Early RB Rankings Countdown: 20-11 + Spurts & Bunches - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/11

Hey, Foot Clan, we got a great show for you today. We're counting down the running backs, our early rankings before the draft. You don't want to miss a minute. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Andy Mike and Jason, the Fantasy Footballers. Back with you Tuesday, April 11th. I was pretty worried about that introduction. Why?

I thought I was losing the voice this morning. Oh. And I hadn't really tested it out. You were raspy. Yeah. And so I'm raspy right now a little bit. Yeah, I can hear it a little bit. You're at 90%. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know why. It went great. But, you know, got through the Easter weekend. Hopefully everybody had a good time. Enjoyed their families. Weather out here has been pretty nice. It's getting hot, though. Yeah, we are getting warm. We're already getting a little snack, little taste of that heat. Kids jumping in the pool when it's 68 degrees. Yeah, my son's swimming today. Yeah, it's too cold for me. Well, yeah, we're grownups. We have sensibilities. And sensitive skin. Okay. It is weird. Why does that happen? We, I don't know, we like to be comfortable the older we get. Maybe that's it.

I refuse any level of uncomfort. Yeah, I think like when you're a child, the fun of the playing in the pool supersedes the coldness. Right. And therefore they do it. And then we do. That's a good point. I don't think we have as much fun in the pool anymore. That's the real issue. My enjoyment from a pool only comes from cooling down now. That's why I get in the pool is to cool down. Yeah, what are your normal pool activities when you get into a pool? I was going to ask, like, how do you're not, it's basketball hoop. Basketball hoop? Other than a basketball hoop, though, how does one have fun? Floating. In a pool. Floating on things with a drink. A diving board. Oh, you're not. You're going out and hitting the diving board? Oh, heck yeah. Really? What's your dives per year right now, stat number? Probably, I would say, 35.35. Yeah, we're not just cannonballs, an actual dive?

Yeah, any kind of, any kind of dive. Head first dive. Head first dive, probably 24.9. Okay. And how clean are those? What are the splash? What's the splash like? Well, look, I'm a larger film. So there's some splash, but I would say that you would be impressed by my dives. Yeah, your dives are okay. Yeah. By the splash or lack of splash? By the lack of splash. Okay. Making sure we're all on the same page. My dives per year are at zero. Yes. I don't know how to dive without getting. three gallons of water in both of my ears. What? I thought you were going to say nostrils. No, no, there's these big old ears. What, they siphon the water? Yes, there's some, something to do with the shape and my dumbero ears just like, when I dive in, it goes scoop, scoop, scoop, scoop. So do you just not go underwater? No, I don't dive head first. So it's about being upside down and underwater. Go as you enter the water. Okay. I can jump in. I've never heard of the ear problem. Oh, this is a big problem.

Big problem. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, you do got a big head, big ears. And this wasn't a problem as a kid. It's now I'm old and my head is gigantic. What are we doing today? We're talking early, early rankings. Our pre-draft running back countdown starting at number 20, going to 11. This is before we get into the weeds, right? And we're going to, you know, our ultimate draft kit, you can find it at ultimate draft kit.com. When we dig in there, we are looking at. Full player projections for every relevant fantasy football player across all positions. And we're, you know, we're projecting out numbers and we're projecting out, you know, the deep. And we're surprised by them sometimes because we're going numbers first. Today we're kind of, it's a lay of the land, right? Yep.

Yeah, I'm very excited to walk through these and go, oh, you know what? Too high on this guy. Oh, I'm too low on this guy. So we're going to go 20 all the way down to one over the next two shows at the running back position. Got some NFL news to talk about as well. I can remind everybody, Twitter at the FF Ballers, if you want to follow the show. You can follow me at Andy Holloway, Jason, at Jason FFL, Mike at FF, Hitman. And we're on all the other social media channels as well, Instagram, TikTok. And you can watch it. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. We'll have another dynasty show dropping tomorrow. Yes, we will. Shout out to everybody who tuned in to episode one of the dynasty podcast. Yes, thank you so much. It was an awesome deep dive at the running back position. And so tomorrow, I believe, wide receivers. That's correct. Yeah, the rookie wide receivers jumping in there. And there was.

