RB Rankings: 11-20 + Player Debates, Hard Knocks - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/10

The top 10 running backs, those are easy. Those are obvious. It's the running backs we're talking about on today's episode that are really going to help make or break your draft. Make sure you don't get the wrong ones. Pay attention. Leave a comment on who your favorite is or where we are wrong. Like, subscribe, and enjoy the show. All right. It's almost that time of year. The time when I set the foundation for supreme and total dominance at my fantasy football draft. How can I be so confident? Because I used the ultimate draft kit from the fantasy footballers. Man, it updates all off-season, so I never worry about using old busted information. Consistency charts, auction values, full projections. Oh, baby, this thing's got it all. You want to keep it 100 for your draft. Head to ultimate draftkidraft.com and get your copy today.

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in one-in-all Wednesday, August 10th. Hot off the heels of watching Dan Campbell explaining to people. There's, like, guys on the beach. Some are in the shores. Some are in the waters. The shallows. Yeah, they're in the shallows, Mike. I had no idea what that guy was talking about, but it was provocative. The fantasy footballers podcast, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway back with you, running back rankings part two. Hard Knox did debut last night. That is what Mike is referring to. The Dan Campbell show. I have always, and this is just how I think about these things, every year. Slash Jamal Williams. Every year there is a team featured on hard knocks.

And we've been through a number of them over the years. And I have always, my brain went, it goes straight to this. Like if I pretend I, if I was the coach of the team being featured on hard knocks, when we see that opening camp speech from the head coach, I want to know if it's them or if they are thinking about what they're saying because they're going to be on hard knocks. Am I getting the real Gruden slash, you know, who did we have? Jeff Fisher. I'm not going seven and nine. But Bill O'Brien I mean I think we got the real Dan Campbell I mean look it's definitely got to be in your head I think it's especially with that one because you know that that's the cold open to the show it just it's you giving the big introduction to to camp once they're on the field and you you're in it I think you forget the cameras are there more so at that point but like he is he is a jacked up high tea version of

the dude from the Big Lobowski. Like everything ends with the word man and I love it. It's so much fun imagining like put the sweater. If you get the Big Lobowski sweater on him, it would be him identically. And Fookland, if you are unfamiliar. with our nickname of Guns Mahoney. Ah, yes. This started back when he was the temporary head coach of the Miami Dolphins. And no one could remember his name. Right. We couldn't remember his name, but we knew how jacked up he was. We're like, you know, Guns Mahoney there. Well, he is, he is primetime Guns Mahoney now. Yeah, he's a big, he's a big man doing up downs with the team, you know?

I would have tapped out at about seven of those. Yeah, those looked brutal. And he was doing them a lot better than the players. There was one player just totally falling on the ground. I was hoping that you guys saw that. I can't. It was like 57. I don't remember the number. But that guy was just throwing his body on the ground. No resistance at all. Just plant push up. He was doing cheap up downs and hoping no one saw him, which the coach couldn't see him because he was doing up downs. All right. We will be back into running back rankings today, did the top 10 on yesterday's show. Like I said, got some news to talk about the fantasy football community, join the foot.com, bonus weekly shows, tons of premium mincees and perks. You get access to all the Discord channels. You get access to a number of ways to find league mates. It's the community. Absolutely. It's the people that listen. And speaking of Discord, Papa Josh ran a football television trivia.

show on the Discord last night. Jumped in there. A few of us did. And it was a lot of fun, man. The Discord was popping. Set it at the top. I mean, a friend did. Ultimate DraftKK. You owe your fantasy season the UDK because the draft is how you set the foundation for your season. And it's not how you win your league. It's how you set that foundation. It's how you, you know, you can certainly lose your league at the draft. So you want to be prepared. Learn more about that at Ultimate DraftKit.com. I have a quick question for the day related to hard knocks, which is this. The which Lions player is going to get the biggest hard knocks bump in fantasy drafts? You know, we've had seasons gone by, Devante Freeman, right? With standing out in a previous Atlanta Falcons hard knocks. So, you know, there's a number of draftable lions, DeAndre Swift, who we'll talk about today, T.J. Hockinson, a sixth round pick. I'm on Ross St. Brown.

