Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Top 20 RB's, Preseason, Fantasy News, Mailbag

Drop down my board a little bit. I saw that. I know. We'll talk a little bit about it. Disappointed. I know. I'm sorry, buddy. All right. These are standard. Yes, these are standard. We will basically, we'll share a little bit of PPR differences as we go along, guys that we think are jumping up a lot in PPR or falling down in PPR. But the consensus number one on our boards across all three of our rankings is Adrian Peterson once again. All day. All day. So.

Give me the bullet points on Adrian Peterson. In case people haven't watched TV in about 10 years. Okay. If you only watched last year, you don't know much about eBay. Well, no, you'd know some things about it. Yeah, so here's... Not football related. I mean, very quickly, very easily. Adrian Peterson...

is one of the most athletic freaks that have ever graced the NFL. He is a monster, has been a monster forever, and he has the look and feel in his eyes and the chip on his shoulder that he had after he blew out his knee, and he came back and destroyed the league for 2,000 yards. On a sub-average offense. Yeah, and now the offense is better. Another thing I learned from the Hall of Fame game, which I already knew, but it just confirmed.

Teddy Bridgewater, every single throw was his second read. It was a checkdown, a shorter drop. That just looks so good for AP. I think his, you know, for PPR value, AP normally takes a slight hit. I don't think he takes a hit this year. I think he's very, yeah, he gets a boost. He's going to be above the average backs and catches. So if I was going to play the detractor for Adrian Peterson, the two things that I would say would be that he's 30.

and that he hasn't played in a season. Yep. That's all you can say. Both fair. And that's it. And honestly, if his name was not Adrian Peterson, those two things to me would be big flags, and I'd have a guy who's great, probably at number 10. So we are really going off the fact that this is Adrian Peterson, and I believe that's warranted. It's Adrian Peterson. He has a 5.0 lifetime average. Lifetime average. And he scores double digits. Double digits. So until he doesn't do it,

We've got him number one. Consensus. Yes. I think he's number two on my actual board. All right. These next two guys are actually tied with one another. So I'm just going to go alphabetically and drop Eddie Lacey number two on the board here. He's tied with Levi-on-Bell. Last year, very good season. Very involved in the passing game. Yeah. And for the passing game, he had the best hands on the team.

in a high-scoring offense with the best quarterback. He's a tremendous pass blocker, 18 runs of 15-plus yards. And for a guy who's called Fat Eddie, he's the second most elusive running back when it comes to miss tackles. And he can also run guys over. Do you know how hard it is to get your arms around him, though? I tried to hug him once. It didn't work. No. It's tough, man. Yeah. We needed, I needed two guys. It's like, I'd like a refrigerator. It's difficult. Yeah, I like Lacey. The thing that was difficult at times with him,

I owned him in a couple leagues last year, was simply these drives that they just decided to put Starks in the game on. Starks is capable. We've said that before, but there's an occasional drive where it's not, it's not Starks comes in for a play, really. It's like Starks comes in for seven or eight plays in a row. And it's, you know, his total, I mean, what do you have? 245 carries last year? 246. 246. So he's not...

Pushing 300. That's fine. I mean, you probably don't want that from your back as long as he's efficient with what he's got. But that would be the only thing that is, you know, in the concussions. But Lacey, can't go wrong with Lacey. Lev Bell, also tied at that number two spot. Just had a suspension reduced from three to two. Another guy that Dylan asked me about on the show last night.

He's not down the board for me. He's my number one running back, despite missing two games. That's fine. Because of the difference he will make in your matchups from week three on. You know, you need that guy who is both consistent and can give you boom games, and that's what he did last year. I took all of his stats. This is a great example of how good Levian Bell is on a per game basis. I took all of his stats, and I did this for everybody, and mapped them out over 16 games. And then I went and thought, I can't in good conscience do that.

for Levion Bell. So I took all of his stats that I had for him and I multiplied him times 0.875, which is 14 games. And guess where he ended with only 14 games in PPR? One. One. He finished 1. At 0.875? Finish 1.

That's actually kind of interesting. I'll tell you who. Two in standards. So, I mean, if he comes back, if the knee is good and he's back, you know, practicing and, you know, doing well before then, then I love him. Love him. The guy that Lev Bell wants is Marty McBride. If you go look at the splits of games, once Bryant started playing after those six games, Levy on Bell's points spiked massively. I'm talking seven to eight points a game. Is that field stretching?

Yes. Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that. I did not know that. Did not know about the splits. Yeah, we love Love Bell. No reason to not get behind them. That offense could very well be a top three offense this year. I love that offense. They've been able to move the ball. They have no defense or very minimal. They'll be in the bottom half for sure.

All right, the next guy on our list is moving up all of our boards of late, and that's how he landed at number four. Maybe a surprise to those who have listened to us earlier. Surprise to me, and I've been here every time. He's four on both of our boards. So where is he for you? He must be like five or six. Okay. CJ Anderson. CJ Anderson has climbed all the way up. Now we're talking standard leagues here. So why? Why the rise of C.J. Anderson right now?

I'm feeling more and more comfortable and confident that he is the absolute back there. I've thought from the beginning that there will be a bell cow. There's not going to be a time share having Coobes come out and declare that he loves a bell cow and say that he wants a guy is great. And then you look in their training camp so far.