The first episode of the season for the DFS and betting podcast was also out there. So if any of y'all like getting, you know, getting frisky with some futures, especially on the NFL draft. That's a show for you. All right. And like I said, the ultimate draft kid, ultimate draft kid.com. Let's talk news. News and notes from around the league. Well, I didn't see this coming. I did not see this coming either, Jason. Yeah, no, I wouldn't have imagined it would come in this order. But yes, what is the news? The Ravens have agreed to a one-year deal with O'Dell Beckham Jr. It's going to be worth at least $15 million. That's a lot of keesh. When you think about the kinds of deals that, for instance, Juju Smith-Schuster have signed over the last couple of years, this one is kind of. It's kind of wild. O'Dell Beckham, and I don't, I think it was Mike Clay who tweeted it. But, I mean, he hasn't had more than six touchdowns in a season since 2016. So you're going at, you know, seven.

years now. I know we all have the catch imprinted onto our brain. We know what he was, but I don't think the Beckham we saw in Los Angeles was vintage. Not a 15 million dollar man. Yeah, it was still good, but it wasn't 15 million dollars. Well, now he's got a new knee injury from that version that we saw. Right. He has another ACL tear since then. And then, you know, Lamar Jackson was supposedly, according to Ian Rappaport, actively recruiting Odell. What does it mean? I mean, you have to imagine Lamar Jackson is going to be back in Baltimore at this point, or he is ultimate trolling Odell Beckham. It's crazy because you have to imagine this is exactly the situation that Beckham was looking at in New York, which was the quarterback has requested you come pay Beckham because there was a lot of rumors he'd go to New York. He was actually going to visit New York.

I think a day after he signed this contract. And then now you have another quarterback that undoubtedly told the organization, go get me O'Dell Beckham Jr. And they said, we will pay him more than we should. Yeah. So it's hopefully the conclusion of the Lamar Jackson drama is coming to an end. It kind of felt like if something was going to happen, it would happen by the draft. Like if the trade. scenario pops up, you know, a lot of whispers of the Colts. If the quarterback they want is not there at four, maybe they trade for Lamar Jackson. And look, there's just, there are keeper leagues out there that need to know what is happening with Lamar Jackson. Okay, this is Mike. Out, no, out there. Out there. Out there. Let me say this. By the draft, Lamar. Not the worst place Beckham could have landed, assuming Lamar's back. Also, this team had talked about

two wide receivers in the draft. I mean, they had discussed maybe taking two high-profile whiteouts. I will say this for the second time this offseason. Go trade Rashad Bateman. Nobody agreed with me the first time. Maybe it's stupid. I still think they spend a high draft capital pick on a wide receiver. I think Beckham and the new wide receiver and Mark Andrews are going to be potentially higher in the pecking order than Rashad Bateman. I think Bateman is a player that will make... plays this year and maybe maybe this is just misdirection and i'm a fool but possible it's i mean i guess a question needs to be asked because he did not play last year and we kind of highlighted when's the last time you really saw good or not good elite odel beckham junior this a long time ago and does odel beckham really make a difference like if if they even if they take a first wide first round wide receiver and you have

Can Beckham hang with those guys? I don't know. He has to for this money. Well, yeah. The Ravens are betting on it, but he doesn't have to do. He doesn't have to do anything. Alan Robinson says, no, you don't. You could get paid and just still be the oldest version of yourself you've ever been. O'Dow Beckham is not going to be something special that he wasn't over the last several years and now coming off of a year and a half removed from playing football. two ACL surgeries in a few years as an older player, not like a young, you know, it's very different when a 20-year-old is getting an ACL surgery than when a 30-year-old is getting an ACL surgery. So I don't think this, the fact that he got this money is because he's O'Dell Beckham. He's got the name and you hope it's in, you know, it's, it's conjoined to the, yeah, in conjunction with the fact that Lamar.

would be coming back. That's the hope is that Lamar asked for him. They're going to sign him. Now let's come back and let's play Lamar. And hopefully that happens. But it speaks to, like in a redraft league, I'd rather have Beckham than Bateman. I would not. 100% because he requested O'Dell Beckham to be there. We've seen Lamar Jackson for his entire career throw to his favorite players over and over and over again. It was Hollywood Brown. It's Mark Andrews. If he asked for O'Dell Beckham to come in there and he's active on the field. That's my personal opinion. I'd much rather have them than Bateman because Bateman was not a volume play anyways. So you're going to be betting over, like Beckham will catch more passes than Bateman will. I would think that Beckham might have more targets, yes, but far fewer fantasy points. I don't believe that Beckham has all of a sudden gained youth that no other NFL players been able to do in their 30s. He'll gain targets. Yeah, but can he do anything with it? Yeah, I think he'll be fine.

