Top 10 RB Rankings + Waller Watch, Target Goblins - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/11

If you want to bet against another 2,000-yard season, like, I mean, Chris Johnson had the 2,000-yard season, you know, that obviously doesn't last forever. It feels disrespectful to Henry to doubt him at all. But that's the difference maker between any of these picks is you're basically saying, what is probability tell me about this situation? He's much better against, like he destroys.

Bad run defenses. So if you look at predicting those week-winning weeks where he's been better than everybody, including Dalvin Cook, over the last two years at week-winning weeks, they're going to come against those bottom 16 defenses. And he does have a new offensive coordinator. So Ezekiel Elliott. So here is our first really big disparity. All of us are pretty aligned on. We're in on Zeke.

But he is going at the back of the first as the running back eight. And he is our consensus running back five, which to me that's a big gap. Yeah, I haven't met six. You guys haven't met five. He was not here as recently as a couple weeks ago for me. He was much more seven, eight, nine. But Jonathan Taylor is behind him now in my rankings. Joe Mixon is behind him now in my rankings. So there was some hesitancy early on in the offseason with Zeke.

maybe I'm a sucker for, you know, seeing the physical specimen looking like he's in the best shape of his life. It's just a matter of what is this offense going to be? And if Dak's healthy, I think you've got another elite year from Zeke. It's kind of a combination, right? Like, you know, the targets. Yeah, he's more involved in the past game. Obviously, if you watch Hard Knocks, he's Dak Prescott's best friend. They were drafted together. It was such, I wasn't aware of this. Like, I hadn't.

it's just one of those things that you're like, oh, of course, I didn't put this together, but drafted the same year. Their friendship is delightful. Yeah, no, it is wonderful. And obviously he's, you know, one of the faces of the franchise. So he's going to get the workload. The question is just was the Zeke we saw last year?

With all the fumbles and everything? Not just the fumbles, but the lack of breakaway runs. You know, look, on a per rushing attempt, Tony Pollard looked like the better running back. And so you start to wonder, is this the beginning of the end? Todd Gurley looked great. It was the best running back in the world. Then you started showing signs slowing down. And then it's over. And so you don't want to be caught holding the bag with Zieg.

But you're not going to be because it's not over for him. Last year, if you remember, you know, he was one of the first players that got COVID was kind of out of camp for a little while, looked out of shape. Then they lost their quarterback. Then they lost three of the best offensive linemen in the league. It wasn't that great. But, you know, when you look at a player who has looked out of shape physically and then played like he's out of shape and then.

You look and you go, oh, man, he got his act together. He is coming in fit. He's coming in on fire. The offensive line is back. I think Zeke, you know, I would have a hard time. Like, I have Derek Henry at four. But if I'm at four in a draft, I'm probably taking Zeke ahead of Derek Henry because of the past catching word. I was thinking about that. The whole time we're talking about Derek Henry, knowing that Zeke is coming up. The targets are going to be there. And the offensive line.

They had a bunch of offensive line injuries last year. So not only was it the bad quarterback play, it was the offensive line play that Zeke is not used to running behind. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to still be in on Zeke. His, the first five games of last year, 108 target pace, 81 reception pace. That's Alvin Kamara's reception totals. Yeah, he was the running back three while Dak was healthy. So obviously, this was not.

chicken egg in reverse situation here. Zeke was climbing up to the point where I went and pursued him in our dynasty league to try to make a run. Now, this is not a long-term dynasty pickup. It's a short-term dynasty pickup, but the belief is, hey, this is going to be a nice year for Ezekiel Elliott. So all signs point to that. It was nice seeing the receiving work in hard knocks. I won't lie. Aaron Jones at six.

I've got them at five, so I do have Aaron Jones a spot ahead of Zeke, Jason and Mike have them at six. Last year, nine touchdowns on the ground. Had another 47, had 47 receptions, 355 and 2, finished at RB5. Missed a couple games. Great player, great workload, great offense, great team, great quarterback. Great role in the offense. Great disrespect. I mean, there's a lot.

There's a great amount of disrespect because nobody wants to give him a crown in the upper echelon of the running back fantasy rankings. They really don't. And that's weird because he's literally been a top five fantasy running back the last two years in a row. He was the running back two years ago. He's running back five last year. Now you lose.

Jamal Williams, like AJ Dylan obviously is going to get more involved, but AJ Dylan was there last year in his rookie season. They subtracted Jamal Williams, who got a lot of the two minute drills, got a lot of the passing work that AJ Dylan does not project to get. I mean, Aaron Jones should really have a phenomenal season. You know that Aaron Rogers is coming to, you know, he is a man on a mission to prove green.

to Green Bay and the rest of the league. Like, I'm the best. I'm, the offense is going to score a million times. I'm going to win a championship and show you guys. Yeah. And then demand to be traded in the off season. I don't understand what there is to not love about Aaron Jones outside of the current missing practices right now, which I expect that'll be. He's the RB9 in the community. I would underrated. Give me the eighth draft pick then.

