Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - The TRUTH About Fantasy RB's in 2015, Part 2

If Jeremy Hill was drafted where Danny Woodhead was, we'd all be singing his praises. But he wasn't drafted there. That's very valid. I feel like I want all of my analysis of Jeremy Hill right now to simply be fart sounds with my mouth because I was that disappointed with Jeremy Hill. Now, speaking to him moving forward next year, I'll probably be back on the Jeremy Hill train. You at least won't have to pay up as early to draft him.

If you, just watching the tape, you can see that it's still there, the moja that he had. But for a large part of the year, he's doing these shimmies and these salsa dances in the backfield. Instead of just saying, one read, I will plant and I will go like he was doing in his rookie year. You plant and go. If it's there, it's there. If it's not, it's not. And he wasn't.

He was not happy with that. He was going Chris Johnson from the Titans, if you remember that. It was all or nothing for Chris Johnson. That's basically the mentality that Jeremy Hill was going with. He also didn't play well against top 16 defenses. He had nine points a game against them compared to 13 against bottom teams, which makes a lot of sense. He's kind of the run-out-the-clock guy for that team. And Joe Bernard had a good year.

He had a good start to the year and really changed their perspective on who they were going to use. On the year, Gio Bernard actually led the running backs in snaps. He had 55%. Jeremy Hill only had 43% of the snaps. Last four weeks of the season, Jeremy Hill ended up with, it's basically a complete swap. It's Jeremy Hill had 56% of the snaps and Gio had 41%. Now, we don't know how much of that is the fact that...

Andy Dalton was gone, and so they were more of a running team versus a passing team, and cold weather games now became a factor. But I think we're going to see essentially a lot more of what we saw this year, next year from them, where it's going to be near a 50-50 split on carries, at least on snaps, if not carries. And so where Jeremy Hill is going to be drafted next year, assuming it's...

much lower than where he was drafted this year? I'm okay taking him there. There's plenty of good checkboxes, by Jeremy Hill. He's young. He's on a good offense. He's on a good team. He's shown the ability to do it. He's the touchdown guy. Yeah. What it should show is it should be a cautionary tale in taking a guy's first year, projecting it forward to infinite glory, and then seeing what happens. I mean, this was before the season. Is he the next Marshawn Lynch? No. Not yet.

Have we confirmed that Giovanni Bernard is still alive? No. After that. Well, remember, he got up and was running. He ran back to the... I forgot that hit was bad. Oh. All right. Mark Ingram is number 15 on the list. He's a guy who has question marks because, look, he wouldn't have been 15 if he hadn't gotten hurt. So, I mean, he had 12 games played. He was really good. 12 games and number 15. Sure. That's great. 769 yards on the ground with a good average. Six touchdowns.

Here's the difference maker because we didn't expect it. You saw Spiller come into the offense. You thought, look, I love Mark Ingram next year. Let me put it that way because he had 50 catches. Yes. In 12 games. 50 catches. Mark Ingram.

He's never utilized that way. And when you look at the snap counts as to how the team used Mark Ingram, he was on the field 70 plus percent of the time, which is incredible for Mark Ingram, a guy who, you know, they used three backs. And they used three backs on the year. They used three backs even when Ingram was out there. You don't think that Mark Ingram got 70 plus percent of snaps, and he did. And when he went down and Hightower came back in, it was more like 50 percent. It wasn't.

You know, even though Hightower had a great game, they love Ingram. And I was a little worried because of all the possibilities of Drew Brees having to leave because of money. Sean Payton being traded. But it looks like there's going to be continuity coming back next year. Mark Ingram looked really, really good, very reliable. And because he's catching the ball, he's game flow, you know, safe. Love Mark Ingram. What I like about Mark Ingram, let me read you what he was averaging. So against top 16.

Run defenses, he was only averaging 48 yards on the ground against bottom 16, 80 yards on the ground. There's a big difference right there. However, against top 16 rushing defenses, he would average 44 receiving yards, as opposed to 24 receiving yards against bottom. So they didn't care. The Saints were going to get Mark Engel in the ball. He was going to give them production, and he was essentially...

Even across the board, his fantasy points are concerned because he would split the difference with receiving yards. So he's just, I like marking him a lot next year. The proofs in the pudding. The fourth highest consistency ranking, despite missing those games, finishing number 15 overall, that's the number you need to pay attention to. You put them in your lineup, and that's what you do. You leave him in there. Yep. Because, and he still, he showed me everything we needed to see this year. All-purpose yards. He basically got 100 yards a game.

And then he was also a touchdown option. So let me ask you this. Mark Ingram or Doug Martin? Doug Martin, because as a number one, it depends on where you're going to have to take him. But I want high potential from my number one. For me, my number two, if I can have Mark Ingram as an RB2. You know, those guys were back to that in consistency ranking. And there's no reason why.

A factor of this to me is Kyrie Robinson. Kyrie Robinson was the kind of the backup for Mark Ingram until he got hurt. He had a pretty devastating leg injury, and he's a free agent. He won't be back. The question is, Kyrie Robinson was a touchdown vulture. If the backup is High Tower, I don't think there'll be as much touchdown vulturing going on. I think it'll be Ingram.

