Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - The TRUTH About Fantasy RB's in 2016, Part 1

People come back and wear, you know, they wear a flack jacket. They come back from broken ribs. Okay. Why are you so skeptical? Here's the thing. Let's say Jordan Nelson has two broken ribs, right? And I'm a defender. Which he does. Okay. I'm easy to, easy to assume. And I am a defender. You think I'm not punching him in the ribs? It doesn't matter. It does matter. It doesn't matter. How would that not matter? Because it's a hypothetical some guy's going to punch him in the ribs. If he's on the field, he's going to make a difference for this team.

Yeah, and he's probably going to play. No, he is not going to make a negative difference for the team. Are you kidding me? You have to guard Jordy Nelson. Not if you give him one or two good shots to the ribs. It's like boxing, man. Why do you punch a guy in the ribs? Because they become ineffective. I think it is poor analysis to say if Jordy Nelson suits up, he is a negative because somebody might punch him in the ribs. I mean, they wear... Not might. Quarterbacks have played with broken ribs before. They wear a flag jacket. They get hit a bunch. They still play.

It just hurts. Quarterbacks don't have to run around. All right. If Jordy's out there, I'm taking the position that he's good for them. Okay. I mean, that's bad analysis or not. If Jordy's out there, I think it's bad for the Packers. And I don't think Jordy would be out there. Oh, gosh. You guys are both. If you go up across the middle and try to grab a ball with two broken ribs and then get punched, you're going to drop that ball. Ifs and butts. Well, we'll see. He's not going to be out. My analysis is he's not going to be playing in that game. Okay. So you're contradicting the news from ESPN?

Yeah. The news is there's legitimate hope. And I'm saying, I, all right. Tony Romo, trading Tony Romo will be the Cowboys number one priority this offseason. He wants to go to Denver. I don't think Denver wants him. If I was Denver, I don't think I want him. Who wants him? That's the question we were debating before the show today. A lot of people. Depends on the price, I'll say, for Denver.

This could just be posturing by them because if Denver can get Tony Romo on the cheap. No. I don't think they will. You can't get them on the cheap. You're going to have to pay at least a second round pick. And no way Denver does it. They have Simeon. Right. They have Paxton Lynch. And last offseason showed me what Denver wanted to do. They had the opportunity to get veteran quarterbacks last off season. They 100% chose not to do that. I don't see them as a destination. But was anyone available of Tony Romo's caliber? You kidding me? There was a guy available who is the most winning?

playoff quarterback of all time that hasn't reached a Super Bowl. And they went and they got him. Yeah, they did. Mark Sanchez. And they could have had, I know now it looks stupid, but last offseason it didn't. They could have had Ryan Fitzpatrick. Right. They, they, I'm, I'm just telling you my opinion on that. Apparently we disagree on everything today. Well, it, my, what I was going to say is we've, we've seen John Elway, you know, shake things up. They had Tim Tebow and granted, Tim Tebow's,

Not the best quarterback, but he was coming off a playoff victory. And he said, nah, I can get Peyton Manning. So hit the bricks, Tim Tebow. So it would not shock me if either they're like, well, we'll see you later, Trevor Simian. I don't care that we drafted Paxton Lynch in the first because we can get Tony Romo. He was a pro ball quarterback. What do you make of Chip Kelly being rumored as a Jaguar offensive coordinator? Love it. Yeah, I do too. I think it's one of those things where.

Some people say there's no talent at the running back position for the Jaguars. I disagree. I know you disagree, Andy. You're Mr. T.J. Yeldin. But, well, I mean, of the three of us, you have always been pretty high on him. But their opportunities haven't been there in the running game. They move away from the running game over and over and over. That's just their game script. And I think Chip Kelly would really help the running game, help the total plays being called.

change things up for the offense. I would like it a lot. Chip Kelly is starting to, to me, he was a beautiful statue that's rolling down a hill and like the arm is falling off and then the leg is falling off. Like the shine is off of Chip Kelly for me. The Venus de Milo looks pretty good without her arms. Well, yeah, I guess I'm not on board with, with Chip Kelly, but no surprise today. As an OC, I think he would be a better OC than a head coach. Well, that won't be hard.

You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. All right, let's get into the truth about fantasy running backs in 2016. The way we do this is we go in order of half-point PPR rankings, and we'll break down how these guys performed. We'll tell you how many top five performances they had, how many top 25 they had, and how many weeks they gave you nada.

a bust type of week, something where you could have replaced the waiver wire running back or something you find on the side of the road would have scored more points than these guys. And then we'll talk about how they performed against top 16 and bottom 16 rushing defenses and kind of give you the lay of the land. And the reason we do this is we want you to have the right perspective going into next season's draft. So you're not just looking at the end of year rankings and saying, this is the order I go on.

