Early RB Rankings: 11-20 + Mike’s Shattered Dreams - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/15

Who is the leader of the timeshare, if there is a time share, or who is the starter, if there is a Kenyon Drake role? Is that Chase Edmonds? Is that James Connor? I believe it's going to be James Connor, with Chase Edmonds still playing that role, but being far more into an even time share than what we saw with Kenyon Drake. There are a lot of debates on it in terms of what you value at that position. I would bet a lot on the fact Chase Edmonds has more snaps than James Connor this year.

So does the snaps matter to you? Or do you want to go into the goal line discussion? We're like, James Conner's probably going to be in there around the goal line. Opportunities is what's going to matter the most to me. Targets and touches. Edmonds will catch more passes than James. I agree. I fully agree with that. But that's, I mean, that's what we saw with Edmonds and Kenyon Drake. And if you look at the actual snapshot between Kenyon Drake and Chase Edmonds, it's far closer than you realize what happened because Kenyon Drake was.

Close to a workhorse. I mean, he had a ton of opportunity. He would get all the carries, a handful of targets while Edmonds would see far, would see more. But I think after sitting with the signing, I do think Arizona views, we've thought all along that Arizona views Chase Edmonds as a specialist, not as the guy. So I think that James Connor will come in and take over that Kenyon Drake.

type of a workload. It's going to be very fascinating to watch the ADP of both of these players. Because you have to, you'll pick a side. And you'll say, I think Chase Edmund, I'm going with it. I'm going with the upside of Chase Edmonds. Or you, or I'm taking that James Connor is going to take over the Kenyon Drake role, which is, it's very valuable. If you had not drafted Kenyon Drake in the second round.

last year because I think that's where his ADP was. But if you got that role in the fourth round or the fifth round, you would have been very, very happy with that draft day value. Well, you're talking about a great offense. Yes. They're going to score a lot. I don't look at it as a, you know, I don't believe teams always function the exact same year to year. You know, they were willing, I believe them when they said they were willing to make Chase Edmonds their primary runner before they signed James Connor. I believe that players.

You know, they get better year over year. You don't just lock a guy into that role. So I think they're willing to give more work to Chase Edmonds. And I think it fundamentally comes down to what you believe about James Connor. Is he a great runner? Is he moving the offense? Is Chase Edmond's offering more to the offense? And I think that James Connor, as a reflection of his salary that he got paid, is a question mark for NFL GMs. He got paid very little money.

He's an injury-plagued player. He is that, yes. And he saw on the field, he visually took a step back over the last two years. It's an incredibly small sample size because it is literally one game. Ooh, this sounds great. But the one game where Chase Edmonds had the shot, it was against the Miami Dolphins. Chase Edmonds saw 96% of the snaps. And if people don't remember what happened, 25 carries.

turned into 70 rushing yards. Like that is incredibly inefficient. That's 2.8 yards per carry. He had his longest run of that day was six yards. Now they fed, I'm just saying a team will look at that and say, okay, maybe we need somebody else to be in here with it. I mean, we've seen that so many times. Andy's brought this up a million times in the past that these efficient.

running backs that can run five, six yards of carry as kind of a backup change of pace guy. They can't always just stay efficient. Miami's a great defense, too. I mean, nobody disagrees that they needed a compliment. It's just a matter of you're using the language of taking over the Kenyon Drake role. Yes. And that's the difference of opinion.

I don't think that he has, I don't think they're bringing them in here to be Kenyon Drake. I think they're bringing him in here to compliment Chase Edmonds. And it will be vastly debated and both could end up values because it could drive down both ADPs to the point where you're drafting valuable pieces of a good offense later in the draft. And I go back to when they actually traded for Kenyon Drake. Like Chase Edmonds was here. And they said, no, we're going to go get somebody else. And Drake immediately came in and took over where.

Why would you not give Chase Edmonds a shot? It's two years ago. David Johnson was there. There was an injury. But David Johnson went down. And they said, no, we're going to go get Kenyon Drake. We're going to bring him in. Then we're going to give him $10 million to come back. So I really believe that the team views Chase as a specialist. All I heard was James Conner, my guy. Did anybody else hear that? Brooks, did you hear that? I did. Did I hear James Conner, my guy, Mike Wright, 2021?

That's exactly what I heard. You can check the tape of that's happened before. It was, I think that was 2019. When you did make James Connor or my guy. Any final thoughts there, Jason? I think we've exhausted it. I can't wait to find out. All right. I will say the final word on it is my dream of Najee Harris coming to the Arizona card. It's dead. I think it is dead. Kaboom. I'm sorry, Mike.

Before we move into the interesting running back rankings, I want to thank today's sponsor, Raycon. Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to an audio program right now. You might have headphones in right now. It might be time to upgrade those headphones, whether you're listening to your favorite news podcast, an audiobook, powering through a workout with a pumped up playlist. A pair of Raycons in your ears can make all the difference. I have a pair of Raycons.

I enjoy them thoroughly. And look, they're Bluetooth, they're wireless. There are people out there that are still holding on to their wired headphones. I get it. You're like, this has worked forever. Moving to a pair of wireless in ear buds will, I am not joking when I say it will change. But I like my VCR. Exactly. I am serious. It will change your life moving to.

a pair of Bluetooth headphones. These have six hours of playtime, unplug, and the best part. Raycon makes great sound accessible to everyone with wireless earbuds starting at half the price of other premium audio brands. And check this out. Raycon is offering 15% off all their products for our listeners. And here's what you've got to do to get it. Go to buy raycon.com slash footballers. That's it. You'll get 15% off your entire Raycon order. So feel free to grab a pair.