Okay. I don't think he's going to be. I'm not, I'm not saying this offense, the passing offense, that wide receiver, I mean, where was Bateman in your, in your redraft rankings going to be? Even without Beckham there. Was Bateman going to be in your top 24? No. No, probably just outside of that. So, I mean, in that situation, it muddies the water for Bateman, no matter what. Yeah, but the Bateman is still interesting of, you sought a tiny little bit of his talent for the beginning of the year, and then he was hurt. And Odo Beckham, looking at the kind of the fantasy downfall, you know, back the two years in Cleveland, he was averaging this in a half point, just over 10 fantasy points a game. That's fine. And then in 2021 with the Rams, it was 7.6. So, I mean, it's, it's been a downturn of, we haven't seen truly top tier Oda Beckham for quite some time.

The chiefs agreed to a one-year deal with wide receiver Richie James from the Giants. Richie James was pretty good last year. 57 catches, 569 yards, four touchdowns with the Giants. It's not a meaningless deal for Patrick Mahomes, but it's also a one-year deal for the chiefs. They lost a couple pieces. No juju. I think Richie James is just part of the puzzle. It's interesting right now. as you wait for the draft. If you move through the draft and they don't spend a round one through three pick on a wide receiver, then it becomes far more interesting. The Dolphins. Did we talk about Tyreek Hill's retirement plan? No, we haven't. I just looked back at the dates. This came out Thursday morning after we'd be recorded already. Okay. We talked about it somewhere. Maybe it was a footcast. But, you know, Tyreek came out, said he plans to retire after the 2025 season. That'll make it 10 seasons in the league for Tyreek.

He's ready to play two more years and become a gamer. Oh, is that really the plan? No, he wants to be huge in the gaming space. Yeah, he's assembling a team and hiring people and he wants to, you know, be the head of a new gamer group. But this is, this doesn't change that much for me. Obviously, you don't get the. late stages of a career downturning spot start opportunities. But this was basically, I think, what you would see Tyree Kill, you know, what you're excited about. If you were to trade for Tyree Kill last year, it's for these next three years. And now you've got the final two years left on that contract where I expect him to still be elite. After that, I mean, sure, I'd rather have him than have him retire. But it doesn't, it hasn't changed his value drastically to me, like in a Dynasty League.

Yeah. You're expiring. It's a tough one because what you said in your argument was that you got him for three elite years. So if he's elite in year three of that deal right before he retires, then you were going to get production in Dynasty for another year or two. You don't go from elite to nothing. So it's a little disappointing. It also might mean in your case, Jason, it's a buying opportunity where, you know, if you're only planning on those two years anyways. You can kind of throw that in the face of the Tyreek manager and say, look, I'll offer you this maybe lesser than asset. I don't know what tier that would be that they'd accept. But it's rare when we get an expiration date printed for us for a Dynasty League. Yeah, you know when he's going to retire. And I expect him to follow through on this. Obviously, players have been known to change their mind in the past. Yeah, when dollars, like a $15 million contract from Baltimore comes your way.

Yeah, or when you think your career's over? Two years from now when his gaming group hasn't gotten off the ground. He's like, okay, football works better for me. I will say this about the Beckham thing circling back for a second, but he was, he's been recruited now for almost a year. Like you remember the talk about Beckham was coming back and then participating in the playoffs for a team last year. It was actually coming back before the playoffs. Then it was like, oh, no, we'll come back just for the playoffs. So at least time removed from injury is going to be very significant.