Jameson Williams. You've got Jamal Williams and DJ Chark and Jared Garf. But, you know, I can't even answer this question because there really wasn't a player focused on the first episode. Yeah, I mean, the reality is it's up to them to decide who they're going to focus on. You could make an argument that DJ Chark has the most room to bump up. He's. going to be their primary wide receiver and he's in the 13th round. But I don't think they're going to highlight him. He's not as good as story as someone like Amin Rae St. Brown, who I think they will end up highlighting. And whoever they spend time with, they're going to show them doing well and they will get a slight bump. So that'll be my answer for now is Amman Ross St. Brown, get people hot and bothered off of the hot and bothery playoff finish that he had last year. There was one thing I was disturbed about.

from the perspective. I'm a, I root for the Lions. I like Dan Campbell. I like the story. I want to see them succeed. I know their fans. Look, as a Cardinal fan, you don't have a lot of success. You kind of relate to these teams that haven't had success. But I was, when Deuce Staley and Aaron Glenn would not stop yelling at each other, like it was so over the top after a certain point where I was like, these two coaches, their defensive coordinator and their offensive guy, they're not even watching the plays anymore. They're just yelling at each other.

Yeah, it'll be interesting. Amun Ra makes sense as a player that could get a bump. I'd love them to feature DeAndre Swift, and I'd love to see more about their plans for him, but we'll find out soon enough. News and notes from around the league. Bucks wide receiver Russell Gage. May have a left ankle or foot injury. There was news breaking this morning, got the sleeper alert, walking but not too comfortably. It sounded somewhat concerning. Is there a chance that Julio Jones is really good for fantasy this year? Not like what A.J. Brown or A.J. Green was last year where he was a late round pick that turned out to be much better than where he was being drafted. But he was for the most part, he wasn't winning people leagues or a weekly player that you were starting. There were just opportunities that he came through with.

But is Julio Jones, you know, the opportunity here to be thrown the ball by Tom Brady as literally one of the greatest wide receivers of all time? Is there a chance at age 33 that he ends up with a really solid output? I don't think so. Do you think it's possible he could be a wide receiver two in fantasy this year? Yeah, wide receiver two, sure. Yeah. I wasn't sure how high the bar you were setting. No, but that's what I mean. Because he's not being drafted like a wider, I mean, he's at the back. of draft. So it's just an interesting. Yeah, wide receiver too, sure. Yeah, with the gauge, we'll monitor this information. Chris Godwin, we still, we won't know until week one, it seems like, is if Chris Godwin is ready to go, which he may not be. And so they're just, they're, they're dropping like flies here in Tampa Bay. And Julio Jones is the last man standing.

Cortland Sutton is working through a shoulder thing according to Nathaniel Hackett. Work, work faster. So we'll see how serious that turns out to be. And then another report about the Steelers coming out of the athletic looking to light in Najee Harris's workload in some capacity. Yeah, we've kind of heard that all offseason. But Mike made the point in an earlier episode. That can just mean he could have similar touches. Yes. And fewer snaps, right? You could have plays where you put other running backs out there to look good and give them some time on the sideline, but then the opportunities are still obviously going to be in Najee Harris's favor. He's our consensus RB8. We talked about him on yesterday's show. So unless some other news came across the wire this morning, Mr. Giamatti. Nothing. Okay. Then we'll move on. Running bags. On yesterday's show?

Jonathan Taylor, number one, Christian McCaffrey, Austin Echler, Derek Henry, Dalvin Cook, Alvin Camara, Joe Mixin, Najee Harris, Homer picked James Connor, and then Aaron Jones. I heard a lot of the Homer picked James Connor. That's fine. Zeke, coming in at number 11, 27 years old, quite a disparity between the three of us. Mike and I have him at 8. Jason has him at 15. He's being drafted. Closer to that range is the RB13. It's why he's one of my favorite picks this year. He finishes the RB6 last year. It was a bumpier road because he wasn't giving you league winning, or should I say, weak winning performances from basically the biweek on. You only had one top 10 finish for a running back that finished RB6. There was the injury concern. You know, it's a PCL injury.

