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

Get old Steve Clooney and Johnny Wahlberg out on that. It was the perfect rain. On that perfect rain. That's what I was waiting for. Well done. Yeah, no problem. Anyways, me and Johnny Wahlberg. They were a twister, right? Yeah, they were a twister. The perfect twister. Yeah. All right. Phillips. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. All right. We've, uh, yes. Philip, Philip Dustin Hoffman.

Yeah. All right, Melvin Gordon. Did the show after the show yet? Look, I'm all in on Melvin Gordon as a long-term guy. And if he ends up being at the bottom of the first tier, he may be my preferred pick next year. I know that there are questions there. You've got an offensive change. You've got, well, maybe not an offensive change. Whiz and Hunt's probably going to stay. But you've got a head coaching change. And move into L.A. We know what that does for...

Running backs. Small sample size, but it's really bad. But, yeah, 12 of his 13 games that he started. He was in the top 25. He had three monster performances. Played a little better against bottom 16 defenses. The thing is, is he was very involved in the passing game. 41 catches, 419 yards. I think these are all repeatable numbers for Melvin Gordon. You know, maybe they're, you know, he was only at just under 1,000 yards. I think they're repeatable.

I, you know, I see the warts, but you're getting down into that number where I'd rather draft a guy in Gordon than a guy in the Garrett Blunt because I see the ceiling for a guy like Gordon being so high, whereas, you know, Blunt, he caught seven passes. So I, when you talk about guys back to back in the rankings, give me Gordon. But the, it's, what's questionable for Gordon is, is the workload? I mean, we don't, is Danny Woodhead going to be back? We don't know. There was news today that they expect Rain and Oliver to be back.

uh yeah brandon oliver is a good pass catcher and uh for melvin gordon it was 10 touchdowns i mean that's the the part of i would say a lot of the reason why he's so high on this list is because of touchdowns and i don't know that that is repeatable he i mean he was when he was on his streak he was scoring every single week

He looks great. He passed the eye about that. Of course it's great, but that doesn't happen very frequently. I lean more to Andy's side. I think that he is a good running back. And that's what you really want. I think he's got the skill set. But I do agree with what you're saying that there's going to be a lot of change. You know, Danny Woodhead was just gone this year. Yes. And that thrust Melvin Gordon into a role where he thrived. In week one.

uh, Woodhead was very involved. I think he, he may have even outscored he had a top fantasy from, he might have outscored Melvin Gordon. He had a top seven, uh, PPR performance. According to, more than Todd Gurley. If you look at the offensive snap count percentage for, uh, football outsiders, I don't think he has proportion, like you talk about workload. I don't think he was proportionally too high comparatively. Like, you know, you look at David Johnson. That's an 83%. DeMarco Murray, 81% left Bell 72.

Gordon was at 62%. And look at Jordan Howard, 64%. Gore's at 60%. McCoy's at 60%. You know, even a guy like Lamar Miller is right at 55%. Is that per game or just a total? That snap count percentage, I think, in game started. And so all I'm saying is that you didn't have an 80% that's going to dip to 60% and it was all a volume play. I think he'll get in the, who's going to get in the end zone there? They're not handing it to Brandon Oliver. Brand and Oliver is going to be inactive.

next year. That's my prediction right now. He's a nobody. So, you know, he's a Jonathan Williams, as you would call him. Yeah, I think that's fair. I just don't think there's a lot of downside to Melvin Gordon. That's basically what I see. The nice thing is with some of these negative narratives might push him down in the rankings as well. He's going to go real high. You think? Yes. I think people really like him. He's flashy. He's sexy. People like him. He won't go ahead of Freeman. No. Do you think?

I bet he goes right around the same spot. Well, he'll go ahead of these next three guys. Yes. Yes. We'll round it out with 10 names. And so we'll talk about Lagart Blunt, Mark, Ingram, and Jordan Howard next, 8, 9, and 10 in the running back rankings. We'll start with the Garrett Blunt. And the thing that blew my mind when I said earlier, and I tease the Lagrant Blunt numbers, for a guy that is so touchdown dependent, 18 touchdowns, right? 300 carries. He's the number one consistent.

uh standard league running back well i mean 15 out of 16 games he's top 25 for a guy drafted outside the top 100 for for someone who on the year is touchdown reliant 18 touchdowns you can go ahead and be touchdown reliant if you're getting 18 of them so it so where in lies the median number here i mean is he is he a 10 touchdown guy next year is he a 12 touchdown guy next year

I would put him. He's going to get overdrafted. I'm not drafting Legerick-Blunt. I would be willing to draft him because this isn't, I mean, coming into this season, I talked about how good Legerick Blunt was.

Last season, even when Dionne Lewis was playing, I think similar to Freeman, his splits were actually up. I don't think he's going to go. He might get overdrafted. You're right. And if he is overdrafted, I will avoid him because he's going to regress from this. I think he is a 10 touchdown guy. He's not going to, you know, this year he had three games. Is he running back one? No. Okay. Not at all for me. And you mix Dionne Lewis in with the kind of outlandish touchdown totals. Yeah.

and the carries from the one-yard line, to me, he's just impossible to be on my team. So I'm looking at a fantasy football calculator because they're running mock drafts already. I love it. But in the newest one here, Melvin Gordon went before Freeman and DeMarco Murray. Yeah, I could see it. And that might not be wrong. He's going to go very high. That flashy upside. So Lagaree Blunt.