If for some reason the Ravens saw that in the workout tapes, maybe there's more optimism. Robert Salas at Breece Hall looks fantastic. Yeah, he does. He's a gorgeous man. Expected to be back for week one. Beautiful body. And, you know, that's a good report. We certainly don't know if we'll have, you know, last season's Breeze Hall instantly when the season begins. But a report in April. And an expectation to be ready means maybe we don't have that long to wait. Yeah, you've got a later season injury. So the normal expectation would he be better to the second half of the season than the first half of the season? He would be better in 2024 than he will be in 2023. That doesn't mean he will be bad in 2023. It was week seven. And there are also examples. So, you know, we've talked about this a little bit. There was a great article research.

done by Matthew Betts on rookie running backs and coming back for, or not rookie running backs, but running backs coming back from ACL injuries. And there are a few examples of very young elite backs who have had an ACL surgery, Todd Gurley in college, Jamal Charles early into his career. And those guys, the next season were. Outstanding. So there are examples when they are very young. Breece Hall is still 21 years old that can bounce back quick. And so it's nice to hear the head coach say he's looking great. Let me ask you this. Would you read into their draft maneuvering at running back? You know, if they do nothing at the position. That's kind of a subtle way of saying like he's just going to be our guy from day one. There's no way to give more confidence in Breece Hall than to say we don't need a running back added to this roster.

Cardinals quarterback, Kyler Murray, cleared to resume workouts, 13 weeks removed from surgery. There was an Instagram post he shared. He was doing squats on the ACL knee. It was good to see. I mean, he looked like he was getting better as fast as possible. Still unlikely to return to 100% until later in the year. There had been doctors that had come out in the beginning and so they didn't think he'd play this whole year. There had been rumors of the Cardinals trading for Mack Jones to play this season. Gross. I mean, what? Yeah. Is that leaked from the Patriots? It was worked into a bigger like Mac Jones and a three for Hopkins type of discussions, which I'm fine with.

Interesting. But I think Kyler's going to be back sooner than later. I do. They just don't like Mac Jones, do they? Again, a younger athlete coming back from that surgery is going to be better. Kyler could get back quicker. I truly believe that the likelihood of him being there for week one or maybe starting the season on the pup, I feel like a lot of it comes down to the fact that the Cardinals aren't. Gonna be good. They project to have the highest odds for that number one pick right now. You know, why rush back a franchise quarterback when this already seems like a lost season for the Arizona Cardinals? Yeah, I mean, I think it comes down to Kyler. If Kyler Murray wants to play football and he's healthy enough to play football, I think he's going to say a lot. I think it's going to be a lot, you know, let's say Hopkins doesn't depart.

I mean, I think it will come down to him saying, I want to be back on the field, which, look, the history of Kyler Murray is that he takes as much time as possible. I mean, nobody avoids getting tackled. That's the irony of the injury in a way, because Kyler Murray is the kind of the king of sliding and going down early and not being hit, and then the injury happens in the open field with no one around you. Yeah, it's like, I'll get you no matter what you do. I just think, final destination. Yeah, it's that age old thing where, like, we see the season one way, but a brand new head coach and a brand new general manager. Well, we've heard how the Arizona Cardinal coach sees things. It's all the sound effects. I didn't follow you for a second. Shots. Shots. Shoot, shoot. Yeah. Okay. Weirdo. We'll see. Hey, guess what? Joe Mixing. He is being recharged.

With aggravated menacing going back to his January incident. It was very concerned about it. Set to appear in court on April 19th. It's a first degree misdemeanor. It is the highest, according to where this is being booked, it's the highest degree of a misdemeanor. It could include up to six months jail time. I don't. It won't. This is Joe Mixon. That being said, when they dropped the case right after this was first released. knowing that they might be able to recharge him, they did come out and say that new evidence has emerged. So if you have decided to recharge Joe Mixon on the basis of evidence, it's not a great position for Joe Mixon to be in. We discussed earlier this off-season, the executive vice president of business operations for the Bengals. They seemed very concerned with his off-the-field issues and needed that to play out.

The fact that he's being recharged here with a court date coming up right before the NFL draft. They're drafting. Yes. The Bengals are drafting a running back. And whether it's one of your favorites, Charbonnet seems to jump out. Yes, please. But I mean, it could be a third round running back. I don't think it's going to be one of the undersized guys. I think it's going to be somebody to come in. I mean, they lost P.E. Ryan. I doubt, Jason, you've got a lot of mixing in your basketball leagues. I don't believe I have a single share yet. Yeah, because nobody knows where he's at. He's not on this show today, which means he's not in our top 20. Certainly not on the next show. It's a wait and see. If you have mixing in Dynasty, you feel like you just got, you know, a player deleted potentially. There's just, like, for the Cincinnati Bengals, how many of these things can you?

stomach because it feels there's just they keep happening with Joe Mixing and they already took the huge chance on him and I'm not saying necessarily him being the center of the story but things around him and the people that he's hanging out with like and he already came into the league with a really bad track record in college was he suspended a year I don't remember for the like when he when he hit that lady, or I give a strike. I can't remember exactly what happened. Yeah, he punched her. Yeah. Like, and it was awful. And so the Bengals already, like, went out on the limb to say, okay, we're going to bring Mixing in and see if we can move past these types of things, but then stuff just keeps happening. So it's like how, and he's overpaid a little bit for his position. So can the team really keep moving forward with him?

