32 or older that has had double digit touchdowns in a season since 2010, DiAngelo Williams. Oh, man. Is that the Steelers year? I remember that man. I mean, if you're going to bet on any human to do it at age 32, it's going to be Derek Henry. It's definitely the outlier. It's wild. He was very good. Third and yards per carry. Fifteen yards before contact, seventh and explosive run rate. We probably shouldn't bet against him anymore. Yeah. We just, yeah. Age is just an idea, man. I, yeah. Tell that to my knees.

Well, I was going to say, can you handle the hot dog lunch like you could when you're 20? Oh, no, I'd be doing much better if I was 20 right now. Yeah, how are? Hot dog check. Hot dog check. They're doing work right now. Yeah, they're working through the system. Apparently you need to only one hot dog because the two hot dogs they fight. Oh, that's what's going on. They each want to be the only hot dog in your stomach. It's like Highlander. Yeah, they're going to be only one. And they are going to war. I'll let you guys know who wins in the end. I think they, well, I hope they both don't win because if they both win, the winner gets a bad time for me. The winner gets a trophy over there. You get to retain your, um, you think about it. Is it about cashing in the toilet? I mean, look, I already got it. I could walk over to that bathroom anytime I want, fellas. I'm going to give you the last three names on this list and in some of the basic numbers and then we'll move on to the fantasy face off. But at number eight.

Didn't seem like it was going his way for five weeks. But Chase Brown comes in at eight, consistency of eight. And consistency of two in the second half of the year. It's like what we said on the quarterback show with Burrow. We know the story. When Burrough is healthy and his weapons are healthy, they all perform for fantasy. 18% grade, 65% good, 6% bus games. It feels impossible that it worked out for him. It really does. It felt like he was a dead man walking. The first six weeks of the season. He was hot trash. I mean, he was worthless in fantasy. Crushed you, killed you. And if you stuck with him or traded for him or heck, picked them up off of waiver wires at that point, he was everything that you, everything that you loved about him, Mike, you know, coming into the season. And me too. I, I said behind the scenes, like, if you didn't make him a my guy, I might have. He showed all of it.

He was better this year than he was last year in terms of the numbers. Because last year he busted 19% of the time the year he broke out and this year was only 6% of the time. You could argue it was a better year even though he had that tough start. Which is crazy. The first six games, he had a combined 200 rushing yards. Kyran comes in at 9, consistency of 6. I don't know if this is just my perception, but Kyron seems like the most invisible, consistent player in fantasy because nothing he does is really flashy or exciting. No. He's just kind of, you know, he's a product of a great head coach and a great system, great quarterback, great wide receivers, great line, great defense. And he just functions within it to greatness. And a third of the time you look up and it's one digit off on that jersey number. Oh, yeah. Gorm looks pretty much the same. And it's really wild. What was the total carry differential like this year to last year? Because went way up this year.

I'll get Corm's numbers. Well, I guess I just, yeah, I'll look at Cairn. Cairn had 356 opportunities last year, 309 this year. And with one extra game. Corn was 66 ops up to 159 this year. So, I mean, those numbers are something to pay attention to a little bit on where you slot him in and it'll be more reason to doubt him and you'll probably make a mistake to doubt him because the production is probably going to be there. As long as this quarterback and this head coach are. He's a really talented running back. They're keeping him fresher. It's smarter and might help them win a Super Bowl. Yeah. Travis E.T.N. comes in at number 10. What team does he play for? I know. It's wild. His consistency was 14. That feels right on the money. I mean, in terms of how it felt. And in the first half, number 19 inconsistency, second half, number 10. They went on their run in the second half and he was integral to it.