Fantasy Football 2018 - Early RB Rankings Part 2

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to the fantasy footballers podcast coming to you from draft dot com studios with your host andy holloway jason more and mike right ah welcome welcome one welcome all everyone's welcome of course everyone's welcome at the fantasy footballers podcast we're back once more the second

Running Back's rankings show. We had a very good episode on Tuesday, so excited to have you back with us. Thursday, April 5th, Annie Mike and Jason, the Fantasy Footballers podcast. You can find us on Twitter at the FFFBallers. We're also on YouTube. The website is the Fantasy Footballers.com. And our fantasy football community filled with wonderful, wonderful people, is join thefoot.com. Chalkful. Chalkful.

And speaking of YouTube, Andy, show after the show today. There is going to be a show after the show today on YouTube, a little bonus. Bonus. Delicious. Over on the YouTube. Not everything is food, Jason. Every show after the show, with the exception of one, maybe two. Oh, the beats were delicious. The beats and then there might be another story. Jason would not attach that word to where the majority of our show after the shows are delicious. Yes.

Over on YouTube. Welcome in. The number one word to describe it. We'll catch you up. We'll catch you up on the fantasy football news information. We have a good quick question. I'm going to start it off right now. Quick question. How much do you factor in offensive line when ranking and drafting players? How much do you factor in the offensive line? This comes from we just released an article on the site. Our editor-in-chief himself, Kyle.

released a forecasting offensive lines and drafting article. It's a great article, great read. Go check it out at the fancy footballers.com. But how much do you personally factor in the offensive line when ranking and drafting a team? Well, first, I'm very happy that the Borgogan could escape the upside down long enough to write this article because you really should check it out. That is his last name, Kyle Borgogan. And two, it certainly does factor. It's Swedish to Borgon.

Was that a Swedish chef? Yes. That was my attempt. Oh, it's not bad. Thanks. Not bad. It's not my accents, but it's decent. I mean, the article is a lot of the things back. But, I mean, you got to check. No, team situation is the team even good? What's the opportunity? And offensive lines certainly factors into that because we have seen, we've seen what we thought were good running backs, have a terrible offensive line in front of them, and all of a sudden they look like they stink.

So it has to be a factor of the puzzle. So, yeah, to me it's a piece of the pie. You've had situations where, like, Darren McFadden had a hyper-productive year behind an amazing Dallas offensive line. Right. You also had last year. Todd Gurley had massive improvement. Jared Gough, that offense, there was a new head coach, but there was also an improved offensive line. You also have the case of Isaiah Crowell last year. Where the offensive line in Cleveland, it was being ranked in the top five everywhere under the sun.

And that was a case of reading too much into an offensive line and not enough into a team situation, success, pass run ratio, all of those aspects. So it's a piece. Yeah, it is a piece. And I think, you know, a lot of times the focus is on the great offensive lines. Dallas last year, the Browns and what happened with. Raiders for many years. Right, exactly. But I think you also need to take a look. You know, last year, maybe not enough.

weight was given to what happened to the Cincinnati Bengals. And you saw as soon as week one hit and week two and week three and et cetera that their losses of their offensive line made a drastic change to their capabilities as an offense. So you do take a look, but the reality is this.

If you just go and look, in fact, this is kind of what Kyle does in his article, but if you go and you look at all the different websites that rank offensive lines, how good are they at pass blocking, at run blocking, they're all over the map.

Depending on what metric or how you view, you know, how you score your lines, some have an offensive line super high and super low. So you have to take everything with a grain of salt. But in general, you can see which teams made big signings, big acquisitions, which teams were great last year. And then you put it all together. We mentioned yesterday on the running back rankings show part one, Leonard Fournette.

Obviously, a productive year last year, some injury concerns, but also added Andrew Norwell to that offensive line. I'd prefer to look at bigger moves like that, Whitworth, with Los Angeles last year, as opposed to what you're saying, where there is variance between different evaluators of offensive lines, whether it's pro football focus or football outsiders or all these different websites that try to scout the offensive line.