And a spare. That's 15% off at buy raycon.com slash footballers. Buy raycon.com slash footballers. And Fookland, let's, keeps it real for a second. Keeps it real. More than 50 million men in the U.S. suffer from male pattern baldness. Pattern baldness. I hate to break it to you, but your favorite footballer probably suffers from male pattern baldness. My hair's fine.

exactly what I said, Andy. Jason's isn't. That's right, that's right. But I'm here to offer you, you know, a solution. Keeps offers a simple, stress-free way to keep your hair. There are two FDA-approved medications that can help prevent hair loss, and Keeps has both of them. It's convenient doctor consultants online.

delivery straight to your door, a low-cost treatment is, you know, start at just $10 a month.

and they offer generic versions. There's discrete packaging. You don't got to feel bad about this. Don't feel bad. Don't feel bad. A bunch of five-star reviews more than any of its competitors. If you're ready to take action, prevent your hair loss, go to keeps.com slash footballers and receive your first month of treatment for free. That's keeps.com slash footballers to get your first month free. K-E-E-P-S dot com slash footballers. All right. It's running back time.

Running Backs. Early running back rankings going 11 through 20 something today. If you missed the 1 through 10 show, you can still listen. These don't expire like Mission Impossible tapes. You know what I mean? That'd be sweet. Oh, we should start pulling them down. Oh, yeah. We can NFT these shows. I thought we were blowing up a PPU. Blowing up their iPhone. I don't know if we can do that. I don't know if the tech is out there for that.

But 1 through 10, I'm going to run through them real fast from Tuesday's show. McCaffrey, Cook, Camara, Henry, Barkley, Jones, Zeke, Chubb, Taylor, Acres. Ooh, Acres, making the top 10. I am with you there. And you weren't on the first show. Did you have any, like, a quick take on one or two of these guys where you felt like their consensus was way out of whack? You guys were differing on your Chubb versus Taylor.

Well, just Nick Chubb overall. Jason had him way too low. Right. Where do you have him, Jason? Way too low? I thought it was 11. I have Nick Chubb at 11 right now. I was trying to figure out who is on what side of that. Right. Right side. Wrong side. All right. We'll go to number 11 here. Always an interesting name to discuss and debate on the show. Austin Echler comes in at 11. Wait a minute.

Jason is the highest. Jason is the highest on Austin Echler. You're darn right. I am, man. Guess who his quarterback isn't? It's not Tyrod Taylor. This isn't going into last year worrying about him being able to receive the ball. Austin Echler was throwing the ball a cajillion time for Justin Herbert. I think in that once he got back from injury, he was on pace for 140-something targets, 98 reception. So yeah, I'm all in on Austin Echler. I love it. Good friend of the show. Jason's also making sure to give him.

The Dap. I'm at 13. Mike at 11. Jason at 8. Ends up at 11 on our consensus. Played 10 games, had 18 opportunities per game last year, change a quarterback. Never been a really big touchdown guy. That's not his secret sauce. He doesn't have as many opportunities. Even when he was a compliment to Melvin Gordon, you looked at Austin Neckler and you said this is a running back that makes his hay in the receiving game. The numbers were so insane two years ago.

that there was a great call for, you know, just a return to an average amount, and then Tyrod and Herbert and injuries, significant injuries, for Echler really threw off the, you know, the season for him. I think right on the running back one cusp is where he belongs. I mean, you know, you do have, to talk about variables in play, you do have a new head coach, and you don't have Anthony Lynn there anymore.

new offensive coordinator as well. So there are going to be philosophical differences in the way they run this offense combined with very limited sample size with Justin Herbert. So I think that I'm kind of, I believe in the talent and ability of Austin Eckler, and I don't know exactly how that's going to shake out.

Completely agree. Your eyes have to be open to the variables and the changes. We'll see what they do in the draft if they surprise us with running back. I don't expect them to. And if they don't, he is so far and away the most talented running back on the roster.

There are things I don't like and things I love about the Chargers as a whole and for fantasy. I think their team is going to be outstanding this year. I really like the direction of their offense. Their defense should be healthy and improved. And what they've done for the offensive line is fantastic. A lot of these things actually are negatives. When I look at Justin Herbert, taking that crazy step forward for fantasy because he might not have to score 55 points to win a game. But that's... Thank you.

But that's good news for the running game. If they're up, you know, you talk about he's never really been a touchdown guy. He had Melvin Gordon and then, you know, they, you know, had some struggles this last year. But I think that the defense being good, the offensive line being improved, the proof that they'll dump the ball off to him with this quarterback, I'm in. I am more concerned about the Chargers as a whole. I think there will be a level of prolific mediocrity with this team. I don't think that they can overcome.

Kansas City. I don't think that they can, you know, Denver's defense is outstanding. They're going to play them twice this year. I unfortunately believe that middle of the road, Las Vegas will continue to compete in games and improve. So that is my only real concern there is just I think they may end up in a similar record situation. Yeah, if you take a look at last year's the game log, because you kind of have to.