RB Rankings Part 2 + Preseason Takeaways & BIG NEWS

Make sure you listen to the yesterday's show. We're looking at our consensus half point per reception rankings, and these are fluid. I mean, these things, we're tweaking and modifying stat lines for the 2019 year. I'm doing it right now. Every day. Yeah, what are you doing over there? What are you doing? Always modifying up. Always modifying rankings. Let's start at 11, because that makes sense, right? It comes after the 1 through 10. Nick Chubb.

Well, you kind of sound like I was arbitrarily picking a number. Let's start at the, no, it's just the next in order. Nick Chubb comes in at number 11. I've got him up at 8, Jason at 13, Mike at 11. He burst onto the scene last year in the wake of the departure of Carlos Hyde. He forced to trade. Pretty much. The dude was such a beast that they said, we got to get Carlos Hyde out of here.

We got to dump this contract, and they somehow were able to do it. They unleashed Nick Chubb. He's a fantastic running back. The only knock coming into draft season on Nick Chubb was the amount of pass-catching volume he's going to get because he's going to be the banger, and he's great at it for a very high-powered offense, and so he'll have a ton of touchdown opportunity. But what separates him while he's a little bit back is the pass-catching opportunity. That saw at least a...

a reasonable bump up when the Brown straightered away Duke Johnson. I do expect Dantrell Hillier to be more of a replacement for Duke Johnson, at least until Kreme Hunt comes back. I'm not projecting all the targets are now going to Nick Chubb, but he did move up. I gave him 15 more targets, and that was enough to move him up into a solid RB1 for me.

Yeah, honestly, I've got him at 13 right now on the season-long rankings. I don't feel good about having him that low. He looked fantastic in his first preseason game last night, as he did his whole rookie year. Coming out of college, he was an absolute beast. You worried about the injury that he was recovering from, which was horrific. He's back. And like you said, Mike, high-powered offense. He's a goal-line guy. And now if he's involved in the passing game,

There's very little to be worried about, and I'm not worried about, despite the fact that Cream Hunt does eat in on my season-long rankings statistically. If I'm in a draft, I'm not worried at all about Cream Hunt. And we did talk about a lot of this and some of the other nuances on yesterday's show after the Duke Johnson trade. Yeah, full Duke Johnson to Houston commentary on yesterday's pod. Joe Mixon comes in at number 12 on our consensus running back rankings. You know,

Let me frame my view on Joe Mixon right now, because he's at 13, and he's dropped down a little bit over this offseason. There hasn't been really – I don't have any really good reason to dislike Joe Nixon other than kind of the – Well, the offensive line is – The offensive line has been beat up. Yes. A.J. Green's injury, concern about the division. It's just kind of –

I mentioned this when we're talking about carry-on. There's only a couple of guys on sub-500 teams that end up in the top 10 at the running back position. So you assume one of them is going to be Sequin Barclay. Is it Carry-on? Is it Mixon? And obviously, they can outperform the expectation in Cincinnati. That's not outside the realm of possibility in the NFL. But I just kind of like my top-in ceiling for Joe Mixon is starting to move down a little bit from where I was at the end of last year.

I do think Geo Bernard will probably be more of an annoyance than people expect him to be. I'm glad you brought him up. Okay. So, because you agree? Well, yes. Geo Bernard is a good player, especially in the passing game. Joe Mixon has a three-down skill set. I'm not going to take away from that, but you have a new regime. You don't have, we can't rely on, well, Marvin Lewis went with Joe Mixon as a, as a bell cow running back this last year. You can't.

just automatically transfer that onto the new regime. I think we all have Mixon ranked, you know, right? He's a one right here. He's an RB 12. So we're not trying to take everything away from him, but of the running back ones, he's the one that I have the most skepticism on. Having said that, I did have a lot of skepticism on him last year, and he came through in a big way. Joe Mixum was a dominant player for fantasy football.

But with the offense taking a massive hit with injuries and retirements happening to the offensive line, I'm concerned about Joe Mixon. And there's a steady drum beat going from the beat reporters talking about specifically about Giovanni Bernard looking great this off season. Yeah, there were rumors about Giovanni Bernard looking to be traded. Maybe that was happening. And as the beat reporters investigated that, they were surprised to learn that.

Not only is that not true, but they're working on an extension.

I had not heard that part. It feels like the opposite of a trade. It feels a lot like the opposite, which was a little bit crazy considering they drafted two running backs. But they've got four pretty darn good running backs there. Obviously, Joe Mixen is talented. He's going to be the primary back. And you can make the arguments that Zach Taylor's coming over from Los Angeles where maybe he's going to instill and use Mixin the way that they use Gurley. There are narratives to be better. But in reality,

This is going to be a bad team with a much worse offensive line than they had last year and it wasn't the best. And they're missing their best offensive player in A.J. Green. So if I have to say who's going to bust, I kind of echo what you guys think it's a worrisome situation, even though I think he's one of the most talented, all-rounded backs. All-rounded? Well-rounded. Tolbert was more of the all-round. That's not nice. All right.

Mixing did miss a couple of weeks with injury last year. And, you know, I think he's very safe for a double-digit kind of guy. I think he's in that Belkow safe category. I just, when your offense doesn't give you scoring opportunities, which is something that he could struggle with, that's another one of those red flags. I'm going to go as far, though. Look, the season's about to get started. Nobody has a win-lost record yet, Jason. So to the Bengals fans out there, I am going with could be a bad team. Jason took the more definitive will be.