I like looking at the higher level stuff. They lost Whitworth in Cincinnati. Exactly. They gained Whitworth in Los Angeles. You saw a massive impact. Fair? Fair. All right. Just a reminder, the Ultimate Draft Kit, available for presale. Ultimate DraftKit.com. Dominate your 2018 fantasy football draft. Lowest possible price. Check it out. Also, we already talked about the show after the show. That'll be on YouTube. Make sure you check out previous episodes of this podcast.

recently we did the ranks part one on Tuesday if you didn't listen to that we had a free agent winners and losers we had an early mock draft a couple episodes ago dynasty startup 10 things to remember and all of january we did the truth episodes which are great to go back if you have not caught they're more valuable now than they were then yes yeah because you forget you forget what was the truth how consistent we're players

You start getting the rose-colored glasses when you're thinking about what happened last season. You start letting the emotion way and do it instead of remembering exactly what happened. So I would invite the Footland to check those out. Yeah, if you listened to them back then instead of now. What a mistake. News and notes from around the league. That reminds me, make sure you subscribe and listen to every episode as it's released. Yes. All right, news and notes. We didn't talk about this yet. Bryce Butler, signed by the Cardinals.

formerly of the Cowboys. I think kind of the, at least Twitter and evaluators out there, fantasy names, they think he's always been criminally underutilized in Dallas. To your contract with the Cardinals, I like this because there's a lot of opportunity in Arizona. There is. The Cardinals lost John Brown, who was really only able to be there half the time anyways. And as far as an out. And Geron Brown as well. All Browns are out. Yes. And so, you know,

The thing is, is the question to me is, will he be the number one outside wide receiver? Or will Chad Williams be able to step it up going into his sophomore year and take over that role? But there is a need for that. Larry Fitzgerald clearly has the slot. And they need someone to step up on the outside. So let's go heads up there. J.J. Nelson or Bryce Butler. Butler. Butler. I would take Nelson.

I'll take Nelson. As of today. As if today. And Bryce Butler, if you don't know who he is, we talk about he was with Dallas. He was a late round pick. But he's very large. And he's very Oakland before. Yeah. He was drafted by Oakland. He's a very athletic player. Is this a matter of he just hasn't really gotten the shot? He should receive a true opportunity with Arizona. Yeah.

Yeah. There was a report the Cardinals had also extended a contract offer to Jordan Matthews, and I'm using all my resources to make this not happen. And I think it would be a strange signing for the Cardinals. I like Jordan Matthews, but I think over his career, we have enough proof that Jordan Matthews is a slot-wide receiver. There's no shame in that, but the Arizona Cardinals have...

A Hall of Fame level. Yeah, but when you got Sam Bradford, you need everyone running from the slot for those short, high accurate passes. The only argument I've heard of Jordan Matthews is his best years were with Sam Bradford. That's where I was going. There you go. I'm way ahead of you, Mike. Way ahead of you. All right, Robbie Anderson's, a number of felony charges have been dropped. Not all. No. He was originally charged with a pile. He's left with, what, a stack? Yes.

So this is good for Robbie Anderson owners, fans. I mean, we all loved what he did on the field, obviously not off the field, but you want the least possible amount of suspension time if you're thinking fantasy-wise. And then Jay Gruden came out, talked about the fact Jordan Reed had a procedure done on his toes, which, what, that goes with his head and shoulders and knees? This is to finish that off? Yes, true. But that's why he's not expected to participate in OTAs. I believe.

He's trying not to participate in OTAs now for many, many years. Very successful. It's hard not to talk about, I mean, we brought him up earlier. It's hard not to talk about him with so much cynicism towards his ability to be on the field. When we all know that, like, I think we asked this question on the show, if Jordan Reed was healthy, and I told you right now, you get 16 games, Mike, I think you said he'd be top three. Guaranteed. Jordan Reed is a monster. He's an absolute mismatch on the field, but that's...

on the field. I would say top four. You've got three solid tight ends to compete with now with Ertz and Kelsey and Grunk. But yes, the point stands. He is very valuable when he's out there. He's not going to be out there. Yeah, yeah. Maybe this is the year. Jordan Reed plays 16. Sam Bradford plays 16. Ooh. What do you think?

I like the sound of it. Is that a prop bet in Vegas? For those two, you put them together. You can prop bet anything, so I'm sure. So what would the odds of just Sam Brad for playing 16 B? Ooh, man. Is that 20 to 1? Oh, I was going to go even higher. I was going to say 25 to 1. 25 to 1. And then Jordan Reed playing 16, that's got to be, what, 40 to 1? 40,000. Are we doing a parlay here? Well, we're turning it into one. What's just going to pay out up?

If it's both of them have to play all 16 games, I mean, you put you got $1, you're a millionaire. You can probably get like 200 to 1 odds. All right. Any other, any other news you guys wanted to comment on before we moving on down the line? Nope. Running bags. All right. As we said, Tuesday, we did the top 10 running backs. Lev Bell was number one, Todd Gurley, two, David Johnson, three. Then it went Zeke, Kareem Hunt, Melvin Gordon, Leonard Furnett, Alvin Kamara.