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

Or is this going to be more of a Tiger Woods type situation where when you come back from the public mishap, you just never get back to the pre-peak. Yeah, to the form before it. Yeah, I mean, we like him because he's the guy and he's really good. He's so good. Same reason we would like Connor, even if that offense isn't going to score a lot of points and kind of be not very good. Except Connor catches passes. Right. Yeah, Chubb has been 7, 9, 11, and 5 over the last four years. So it will come down to his upside, his potential to be five again or higher. Like Nick Chubb, I will say this. Nick Chub can finish one. Yes. Nick Chub can finish number one. I would agree with that. If you want to tell me that how many running backs could have 20 rushing touchdowns this year? Or run for 2,000 yards. Or run for 2,000 yards. There's two, three of them? He will be, he's interesting. Now, is talking Dynasty real quick because he's on the Browns this year. He's going to be.

the guy, but what is the rest of the depth chart currently? Jerome Ford, I believe is like the only, perhaps the only other running back, at least the only running back of note. So they will be on draft watch. You'll be, if you got Nick Chubb on your dino team, you're watching them to see if they spend up on a day two running back. But next year, his dead cap drops to $4 million and his cap hit is 16.2. So there's a chance that there's a chance that he's not on the team next year. And he's at least you know. At least you know that like Kareem Hunt was great for three years and all those years. Chubb was still good. Right. So like I can't see anyone other than Bejan Robinson putting the fear, none of those other guys are going to put the fear in me for this one season. It is ironic. If they bring in Jemir Gibbs, who is awesome and they would probably draft him in the second.

I don't know that that has a massively negative effect on Chubb because Chubb wasn't in that role already. They're adding a pass catching role that could help the offense. So he is a little bit situation proof this year. But Mike, it's a good point. He could be a cap casualty next season. And he's 27 and 100 days. So I don't know what his decimal points that puts him at. But he'll be heading into year 29 next year. Travis E.T.N. At 12, just 24 years old. Last year was the RB 17. Is 12 too high? No. Is 12 too low? No, it's just right. I mean, it feels like, it feels like I haven't heard a lot about Travis E.T. in this offseason, and I don't know why. Because the end of the year was. Yeah, it stunk. Well, actually, in the playoffs, funny enough, he was actually fantastic, but you have the NFL playoffs.

No, the fantasy playoffs, weeks 15, he was 22, then he was running back 15 and running back 5. What if I wasn't in them because of the proceeding? That's what happened. You had the rise of Travis CTN where it seemed like he was going to be this can't miss week type of guy because every single week he ripped off a 40 plus yard run that often turned into a touchdown. And then things really fell back to Earth. And then he was okay again. He's so young and so talented that I think that drafting him as a top 12 running back would be the move. Yeah, and, you know, you had the head coach come out and say that this is a backfield that you need to have multiple backs. You need to be able to keep guys fresh. And that sounded scary. It sounded like they could go into this draft and really spin up. But they went and they signed to Ernest Johnson. They've got to Michael Hastie and Snoop Connor. So if they're saying, hey, there needs to be three.

or four guys that could touch the ball. And those are the guys going into the season? I'm like, heck, yeah, I'm all about Travis ETN. It was really frustrating when Jamichael Hastie was having games. And I needed, I needed Travis ETN to be the guy. So that was tough. But hopefully we don't get thrown in any curveballs by that offense. And they're going to develop Trevor Lawrence. This office is going to be about Trevor Lawrence. That's the objective. So. I guess I'm a little nervous. I still think obviously we ranked him in the top 12, but I don't know if I think he can get much higher than 10 to 12. Well, the nice thing is, even though he hasn't been a hyper great pass catcher in the NFL, he hasn't had the targets we want. We do know that he has that. Yeah, because he.

one of the best pass catching backs, or at least most prolific pass catching backs in college with Trevor Lawrence. So we know they can utilize him in that way. And should they open this offense up more? And Trevor Lawrence takes a step forward. I think you have a case here where Travis E.T.N. could be a top five running back. Breeze Hall comes in at 11, the last name we're going to mention. Shouldn't be on this show. Should be on the tomorrow's, not tomorrow, the two days show. Yep. Okay. Jason has him at nine. See? Mike at 12, I'm at 13. The defense rests its case. I think that you are saying, I think it might have depended on how we looked at these early ranks because I think that there might be a few games where, you know, Breeshoff finishes the season at 11 or 12 instead of at 9, but I think he'll probably, barring a draft surprise, be worthy.

of, you know, be a top eight type of player over the last three-fourths of the year, I'd say, at this point. So, you know, this is where upside is going to factor in, even if I think the first couple games for Brise Hall may be protective by the team, right? Like you could have a limited touches situation, which, look, that might not even matter. If he comes out on his three limited touches games and breaks a long run on 12 touches, well, he's going to finish much higher. Yeah, all you really want if you're drafting him is there's, you know, obviously you've got the upside case of you hope he just comes out. He's fully healthy and he dominates from week one. But if you're drafting Brees Hall, you're hoping that he doesn't get any kind of injury. We see year one guys come back. We saw it with Dobbins. We see like I pull a hamstring or something because their body's just not quite ready and built up from the pre-ACL injury.

