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

third down protecting Frank Gore, Hall of Fame running back. So get on board with Frank Gore. If you can get him, grab him and go. All right. Number 13, Mark Ingram comes in. That's very high. It is. That's very high for Mark Ingram. That must be you guys. That can't be me. I've got Ingram at 15, so it must be Mike. I have him at 20. I have about 14.

So how did, how did, we all haven't ranked? Well, this is where our rankings. Lower than our rankings. Because this is where the rankings start to separate. Yeah, there's a lot of guys that won't be in some of our rankings that are really high in others. That makes sense. All right, Mark, I know math. Math is easy. Yeah. All right. Number 13, Mark Ingram. They bring in Max Unger now.

Jimmy Graham was traded for a player, and the player was Max Unger. Two players. Well, yeah. Max Unger, great center, great run blocking center. Ingram looked different last year. There were two players, okay? And we're getting into preseason right now, and this is when you get to see this. There were two players in preseason last year that made me turn my head and go, huh? And they were Ingram and Levy on Bell. Right. Levy on Bell looked different. Ingram looked different.

And so if he's that Ingram, and this offense is going to be run heavy, we like him. He should be a consistent guy. If he's somehow your RB2, you're golden. Yeah, I agree with that. I'll say, just to touch on the Max Unger effect from pro football focus, he was the fourth rated center. Last year, the Saints were using Jonathan Goodwin, the 27th ranked center. And Mark Ingram still had a great year. The question for Ingram is, can his body hold up?

to the entire year where it seems like the Saints are changing their philosophy. They're still going to throw a ton of people. And he gets banged up a little bit. Yes, he's been known to do that. And Kyrie Robinson is there, C.J. Spiller is there. And so if they back off his workload, that would be a concern. But he is going to be the first and second down guy. And if he plays like last year. Exactly. You know, they're not going to give it to C.J. Spiller up the middle on the one. They're going to give it to Mark Ingram. And, you know, Jimmy Graham had 10 touchdowns last year that's gone. So those are going to go somewhere.

All right, number 14. Jonathan Stewart. Speaking of injury prone. We're not talking about that.

He is one of the most impressive on-tape runners in football when he's healthy. He dominated at the end of the year last year. If you watch the games, he's a guy who jumped off the screen as, wow, that's an RB1 right there. He took the Panthers to the playoffs. It wasn't Cam Newton last year. It was Jonathan Stewart. He was absolutely outstanding. And it's his job. DeAngelo Williams is gone. So if you're one of those fantasy gamblers and want to gamble on a guy that could finish inside that top five,

If he has a healthy season, I mean, do any of you doubt that he could be there if he was healthy? I don't doubt that he could be there, but I would doubt. If he plays 16 games, I would not.

peg him to be there. And the reason is just because of Cam Newton, the touchdown vulture. Because in truth, Jonathan Stewart, you look before Cam got there, he's a great goal line back. He's got a nose for the end zone, and he's talented there. But since Cam has gotten there, he takes a lot of running touchdowns away, and the entire running back total touchdowns of Carolina has dipped greatly since Cam's been there. So, you know, that's, I think, the only thing keeping his...

potential from being the highest. So I don't necessarily see him as a top five. But he... I'll go RB1 in a 12 team. Top 12. All right. Our next three guys, 15, 16, and 17 are Melvin Gordon. Melvin. Lamar Miller. Melvin, Lamar, and Joseph. Joseph Randall, who climbs all the way to 17. RB2 range. I think that's warranted. Gordon, the rookie...

First and second down back, but a good opportunity there in San Diego. He's looked good in camp so far. We've talked a lot about Miller, Randall. Which guys, do you guys, do you have anything to say about these three? Of these three, I want Lamar Miller. Because Melvin Gordon, to me, it's Melvin Gordon and Joseph Randor are all potential. I don't know for sure. I have my concerns about Gordon. We know whose upside is tremendous because Ryan Matthews in a two-down.

back situation was great a couple years back. Joseph Randall, it has possibly the best run blocking line in all of football, but Lamar Miller did it. And Lamar Miller is on a high-powered offense that just continues to get better. Ryan Tannehill continues to get better. He ended with over five yards of carry, but that was kind of bumped because he had a huge run in the last game, but he would have been 4.6 without that run.

That's still a fantastic yards per carry average. Joe Philbin has come out and said, I don't mind getting him the ball a little bit more. If he can handle the carries, we'll get him the ball. That's been the only knock on Miller's game. And nobody behind him has stepped up in camp so far. That's also another point. You know, Jay, he is not impressed. He might be somebody who takes some time. And so, yeah, Lamar Miller is climbing a little bit. Randall, somebody, you've got to watch preseason a little bit too. I have Randall actually running for a good yard per carry this year.

And so I think behind that line he will. It's just a matter of how much he gets. I'm actually warming up to Randall a little bit more. If the next couple weeks go on and there's no other running back brought into camp, I will be forced to put Randall a little bit higher on my list. But probably won't overtake Lamar Miller. Lamar Miller. All right, these last three running backs in our top 20 are Latavius Murray, T.J. Yeldin, and Alfred Morris to round out our consensus top 20. All right.

Who do you want to talk about here? You guys can go ahead and gush over your boy, LeCavius. Well, I'm not going to gush. I will. He's got some warts, namely playing on the Raiders. I mean, a winning, you need a winning team. I think they're much better this year. I like Derek Carr, like Cooper. Reports about Crabtree are good. I think that team will improve.

