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

I mean, even going all the way into preseason, it's going to take a lot for me to be able to trust DeMarco Murray because of how many question marks are there. You still have Ryan Matthews behind him, who had a great year, surprisingly. Injury prone? In a backup role, yeah. Saw that come out again. So, DeMarco Murray is a guy I'm not excited to have on my team. I don't know that the risk is worth that reward for next year.

You know, there's the... And that all depends on draft position. Right. That's what you're saying. I mean, because the upside of DeMarco Murray, we've seen it. Yeah. We saw it behind the Dallas offensive line. Did you just like softly say, yeah, when he had a career, you know, like a record-breaking season? Let me go back. Let me just remind you. No, it wasn't that. It was just, it's now. What have you done for me lately? And DeMarco Murray looked...

looked like a worst running back. He's 27 years old. He's coming off a season that obviously he broke the bank over about 1,800 yards on the ground. He can catch the ball out of the backfield, which is something Peterson has done, Doug Peterson, has done very efficiently with Jamal Charles in the formation of the offense. I just, I see a lot of... But there's a guy on the team who's better at doing that.

when he can stay healthy sometimes. I don't think he's better. I don't think he's better. I do not think he's better. Yes. Ryan Matthews. Better at what? At catching the ball? I don't think so. I think they're both. I think they're... I mean, DeMarco Murray is a guy who's 50-plus reception type of guy in his career and done well with it.

Yeah, they're both equally good at catching the ball. The best pass catcher there is actually Darren Sproles, who we don't know how he'll be used coming in. But what we've seen with Jamal Charles going down and kind of not knowing whether Chalkandric West and where they've got good options, multiple good options, and they're using both and hurting both fantasy value, I'm not going to be able to go into next year thinking DeMarco Murray's the guy. I think it's going to be.

you know, a similar thing where maybe he leads the way in splits and, in, you know, carries, but he's not going to be a bell cow type of player. I just don't see that happening next year. Even with the $13 million cap hit? Yeah, I mean, even though he walked the guy off. All the more reason. I don't think he walked them off. I think Chip Kelly walked himself right out of the job.

Well, I certainly know the ownership wanted to use DeMarco more. I can be pretty confident that I will be lower on DeMarco Murray than you will. And it sounds like I'll be much higher. Yeah. Ronnie Hillman's number 19, a guy that I'd love to hear Mike speak. See, Mike even, before I could get to it, a guy that Mike won't give respect to because somehow he thinks that.

CJ Anderson did. He had 4.2 a carry. He played very well. The team thinks highly of him. You saw it on the field yesterday. He got so many more reps before C.J. Anderson did. And he played well. Yesterday's game was, when I was watching that, I was thinking, you know, I need to make a note that Ronnie Hillman is really, you know what? He's their guy going forward. Sure, he's, I want an apology with that. I want an apology from you. For what? For Ronnie Hillman. No. Yes. No. Did you watch the game yesterday?

I want an apology. Who was the better running back yesterday? It's debatable. No, it is not. Who was the better running back yesterday? He will not do it. No, you're not getting an apology. You can cut the music. Because I watched the game yesterday. That's what he says every week. That's what he says every single week about Ronnie Hillman. It's funny because other people watching the games let Ronnie Hillman play. Ronnie Hillman, who averaged 7.8 yards of carry against the Chargers two weeks ago.

I was like, what are you talking about? C.J. Anderson was the better. He wasn't good. He wasn't. Yeah, C.J. was better yesterday. Yes. He had a couple huge runs. C.G. Anderson moves the pile. I get that. I'm just saying Ronnie Hillman is here for a reason. Where's C.J. Anderson's name? Have you found it? Let me see. Let me look. No, we haven't read his name yet. No, we've known. Oh, he's not even in the, okay. So we're talking about Ronnie Hillman at number 19. Garbage. Garbage.

It's garbage and erroneous. So going into next year, Andy, what do you think as far as the Hillman, C.J. Anderson, is this now an official two-back system with Kubiak kind of for the first time? They're totally fine with that. Yeah. So where do you value? See, G. Anderson played great second half of the year. I'm not arguing with that. I think he led the league in yards per carry in the last quarter of the season. But they have a role for Ronnie Hillman. Ronnie Hillman's different. You're talking about getting to the edge?

C.D. Anderson doesn't get to the edge. He doesn't. Ronnie Hymond gets to the edge. They're complimentary. Which means you should compliment him every once in a while. I will not. I know. I will not. Tell us he stinks so I can draft him number one next year. I will not say he stinks, but I will say that C.J. Anderson is better. All right. Well, fantasy-wise, you are wrong this year. But.

Could be right next year. Ronnie Hillman played 16 games, 207 carries, had seven touchdowns, 863A on the ground. He had 35 targets, a little lower than what I would have expected from him. You did see a discrepancy between when he played the top teams and the bottom teams. He only averaged 6.8 fantasy points a game against the top half of the rushing D. He's a smaller guy. I do think C.J. Anderson is the much...

better back and I wish they would use him, but I just don't think it's going to happen. It looks to me like the Broncos are completely not only fine, but they want to use both backs all game long, splitting them up thoroughly, you know, 50-50. I will say this. C.J. Anderson's efficiency came with Brock Oswald under center.

If they move on from Peyton Manning and they run an offense as Kubi-X style, there's still the chance that they go Belkow with C.J. Anderson. But he's proven to be a little bit easy to get banged up to, had some concussion issues and been off the field at times. There's the possibility he fulfills Mike's dreams. Watch his weight going into camp. I agree. See if he's lost some weight going into camp. That would be a good report. Speaking of worth the weight.

