Fantasy Football 2017 - Top 10 Running Backs + ADP Price Check

take out the last two weeks, which arguably he was injured. Yeah, not arguably. He had a foot injury. Other than that, I mean, you're looking at top ten performances all but four weeks. RB one or two, 87% of the time. And he was back to being his same old self. Because he was in a scheme that utilizes DeMarca Murray. You go back when he was on the Eagles. It was so frustrating to watch Chip Kelly insist on trying to get.

DeMarco Murray moving laterally instead of just, just send the wrecking machine up into the line. I mean, the exotic smash mouth. You think we're moving Jason more laterally? No, we're moving them straight up the middle. Yeah. You don't want me going side to side. I need a head of steam and then you try to take me down. Hey, and that head of steam, I remember flag football. Yeah. You'd kick yourself right in the butt running down the field. Running down, but no one would grab me and the ref would make fun of me and say, you run like, what do you say?

He's like, oh, no, he's like, you're the ugliest runner I've seen. It's like, I got a touchdown. And last year, DeMarco Murray accounted for nearly 23% of the team's red zone targets. I mean, you don't, when you think of DeMarco Murray, you don't, yes, voice of public opinion, yes. But Mike, Derek Henry was drafted to be used and he was there behind him. Doesn't DeMarco Murray have a chance to just lose his role as a workhorse? No.

I don't think he has a chance to lose his role as a workhorse. You could see a closer split. But why move away? And this is, DeMarco Murray, I think it comes down to how do you project the team? How do you think that they will they have success this year? And would they move away from what was so successful last year? Like that's the big question for me. And the answer is you have Murray there still.

Ride till the wheels fall off, so to speak. Winnable division. And I just don't, I just don't see a reason for the team to move away from Murray. And he had.

massive massive success on the field, massive fantasy success. And they have such a good offensive line. They are set up to succeed. They want to run the ball. And the way that the team views DeMarco Murray is more important than how you view DeMarco Murray. They don't view him as old busted. They view him as one of the best running backs in the league. And he really is. Someone on Twitter pointed this out to me. And I thought it was absolutely great. If I remember who it was, I would love to give you credit. But, you know, they gave me a player A, player B scenario and said, who would you rather have?

Player A averages 16.2 rushing attempts a game. Player B, 16.9. It's better. Player A is 76 and a half yards per game. Player B 77.6. So it's better. Both half a touchdown a game, receiving totals 3.3, 3.2, 25 yards, 22 yards, and the same touchdowns. So they're almost identical. They're the same age player, except one has hundreds of fewer touches in his career.

and that was LaShawn McCoy versus DeMarco Murray. DeMarco Murray has a higher three-year percentage of top one and two finishes, and the three-year version includes when he was in Philly. DeMarco Murray is legit great, and he's the only other guy I put, like, this to me is where the drop-off happens. I know that other guys will probably finish higher than some of these. You know, maybe Melvin Gordon pops off again.

But this is where I'm confident. And everybody we've talked about so far, including to Marco Murray, I drop in my confidence a little bit after him. All right. Let's talk about Melvin Gordon, our number seven running back on our top 10 running back rankings. I have him at four right now. Obviously, he moves up a spot because Zique is further back due to the potential suspension for me. So he's just behind the Sean McCoy. So he's the next best running back on the board for me. Mike, you have a nine, Jason, at seven. Last year he was downright great.

I mean, he had multiple number one fantasy weeks. It was an RB 1 or 2, 92% of the time. Basically 100% of the time, really. Yeah, because he was hurt. His injury game, yeah. Yeah, basically 100% of the time. He was incredibly consistent. I hear people criticize the yard per carry type of number. Yep. Look, he's their whole offense. I do not put, I put the smallest single drop into that argument. When he is your whole offense, when he gets the ball as much as he got it.

254 carries despite missing the end of the season. I mean, this guy would have been up there at around 300 carries, just under 1,000 yards, 10 touchdowns, caught the ball, did everything the team asked them to do on an offense that was beat up, bruised, and losing, and losing a lot. I mean, he did everything that was asked of him. He has the physical talent and skill and ability to do it again. I love Melvin Gordon, and I think the reason I have him ranked so high, too, has to do with...

The pieces are back in Los Angeles. Philip Rivers is a competent and capable quarterback. He has weapons now. This is going to be a good offense. It's going to be an offense where he has the opportunity on the goal line, and he's going to have it a lot. So I am very bullish on Melvin Gordon. I love him this year. He could certainly, I mean, he was drafted with the pedigree to say you are an all-star, all-pro type of running back, and he was last year. The offensive line is better.

Anthony Lynn, the new head coach, is a running guru. The fact that they drafted Mike Williams said to me, because he was the best run-blocking wide receiver on the edge that I've seen in college in a while, they look to me set up to have Melvin Gordon succeed. But there are plenty of other worries here of, you know, touchdown regression. He went from zero to, what do you have, 12 or 14 last year total?

Yeah, totally had 12. Ten rushes. Yeah, 12 total touchdowns last year. You have Keenan Allen back and some different parts to the offense. So I think Melvin Gordon is clearly the going to be the main back. I'm not scared of Brandon Oliver or any of the other backs there. You know, he'll be involved in the passing game. I like Melvin Gordon. I do. But I just have more worries with him that.

