Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - The TRUTH About Fantasy RB's in 2015, Part 1

That is very relevant to you guys. We have obviously the playoff challenge going on, so we're talking about some guys that are playing next week. Maybe you've got two times the points on certain players. Greg Olson got hurt. It didn't look great at first, but he's describing his shoulder injury as a burner and nothing that's going to keep him out. Do you guys have any other news on him? No. He's a tough guy. He's going to be fine. It's like Big Ben to me. I mean, any other person...

tears ligaments in their throwing shoulder. They're not going to come out. Which I'm calling shenanigans. Second play of the game, 50-something yard pass down the sideline. Shenanigans. Big Ben. I understand that, but I know that his shoulder was probably very numbed up, but I don't know, man. I'm not a master of anatomy. I just don't think if you have torn ligaments that you're going to be able to do that. Yeah, I mean...

And then they came out before the game and they said he wouldn't have played if it was a regular season game. Yeah. Hey, one Fitzgerald, two, Sunt, fumble and the game turned. So, oh, that poor guy. He looked happy on the bitch. On the bitch. Just helmet on. Oh, man. Oh, I felt, I felt bad for that guy. Me too. It's just incredible what, like, being a veteran does to those aspects of playoff football because you saw it with Cameron Artis Payne, like his first carry.

They, they, after the 59-yard run by John the Stewart, first carry by Artis Payne, horrible fumble. Luckily, they recovered it and finished the drive. Who knows if the game turns around there. Second carry, almost a horrible fumble. Like the nerves and, you know, you saw it with Blair Walsh. It's just a different, different animal. All right, what are you guys hearing about Panthers, uh, defensive end, Jared Allen?

I've got a foot problem as far as I heard. I didn't catch the latest update. Does he actually have a broken foot? That's what I've heard of play. Yeah. I've heard broken foot. Yep. And that he's going to play through it. Again, this is the difference between playoff football and regular season football. No way he does this in the regular season. But, you know, you win, you go to the Super Bowl. He's going to try to play through it. I don't know that he's going to be able to do that well.

He only plays on about 60% of snaps as it is. So we'll see he may have some limited rotational reps and things like that. He's not the same player he was. No, but that's for sure. But to have depth at the pass rush, I think it's super critical, even if you're not the greatest player, if you're coming in with 100% full tank of gas, I mean, that makes a really big difference. Sure does. So some news this morning regarding Marshall Lynch's future, which relates to who? Thomas Rawls as well in Seattle.

What is the latest you're hearing about Marshawn Lynch? Is he going to come back? What's out there? John Clayton is reporting that he is absolutely done, completely done with the Seattle Seahawks, so he won't be back. It's still really early. And whenever you have a report that comes out, you know, days after a terrible loss, you always get those like, I'm done, I'm retired. Wait a couple weeks. That being said, I do think it's accurate. I don't think that he's going to come back for cheap. I don't think the Seahawks are going to pay to bring him back.

So I don't see Marshawn Lynch back in Seattle, which makes Thomas Rawls a great keeper. Yeah, there's no way Seattle's going to give him the $9 million or whatever. Well, he was really close to retiring last year without getting big money from Seattle. So any other news you guys want to talk about? Yeah, Doug Peterson, right? Because the Eagles coach, that happened after. Yeah, Kansas City's offensive coordinator. After we had recorded, the reports are the Eagles will hire.

Doug Peterson. As opposed to like Tom Coughlin, who was in the rumor mill for a while. I guess Coughlin kind of withdrew himself. And Doug Peterson kind of likes the tight end. My man, Zach Hertz. Zacherts is, when we talked about this on Thursday, he's one of our early season favorites for next year. Value-wise. We liked what he did. We like the talent. Get a guy in who actually uses the position. I mean, that's a very big difference as opposed to a guy that...

Like you have, like Bruce Ariens. Bruce Ariens just doesn't utilize the Tide End very much. And so that makes a huge difference for fantasy. Now, weren't you upset at the utilization of Travis Kelsey? Yeah, but that's so. How do you say that he uses the tight end? I was upset because he, I was expecting more. But I put that more on Alex Smith being a one-reed, one-reed guy and not being willing to air it out.

Well, we'll see. Yeah. I think it's a weird hire. This to me seems like, we miss you, Andy Reid. Please come back. We know you can't and we couldn't swallow that. That's funny. So let's get your protege who's been with you for a long time. All right, before we get into the truth about fantasy football running backs.

I want to take a minute and thank the sponsor of today's show. Squarespace, listen, you've heard me talk about it before, and you know the realities for your business. Building a website can be tough. And even if you know your way around coding, creating something that looks good and works well is time consuming. And that's one of the hardest things about it, whether it's for a business site or a portfolio or a restaurant, whatever else you've got going on. You probably need a website.

And that's where Squarespace comes in because they make it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. I love Squarespace. I recommend it to everybody. They provide simple, powerful, and beautiful websites that look professionally designed, regardless of your skill level, regardless of whether you can code and do all those types of things. And listen, you cannot beat the ease and simplicity of Squarespace because they give you 24-7 online support and beautiful, beautiful...

websites so what are you waiting for start a trial with no credit card required right now and start building on your website when you decide to sign up for square space make sure you use the offer code footballers that's footballers to get 10% off your first purchase and to show your support of this show so we thank square space for their support square space build it beautiful and speaking of beautiful

Why not this year? Have some beautiful looking skin. Not that cut up nasty hurt skin. Ew. With our sponsor, Harries. You've heard us talk about Harries.com. Andy uses it. I use it. We've used it for almost the whole year. They have a great product. They are a great company. If you're sick of spending too much money on a bad shave or too much money on a good shave or cheap.