Oh, my goodness. I can't even believe that he finished at number 20. Rashad Jennings was completely worthless. This whole year, he was a worthless fantasy running back for fantasy owners. You couldn't use them. You couldn't trust him for the vast majority of the year because they had 17 running backs. All right. No, every game. And this is where... You're right. You're 100% right. They used too many running backs. It was a terrible decision.

So if he's the 20th running back off the board next year, you are happy or sad. If you have him as the 20th running back off the draft goal. I'm happy. Because I actually think Rashad Jennings is a good running back. I've always liked Rashad Jennings. He didn't get usage. And once he got used, he was very productive. I was like Peter Jennings. Going next year, I don't believe that next year they're going to have the same type of four-way split. I mean, they very well could. No, they won't. Andre Williams. Okay, bold.

Bold, here it comes. Andre Williams will not be on the team next year. Oh, I was hoping he dropped the Stinks line on him. Well, oh, you want that? Andre Williams stinks. There it is. So watch where he lands, guys. He just, Andre Williams has been very disappointing, and I just don't see a way that they can, they can't keep using him. They just, they can't. So, McAdoo is a head coach. Rashad Jennings. Macadoo. Showed what he could Macadoo at the end of the year.

And I think, you know. Someone gave him a McDonald's sponsorship immediately. If you give, right. Look, Rashad Jennings needs opportunity, like any running back. You give him opportunity. He's going to do more with it. They're not a bad offense. They're a great offense when they get the ball moving. You just can't have it. You can't flip a four-sided coin and hope it lands up Rashad Jennings for the touchdown. I mean, you have to have a situation where, and Mike said, you know, Underwoods won't be back. You know, let's wait and see.

Yeah, he could be. I just don't, I don't think he'll be there. You don't got your jersey on order? No, I put it on hold. Peter Jennings jersey. Geo Vani Bernard was number 21. We've talked about his counterpart, Jeremy Hill. So what do we say about Geo? Because he's a tough guy to own. Weird, man. Wouldn't you have thought he'd be better than like Woodhead, the way the teams did? Yeah. The way the teams did? Geo Bernard started the season.

of just a... On fire. He was a stud. He was a fantasy stud. And then the team just went away from what they were doing with Gio Bernard. Jason, do you have an explanation? Because I certainly do not. I do have an explanation. I think a lot of it had to do with...

Once you were getting towards the playoffs in the cold weather and Andy Dalton going down, you are forced into more grind it down, use your defense, use your pounding, running back, wear the clock out, make them more ugly games. That being said, they kind of, you know, it was a, it was, what week did Andy Dalton go down? It wasn't until late. It was the stealer game. It was week 14, week 14. So before that, from week.

12 and 13. In week 12, they used Gio. He had a very bad game against the Rams. And then in week 13, they essentially went away. And that was before the Andy Dalton injury. And they stood that way the rest of the season. And Gio was pretty much worthless the second half of the season. If you told me that Gio Bernard and Sims finished back to back, you know, Charles Sims.

I would be shocked, and that's what happened. Because Gio Bernard looked like he was on pace for a great year. I thought he was just the better back there, the entire first half watching film, and they chose to go away from him. Coming into this next season, I think we're going to see pretty much a 50-50 split, and I'm fine with Gio being drafted about where he finished this year. If you compare him to Charles Sims, you see some big discrepancies.

with snap percentages. Charles Sims was only on the field. They finished very close to each other, but Charles Sims, as far as snap counts, was 44% of snaps, and Gio was 55% of snaps. Sims was great, man. I don't know how much people really paid attention to him because he just was not a sexy name at all.

But Sims, when he was on the field, 70 targets. Was great. But real quick for Gio Bernard, something we haven't mentioned, they need to find a new offensive coordinator in Cincinnati. Hugh Jackson is now the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. So that's a situation to monitor. I mean, you can't imagine that a guy will come in if the head coaching is still the same. He'll shake things up too much. But...

Certainly an offensive coordinator will want to leave his mark, so it will be interesting to see who the higher is for the projections of Hill and Bernard. All right, so speaking to Sims, you said, he was very impressive, 70 targets is what jumps out to me. He's a guy who's very efficient with his carries. They put him in a position to do that. You've seen this with guys with burst. Their yard, but carry numbers are very high, unlimited carries. It's not necessarily something that would translate in a starting role. However,

You know, this is a guy that finished in the top 24 overall during the year. He's in the same category as the GOs, as the woodheads, as the complementary back that is efficient. Really good, a PPR value probably next year. Yes, yes, absolutely. 70 targets, man. Yeah. That's ridiculous. Well, if you look at the split, so Sims was on the field 42% of the time to Doug Martin's 57. But when it comes to running the ball, Sims only ran the ball 27% of the time. He was really that pass catching back.

And the thing that stands out to me is the four receiving touchdowns. To have four receiving touchdowns in that kind of limited role, I don't know, that seems, I mean, look at, you know, Gio Bernard, right? Gio Bernard had zero receiving touchdowns and had about the same, 66 targets. So which one is the outlier there? The four touchdowns or the zero touchdowns? Four is probably a little high, but two?

Would not shock me. As I say, it's probably somewhere in the middle. Sims is interesting, though. He's 25, an offense that should be growing. So I like him in PPR a lot. Next two guys on the list, and we definitely want to mention some names outside the top 25 because they're names that you would have expected to be in it. But Langford and Starks are who finish out our top 24. Langford, obviously, I mean, it goes without saying maybe that with Forte's gone, Jeremy Langford becomes a prolific.