Where we have Latavius Murray statted is exactly where he will finish. He will finish as an RB2. That you have statted him. Is that a water bag? Very impressively. Exact number of water bag. Here's what I'm saying. He has... Against myself. Right. He has... He is a...

incredibly talented. He is a gigantic man who can run like the wind, and you watch, he passes the eyeball test every time. He is on an offense that wants to run the ball. They're going to give it to him. Are you worried about Trent Richardson? No. Hey, hey, Trent Richardson is officially...

Number two on the depth chart. Whoa. I'm bumping Murray way up. Yeah. So Murray is the only guy there that's ever going to get the ball. The truth is this. He's not on a good enough overall team. The team is improving, and I like the Raiders future. But this year, I don't expect them to have many games that they are winning in a position where they need to run the ball and run the clock out, which is why.

with all those great things about, you know, they're going to give the ball to a running back a lot. Their running back is very talented. They want to run the ball. He's not an RB1, and he doesn't have that potential because of the Raiders grade. So I think he's going to finish the years in RB2. I think he's going to hit some home runs. I think he has that kind of potential in speed. It's interesting that 18, 19, 20 on our list right here are all from teams that probably Vegas as well as ourselves would probably say are going to be losing ball clubs with Oakland.

Jacksonville and Washington. Yeah. Morris is kind of that consistency guy. Another guy I would love as an RB2. Really? You're very down on him in your rankings. Do you realize how low you have him? I don't have him that low. Blast him. Blast him, Mike. Okay, I have him at 30. You're right. That's pretty low. You moved him down then because when I was doing the board. No, that was my half. You had my half. 28. Yeah, yeah. That's where he is. 28. That's okay. Just outside of RB2?

I'd be happy with him at an RB2. Okay. It's not too far. I like Morris. I think he's a steady guy. I think they like Matt Jones. And I don't think the team's very good. So I don't think he gets, he's going to be himself, but I don't think he gets in the end zone enough. See? That's pretty much it. And I like Yeldon, but that's a, this is a going for complete on the workload. And I think they've.

they've done a good job upgrading their offensive line in Jacksonville. All right. I want to make sure we mention this. On the show Thursday, we're going to go through some deeper running backs for your teams. And we're going to have a special guest on the show. Christopher Harris, formerly of ESPN. Who's that guy? Yeah, Chris Harris. Love the guy.

He's a film junkie. He knows the game, and he knows running backs. So we'll talk some deeper running backs with him. Very excited about that. We've got some guests coming up. Next week we're going to have JJ Zacharison come on the show. We've got some other special guests. Zacharison. Is that it? I'm sorry. No, that's all right. Apologies, JJ. JJ. JJ. JJ. Yeah. JJ. JJ Watt will be on. Oh, wait. JJ is a good man. JJ will be on our show. That is true. Yes.

Now go spread the word. Tell your friends. Go spread the word. All right, let's answer some questions for our listeners. Mailbag. All right, if you have a question, you can go to the website. The Fantasyfootballers.com in the upper right hand corner is a submit a question button. You click that. Typey type, your question in there. Send it our way. We're going to answer as many as we can. If you've been sending them in, I promise we've been answering as many as we can do. We've got tons of draft questions coming in. So if we didn't get tears, apologies. We only have 30 fingers to go around.

Is that true? Is that true? We got 30. Wait, you, you didn't, Jason Pierre-Paul, did you? No, no, no. But I didn't know, are we counting thumbs? Those questions have to be considered, Mike. Okay. Ten digits. There you go. You know, Andre Williams says all thumbs.

When he tries to catch the football. Careful. My love for him is growing. It is. He's raising up my board. We'll talk about him next week. All right. If you have a question, like I say, go to the website. You can also call us our voicemail line 302-464-TFFB. You can leave us a question that way. This one comes in from Adam in Canada. Yeah, bonjour! There it is. Hey, just wondering what my strategy should be for the last pick. It's a snake draft. Most top running back will be gone.

Probably Gront gone to, possibly Des. I guess he's saying Des is number one in his board. But I get this question a lot. I get to the end of the first round. What do I do? Okay. I assume with the last pick of the first round? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a snake draft. It flips over. He's got 11, 12. I mean, 12 and 1. And this question's interesting because most people, what happens is those top running backs are gone. And then they go, oh, no, should I just go wide receiver, wide receiver?

But the truth is, if you're in that position, you're also going to wait another 20 picks to draft your first running back if you take wide receiver, wide receiver. So what do you do, Mike? I'm fine if there's two elite wide receivers, if you want to go wide receiver, wide receiver. If it's me, I'm taking an elite wide receiver such as a Desmond, Bryant, or a Julio. And then I'm also taking Jeremy Hill. Yeah, if he's sitting there. Yeah, every time. All right, Brian.

In Connecticut, I was wondering how you guys feel about drafting both Peyton Manning and C.J. Anderson. I'm afraid they might dig into each other's workloads. I guess he means fantasy points, but also thinks it might be a good idea, scoring points for almost every TD scored by Denver. I'm very high on Manning, and I believe he will drop in my draft because he underperformed late last year. What do you think, guys? I have no problem having both of those guys on my team. You do not...

need to give them a bonus for being on the team or liking the Broncos where it's like, I've got one, so I should target the other. You know, going into your draft, if you're saying, ooh, I really want to pair these guys, I think that that's a mistake. You're going to end up reaching for one of them to pair them. But don't be afraid to pair them, because I think that they will work out fine with each other. Yeah, there's not many teams where I want the quarterback and the running back, but the Broncos, the Packers, the Colts, those teams. Give it to me. Those teams can sustain. I agree.