You know, oh, you're saving money on a terrible shave, then Harry's is the answer. If you shave, you've got to go to Harry's. They have great blades. They are very affordable. They are the place to get your razors. Shipping is always free. It is the place to go for all your razor needs. In fact, Harry's doesn't like to discount their prices because they are already really low, but they have worked out a special offer code for our listeners. Harries will give you $5 off.

your first order with the promo code, footballers. So stop overpaying for a great shave. Go get a $15 starter kit. It is a ton that you get in there. You're going to get it for $10 with that promo code. Go to Harries. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S.com. Enter code footballers at checkout and start shaving great today. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth.

All right, let's get into the running back discussion. You know, you start to see various places come out with their way too early running back rankings. I love them. Is that good clickbait for you? As long as you see that, you're like, let's check it out. Yeah. I know I'm going to look at it. But one of the guys that was interesting, I saw somebody, I saw somebody's list. If I remembered who it was, I'd give you a shout out. But Devante Freeman is our number one running back.

It was the number one running back from last year. And he was down at 1920 on this initial list for next year. So let's talk. Let's talk Devante Freeman. I think that's a bad decision. I think Devante Freeman is the starting running back for the Atlanta Falcons. Super good analysis. No, I'm just saying next year, I am not buying into the Taven Coleman scare. I'm not buying into the running back by committee.

Tevin Coleman was on the team this year, and he had his opportunity to do it. It's not like, oh, next year's going to be totally different because he's not going to get injured one game early on. This was not a running back by committee type of team. On the year, Devante Freeman had 71% of the snaps. And the last four weeks, 87% of the snaps.

They went up as the year went on. He is an important integral part of that offense, and he will be much higher than 19th on this fantasy analyst list next year. Now, the big piece with him, and he ran, what, 264 carries over 1,000 yards, 11 touchdowns. But that second number there, 97 targets. 73 receptions, 57 yards, and 3 touchdowns through the air. 97 targets. That's the difference, right? Ride the snake.

That's the difference. 97 targets. That's wide receiver numbers. That's ridiculous for a guy. He ran the ball 264 times. And what we've been doing with these getting into the truth, we're breaking down their consistency. How often were they giving you a top five performance to like a week winning top five, just a top 25, very solid. And then how often did they crap your team? They weren't even a running back four.

for the week. Well, Freeman, five times won you a week. We know he had that three-week stretch where he was scoring three touchdowns every single week, and he was the greatest thing of all time. On top of that, 12 times in the top 25, but the most important part, when you needed him, zero times did he crap your team with a...

below a running back four. So that's fantastic consistency. It's because of those passing numbers. Exactly. Because no matter of the game struggle. The team struggled at times. Absolutely. The team, the offense that looked great in the very beginning of the year, sputtered throughout the rest of it. But he was still fine. Even when he wasn't getting his touchdowns, he was never, ever hurting your team. He's just a very consistent guy with blowup potential. It's basically like a Lamar Miller type without the bad games, which is what you would hope.

that you get at him. So, Mike, how did his top, when he faced a good defense, bad defense, how did that disparity break down? So the difference between the top 16 and the bottom 16, really only a couple of points, which is exactly what you want out of a running back. Why I really wanted to point these out is last year, when we were going through the numbers, I chose to...

chalk this up to just a maybe it was a fluky thing but last year so i guess two years ago eddie lacey splits against a a bad defense was monstrous there was a huge gap of fantasy points when he faced a strong rushing team when he faced a strong rushing team he just did not produce fantasy points uh and i chose to put that as he like well i think he can improve and we were shown the the truth

so to speak, this year where Eddie Lacey still continued to struggle against strong defenses. So I think this is an important thing to look at. Especially with running back. So what are the numbers for Freeman? They were great. Just a couple point difference. Yeah. So he was consistent against good teams and bad teams. All right. Number two on this list is Adrian Peterson finishes the number two running back this year. 327 carries. So that number is much higher than Devonta Freeman's. Almost 1,500 yards, 11 touchdowns again.

He really wasn't targeted in the passing game the way that we thought he could be with North Turner. And honestly, he won't be. I think that's that we know that. There's no reason for it. Jared McKinnon can catch the ball and do different things with that dynamic speed out of the back field. However, he was the most consistent running back in football. He had 13 performances in the top 25. He had four week winning performances. Then he had one week where he did crap your team. So very close to Freeman. Basically, both were just as consistent.

Adrian Peterson, how long can he do this? Well, he can definitely do it next year. He is, there's no slowing down at the end. And I mean, we've seen when he plays with a chip on his shoulder with doubters around him.

With, you know, some bad publicity, he plays great when he was coming back off of that injury. You know, I think that was his career high-end yards. This year, with all of the suspension from last year, comes out, gets another rushing title. And I think the fact that he fumbled their playoffs away and is getting a lot of bad press up there. I'm hearing him talk differently about how.