You want perspective on how they performed, how consistent they were, so you can build your roster the right way. Because we're about equipping you to build a championship roster. For example, Julian Edelman was not very consistent on a week-to-week basis. He had a good stretch there. But his end-of-season ranking, week 17, just had just a monster, monster game, about three games worth of production. That skyrocketed him into the final rankings. And you look, oh, well, Julian Edelman.

I have to have him, but perhaps not. Absolutely. So that being said, at the top of the charts here, David Johnson is number one. Ezekiel Elliott is number two. And these guys were not lacking for consistency. They are a true number one and number two this season. So David Johnson was number one. Look at these numbers, guys. 293 for 1,23 yards, 16 touchdowns on the ground. And then you just throw in some numbers.

that are better than, I don't know, Brandon Marshall at the receiving position. 84, 879 and 4 touchdowns on 120 targets out of the backfield avoided the injury at the very end of the year, a major injury that is. And so he was number one in consistency rankings. Zero dud games, 15 of 16 games in the top 25. And that's so that's good.

Yeah, that was identical to Ezekiel Elliott, who was tied with him. 15 top 25s, zero, not in the top 48. And in fact, in standard leagues, this is a little nugget from our 25 running back statistics article. But Ezekiel Elliott was the only running back in 2016 to surpass 10 fantasy points in every single game. You did not have one game.

without double-digit production from Zeke. Would David Johnson have done that if it wasn't for the injury in the final game? Yeah. You certainly would. Was that the one game where he didn't? Yes. That was the one game where he didn't. And what's crazy is he only played. He barely played in that game before he got injured. And you still see that he has that we just said David Johnson has zero games outside of the top 48. He was still.

Who's number 45 on the week? In like a quarter, less than a quarter of the game. To me, it breaks down into, I would want Zeke, potentially, in a standard format, and I would want David Johnson in a PPR format. Because obviously there's a, you know, about a 50 reception gap between these two guys. Zeke had a lot more carries, a lot more yardage, and about the same rushing touchdowns.

Do you feel that way or are you guys all on board with one guy no matter what the format is? No, it's, you're going to be going back and forth for me between. And there's no reason they can't repeat these numbers for a few years. Right. And I agree with that. I don't think it's an automatic, well, it's standard. So we go with Elliott. I mean, David Johnson had had more, not just more rushing touchdowns, but he had how many more, five? Am I doing that right?

I don't know what you're doing. No, no. He had four more total touchdowns. Yes, total touchdowns he did. He was 400 yards less than Zeke and had about 30 less carries in the way that the offensive line in Dallas is. I guess that's why I'm thinking, you know, maybe you lean Zeke in a standard. Maybe. With those reception totals, it's not like it doesn't count in the standards. Right. And what's interesting, at least the way it was perceived by me watching Dallas this year.

Yes, Elliot is, I mean, he's a focal point of the offense. But you saw Dak growing as a quarterback this entire year. He played a lot without Des Bryant. And then Des really got going. You saw him in the playoff game. Over 100 yards, two touchdowns. It's not going to be just Elliot, where to me, Arizona, they did the complete opposite, where they were a...

a downfield passing attack, and everything of their offense just said, well, we're going to go to David Johnson now. Yeah, I, you know, I'll be honest, it's splitting hairs for me going into next year. That's going to be a hot topic. I can write a complete story on why either one. Yes. So. Yeah, and I completely agree. I will say this going into the draft next year. If I've got the number one pick, for me, it's not going to be David Johnson. For me, it's not going to be Ezekiel Elliott.

It's going to be the third guy on this list. Yeah, it is for me, too. Levy on Bell. Well, before we get into Levy on Bell, we do need to pause and thank today's sponsor, pristine auction. Let me tell you one of the things I love about pristine auction. You hear us talk about. But what I love about sports memorabilia, autographed authentic memorabilia at pristine auction, is it is not all vanilla. It's not all Alex Smith over there, okay? You've got unique...

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It's unfair to talk about David Johnson and Ezekiel Elliott and not talk about Levy on Bell because his consistency rating might not have mathematically been identical, but it's identical. I mean, he played 12 games. He was top 25 in all 12. You know, all three of these guys was basically 100% consistent. Yeah. Which is kind of unprecedented for the running back position in the last few years. What I love about Levy on Bell's consistency versus David Johnson, Ezekiel Elliott's consistency is that some people.

talked about the fact that Levian Bell didn't score that many touchdowns this year. Right? I mean, on the ground, he had... Norm, on a... I would say, in general, Leviom Bell isn't known in his first few years as just a touchdown machine. Right, right. He has seven on the ground, and we know three of them came in one game. Right, and two through the air. And I actually like that in the sense... Sure. I mean, I want, obviously, a lot of touchdowns. I hate touchdowns. But we can predict...