Look, great season. Probably, I bet he's on the list of those guys that are on most of the championship teams because of where you got him and what you got from him. He's just so far down the board and ended up playing great. I mean, the PPR leagues, he's the sixth most consistent because touchdowns count no matter what you're doing. Yeah, he had three games this year where he didn't get a touchdown. You know, if you want to look at usage and what New England seemed to do,

He averaged more fantasy points against top 16 defenses as opposed to bottom. He didn't really feed on bottom teams. He was, you know, 11 point a game guy versus 17 against top defenses. Kind of interesting. Doesn't catch the ball. Obviously a standard league guy. I'm very interested to talk about Mark Ingram. Yes, very important. Because Mark Ingram went around, you know, second round, late second round pick. He played 16 games. He only had 205 carries.

He definitely wasn't very consistent. He was the ninth ranked running back at the end of the year, but 21 in the consistency rankings. Yeah, so here's one of those nuggets from those amazing articles we have up at the Fantasy Footballers.com right now. Despite finishing as the RB10 in standard scoring, Mark Ingram had six weeks of scoring seven points or fewer, which kills your owners. It killed me. In 2015,

The last year, he never scored less than 7.4 in any week. And six times he crushed his owners. So it worries me because there wasn't an in-your-face variable at the beginning of the year that made you think this kind of a year would happen. It wasn't like the offense failed. It wasn't like the team didn't succeed more this year than last year. It's just Hightower.

In 2015, when Mark Ingram got injured, they brought in Hightower and he was great. And in 2016, they said, hey, I like Hightower, we're splitting. It's not the Mark Ingram show. Mark Ingram had to give him a reason. And it was fumbles and it was a little bit of injury. One of those games he killed you, he just got hurt in the first play of the game. But you're right. Maybe we did not realize, I think fair to say we did not realize.

what the impact of Hightower's end-of-season performance did on the coaching staff. And they decided, hey, we're going to, you know, if Ingram does something, if he's inefficient, we're going to give Hightower the chance to do what he did last year. Right. But, again, that was not an out in the open variable we could have predicted before the season. And that's why I think a lot of people are going to rewrite this story as, why wouldn't you draft him in the back of the second again? And should we? Because he still finished number nine.

So the consistency wasn't there, but he was clearly the better runner. Everybody saw it. Yes. He looked great. So, Mike, look, you don't have a dog in the race, so to speak. Well, I do, because I really like Mark Ingram, and I loved him going into last year. I wouldn't take him likely as a second round pick, but I think he's going to, you know, you always have those nebulous, that group of the third and the fourth round running backs. He's going to be in that group, I think, this year.

I mean, people might see the end of season rankings and move him up. But I still want Mark Ingram on my team. I think that he is a very good running back 5.1 yards per carry this year. That's the best of his career. Where is his ADP in that early, early, early? I will. Because if I could somehow end up. Fourth round, about the middle of the fourth round. That'll change. But if I could end up with, okay, my first round pick, maybe I get, maybe it's a Jordan Howard, maybe it's a.

Well, Jordan Howard is going to be, I mean, we're about to talk about him, but he's going to be before, I think, taking before all of these guys that we're talking about. No, that's why I said. I said if my first round pig is Jordan Howard. Oh, okay, okay. And then I snag a wide receiver and I can get Mark Ingram as my two. I'll just be dances through the streets. Yeah, I agree. Ingram as my two is dream come true scenario from a running back core. Just, I mean, because I just think he's going to be a one for uncertain weeks.

For sure. Mark Ingram or C.J. Anderson. Ingram. I would take Ingram as well. Stay away from the draining suck powers of that offense over there. Jordan Howard. Now when Romo gets there. We'll wrap up today's show with Jordan Howard. Number 10, you know, obviously incredible season. I just read the snap count. 64% snap count.

13 top 25 performances, you know, for a guy, I kind of disregard some of the consistency rankings here because, you know, you're a rookie. You're earning snap count. He wasn't a starter, but he played. No, and he was, you know, not drafted. He was an undrafted player. And so he played great against bottom defenses. He played great against top defenses. He was gashing people on 260 carries. He had over 1,200 yards and 8 touchdowns. Super impressive.

Pretty much did it against everybody and did it when people knew it was coming. You know, kind of like Carlos Hyde has to do. Right. Against defensive fronts that are like, please throw on us. Now, when Jordan Howard has a big game, we know how John Fox feels about his rookies, right? He doesn't want to play him. Is he sitting on the sideline like, dang it? He did it again. You got to keep him, Jordan Howard. No, I think he was going, I'm going to need him to keep my job.

So play Jordan. Jordan Howard or Melvin Gordon? I would take Melvin Gordon. Oh, man. I would take Melvin Gordon as well. I'm not, I wouldn't take Jordan Howard in the first round next year. That's just me. He's, I don't think he'll be a first round guy for me as well. He had the 27 receptions. It was on 35 targets. I imagine that those other targets are, most of those are going to be drops. But it's.

If he can improve his past catching at all, Jordan Howard is going to be absolutely unstoppable, where I think I like Howard as a runner much better than Melvin Gordon, but the situation for Gordon is probably going to be better next year. Last week we talked about the wide receiver truth, and a lot of it was correlative, obviously, to quarterbacks, but not just quarterbacks, winning quarterbacks.

I just looked at this. How many of the top 10 running backs were on winning teams? On playoff team. We talked about this last year, too. So of the top 10, how many were on a playoff team? Yes. I just throwing a number out. I would say, yeah, I was going to go six, but I'll go seven. Four. Oh, four. Obviously, David Johnson this year was. No playoffs. So Zeke, Lev Bell.

Devonta Freeman and Lagart Blunt are the only four out of the top 10 that are on playoff teams. And so it's just one of those things where if you're predicting or you're deciding between Jordan Howard and someone else and the temptation is I'm always going to go with the better team. I'm just saying four out of 10, you know, six out of 10, we're not on playoff teams. Right. But it's not, I wouldn't look just at playoff teams. You've got to look at.