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

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tier rankings, full projections, sleepers, breakouts, it's got it all. Go to ultimate draft kit.com and secure yours immediately. I said, do it now. The Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Oh.

It's football time. Did you know? Oh, I knew it. You didn't forget this time? I did not forget this time. Football tonight, because this time, it's personal. Why is the personal? Because that's what a lot of the movie trailers have led me to believe that this time around, the second time it's always much more personal. What makes the first kind of interaction, the first conflict?

so impersonal as well in the football world what makes it impersonal is that the hall of fame game is the first game and that's a that's a wink wink wink yeah that's oh yeah it's an NFL game wink oh I got you I got you um sophisticated start to the show always with that introduction which I think that might that might be Brooks's favorite

Was that Donald Schwarzenegger? Is that who that was? Yeah. That's got to be my favorite. It's actually, Donald Wartsanegger. Thursday, August 12th, the Fantasy Footballer's podcast, excited to be getting into our running back rankings part two today. Never not working, new segment. Everything about winning at fantasy football means taking advantage of every extra edge you can get over your opponent.

You cannot, and I'll be the first to admit it, it'd be nice to claim that I have the ability to see the future perfectly and know exactly what's going to happen in every injury and every player. There is an element of luck in fantasy football. It's a predominant. I mean, there's a significant element of, you know, luck involved. So all you're doing in fantasy is trying to give yourself the highest odds of success. Yeah, it's all about that probability. And that's what today's never not working is. It's all about.

breaking down some probability of second round running backs. I am looking forward to the conversation. We have NFL news to talk about getting to some mailbag if we have time. A few reminders right here at the top before we kick it off. The Ultimate Draft Kit is available now at Ultimate DraftKit.com. As you know, Apple Podcasts, if you can follow us over there, review the show. We'd appreciate it. If you're listening on Spotify, thank you so much.

YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. If you want to watch the show, Mike and I. Oh, we're, yeah. We somehow wore the same shirt. I like to call it burgundy because then we can go burgundy bros. I know. Oh, I see. It's not, look, I'm not a master of color. I did an image search for burgundy. It's not a color that you would imagine an accidental match on. No, because it's not a good color. It's a great color. Thank you, Jason. You are right. It's a deep red.

It's not, it's not, it's a red clay. It's clay. It's clay. It's old salmon. What do you have to say about this? Oh, don't talk about salmon right now. I feel like it's like a burnt something. Ooh, burnt orange, but yeah. Not a burnt orange. Burnt salmon. Yeah, burnt salmon. Yeah, we're both matching burnt salmon shirts. YouTube will let us know. Some color expert will show up. Well, actually. Are there people that go to school for that?

No. Like a MD in color wheel? But there are people who know their colors very, very well. Not us. No, no. Red. Right. It's a red shirt. Let's get this going. Never not working. Presented by Head and Shoulders, Scamp Shield Technology, available at Walmart. All right. As promised, brand new segment.

In the preseason, we're going to be talking through some draft tips, tricks, insights, strategies to help you go the extra mile, outplay your league mates, really outwork your league mates. That's what it takes to win a title, not finish third, not finish fourth, but actually win it. Give yourself that highest probability at success. Mike, you are kind of taking the mantle on today's never not working second. Indeed. Yeah, it's been a hot topic of conversation, this offseason of...

rookie running back for the Denver Broncos, Giovante Williams was drafted in the second round. Melvin Gordon, he's still there. He's the Wiley Vet who has been productive throughout his career. He's been a good fantasy football player. He was pretty solid last year as well. And so I wanted to take a look, you know, this is a probability-based game. So let's look back at the history, the recent history, I should say, of second round running backs. So since 2011,

We have 29. We now have 30 with Javante, but I did not include him in the sample because I don't know how he did yet. So in that time, we have three rookies that didn't play just because of injury. Before the season, they didn't even get to see the field. So that brings us down to 26 combos of a veteran running back and a second round pick. Veterans outproduced the rookie in fantasy finish.

eight of 26 times. So you're already at a very low probability that Melvin Gordon will outproduce Javante Williams. Now let's break that down even more. Rookies who received a touch in at least 10 games, that's 19 times. Okay, so we're whittling down to sample. The veteran finished higher five of those 19 times. Wow.

