RB Rankings: 11-20 + Never Not Working, Burnt Salmon - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/12

So when you are making a decision between Montgomery, Clyde, Carson, Swift, like why? I think the question is why Carson? Like, why would you take Carson over those players? So I don't think he's going to end up on any of my teams. And the reality is Rashad Penny has been completely left for dead, like genuinely undrafted, an afterthought. And

So far, it seems like he's back alive in camp. And so this could be a situation where I'm not saying Rashad Penny is someone you should draft or is valuable, but he could be a real problem for Chris Carson, the way that, you know, when you look at who's around Joe Nixon and Najee Harris and even David Montgomery and Clyde Edwards Aller, and you're like, those players aren't worrisome to the workload. Whereas here, you could say, oh, he could lose.

four or five touches a game pretty easily from what he did last year. Opportunities went down by six a game last year from the year before. None of this is saying Chris Carson is a great player. Yes. I just think he has a certain level. Like nobody would say this is Chris Carson's team. Nobody would say that everything's running through Chris Carson. I think you can make that contention about, you know, a number of these other running backs. So I'm just...

I'm the highest of the three of us. I'm just wavering a little bit on would I pull the trigger. I think the end of the year stats will be there. But from my fantasy lineup, I'll pull the trigger on somebody that might give me a little bit more upside. I'm in. I'm in on Carson. And the reason would be the ceiling, it comes down to the Seahawks offense and that he has an elite quarterback. Meanwhile, DeAndre Swift, the offense is going to be poor. Maybe DeAndre Swift is the guy. And he's just out there with all the volume.

But even if Penny takes away from Chris Carson and we're still, you know, 16 opportunities a game in an elite offense with high touchdown upside, that works out. That can work out for fantasy. The team, well, it's not his team. You were right. I don't think of Chris Carson being, you know, the face of the team. But they did pay him to come back. They just invested in him, you know, a new two-year contract, not breaking the bank by any means. But it's at least a.

enough of a commitment saying you will be the starting running back. So to 16 opportunities a game, which he saw last year, that feels like the floor for what Carson, and we saw him with 22 opportunities. He's got a great floor. He has a great floor. I'm in. I mean, I think he's a safe pick. My problem is where he's going. There's other running backs I prefer, and there's Alan Robinson and there's C.D. Lamb. There's just other ways that you could go in your draft. What about DeAndre Swift?

Swift is 17 in our consensus, drafted as the 16 right now. Some people are just crazy excited about DeAndre Swift. He's so tough because the team is terrible. Jamal Williams was a, they sought after Jamal Williams, and Jamal Williams, the running back, he's a great player.

The team's going to be bad. The thing for DeAndre Swift that people I believe are excited for is people had him ranked as their number one running back coming out last year. So they're just projecting the second year of their favorite running back. He finished at RB 18 with 114 carries. It's a really easy argument. 114 carry. You want to talk about Gibson outproducing in...

rushing touchdowns, 114 carries and eight rushing touchdowns? Yeah. Holy crap. DeAndre Swift is a great running back. That's a feature. Yeah, he's, he's a great running back.

He's going into year two. This is the range of those year two running backs. You want to pick the breakout. And he's an excellent pass catcher on a team that requires pass catchers because they have no wide receivers worthy of being starting wide receivers here. So the outlook is he's going to catch the ball and he's electric. The downside is it's the Detroit Lions and the touchdowns probably won't be there. So I find myself usually going the other direction despite the fact that I...

I love the talent and I have him running back 14. He's also missed some time in camp. Jamal Williams is there, as we said. So there is a little bit, you know, Jamal Williams is a great pass blocker. DeAndre Swift averaged a touchdown every 38 snaps. I know. And it's funny because this is the thing about fantasies. It's like, you know, Alvin Camara broke a lot of metrics for four years where reversion or not being able to do it. And same with Gibson, right? It's like.

You go probability or do you go like you found a unique talent? Like both of those things exist. Like some people are more efficient at scoring and we'll find out if it's D'Andre Swift this year. Right. Josh Jacobs at 18. He wouldn't have been on today's show, I think, if it wasn't for me, having him up higher. Jason at 20, Mike 19. I haven't met 13. He was the RB 8 last year, somehow the most.

hated RBA 8 of all time. He's crazy consistent. He was. I mean, weeks 1 through 8, he was 14 fancy points a game. Weeks 9 through 17, 14 fancy points a game. That's what I think you get with him, but you get it at RB19 draft cost. You get a super consistent RB2 that is still very young, that still does have... But Andy, they went in St. King and Drake.

Yeah, I just don't care that much. They didn't just sign Kenyon Drake. They gave him a very large contract to be a backup running back. I don't mind Josh Jacobs where he's going in drafts. He's going as basically the running back 20. And while I don't think he has some top five upside because he's not going to be involved in the passing game, he only had 33 receptions last year. So if Kenyon Drake comes in and takes over the Jalen, Richard, DeAndre Washington role that has always been there,

I do think Josh Jacobs is a quality back who's going to get a lot of work and nobody wants him because of Kenyon Drake. And that's probably a mistake. I don't have him as high. I don't have him up at 13. But I do think that he is a valuable fantasy asset for where he's going. If he continues to fall, like in a Superflex, I got him. I just like the price. Exactly. I got him in the seventh round the other day. And if you're telling me I can get a starting running back in the seventh.

