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

I don't normally go, oh, this is such a great opportunity. I go, there's a lot of questions. We don't know. Where are those two places for you? Well, one is clearly Dallas. Okay. But the other, whew. Because I have a team in my head. That excites me that I think is a somewhat real possibility would be the New England Patriots because he has a great pass blocker. He is good in the past receiving game.

and he's a great running back, and they've dealt with a lot of injury this year. They're in division. Bill Belichick has had plenty of time to scout him out. You know, we've seen him steal people from the... Yeah, but Belichick's really smart, so he'll see what I see in him. Yeah, well, and you might be right, but that proves the point, though, if you believe Belichick is smart, that if he goes out and grabs Lamar Miller and says, hey, you're using him wrong. Give him to me.

then I'll be excited. Anything else other than that? I'm probably going to be down on you. I don't think the money's there for him to go to the Patriots, but I got one team. I agree with you. I got one team for you. The New York Jets. Sure. With Ivory as a free agent. Powell is a free agent. If Miller goes and becomes the main running back for the Jets, you got it like that. Sure. No, that's a great.

Potential landing spot. I will say this on Lamar Miller. He is very, very inconsistent. And a lot of that was the usage of the dolphins. We know that. Some of that was on him in certain games. But as far as you have to go, well, who should the onus really be on? And pro football focus, they're a great company. They just take the game film and they rate people on every play and every game, good, bad, or otherwise just individually. And he was the number five.

best overall running back according to their grades when you consider pass blocking, catching the ball, and running the ball. He is a really good running back, in my opinion. Yeah, and, you know, I'm very soured by the way the team treated him. I don't feel like I have any clear lens to look through. So, I mean, they never gave me one. The nice thing about him is that I don't think his draft position is ever going to be that high.

Because there's a lot of sour with Lamar Miller. Look, at the end of the day, he finished number six. Exactly. And you don't want a guy as inconsistent as him as your number one back. But if you can get him as your number two back, a guy that can win you weeks, that's great. All right. So what we're going to do now is we're going to probably, we've got four more names. We'll get in on this episode. And then we'll get into the next, on the next episode. We'll take 11 through the rest. The next guy on the list, David Johnson. Woo!

Wow. I would have got in on that, but I was taking a drink. What surprises me about his numbers is that he was the ninth most consistent running back from a per week scoring standpoint, which is bewildering. Because he wasn't the running back. You're getting how many touchdowns he was scoring early. I am choosing to forget that, I guess. Chris Johnson was the running back. It was David Johnson was the third string running back. This was a Bruce Ariens offense that said, yeah, the young guy sits.

But I still remember from the first week of the season, he was the fastest clocked player when they do those next-gen stats. He returned that kickoff. It was 22.5 miles an hour or something like that. Look, David Johnson is a pile of talent on a good offense. Yeah, and watching the Cardinals these last few weeks, you can see that he's become indispensable. When you take him off the field... Becoming dispensable? You mean indispensable. No, that's what I said. He said become...

He's become indispensable. Oh, I heard becoming dispensable. No, no, no, no. He's become indispensable. You can't withstand victories if a guy becoming disposing. He is not a Penn's dispenser. When he's not on the field and they put in anyone else, whether it's Andre Ellington or Stefan Taylor, whoever it is, it's like the team stops moving. And if you give the ball to someone else, it's like regret time. It'll be very interesting to see what happens with Chris Johnson.

This could be muddy water next year if Chris Johnson is back. And I expect that he will be. I don't expect him back. I'm going to side with Jay on this. I think he will be back. I think they loved what he did in the locker room and on the field. And he didn't get taken out by bad play. He got taken out by injury. So if he's back, who's the starter? It'll be Chris Johnson.

I agree. I think it'll be Chris Johnson and David Johnson as the number two. Even if he's back, it'll still be David Johnson. If he comes back, first off, he's not under contract. Chris? Yes. You're right. Chris Johnson. So he's going to have to take no money. I mean, this is, Steve Kime is a crafty general manager and very, he works the budget very well, and he's not going to give Chris Johnson money after they've seen what David Johnson can do. I will agree with the fact that,

Yeah, I will agree with that. And most of the group thing out there is betting on him not being back. That's why you see David Johnson as high as you do in most of the early listings. I've seen him as high as four on pre, pre, pre, pre, way too early rankings. Because if he's the starter, let's say Chris Johnson's not back, I mean, this is a team that's 13 and 3. Yeah, high scoring. Powerful offense.

Should be able to do it. I mean, I wanted to ask the question. If Chris Johnson is not back, who do you draft? Todd Gurley or David Johnson next year in a redraft. Ooh, man. Or even, I guess, in a keeper setting even, you got two rookies this year coming in. Look, if both were endorsed by their head coaches as starters, but obviously Gurley is. So if David Johnson's endorsed any form of PPR, half point or full, it's David Johnson.

I think, because they involve him enough in the passing game to make him extremely valuable. You mix the team plus that. I have to get on board with that. Yeah, at standard, I'd probably still lean with Gurley just because of his, I think he's got the physical makeup to grind it out year after year. Mind you, he had also 104 more carries than David Johnson did this year. I know David obviously can't.

speak to the beginning half of the season. But what else do we want to know about David Johnson? Because he had a big disparity with top and bottom. Huge disparity. He probably one of the widest gaps. But his is difficult because of the sample size where, I mean, you go to week one. Like we said, he's not the starting running back. However, he had one catch for 55 yards and a touchdown. So he put up a pretty solid fantasy week.

which is why he's so high in the consistency rankings is he's just sneaking in these touchdowns here and there. So his splits of top versus bottom is very hard to do because he only had. It's not worth looking just at the stats. Right. He only had four, I mean, four weeks as the feature back because the fifth week, everyone got pulled the last week of the season against Seattle. Yeah, here's a great point for those raw numbers. Weeks 10 and 11.