And according to our injury expert Matthew Betts, they usually do well without surgery after a full off season of recovery. That's what he's coming back from. That's what, you know, the believers want to attribute the down year too. And, you know, I do believe that Zeke is a cornerstone piece of the Cowboys. That's really my whole argument. Is he still a cornerstone? If he's a cornerstone, he'll still be productive. And that's kind of where I weigh in right now. Well, for me, it's. Look at the beginning of the season. Yeah, week one was an absolute disaster. That was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Very, very strong against the run. And it's week one. Like crazy stuff happens in week one. And then he rattled off RB8, RB1, 6, 6. And I think it was week four or five. That's when the injury happened. And that's when the turn started to happen for Ezekiel Elliott. We saw the rushing yards.

basically have from right around 87 a game down to 43. But he played the rest of the season. It was he, like Andy was saying, he's so foundational to this team that even through the injury, they still said no, we're going to go with you as the primary back. While the Twitter world is screaming for Tony Pollard, a hurt Ezekiel Elliott continued to play in front of him. Then you have... What happened over this offseason? You had some very bloated contracts for the Dallas Cowboys, as Jerry Jones is one to do, and they had to make a decision. And that decision was, we trade Amari Cooper away. We keep Ezekiel Elliott here. And then you have all the, in training camp, the talking him up is, no, he's the guy in this backfield yet again. And up.

I'm ranking him there. I'm projecting that Ezekiel Elliott, he's not a rookie. He's not a sophomore anymore. That's fine. He's not a top three running back. We don't have him ranked there. But I still think that volume-wise, offensive line, really high-powered offense, I think that Ezekiel Elliott is a fantastic foundational fantasy football pick. Yeah, so I obviously have him the lowest, and I think Ezekiel Elliott is 100% a foundational back for this team. I don't for one second think Tony Pollard halfway through the season takes the job over from Ezekiel Elliott. This coaching staff and Jerry Jones, this is Ezekiel Elliott's backfield that Tony Pollard gets to be a part of. My ranking of him being a little bit lower is basically the, you know, last year.

Okay, the injury. Let's say that that was it and that was all of it and maybe I'm completely wrong. But that being said, he played the whole season, barely cracked 1,000 yards. And you brought up the offensive line as a plus. I view it as a negative. Not that they have a poor offensive line, but they certainly have a worse offensive line going into this year than they had last year. I think the offense as a whole losing Amari Cooper, not having Gallup. I do worry about the offensive line a little bit. I really do. To me, projects to be a worse offense, still a good one.

but a worse offense than last year's version of the Cowboys. Zika Elliott is a little older, and if he doesn't miraculously get better this season than he was last season, then if he just takes a slight downturn and continues to be the volume king here, I think he'll be good, not great for fantasy. That's just how I view. All right. Pro football focus, for what it's worth, pro football focus back in June, at least, they still had the Cowboys ranked as the sixth. best offensive line going into the season. I've read enough around camp that makes me question if they're going to be able to protect DAC and run block to the same degree. So rank before the season versus what people are seeing right now on film. I don't know. I don't know what the truth is going to be there, but the fact that that's even a question, that's not been a question in Dallas for a long time. Look, I haven't ranked where you do.

But that would be something to pay attention to. And I think, you know, Jason's argument about the offense being somewhat worse and opportunities in the red zone, it's a possibility as well. They are really, really hurting at the scale positions right now. Yeah. Because we don't know if CD has what it takes. And I shouldn't be reading stories about Simi Fahoko. and his big surprise at wide receiver being a potential impact player because right now Michael Gallup's not going to be ready. Right. So I don't know. I think that there is the reason I like it is because you get 300 opportunities. How do you get 300 opportunities in the third round for a player that's been a top five player? As a group, the three of us are all about where Ezekiel Eli is being drafted right now because he's being.

He's being drafted like someone that he's in the dead zone. You don't want to be left holding the bag. You know, we talk about that when those players age out and then all of a sudden they're worthless. He's being drafted like people are afraid that that is a potential outcome. None of us think that that is. other than like season ending injury, that is not a potential outcome here for this team. He's not going to be left for dead and overtaken. He will be the dude. He will have a ton of volume. So I think he's relatively safe. And he may catch more passes with the lack of wider sugar weapons. I definitely taking him over at James Connor. All right. In the same range. Leonard Fournett at 12. I just can't draft him. I don't. I'm not.