$12 million cap hit if he plays this year. Is that right? And then a dead cap of 5.5? So, you know, if he doesn't, if for some reason he plays this year, he's not playing with him next year. Right. Because that'll be a, I mean, a very small dead cap. And 13 million. They're not paying him 13 million next year with, you know, there's rumors right now and I don't want to like get too far out of head because I don't know what's going to happen. But like, there have been quite a few T. Higgins extension rumors, um, circling. right now. And that, look, the math checks out. What do you want to do? You want to keep mixing for another year? We want to re-sign your young, talented player that makes Joe Burrow investment, the investment you're going to make on him valuable, right? Like Bengals don't do what the Cowboys did. Sign your wide receivers, let your running backs go. Football-wise, it's a, it's a no-brainer. You pick T. Higgins. You know, just kind of hearkening back to our rookie discussion about, I know we like, you know, you like Zach Charbonnet, Bijon, obviously.

And you've got the smaller guys in Gibbs and A chain. It will be interesting because you go beyond that. A couple of the larger guys like Kendry Miller. Like Roshan out of Texas is like gaining steam among, at least on draft Twitter. It's just like if those players are the ones that fall to Cincinnati in the third or fourth round and they have every opportunity to be the guy early on, that is, you know, you're going to have another. pick in that early dynasty rookie draft that all of a sudden changes the landscape. I mean, if Charbonnet goes to a timeshare situation or drops a little farther or one of those guys goes to Cincinnati, you're going to be staring down the Jonathan Taylor versus Clyde Edwards-Dillard decision. People had a few years ago where, look, everybody liked the talent of Jonathan Taylor Moore. You guys did. Yep. But Mike, you took Clyde because of the situation. Yeah. I think Cincinnati is probably the best landing spot for any high draft capital rookie.

That being said, they're also still associated with Ezekiel Elliott. It might be a veteran, but they will most likely bring some other running back in to replace Joe Mix. And I'll say just real quick for our dynasty people, Travion Williams of the Cincinnati Bengals, again, this is dynasty nasty boy stuff. But there are leagues that he is, like I scooped him up off of waivers, I think three weeks ago or something. He's on the roster. Like he has a one-year deal. And even if, even if it's mixing's on the team, like he could be involved way more than you think. So he should be picked up and stashed. Should he be around on your waiver wire? Monster Collegiate production from Trayvion. Yes. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back with those running back rankings. I was trying to remember who you brought.

Trayvion, why you brought Trayvon Williams name up on the Dynasty show? Because he is around. A-Chane. Because Trayvion was Texas A&M. That's right. Undersized, out-of-control production fell to the sixth round in the NFL draft draft. And people are buzzing about A-Chane right now. But it's a very similar situation. But of course, if A-Chane gets draft capital, that's much different. Running bags. All right, doing it a little different this year. doing a running back rankings countdown. Today's show, we'll go from 20 to 11, and then you'll have to come back on Thursday and get our top 10 countdown of the running back position. This is kind of a overview of these players that are not meant to be deep dives. Draft's going to say a lot about these rankings, camp, free agency, if Zeke lands somewhere, those type of things. Bejohn is not included. No.

Just, by the way, rookies are not factored in here. So we're going to talk about range of outcomes for some of these players. And at number 20, almost feels like a betrayal of source to speak this name at number 20. He kind of betrayed us last year. But Alvin Camara comes in at 20. His best ball ADP is much worse than that at RB 33. I mean, the guy was, he missed two games last year and he was the running back 18. Yeah, it's just, you know, years of elite production. Yes. And so you're adjusting to a new normal for Alvin Camara. You got a new quarterback. You got a legal situation that's going to almost assuredly include some form of suspension. Trial date for battery charges is July, late July, which is during training camp. So questions. There's a lot of questions surrounding Alvin Camara more than ever in his career. And they signed Jamal Williams to a three-year deal.