If he doesn't improve his efficiency and the touchdowns aren't there this season, will we be disappointed for where he's being drafted right now? Despite my criticism of Melvin Gordon, I still have him as a top 10 fantasy running back because I'm not going to make an argument against his usage. He's going to get the ball a ton. While I'm not scared or nervous of Brandon Oliver taking a huge chunk of work.

he still will get on the field. Last year, it was Melvin Gordon that was the only person of any kind of competence. Danny Woodhead went down. And we've seen Brandon Oliver have success in this offense. So I just, I think that he will get some touches. But it's, I just have great concerns taking Melvin Gordon in the first. I get knocked all the time for liking guys who are injured. Melvin Gordon has in his couple years had.

has not played 16, so I don't know why you guys give him the free pass on that situation. I don't give him a free pass, but it's very difficult to find running backs who haven't missed games. I mean, DeMarco Murray, LaShawn McCoy, even DeVant Freeman, you know, it's tough to find any running back that's just always out there 16. It's a really, I think it's a bad logical argument to work.

past, you know, early seasons into these projections for young guys. So when you have a rookie who comes in the league, okay, he had no touchdowns. I can't believe we're still talking about no touchdowns from Melvin Gordon going into year three. He had 12 last year and he missed four games. So I think it's important we realize players, you know, if you've been in the league seven or eight years, okay, maybe you see a pattern, but he's developing his pattern. He's becoming a player. He's not just...

what he is. So that's why I'm more excited about him. Jaya Jai comes in at number eight. I have him at six. Jason and Mike have him at number eight. So we all like Jaya Jai quite a bit. We talked a little bit about the implication of Cutler coming into that offense. We've talked at length about the fact that Jai, look, he wasn't good in the passing game. Just 29 receptions, really low yard per reception total, only one touchdown, 50 targets. But last year had a couple of those monster games.

1,300 plus yards. The 410 of his yards were against Buffalo. Yeah. And he didn't play week one. He was kind of wrestling the job away from soon to retire, Arian Foster at that point. But he's hyper talented. We've talked about that before. One of the reasons he dropped in the NFL draft was concerns about basically, you know, look, his knees aren't going to last forever. And so he dropped. But right now, here and now redraft.

Jay Ajay has every chance to be workhorse extraordinaire. I mean, you talk about the rise of the running back, the return of the running back. We saw this last year, all these names that we've brought up, they fit the workhorse role. There's no RBBC happening in Miami. Now, do you think that it's a chance that it wasn't the return of the running backs as a whole that this is now back to the running back being king?

It was just an outlier that last year was maybe, you know, you saw wide receivers get fewer touchdowns as far as top wide receivers, and those translated over to the rushing game. I think that's a question for people. You know, you look back a couple years ago when there were several thousand-yard rushers, you know, as there are every year, and none of them repeated. Well, I'm not talking about the stats, Jay. I'm talking about the fact that the return of the running back. Look.

Do you debate that any of those top eight running backs that we've talked about so far are the workhorse back for their team? Nope. So that's all I'm talking about. You're talking about workhorse versus. Yeah, I'm talking about the running back is there. He's the guy that's going to get the ball. These guys all had huge touch totals. Yeah. So with J. J. J. J. I mean, you've got new Smoking J. Cuddy in town. That to me says two things that. Old Smoking J. Cuddy. Did you see his was that a real quote?

About him talking about his cardiovascular. It was. Oh, really? There's video. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Share that quote with our audience. I don't have the verbatim, but basically he said, well, it's a good thing I play quarterback because then I don't have to be in great cardiovascular condition. That's what you want your quarterback to say. And also, he's smoking J. Cutty has just admitted.

that he's been throwing back three cartons a day. Yeah, and he's... And eating potato chips. Hey, Jay, why are you back? My wife really wanted me to come and Adam Gay's really, you know, tried hard. It's like, do you want to be here? Or is this just everyone else wants to be here? Don't care. Here's what Jay Cutler does for Jay Ajai. It says to me that they're going to, just like when Matt Moore came over and was thrust into starting, they relied on the running game.

They wanted to focus on the running game. And now they'll be able to rely on the running game, but have a quarterback that says, you can't stack the box. We have deep threats in Parker and Stills and a large arm that can get him the ball. So you're going to have to watch the passing game, watch the running game. And you have, you know, you have Matt Forte for years has been a pass catching back. His quarterback was Jay Cutler. In college,

Jayhijai's last year, he caught 50 balls for over 500 yards. He can get the job done. And if he's utilized in that role, Jayhjai will go from having, oh, all of his production came in a few games to having a higher baseline in those game scripts that weren't good for him because he's involved in the passing game. Now, there's also the chance that Kenyon Drake could be more involved in the passing game now. Damien Williams. Get rid of...

I just say, no, I know. They love Damien Williams. I just don't understand why Miami loves Damian Williams. He's a fair. Do you have any thoughts on JHA? Mike? I agree that I've, it's taking me time, but I've, I've come to terms. I've, I've, uh, accepted Jai as a running back one. And I did, I bumped up his reception total, uh, when Jay Cutler was, was signed to the team. I just, it's.

it's hard to hold it against a player when you do something like 410 yards of where against one team of your 1,300 rushing yards. I mean, that's a huge percentage coming in just two games. And then essentially when he didn't go full ham, he's only getting you 60 rushing yards a game. And that, I mean, that's not what you want out of a first round pick. But I think that the reception totals help him. It's, and a lot of it has to do with Mike Pouncey.

I mean, the health of the offensive line. Yeah, the health, and especially Mike Pouncey. When J.J.I. had good games. Mike Pouncey was playing. All right, number nine. Jordan Howard comes in number nine. I have him at 10. Jason, you got him in nine. Mike, you have them at seven. Right now his average job position is the beginning of the second round in a PPR league 204. And last year set the world on fire. 252 for 1313 and six touchdowns.