He's the most ridiculous player. It feels so strange. And I know, look, Al Borland last year, was it the redraft league with Leonard Fournette? I mean, you just rode great performance after great performance. And every, he was the kind of player that when I saw a cross for me in a fantasy lineup, I was like, oh, few. Thank goodness. You know, I'm not facing Derek Henry or Christian McCaffrey or somebody that's like going to beat me this week. And then he would beat me. And it didn't seem fair. But he was the RB3 from weeks 4 through 15. So I'm dumb. He's not. He's back in the fold, got paid, trusted by Tom Brady. And if it wasn't for the baggage that he holds from the previous multiple years of his career, I think we'd be looking at this situation completely, or I could look at it.

Less emotionally. Yeah, it is one of those things where his inefficiency and kind of the letdown, even on what he was drafted to originally be, always seems to play a factor in his weight coming in. There's a lot of reasons we don't want to like Leonard Fornett, but what we do know about him is three different times. He's been a top 10 fantasy running back. We know that he is the primary pass catching back for this team. Literally today, out of camp, they said he's looking great in the passing game. And you know, we know that when there are a bunch of vacated targets and changes at wide receiver, it often goes to the running back position. So I just was like, oh, could Julio really benefit from, well, maybe it's just Leonard Fournette again, catching a million dumpoffs. I feel pretty safe with him at the back of the second round, the two, three turn. I still think he will just be so involved. This is going to be a great offense. And, you know, I mean, he was the running back seven last year.

and even better if you look at once he got the role that it seems going into the season, he's got a pretty good grasp of right now. I'm stupid. I'm being very clear about this. I should draft him. Well, you mayhem drafted for me in the mock draft this last week, and it was upsetting to my draft plan. So I totally get where you are mentally with Leonard Fournett, but he averaged five receptions a game. He always has... scoring upside because the Buccaneers are going to be a high-powered offense with Tom Brady, eight rushing touchdowns on only 180 attempts this past year. The question for, and Ronald Jones is gone. Not that he was a factor for the whole season, but at the beginning of the year, it was, we didn't know. We didn't know, is it going to be Ronald Jones? Is it going to be Fournett? And then Ronald Jones fumbled, and that was it. And it was now Leonard Fornett as the primary guy.

They spent a day two pick on Rashad White, who profiles as a pass catching running back, but he's still a rookie. Yeah, I mean, Ronald Jones so much more proven going into the year last year than Rashad White. So I'm just, I'm trying to throw out like what could go wrong for Leonard Fournet and what could go wrong is Rashad White is NFL ready. But we have seen so many times of a rookie or just a younger player makes a mistake. And Tom Brady looks over to the coaches and says, take him out of the game, put Leonard Fournett back in because I don't want to play with that guy trying to protect me. So he's old. He's got a good amount of, like he's been used a lot. So you have a lot of opportunities that he's already taken on with his body. So it feels scary. But I think at the end of the year, he's going to be in that 90 target range again.

with huge touchdown upside. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's the smart move. I think it's the smart move to draft him. Kishon Vaughan was a higher draft pick than Rashad White. People spent years dreaming of, he's the example, right? He's the example of the promising rookie that why would you, like it's not like they weren't super successful with Lenny. So, yeah, roster watches at camp today. They just tweeted 55 minutes ago as of this recording that on. 55. I can't believe I missed that. I cannot believe it. Don't worry about it. Thank you. Where are you preseason four? Yeah. And that unsurprisingly, Rashad White has not yet taken snaps with the first team. And he is being given the opportunity to try out in the kick return game. So he's not a massive worry for Leonard Fournet right now. DeAndre Swift comes in at 13. I think the most prolific snub, I would say, from the top 10 yesterday. It's your guys' fault. I have a mate. Okay.