And C.J. Anderson is just the guy in training camp. He is the one that is being used with the first team because he is the starting running back. And so barring injury or something like that, which, of course, we can't predict here unless it's, you know, Jonathan Stewart or something or. Or. It's okay. I'm over it, guys. Yeah, it's moved on. So the second half of the season, he was getting 20 carries a game, averaging about 100 yards.

almost five yards of carry. He had eight touchdowns in the second half of the season. He was a monster. And over the course of the season, he's still got 44 targets. The guy has great hand. He can play in all aspects of the game. You know what that has to do with, too, is if you've watched Peyton Manning over the years in Indianapolis and in Denver, the running back behind him,

catches passes, and they catch passes at the goal line. If you remember Joseph Adai from years back, Adai didn't even have very good yards per carry numbers, but he would come in and he'd score eight or nine touchdowns because he'd catch those little dump-offs at the line of scrimmage, five yards, ten yards out. And he'd get the ball there, you know, more than other guys. Moreno did. Moreno caught passes all the time. For sure. And I remember even in his prime, Peyton in his prime, sometimes would only throw for 28.

touchdowns, you know, and he's used to handing that ball off near the goal line in his career. And now you get a head coach that wants to do that, wants to take the pressure off of Peyton. And Julius Thomas is gone. And he was another one of those kind of release valve guys. So number five, we have the tried and true.

Beast mode. Beast mode is there. Number five, Marshawn Lynch. He just keeps doing it year after year after year. I just watched him in the league commercial. Oh, the intro? That was very funny. Yes. That was very funny. If you haven't, we won't spoil it, but if you haven't seen the Marshawn Lynch. I was going to spoil it. So there you go. Don't. It's very funny. Last year, 280 for 1306, 13 touchdowns. He is the ultimate inconsistency. He's, I believe, the only guy to finish in the top five, three straight years.

And yet he gets underdrafted every single year because he's not sexy because he's getting older because they're going to change the offense because this is Russell Wilson's team. And then the Seattle Seahawks pay him $12 million to do nothing. Nope. I think they paid him $12 million to run him into the ground. And I think they're going to do that. I think they're going to run him until he can't run anymore. And I believe he can run until game 16. Exactly. He is. I mean, has there ever been a guy more appropriately nicknamed?

I mean, the guy is straight up beast mode. He just destroys... I don't know that there's any running back I enjoy watching more other than the fact that he's on the stupid Seattle Seahawks. Other than that. But... Showed a little homernerism there. Lynch... No. He talked about that he was considering retirement and then he said the Seahawks offered him.

$12 million. Right. When you do that, you've got to reconsider things. Very persuasive. So I agree with Jason. I think this might be the last year for Lynch. I'm not going to say for sure, but that's the way... They could give him $12 million again because he could run out, he could go out and put the exact same numbers. But his contract situation is, it seems like a one-year deal. He's just been great. The only kind of question talking about with Adrian Peterson is,

Will that back injury finally catch up with Marshawn Lynch? If you were a Lynch owner, every single game, there was at least throughout the week a tweak of, uh-oh, because it was... You don't think that's just like Marshall Lynch gets a day off every week, so let's use the back? No, well, he gets the day off, but he just... You don't know, though, as an owner sometimes. It's frustrating. Number six, Jamal Charles, the most efficient running back in football. One of the most dynamic...

The problem with Jamal Charles, if there is one, now he's at number six, so we don't think there are very many problems with Jamal Charles, is just the workload and the fact that Andy Reid has a way of discouraging fantasy owners with running back uses. I guess Jamal should have ran the ball some more. They were a good team last year. They're going to be a great defense this year. All the signs point to a great workload for Jamal, but there could be some, if this team is in position to make the playoffs.

I would worry about his second half of the season workload before the playoffs. Because if they can bring Nile Davis in there and their defense holds down the fore and their offense is doing enough, I think they're a playoff team to me. And so because of that and because of him only getting 206 carries last year, this is why he's not number one or two. Okay. That's the point. Yeah. If he was getting even just 250, if you got 250 carries, you'd...

probably have him near number one. I've got him getting 225 because last year he still missed some games and finished with 206. So I think he's not going to get, you know, definitely not going to be in the 300 range. But he is so good at finding the end zone too. I mean, he is really, he's got a nose for when he gets down there, he finds a way to split through the guys. Yep, both ways. All right, Jeremy Hill comes in at number seven. I mentioned earlier he has dropped down my board a little bit.

He is my number 11. Jason, I'm not sure. Where is he on your board? Do you have it up? Yes. He is on standard. He is seven. Okay, so he's seven for you, and where is he? I think he's three for standard. Okay. So we differ a little bit on Hill. He had a great year last year. Mike, give me the highlights. Here's why I like Hill so much. He didn't even really get going until the second half of the year. He finished with 222 carries.

1,100 yards, nine touchdowns. Now, he is a workhorse back. In games with 15 plus carries, he averaged over 5.5 yards per carry. So he's not just chunking along. He's also getting a ton of big plays. Do you think, though, you've made some arguments against O'Dell Beckham Jr. on the basis that his numbers towards India were unsustainable. Right. They happened, though.

And is that argument, I mean, for me, the reason he's down for me is I just don't think over the course of a full NFL season, second year in the league, I don't think he can sustain that level of yards per carry. That's all it was for me. I took him down from about 5.2 like he got last year to 4.7, a good season, a high volume season, but that dropped him down enough for me. Do you know what you have him at yards per carry on your stats, Mike? I think I have him at, he's at about five.