Okay, so seven and eight are Saquan Barkley and Nick Chubb. And I bring them up together because we've talked a lot on the show about Saquan, activated from the PUP, tore the ACL in week two, had to wait to have surgery. We didn't get to see him with Joe Judge in this offense. There are plenty of question marks about what Daniel Jones's future looks like in New York. And I think for some people, and I'm asking myself,

am I this person? He's kind of off the board because of question marks. It's similar to the question or the situation Jason brought up with Ridley and Waller where if you have doubt, why not take the player you know is going to play. I bring up Chubb in the same conversation because, you know, we have Sequin, seven, Chub, eight, but if it was today, Mike, if you're sitting there with the seventh pick in the draft and Chubb and Barclay are both on the board, are you?

looking for more sealing from Barclay than Chub or are you just taking the sure thing? Because you know, you know, Chub just got paid. You know what the offense is? The rankings of Nick Chub versus Sequin Barclay has been one of the most difficult situations for me of trying to figure out where I truly stand because I love Nick Chubb. I mean, all the arguments you can say about Derek Henry, I mean, of...

you know, he's not a pass catcher. Nick Chubb is not the past catcher. He has a prolific backup on the team that's going to take work, Kareem Hunt. But to me, Nick Chubb is an outlier. He's not Derek Henry, but he is on the outlier scale far closer to Derek Henry than I think that the general public believes, is my belief in Nick Chubb.

Jason, what about you? Weighing that in versus the past catching upside of Saquan Berkeley is very difficult. Yeah, I mean, if I know it's not the exact question, but if I have to make the decision at this spot, it's Austin Eickler, but if I have to only, you know, there's only two guys left and it's Chubb and it's Barkley, I would go with Chubb because of the injury risk right now, not knowing whether or not Sequin's going to be there.

But he's not, he's by no means off my board. I mean, you get to a tier of running backs where I would rather wait a couple weeks and knowing that I'm going to probably get a slow start for the potential upside of Sequin. But I don't think that the upside, this is where I caution people listening. I talked about this on the early offseason bust show, which Sequin was my bust, that I don't think he is.

the rookie year Saquan, the Eli Manning Saquan of the past that is a well over 100 target running back. I don't think that, you know, if he comes back and is on fire, I don't think he's a top three guy. I don't. No, not in this offense. I think he's, you know, in that in that four, five, six range after the Cameras and the cooks and the Christian McCaffreys. That's such good information to have.

Because everybody has been, it's been A or B. It's like if healthy, he equals old, old Sequin. Right. And I don't think that that is, I don't think that's true. We looked at that. If you go back to the, you know, I don't want to regurgitate all the information. There's a lot of stats on that show talking about what the truth of his second season really was, what the truth of him without Eli Manning was in healthy games where he was good. I'm not saying he was bad, but he was not.

what he was with Eli Manning and in that rookie season from a fantasy perspective. He's been a top two back in Dynasty ADP for four straight years. Are you, is he a top two back for you? I will say this. In Dynasty, he is still super young. Is he top two? No, I don't think so. I would still have both, I would have Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin Cook ahead of him. Okay. So we talked about Chubbed. He comes in at eight.

Mike, you're the highest on Nick Chubb. You have him out as ADP, which is RB7, seventh pick in the draft, just got the bag. I mean, having Kareem Hunt there is not a direct threat to Nick Chubb in any way, shape, or form. What it is is it's very convenient for the Browns.

because they don't have to stretch Chub out. They don't have to close games out with Nick Chub. That is a frustrating thing if you want to see somebody make the leap into the top three or four at the position, and that seems very unlikely with Kareem Hunt there. I think it is possible for Nick Chubb. Best offensive line in football? Yeah, the offensive line is great. The touchdown upside is...

tremendous. And you look at what he did last year. You know, the running back nine, we highlighted that, but 190 attempts. And he officially missed four games, but he really missed five because week four against Dallas when he left the game, he had six attempts. He had played in 19% of the snaps. And he was already dominating. Like he was six for 43 in that game. Nick Chubb is not just a grinder.

He is an elite runner. He led the NFL in yards after contact. He is the highest rated elusive running back per pro football focus by a wide margin. He is not just a where like Clyde Edwards Aller for the Kansas City Chiefs. He can get you chunks. Like he can he can rip off a 15 yard run. He can rip off several of those. But Nick Chubb can give you that and then.

He can house it at 80 yards on any given play. He has that strength and that speed to be that guy. So I believe that Nick Chub is a great pick at his ADP. And in the range of outcomes to me is an outlier touchdown season where he comes in and he scores Derek Henry levels of touchdowns. And he's a top three guy. Austin Echler at nine. Now, Mike, I know you're not really a big supporter of Austin Echler. But we have him at nine.

Jason has him at seven. Darn right. Awesome, excellent. Jason's trying to steal my thunder. Yesterday, Mike was just bemoaning the fact that somehow he's lower on Echler than Jason is. But Jason had to go to outlandish above Sequin levels with Echler to disturb Mike. Which I love. I love that he has ranked that high. He does seem. He's great. I think the headline here for fantasy players is when you hear a name like this, that's not normally in the top 10 necessarily.

had the injuries last year. Um, only played 10 games. It's validation and it's also saying like the path is clear because for Echler, I don't, I mean, what's, what goes wrong for Austin Echler in this offense? He has the role and he's the past catcher. Are they going to, is he going to get less work in the running game than you expect? No, I don't think he's going to get less running. I mean, I don't expect him to have.