And that was no Sean Moreno. That was a crazy year, if you remember that. Frank Gore, of course. DeMarco Murray beating out Derek Henry, Reggie Bush, and then Daryl Henderson last year, which barely even counts. Point of order here. How are you defining veteran? Just the incumbent? Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And here, what we know is only twice has the pair actually been useful together, where they both finished inside the top 30. It's very valuable.

So, and it gets funny enough, both times that was Giovanni Bernard and his teammate. That's funny. It was Gio and Jeremy Hill, and it was Gio and Joe Mixin. That kind of feels even like an outlier because Gio fits a mold. He's not a, he never came in to be a workhorse back, so that kind of makes sense. So, but the point was, it's usually, it's one or the other. It's not going to be both of them. But so the biggest takeaway here to me, and, and I'm not, this isn't like the, the.

The death blow to Melvin Gordon. This isn't the 100% in on Giovante Williams. Just looking at historically what has happened. So when a rookie receives a touch in 10 games, 21% of the time, the veteran was a top 20 guy. 42% of the time, so 8 of the 19 rookies ended up as the top 20. And 73% of the time, if a rookie...

touches the ball in at least 10 games. 73% of the time, the rookie outscores the veteran in fantasy finish. Now, that's very, very interesting. Good work on that. There are some. That didn't sound sincere. No, no, it's solid work. My question here, though, is my question here, though, is. Good job, champ. Look, great job. Now, let me poke a hole in it.

I'm curious how often a team spends a second round pick when they have what is considered in the league an elite running back, not necessarily, you know, in his prime or whatever, but it is a situation where everyone was shocked when Denver...

drafted Giovante, right? Like, when we're, when prior to the draft, let's just say this, prior to the draft, when you were looking at all the best landing spots for running backs. Miami, Atlanta. Teams that were, yeah, the jets and, and obviously Pittsburgh, I never once heard Denver brought up because they had a high, you know, at the very least one of the highest paid running backs in the league. So I'm wondering if that makes this situation different. And really what you, what you just enlightened me on says to me,

Jason, I'm like, maybe I don't want either of them. I've dug into second and third round running backs over the last 10 years as well, trying to get a gauge of how they perform compared to ADP because we've all lived through Amir Abdullah. You know, Cam Acres rookie season was he was on a lot of waiver wires. Miles Sanders, you couldn't play him for a long time.

David Montgomery, you couldn't play him, and trying to sift through it as well because, you know, that's interesting to me to hear that number of 73% of the time when they get a touch in at least 10 games. They outperform the veteran. Williams is being drafted ahead of Gordon right now. 27th running back off the board. Gordon is 30th. Melvin Gordon is being paid $9 million to play football on this team this year. So.

I think we're all trying to find what you do with it. Now, to me, when I got at the end of my research, I got to the point where more often than not, you're disappointed relative to the hype about these second and third rounders in year one. However, Tray Serman and Giovante Williams, which are the two, you know, the second and third guys. The second and third. Because there's Michael Carter. He's later. There's Travis E. And he's earlier. But the second and third round guys.

Both of their draft costs to me are worth the risk. I agree. Which, like, I wanted to get to the end of that and say, stay away. But I got to the end of it and said, well, it might not work out, but who cares? Because your draft price for the upside is not that high. And I think the best advice for fantasy players is take that information Mike just gave you, combine it with the reality that you cannot draft Giovante Williams in the fifth round and put them in your lineup week one.

If that's how you're approaching the drafts, if you're punting running back and you're going, you know, you go quarterback, you go tight in, you go wide receivers, and then you go, man, I'm just going to slot Javante in as my running back two on week one. You might have a problem because he may get, he'll probably have touches in more than 10 games he should. But you might not be happy with the touches till week nine, week 10. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I don't disagree at all. That week one plugging Javante right in is.

probably a recipe for despair of just being frustrated shouting at the TV. Why is Melvin Gordon getting the touches? Put Javante in. And this is a complete, this is end of season fantasy finish. That's what I was looking at. So I firmly believe by the end, Javante will be the more valuable running back. And it's like a difference here just to piggyback what you were saying. Javante, you know, fifth, six round.

Trey Sermon around there as much later, yeah, as well. That could change by the time we're in the, at the end of August and people have seen these players in preseason. I mean, the Amir Abdullah hype where, which I was. And David Montgomery? I was a, remember he was Karim Hunt, Matt Nagy's Kareem Hunt? Yes. Year one. Yeah, I was a founding father of the Amir Abdullah hype. I loved the prospect.