You played two of the, clearly the top half Ds in Seattle and in Cincinnati. In those two combined games, he got two total carries. So you can't really blame him for his numbers being down. Oh, no, you're right, two. Yeah. Should have done way more with those. Come on, David Johnson. Come on, David. All right. These next two guys are both in the free agent situation. You got Chris Ivory at eight. You got Matt Forte at number nine.

I see a lot of similarities between these guys, not necessarily on the field in terms of how they play, but in terms of age and where they could land. You know, Jason spoke to the fact that there's a lot of question that comes into mind when you switch teams. I don't know if I would expect either of these guys to be in the top 20 next year, unfortunately. I agree. Again, we spoke to this with Lamar Miller, but aside from those

elite landing spots almost anywhere else I'm not going to trust that change to draft them where they finished this year. This year they were in the role that got them to this spot and we don't know going into next year what that role will be. I don't love free agent running backs and when we look at the history of tell me free agent running backs that have changed teams and been great, it's the one that pops into my mind is Michael Turner.

He had that humongous year, but he was a backup in San Diego, hadn't had a chance, then shows up in Atlanta, it explodes. But not a guy that was great on one team, switched to another team, and it ended up great. Marco Murray. It doesn't happen very often. Marco Murray. A lot of people were like, ooh, going to Chip Kelly's high power offense. It's the most fun to be excited about a great player switching teams. That's fun. That's why they get hyped too much. Yep, I completely agree. I've got a landing spot for Matt Forte that I'd be curious your thoughts on. A really good one. A really good one.

Baltimore with Mark Trussman back in that system. He's a pass catching back. There's not a better pass catching back maybe than Matt Forte. No, he set the record two years ago, but I don't see that happening. I think they've got four set under contract right now. They like him. He's definitely cheaper than Forte. And if you want an older guy who already knows the system, why would you go out and get Matt Forte?

You've got an older guy and a young guy. I don't see that happening. Because Forte is better than Justin Forset. Yeah, but, well, you've got to spend your money. I mean, that's a wise team. The Ravens make good decisions. Yes, they do. And if you're going to have to spend a lot more to then cut Forset and get Forte. I guess they're the same age. I think they can probably afford both. There's no way that Forte, in my opinion, is getting a big contract. So Forte is going to have.

He should chase a ring is what I think Forte should do. He's not, I don't feel like he's going to a situation where it's, oh, it's all about playing time for Matt Forte. Now, if he went to Baltimore, then that's the Patriots. Sure. Patriots just don't spend. They don't spend money. That's what I'm saying. They've got Dionne Lewis under contract. He wants to take it. They just gave Lewis an extension. I don't think anybody's going to New England. Yeah. I just, he.

Could go to Baltimore, but it's going to be cut, because it's not like Fawcett won't play. But I wouldn't surprise me if Forte, if he got there, if him turning into at least a somewhat of a featured back. All right, I don't want to gloss over Chris Ivory, who did have a really interesting year, I will say that. The beginning part of the year, he looked like an absolute steal. He carried a lot of teams. He ended up 13th inconsistency rating. He had over 1,000 yards this year. He was furiously...

annoying to play during parts of the year. I mean, your eyeballs told you for a few weeks as an owner of Chris Ivory, yeah, geez. With that dolphin game? I should play Bilal Pal. Oh, I can't play Bilal Pal because it's Chris Ivory. He's a number of whatever running. I should really play Bilal Pal. I'm watching this game. That was what was hard about him, is that Bilal Pal when he was injured, Ivory was great because he got passing targets because he was on the field more.

It was a strange game at the end of the year where they didn't use him. You have to wonder, I mean, what was going on? That was bizarre. Where they just basically, I mean, he came in. He had huge plays and he didn't take any snap. So he was a guy who was okay. He was a pretty consistent running back. He was definitely more of a two than a one in my mind, even though he ended up eight.

So let's say he's signed and he's back. There's no changes there. You're going in next year with Chris Ivory, Below Powell. What do you make of Chris Ivory, finish the year's the number eight running back, definitely stronger first half to second half? You know, where are you ranking both of those guys? Chris Ivory and Belal Powell. That's a great question. I would put Ivory in the top 15 running backs if everything stayed status quo. The team's good.

They're well coached. They like to run the ball. It's an annoying place to be, but I definitely put him in the top 12, top 15. I would as well. Yeah, getting him as an RB2. But in a pure PPR, would you draft Ivory over? Yes. I would still take ivory, but I would go out and get Powell. Powell. Powell seems like he's a Mike Wright kind of guy. I like Bilal Powell. Just because he's like Danny Woodhead, where nobody wants to draft him where he probably belongs because he's annoying.

And you like drafting those kind of guys. They're my favorite. You're the, you know, get them late. Yeah, they'll give you production that's much better than, because where Ivory will go in that, so the hypothetical situation that Jason brought up, where Ivory will go and where Powell will go on normal leagues, Ivory's going to go way higher. Yeah, way higher. It doesn't even matter. In an average draft position of a PPR league, he's going to go way higher. Yeah, well, this is what you have to.

Look at, too. I mean, Chris Ivory has been a walking injury type of a player. Now, he played all 16 games, right? No. Yeah. If you're a fantasy owner, you remember the time he got activated and not giving a snap, but. Asterisk, 16 games. Still, I mean, you take one game out of it. That's pretty good. No, he had a very solid year. We'll wait to hear if he was injured.