Top 10 Countdown + Stash the Smash

on a per game basis. Todd Gurley and Sequin. That's it. That's how good he was. He was in that category on a per game. He was one of those very few guys where it was like you got two players in one position in your fantasy lineup week in and week out. I think if they bring his carries down two or three carries a game and I can get 16 games. Like that's a good sign me up. I think the Devante Adams, Melvin Gordon career comps are.

probably worth looking at where that distrust sometimes i mean adams has moved past it now but there's a like an underrated nature to gordon and adams or was because of the fact that they weren't great players to be i mean his efficiency went from what 3.1 a carry in his first few years to 3.5 3939 5 1 yeah so the perception doesn't match the reality like i didn't

realize how good he was on a per game basis until you said that. He will never be in the force. He's either in the threes or the fives per carry. Number four. All right. Number four coming in. Alvin Kamara. You say Kamara. I say Kamara. I say super Camario. Yes. Last season, number four overall at the position, 2017. He was number three.

This is a player who does not need 220 plus carries to be a top guy. A running back target last year in a half-point league, it's worth almost double that of a rushing attempt. 1.88 times the value of one rushing attempt. Players that can get the kind of receiving yardage that Alvin Camara has, 81 reception, 709 receiving yards, four touchdowns through the air, it changes the equation for them. I love Camara this year.

I think his opportunity is greater than he even was last year. A lot of people want to talk about Latavus Murray as a value. Seventh round draft pick. Let's talk about this backfield. Camaro is a guy that can finish number one overall this season. I completely agree. I mean, you look at three of the first four weeks last year when they didn't have Mark Ingraham. Camara finishes the number one back. He is electric. I remember watching the first game of last year because I was...

I was a little bit worried about the volume of Camara and whether or not he could stay that efficient. And my biggest takeaway from last year, week one, when watching the games on Sunday, I went, oh, he's just too good. He's just, you go back and watch film and you go, okay, you see him coming around an edge. There's three defenders, one blocker. He's at the 12-yard line. Maybe he'll get two yards.

13 yards later he's in the end zone celebrating a touchdown because guys can't touch him. He is exceptional. He's on one of the best offenses out there. And I agree with you, Andy. The opportunity is better this year than last year. While I think Latavius Murray is involved, the Saints do not run a workhorseback system. Never have, never will. Latavius Murray is less than Mark Ingram. So, you know, I think that Alvin Camara is...

every bit deserving of, if you want to draft him at the number one spot, you can. He's certainly in that conversation with the other three guys that are ahead of him on this list. If there's a team, like we talk about the sticky nature of touchdowns. It doesn't matter who you are. Go back to Lishol McCoy's great years. Oh man, 20 touchdowns, one year drops down to seven. If you want to pick a team where it's the most predictable possible, the Saints just run the ball into the end zone. This is what they do.

Last season, they led the NFL in rushing touchdowns. Camara is going to get himself into the end zone, and I don't think that they're going to abandon what he offers around the goal line just to get Latavius Murray in the game. There's not a lot of risk to me. I agree for Alvin Camara. Do you want, as the Camara owner, do you view Murray as a handcuff? Or is he a handcuff? I think he's more of a handcuff. I agree.

You know, if Alvin Khmerer were to go down, I don't, it's like we said, it's not, it's not the, the methodology of Sean Peyton to say, I want to work horse back. They'll have someone else. Javorius Allen will then take over, you know, that role. If he's on the roster. I thought we would never have to say again. Bob stops here. They'll find someone and they will split the load. And if you were splitting the load, then I'm not in love with Latavius Murray's a handcuff. But I do think he's a value in general because you'll be able to play him.

as a flex, as a lower tier player, even when Camara is healthy. All right, let's move on. Number three. Christian McCaffrey comes in at number three. Man, what a year for Christian McCaffrey. His rookie season finished 11th at the position, despite not really doing much on the ground. Last season, number three at the position. 219 carries over 1,000 yards, seven touchdowns on the ground. Oh, and then I'm going to catch 107 passes.

for 867 yards and six touchdowns on 124 targets. Can he maintain that high of a workload? Can those biceps handle that kind of workload and stay healthy? They're big. Them biceps are big from what I've been seeing. Oh, they're looking good. He missed no snaps, zero snaps in four games last year where he never even came off the field.

Yeah, he made, he made Greg Olson feel bad for how often Greg Olson was on the field. He was like, man, I wish I could be on the field as much as Christian McCaffrey. I mean, 30 total miss snaps. 30 on the season. He is, you know, we talked about this at nauseam last year, Norv Turner.

has a workhorseback. Well, to your credit, you talked about it at nausea. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes you can't really. How are you not? How was that not a two-toot for Jason? No, he just took it, man. Just let him have it. Yeah. He was being modest. Are you okay?