And then you just got to be patient because when you're drafting him, you assume you're going to get off to a slightly slow start. And I believe that that will be a very good investment and will be worth it. If you have to deal with the first month or two of the season, it's not like he's going to be putrid or bad. Two months. That's rough. Even if it's two months, but that's my point is I don't think that those two months are going to be crushing your fantasy team, even if he's not winning you. games. He's going to be a valuable back who catches enough passes, gets the occasional touchdown, is going to be touching the ball 12 to 14 times a game, scoring some points. When he is fully recovered, I mean, we saw it. He was dominating for the Jets. He was, you know, basically a running back two or better every single week after week one until he got injured. So a huge breakaway runs in his wheelhouse.

He could catch the ball. I mean, obviously, you know that I'm a pro-Breece Hall truth or so. I mean, he finished at 12 and 19 on weeks where he had seven rushing attempts and eight rushing attempts. So it's going to be big play opportunities. It's going to be a new offense. And I think that might be, I think the Aaron Rogers factor will be very interesting. You know, he should, this team should score more points. But it will be very interesting to see the focal point of the offense. You're going to have prolific whiteouts. I mean, Garrett Wilson is a superstar and didn't have a quarterback to get him the ball the way that he deserved it. And Alan Lazard has arrived. And this team can make. Great blocker, too. Yeah. Devonte Adams has been better than what we project Garrett Wilson to even be with Aaron Rogers. And you look at every single year.

Aaron Jones has been a running back one with Aaron Rogers. He knows how to dump the ball to running backs in space, get him ahead of steam, hit him in stride. How much do you worry about any, like we kind of have this unhuman, inhuman view of injury, right? Where it's like the injury is an ACL and then you do the recovery and then you're back to yourself. Like, is there any risk factors around just not being as good for a while? Yeah, I mean, you know, you've seen it with lots of running backs. Like his own hesitancy or something. Absolutely. The article that I referred to earlier that Matthew Betts did, it showed that on average running backs are worse in year one from the ACL. They are less efficient, less productive, less work. And then the following season, they are much better. So if you want to wait and say, you know what?

He's a human being coming off of an ACL, I don't care if he's young and talented. I'm not going to spend, because it's going to cost you in the draft. He's going to be a second round pick. Running back seven currently in best ball. Yeah, I was going to say two, three turn, but running back seven won't even make it to the two three turn. You're investing probably middle of the second round on that draft capital. And you've got to, if you want to say, you know, I don't want the risk. and there's no reason to take that. There's other good running backs there. I don't blame you. Then bet on him in 2024. It's not going to be my strategy. I will be betting on him now. But there is absolutely a world where he's just more hesitant and weaker in that leg. Be interesting because of the draft capital when you're going into a redraft season and saying, you know, you're going to have to draft him and you're going to have to play him right away.

You're not going to have that choice if you make that redraft pick. But he's a superstar. Yeah. I mean, Breesall in this offense with, you know, what do you stop? I mean, the Jets should have a very good year with Aaron Rogers. They really should. Their defense is awesome. Also, can we just get that trade done? What is happening? Well, they say he's going to be there. Everyone does. That's what's so funny about this situation. The Jets are like, yeah, he'll be there. The Packers are like, yeah, he'll be there. And Rogers is like, yeah, I'll be there. Just, but you're not there. Just do it. It's draft related. It's draft or timing around the draft day trade situation. It's weird. All right. That is it. That is it for the top or for the beginning of our countdown, 20 to 11. Thursday show will be going through the top 10. Count them down. More discussions, more debates. And I think some of the more interesting things today was just like which players have.

You know, to look over their shoulder a little bit. Yeah, who are you holding your breath on? Yeah. At the end of April. Yeah. It's one of those things where like maybe it's because in recent years I've had those dynasty. We talked about it. Those those dynasty players that are deleted by the draft or their value that you could have traded them for last year just goes to 20%. It'll be an interesting thing to pay attention to. Check out the Ultimate draft kit plus at ultimate draft kit.com with the dynasty pass. dig into some of these rookies. Our rankings are being tweaked and modified every day as we get more information. You heard Mike talk about the betting line. C.J. Stroud was the favorite. No longer the favorite to go number one. The implications, you know, there's a trickle-down effect there too of who these guys are throwing to. I mean, Anthony Richardson climbing up people's boards. Six teams rumored to trade for the number three pick with Arizona. So you could see.

Three rookie quarterbacks, one, two, three. Big, long-term implications for fantasy. So that'll do it for today's episode of the fantasy footballers. Thank you for tuning in. Talk to you later. Not now. Thanks for listening to everybody. 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.