Oh, okay. And I think he's almost, because of what Gruden in that team does, I think he's almost one of the most guaranteed double-digit touchdown running backs in football. We do have to bring up the offensive line has taken a perceived major step back. Three of their starters are gone. J.K. Dobbins at 19, Darrell Henderson at 20. Dobbins is, he's a difficult player to project because I think we all agree the talent is there.

I think we all agree that the targets probably won't be. Yep. And I think, you know, we all have Gus Edwards as a potential late, late round value because of his involvement in this team. I don't think the team looks at this through any lens other than we've got two really productive quality backs that we're going to use, but you also have a running back at quarterback. So are we missing something here with Davids? Is there a, you know, we're lower than ADP. Like the community is drafting him at 15.

I think there's more excitement out there from them than us. So are we whiffing here because there's more upside than we perceive? Yeah, I mean, he's probably the, the.

player that scares me the most because we have been universally down on him he's not a pass catcher i mean he can do it but in this offense they just don't utilize it that way at least have not um and if he's not catching the ball and if he doesn't score touchdowns at the crazy rate that he did his rookie year um he's probably not going to be a fantasy superstar so we've been down on him for that reason but all

Three of us love the talent. I know Mike and I were very high on Dobbins coming out. I had him ranked above Swift. Last year. And another tough down outlier guy too. Yeah, he performed in his rookie year when given the opportunity. So I feel like this is one where we could eat crow, but I generally am passing on him in most drafts because I want the pass catching guy. You also would have to take him ahead of where you kind of have him rank compared to those other guys.

you know, it's tough to take that plunge at the top of the third. At the top of the third, I would much rather grab, draft Clyde Edwards and Laird there, and if, Andy, you were just saying of, do you go in on the probability or do you go in on this is a special talent? Yes, J.K. Dobbins was incredibly efficient. 9% of his carries were over 15 yards. That's the highest in the NFL. When he got the ball, he went.

But we've now seen back-to-back years of over efficiency when it comes to the running back for Baltimore scoring touchdowns. And Gus, I believe, is in the same metric that you just quoted. Yes. I think like Gus and Dobbins are both chunk play artists when you are trying to cover Lamar. But I'm saying two years ago, you saw Mark Ingram score an unbelievable amount of touchdowns given the opportunity he received.

You're saying that could happen. You saw the same thing happen for J.K. Dobbins. And Dobbins is a much better player than Mark Ingram was two years ago. So I'm perfectly fine with the running back 15 in ADP. And I'm betting on Dobbins. Darrell Henderson, I've warmed on quite a bit. He's moved up my rankings. I'm at 16, Jason, 19, Mike 24. He's going to have the role.

I mean, he's going to have every opportunity. Every team has somebody that needs to, you know, Xavier Jones is going to spell him. But I started, the more I looked at it, the more I looked at how many carries this team is going to have, it's him. He's very important to this offense. They need Daryl Henderson to be good on this really high-powered offense. I'm happy to take Daryl Henderson where he's being drafted because you know he can catch the ball. You know it's a great offense. You know he's the guy, the competition for touches.

He will win the majority of the touches, both, I think pretty much everywhere. Matthew Stafford throws the ball to the running back, and Darrell Henderson has the chops to take it. It's just a matter of, I know that they are trying to limit his workload because they worry about his injury history and whether he can handle that. Ironically, yesterday he left practice, hurting his hand, but he did come back to practice. But it's one of those things where it's like,

All the word out of L.A. is that they're keeping a close eye on him because they're worried about whether he could take it. So when you leave practice for hand injury, it's like, last year, because Cam Acres ended up being, you know, banged up to start the season. And Darrell Henderson was, he had a higher snapshot. But in those first six weeks, he was a top 24 running back four times. And the first week, he didn't even really play.

He was a top 12 running back three times. And in all of those games, in all of those fantasy finishes, he was doing that with about 50% of snaps. Yeah, and you still had Malcolm Brown there, who was stealing goal line carries away from him. So for some reason, he gets goal line work, even if he simply gets the majority of it, there's some hidden upside there for a player we didn't think we'd be talking about on this show just a few weeks ago when Cam Acres looked like the future. So...

Miles Sanders at 21, Gaskin 22, Chase Edm is 23, full rankings with tiers up on the website. You can go to Ultimate DraftKit.com if you want to check those out as well. Who are you most afraid of busting from this entire group? I would go Chris Carson. I would go Swift. Swift is mine as well. What about who's going to end up on most of your teams? Clyde Edwards-Lare.

Yeah, Clyde and Gibson or act, no, they will, certainly, but probably nodgy. Okay. Because I have them ranked so much higher. What about you, Andy? Probably Monty. Maybe Josh Jacobs, though, with the draft cost compared to just the stability I think he provides. I also think mixing ends up on a lot of our teams. That's probably, yeah, yeah, he has. And is there a sleeper running back you think can climb into the top 24 that we didn't get to talk about on the running back shows?

You know, is it Giovante? Is it E.T.N? Is it Damien Harris? I'll take the first round running back with an undrafted free agent. I'll take Travis E.T.N. I think by the end of the year, Javante Williams ends up as a top 24 guy. Who's my pick on this one? I think Chase maybe slips in to. I guess he's already in our top 24. That doesn't count. E.T.N. I'll go with Jason's pick there. Wide receiver. You don't have to do much. Right. You just have to catch the football.