No, he's not well. The fact that you're talking about something you got right and you're not stopping the show. It's, halt the recording. It's just become, it's just become one of those things. If he pulled a plaque out from under his desk right now. If I were going to stop the show, he already had pre-printed. Every time I got something right, the show would never go on. Thank you. There he's back. So, but, you know, with the, with the history you have, it's funny because at the end of this year, with how much Christian McCaffrey was used, I thought to myself,

This man's going to die. They have to, like, not an option. They have to lower his volume. And then as the off season was going on, I go, no. What? North Turner's not going to do that. Like, they are going to run him into the ground. And I think he can handle it because this isn't like out of nowhere. In college. No, it's not. He was a workhorse back. 22 years old. He's going to be able to handle it. He's going to get the workload. He's game script.

proof because of his passing work. I mean, it's just a matter of how many rushing touchdowns can he get. If he gets a lot, he's in the top three. If he ends up having, you know, six or seven on the season, he's in the top ten. Correction, by the way, he's 23 years old, not 22 years old. I like that I wrote in the show doc how it goes right. And Kyle, our editor-in-chief, wrote in no explanation for how it goes right, just says he's a PPR demigod. Yes, he's very fair. Because it's true.

As far as it going wrong, barring injury is not going to. I completely agree. Even if the Panthers, they come out and they're saying, we're going to cut back on his workload. What have they done this offseason? Besides, bring back the mysterious age of Cameron Artis Pain. Yeah. They added Jordan Scarlet in the fifth round. Yeah. And then that's it.

Well, and they invested a top 10 pick. I mean, they have Elijah Holyfield as an undrafted free agent, but they've done really nothing. They're going to use them up. Yes. They've put a top 10 pick on a running bag. He did everything you could ever want from a running back. They're going to keep doing it. If you wanted to look at a player, you know, look at what we got from Gurley, that kind of like super performance for a few year window. We're in that window for Christian McCaffrey. I agree. Number two. All right. Number two is Ezekiel Elliott now free.

From the shackles of potential suspension. Four now. Oh, it's sad, but true. Fifteen games, 300 carries, 1,400 yards, six touchdowns, which is a low number on the ground. That could come up. 77 receptions. That is the breakthrough total for Zeke. You know, he's always been great, but he hadn't been utilized in the passing game to the degree that he was after Amari Cooper arrived.

Before Amari Cooper, five targets per game, 28 receiving yards per game. After Amari Cooper, all of a sudden, the offense, whatever happened, 6.3 targets per game, 42 receiving yards per game. I mean, Zeke, Zeke is unstoppable. Look, the second half of the year, when Amari Cooper got there in this new offense that performed well, was there Zeke was on pace for 118 targets.

Christian McCaffrey had 124 targets. Christian McCaffrey had six more targets than that pace. Zeke became a PPR guy, and he is, I believe, the best running back in the NFL. I think if you're just talking on the ground running game, Zeke is the guy who I would over Saquan, over DJ, over Gurley.

Zeke is unbelievably talented. If he gets the workload in the running game, which you know he's going to get, and now they involve him in the passing game, he's had, he's always been a touchdown guy. Like, he had six touchdowns last year, very disappointing in that department, still had a great season. But if he were to put both together the passing game and the touchdown game, you want to talk about a Todd Gurley level.

you know, a completely unfair advantage. That's why Zeke is my number one running back this year. I was only worried about the possibility of the suspension. That has been ruled out. I'm full steam ahead. The only thing that I will say about Zeke is that if you're in a PPR format, Zeke's going to be drafted ahead of McCaffrey, Camara, more often than not. So maybe. In those formats. If...

It was a mirage. I mean, that's a small sample. You look at Camarie, you look at McCaffrey, and David Johnson. You know, you know those guys, the fluidity in the passing game. You've seen it over a long stretch of time. We haven't seen it over a long stretch for Zeke. So that could, you know, in a PPR league, could he finish four, five? Yes, he could. But if we're seeing a trend of success in the passing game, he should be the number one or two guys. You're 100% right that the sample is too small to bank on. But if you take that sample out,

and look at his rookie year when he was the number two running back and wasn't a pass catcher, or the year before last, when he was the number 10 running back and only played in 10 games. So, okay, he doesn't get the pass catching work. It was a mirage. I hadn't even heard of him before this show. This is a breakthrough type of. You know, it's like at that point, it's like, oh, I'm disappointed. Brooks, why didn't you tell me about him? Number three running back. You're a Dallas fan?

Zeke led the league in rushing last year. He led his rookie year. And all three years, he has led the league in rushing yards per game. The targets, just to get a better picture of how crazy it was, 95 targets. That's fifth at the position. That's four fewer targets than Alvin Camara. Super Camaro, the past catching running. All quietly. And here's what happens with touchdowns on the ground. His rookie year, he had a rushing touchdown every 21 and a half attempts.

The next year, he had a rushing touchdown every 34 attempts. Last year, every 50 attempts, he had a rushing touchdown, which is, that doesn't make sense. Statistically, that is the outlier to me. And I think that Zeke bounces back in, and if, man, if that receiving work is still given to him this year, it's, I think it's, I think it's close to impossible that.

He's not the number one running back. Number one. Sequin has something to say about that. It's still an if. If Zee gets it. Sequin comes in at number one on our top ten on today's show. He is the number one overall by average job position right now. If you look at high stakes leagues, he is number one overall. McCaffrey number two, by the way, in NFFC. Yep.

No, very low risk with a player that receives 121 targets, 91 receptions, 700 plus passing or receiving yards, four touchdowns through the air. Last season, rookie season did everything and more that you could ever want from Saquan Barclay. Fourth player ever with 2,000 scrimmage yards, 90 catches, and 1,300 rushing yards. People want to find a reason to fade him because of the kind of...