All right, except that. DeAndre Swift is being drafted as the running back eight right now. He was the RB 19 last year due to injuries, and we have him at 13. He's a great, talented running back. That is not a question. Like, DeAndre Swift, in a vacuum, super talented, was my number one rookie coming out that year because of what we saw. And what we've seen in the NFL is... The same, right? He was the RB7 from Weeks 1 through 11 last year. That's the story that people want to remember and they see the upside of a player that has, you know, running game prowess and then the passing game efficiency to be an 80-90 catch guy. Look, if that happens, he's going to well outperform this ranking. There are risks that you accept when you are drafting a Detroit Lions running back.

and some of those risks are built around what situation this team is going to be in. I see the upset. I see the potential. The nice thing about the situation that he's in is that when we've liked running backs in the past for the lions, which I don't know if any of us ever have, this one is a past catching specialist. So if they're not doing well in some of these games, if they're down, then... His skill set, which scores more fantasy points, could be used even higher. This is an Austin Echler type of player where, you know, there's very, very few guys in the NFL, maybe five players that are the past catcher that DeAndre Swift is, that are going to be involved in the passing game at running back quite as much. I mean, that's why CMC's going 101 or 102. That's why Echler is next off the board.

He is and should be a little bit game script proof. Also, speaking of offensive lines, this is, you know, PFF has them as a top three offensive line this year. So I think the needle is pointing up. You worry about injuries because that's what you've seen, but you worry about that with everybody. So if you take injuries out and you just say, how should he perform when he's getting 100 or 90 targets, he should be a great fantasy asset in any half PPR or certainly full PPR league. Yeah, I mean, Jamal Williams is a very capable third down back. That's not something that really factors into the Echler comparison. So I think that's where there's a tier separation there. Yeah, but Jamal Williams, through those first 11 weeks, he missed two games. But he was there for the majority of those 11 weeks when DeAndre Swift was the running back seven. Yeah, yeah, no question. But just speaking to the past catching ability, he's going to be a 40 catch guy. And just like, that was one of them.

One of my takeaways from, it's just a small one, but that first episode of Hard Knocks, it is clear how Guns Mahoney feels about Jamal Williams. Like, that was shown several times in there of like just a brief conversation on the sideline of him stretching. And Jamal Williams talking about the players about getting ready. And Campbell's like, I'm not worried about you. I'm not worried about you at all. Like, 229 opportunities last year for Jamal Williams. And some of that is inflated for the games where DeAndre Swift, when Swift misses, you know, Jamal Williams is a very capable player. I have him, I have Swift ranked pretty close to his ADP, a little bit under. So it's not that I'm saying that DeAndre Swift is an absolute bust, but like the, some of the rushing metrics of DeAndre Swift, like,

versus Jamal Williams as just a, as a runner, were not that great. Like, Jamal Williams was, was more efficient, but DeAndre Swift is so electric in the past catching that, that I'm fine taking him at his ADP, but I'm not like, I'm not real hot and bothered that I got to get Swift on my team. DeAndre Swift, can he finish the top three running back? No. I think he can, yeah. I would say he could. I think I fall in that category, which is, again, you know, that's one of the qualifying factors for how you evaluate these picks is, you know, is there the possibility that you have a league winner at running back? Nick Chubb, we'll talk about him in a minute. By the way, quick reminder for everybody out there before we talk about Nick Chubb, I don't know if we've mentioned it this offseason, but fantasy football leagues, you need some swag, you need a trophy. Absolutely. Make sure that you go to fantasychamps.com.

all the trophies you could possibly need. I just ordered two more placards for our Family League trophy from Fantasy Champs so that I can regrettably deliver it to the champion. Take it out of my house. Go put it in their house. But great trophies. They make an impact on the eyes, right? They're weighty and worthy of a champion. Yeah, I mean, if you are a champion, then you should have a trophy. That's like just the way the world works. And I believe right now they're giving you a free ring. Yes. If you get any trophy, add that to your cart, you can get their $60 ring and you put the code free ring in on checkout and you'll get that one for free. So 60 becomes zero. That is right. All right. So fancy champs.com, check that out. Nick Chubb comes in at 14. That's exactly where Jason and I have them at 14. 26 years old, 1259 yards on the ground.