I'm going to go with the could be because we don't know. There's hope everywhere, Jason. There's hope everywhere right now. Do you have hope that the Miami Dolphins could be a good team? Yes. I do. I've actually said it on this show. Look, there have been many years ago. I like this new side of vanity. This is a positive man. Bringing positivity. A couple of years ago, people were dogging on the dolphins being the worst team in foot. Brooks is not in his head. That was, that was you.

Sure. Maybe I'm learning. He's learning. That's good. Right? Team surprise us every year. Every single year teams that you think are bad end up. I love it. I think people thought the dolphins were a bad team last year. And they were a seven and nine team. You know what? Right? You know what? Thinking through it. Looking at everything. This is not a good setup. The Bengals could be good. Thank you. I mean, I remember.

Oh, okay. I thought it was here it comes to the... But they won't. No, no, no. I remember not believing in a couple years ago, the super young 32-year-old Sean McVeigh. It was questionable. The Rams were a bad team under Jeff Fisher, and it didn't look good, and he turned him around in a heartbeat. I'm not saying that that is probable, but certainly is in the range of them. Check this out. Check this out. The Giants could be a good team.

Well, let's take it easy over there, man. Let's not get out of control. But back to Joe Mixen. On fantasy football calculator in half point going 203, are you comfortable going like Devante Adams or Julio Jones, then the turn comes back and Joe Mixon, he's your one at that point? No, I don't want to. I don't really want to do that. Or if Mixon's on your team, are you going trying to hit the strategy that he's your RB2 and you're going heavy in the first two?

That one. That one. Or if I go the other strategy and take two wide receivers and Dalvin Cook is there, I would take him over mix. All right. You might not have heard of him. Carry on Johnson running back for the Detroit Lions. You can listen to any show we've done in the last six months if you'd like the rundown on carry on. You can also go back to Mondays. My Guy's show where Jason lays out yet another case for loving carry on with all your heart.

Has a player with 10 games under his belt gotten the ground swell that Caryon Johnson has? There's an insert Jason monologue mark in our show dock today. Yeah, every time his name is listed in the dock, we know we have to wait. Jason, what? I heard on the footcast yesterday. Now I had to get, I wasn't on the footcast. I had the privilege of going to a dental office instead. You win. Did, uh,

I heard you talked briefly about the worry. Well, just that, look, if carry on isn't carry on. If carry on isn't what I have said and have built up, look, I will mount with you, Foot Clan. I will, I will be a puddle of tears. I will cry myself into a puddle. And the reality is, is this. I see both sides of it, right?

If the Daryl Bevel RB1. I don't believe you. I really do. This is why I have worries. This is why when people keep sending the questions of do I keep Carrion in the third or some other player at great value in the 12th, it's, you know, it's the other player. Just because I love carry-on doesn't mean I can't see the range of outcomes. If Darryl's RB1 comes through or if Theoretics' last four years past catching comes through and the volume is there for a talented carry-on, I'm confident I'm going to be right.

But if that doesn't happen, then he's a running back on a bad offensive team. You know, could be bad offensive team. And so he could disappoint. I believe in the talent. I believe that he showed it on the field. And I'm hoping and I see paths for his opportunity. But if you really want to hear me talk him up, go listen to Monday's episode. Because I'm a believer. My flag is planted. But I've never constructed as large a monument.

And so I'm terrified of the foundation. If the wind blows, the storms come. Please tell me I built it right. Taking those things down. I mean, that's a lot of work. Let me put this into draft context. Damien Williams has been seeing the dip, right? So right now his ADP is 210. Meanwhile, Kerry on Johnson has jumped on the back of an eagle and is just soaring across the land. Thank you for calling me an eagle. Yeah.

He's jumped on the back of a bald eagle. Oh, yes. Oh, America. Get that Roman coupon code again. It is at 2.12. Yeah, his ADP is in the second round. So with those two streams crossing, Andy, are you going to take Damien Williams there or would you rather pay up for carry on? That's a good question.

Because I thought you were just going to say is 212 too high. But you made me choose between two players. They're at a crossroads. They've gone bone thugs and harmony. They're at a crossroads. I'm sticking with the offense right now. I'm going to stick with the offense. But it's getting tighter. What did you make of Andy Reid's comments as reported yesterday about more of a committee backfield for Damien Williams? You've already made the point that Williams is going to be this pass-catching guy from a homes no matter what, which is worth its weight in gold.

Did you make anything of that comment? Did it concern you? When I first read, when I read through it, it was, this is rough. But then I spent more time thinking about it, actually hearing the context. And, I mean, he was saying I used a bit of a committee in Philadelphia. Can I read the quote? So because we're talking about it and people might not have heard it. Yesterday on a serious XM radio interview, he said,

Andy Reid said, I did a little bit of that, speaking to a running back by committee. While I was in Philadelphia, kind of a running back by committee deal, and we had some success with it. We'll do that here in Kansas City. And he went on to name the other backs. Sort of named them. No, I mean, we drafted a kid at running back, and the other Williams isn't bad either. That's what I mean by sort of. And then Carlos? Remember, so the kid that he's talking about.

Is Darwin Thompson. Is Darwin Thompson? Look, and if Andy Reed thinks that, in his example, this is the committee approach he did in Philadelphia where he almost always produces a running back one. Give me that committee. I do agree with Andy as the carry-on truther and as someone who's cooling on Damien Williams because I don't believe in the talent. Look, this is the perfect talent versus opportunity situation. I'm taking opportunity.