Yeah, I don't know. I think the teams just do that. You know what I mean? But they were doing it frequently with Kyvie Robinson, where I believe that they would roll more with Ingram. To me, that's how I see it. So if Kyrie Robinson is gone, and I have to look at that question of Doug Martin. He did v. Four. He vultured four touchdowns. If it's Mark, Mark Ingram versus Doug Martin, Robinson is gone. It's Mark Ingram for me. Mark Ingram, David Johnson.

assuming David Johnson is the guy. And obviously you're locked into this decision for the rest of the option. You don't get any options to change your mind. I'd probably know David Johnson. If Chris Johnson's gone, as I suspect you, what I would. There are a lot of leagues drafting this week for 2016. That's tough. Those guys will be very close for me. All right. Number 16 is Jonathan Stewart. 17 is LaShawn McCoy, so we'll talk about him. Jonathan Stewart's a guy who I am rising on for next year. Yeah. I really am.

He's a great player. He was mostly healthy this year. He let you down when you needed a most, which was getting hurt during the playoffs. I think he would have played had it not been their situation in the standings. That being said, he was very consistent. When he was healthy, well, I guess not that consistent. We haven't at 22. Well, if you remember that, that's not very far from where he finished. The beginning of the year.

was pretty rough. Jason and I made that trade and I felt like an idiot. Oh yeah, it was a straight up trade. Frank Gore for Jonathan Stewart. People weren't cutting Jonathan Stewart because he was disappointing at the beginning of the year. Well, he'd get you, you know, 40, 50, maybe 60 yards, no touchdowns. It seemed like he was never going to be used as a touchdown guy. Cam was basically the vulture there. But that was what really turned around for Jonathan Stewart. He started getting in the end zone a little bit more. Eight straight weeks of 20 or more carries.

That's, you know, hello. Be my running back. Yeah, you want that opportunity on a high-powered offense, which the Panthers' offense should be better next year. To me, no, no, I'm not doubting that. What I'm saying is that he really is more of a standard league play to me, though, because Stewart is a guy who, in his career, used to get passing yards. He can. He can do it.

But he got 16 receptions in the entire season. I mean, he was a 47 reception guy in 2011. They haven't used them like that in four years. So for me, he is a guy that I'd put in the, you know, if Ivory's back and Stewart's back, they're in the same boat for me. Both of them aren't going to catch many passes. Both of them are going to have guys that switch. I mean, artist pain seems like a talented enough back to take some snaps away from Stewart. I'm okay with Stewart. I like the offense. I like Stewart a lot.

He was somebody who was very consistent, no matter who he played, top 16, bottom 16, and you always like a running back. Look at Alfred Morris when he had RG3 running the read option. You love running backs with the read option because you get opportunities to break off big plays when the defense guess is wrong. Yeah, that's true. LaShawn McCoy, the next guy to me was a pleasant surprise. Obviously, I'm with you. It didn't surprise me.

No, I know. You were very high on him. I think you pegged him very well. Obviously, the injuries were a burden for fantasy owners, very annoying. You know, every time that you thought you'd just be able to rely on him and roll through, it was like, oh, now he's out. But he still played 13 games. So it wasn't, it was just bad timing on the injuries and a little bit beat up. But he was very consistent. He was our sixth.

best, most consistent running back, even though he was the 17th overall back and missed three games. That's what you're looking for when you have to spend a high pick to get a running back. And sometimes you didn't have to spend a super high pick for LaShawn McCoy this year. Yeah, he did drop. He wasn't a guy I was super high on this show. He was still a running back one for me. But it did appear the...

The guy had been touching the ball over 300 times a year in Philadelphia. Maybe that caught up with him a little bit with the injuries this year. And the Bill's offensive line was better. I'm with Jason. He was, I was very pleased to see Shady McCoy back getting, and he looked like the old Shady, so to speak, where, when he was actually on the field. But he was elusive.

He was fast, and he did his damage to the outside. It wasn't really grinded up the middle. The question for LaShawn McCoy is, I know he's the main guy in Buffalo next year, but you have to imagine that Carlos Williams will be involved next year, and more so than he was this year, in my opinion. And now we're getting to the point, too, where we talk about these running backs.

And you get into these names where you're like, oh, wow, he finished there. Oh, wow. And that tells you why we draft running backs high. You draft running backs high because there really are only a certain amount of guys who, you know, look, the next three names on the list are DeMarco Murray, Ronnie Hillman, and Rashad Jennings. Okay. So these aren't guys that you wanted to run out there every week, which is why when you get a guy like Mark Ingram, wow, the value. The value of that is so...

High. So talk to me about, I mean, DeMarco Murray ended 18. Did you want DeMarco Murray on your team this year? No. At the beginning of the year, yes. In a hypothetical world. And he started off terrible. He came back in the middle of the year and was good. There was a stretch run where DeMarco Murray was very good for fantasy. It fell apart very quickly with clearly the

There was a problem between him and Chip Kelly. I don't know if it was play calling. He had a chip on his shoulder. Sure. Like, I don't know what the problem was. Holding him down. But DeMarco Murray came out on top because Chip Kelly is gone. So what do we see for Murray next year? Upside. You see the upside? I do. Because it's... I see workload. He can't do it to the edge. No, he can't.

He can do it up the middle, but on the head, she just doesn't have the speed to do it. DeMarco Murray is a running back who needs to line up like Adrian Peterson lines up, which is like six or seven yards off the line of scrimmage, not taking shotgun handoffs and trying to get the burst. That's what it was to me. If they're going to build the offense around him now, which, hey, Doug Peterson, you know, coming over, if they build the offense around DeMarco Murray and he has something left in the tank, I can't see anything. I think it's a good situation for him.

It has to be better. Because you need to get a guy under center and you need to hand him the ball off and block outside of this Chip Kelly offense. I think he just wasn't a fit. And so now we'll find out if he's just done or if they build around him. And there's question marks around him. I'll be thinking long and hard about DeMarco Murray. Yeah, this is a guy that we need some more time in the off season to see what's happening with, you know, the rest of the coaching staff changes there.