Fantasy Football - Early Top 15 RB Rankings + Broken Down Carr

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, tax day. Oh, man. Sorry, everybody. April 15th, 2025, the fantasy footballers are back. Yeah. So you can listen up, listen in. We got our early running back. rankings show today. Jason Moore is here. Mike, the fantasy hit man. I'm Andy Holloway. You know, it's going to be a really excellent show. I can always tell based upon your introduction. Oh, really? Yeah. I set the tone. You set the tone well today. You came in a little longer than usual on your little yelling. You keep track. I'm sure Kyle keeps track. He's got to stop watch out. Good weekend, gentlemen.

Ready to talk football? Are we over under Jason Zandi? Or over under Andy's welcome scream? You know, based on the things I see people betting these days, like which arm goes into the green jacket for Rory McElroy? No. Is that a real one? Which arm goes in first? Which one? Which one? It's got to be right arm, right? It was left arm. Oh, man. They got up. You got got got. You would have lost so much money, Mike. Yeah, you know. Because that's where I'm doing it. There's... There's the comedy of betting on absolutely anything that can happen. But even more ridiculous than that is watching people root for the thing that you can't believe people bet on. So watching them, you know, a couple guys on an Instagram reel or alive that are going left arm. Come on. Left arm. Left arm. Come on. The research. The research says it's going to be left arm. Come on. It's so much fun. I mean.

It's dumb. Yeah, me and Jason, we're in on tails. We're all, tails never fails. And it makes just, it makes that non-playing time. So, something to watch. You're just like, I mean, who cares about the coin flip except when you need it to land on tails? Well, yeah, if you want to get a kind of a betting market out on the welcome in, you can do that. Yeah. You know, we'll figure it out. We. Like I said, we have early top 15 running back rankings on the show today. We got NFL news to catch you up on. We got the draft here less than two weeks away, right at two weeks? No. Less Thursday. Yeah, yeah. It's coming soon. Rumors every day. You never know what's real.

Oh, I know, because we're always surprised. And there are legitimately every year, there are smoke screens. And you know, sometimes that's used like, oh, they're bringing these guys in. They're looking at wide receivers from their top 30 visits. Ah, maybe it's a smoke screen. I don't think those are smokescreens, but when there is just blabber mouths, really kind of saying what they're looking for, I feel like. There's no benefit to do it. That would be an amazing name for like one of the primetime sports shows. Blabbermels. Just call it blabber mouths. And, you know, that's kind of what we do, isn't it? Ultimate draft kit.com head over there, get access to the dynasty pass. It will be updated for the third time right after the draft and we get a lay of the land and we see which players are gaining value based on their draft destinations.

You know, there's all the team opportunity charts in there, so you have a chance to get in there and see what teams are needing what. And, you know, Mike, you've been paying attention like I have to these visits, right? Yeah, the top 30 visits. We're trying to figure some stuff out. I think we've got a little bit of, we got something. We got a, what, a fish on the hook here. We're going to talk about all that stuff on the Dynasty Pod this week. Yeah, and Kyle is half insane right now because he's been. Just completely digging into that level of data. And it's fun. Some of the stuff is actually really interesting to see how these top 30 visits correlate or don't correlate to, you know, position groups and whether it's a first round pick or whether that, you know, someone that made one of these top 30 visits gets drafted by the team. And the funny thing is, if we just wait, just like, I don't know, week and a half, none of it will matter. We'll know wherever it is.

Yeah, but that's no fun. I mean, the one that stood out was the running back visits for the Cincinnati Bengals. Sure. And we've got a top 15 running back show today. Chase Brown is on it. Chase Brown is in that top 15, top 15 as of right now. Yeah, but if Trayvion Henderson, one of the players brought in for a top 30 visit, gets drafted by the Bengals, Chase Brown will not be in the top 15. No, he will not. So, yeah, we've all individually gone through and ranked our, you know, this is pre. UDK, statting every player out, but looking at kind of where we have them right now. And we all went through an individually ranked probably around the first 30 running backs and then grabbed our consensus top 15 and we'll share that with you on today's episode. No quick question for the day because we want to get into the rankings. So we'll jump right into news. News and notes from around the league. Uh-oh. Well.

Might not be clicking that send in the car button. The NFL network's Ian Rappaport has reported that Derek Carr is believed to have suffered a significant injury to his throwing shoulder, suffered it last year, and it threatens his availability for the upcoming season, and that the Saints have been preparing for the draft knowing about this injury. So some of the, I mean, there have been quarterback. Sounds like we got a blabber mouth. Quarterback rumors were already swirling around the Saints. Jackson Dart, Shador Sanders, discussions around those players. Suddenly, you find out your starter might not even be available, who has so much money.

committed to Derek, I mean, committed to him now. Oh, yeah. The dead cap this year and next year would be a catastrophic number. I think next year's dead cap. You can look it up, but I want to say it's around 65 million. And that's next year? And that's next year. That's not if they cut him now. Obviously, they're not going to cut them now. Nick Underhill, one of the best reporters over there for the Saints. He was tweeted about this talking about like, this is a big situation. And so I, um, I don't subscribe to his paywalled content, so I don't know all the details, but he was insinuating that this is a bigger deal than what it seemed like a couple weeks ago. We got 80 million this year for Derek Carr should they cut him, which that's not going to happen. And next year, yes, next year it's still a 59. But don't worry. When we get to 2027, as long as if they don't do anything in the contract, it's only a cool 40. I just, this is a team that has two third round picks.

They have two thirds, two fourths, and a first and a second round pick. They do have the ability to move around. So Cammore is not going to be in the cards for them. No. And drafting at nine, you know, depending on who you follow, that might seem too soon for the other two quarterback prospects. I don't know. I think they're going to take one. In the first? In the first. But if they don't, if Chador Sanders falls out of the first round and they're sitting at 40 and they have two thirds and two fourths to trade up and take him with the first pick of the second round or something like that. The solution that they have on the roster right now is, I mean, Spencer Rattler. Yeah. Ben Danucci. The solution is not on the roster. Dude, Jake heinous because they ain't us, man. Come on. That's a fun one. Jake Hayner. He's still there. He's still on the roster. Yeah, the depth chart behind Derek Carr, they went winless in the games that Carr did not play last year. Oh, wow. And so this is a team that needs Derek Carr there or they need.

a future quarterback. I don't, I mean, personally, I don't think there is one available. That's where, yeah, you and I disagree on that. Right, right. To me, it's like, okay, I think Cam Ward could be a legit starter. I do think Shador Sanders can be a legit starter, but I think he needs to end up in a really good destination. I'm not sure if the Saints are there. We had just talked about Alvin Camara on a recent episode. Yes. And Derek Carr's health issue came out really after that as far as into the public sphere. And that changes my belief on.

Alvin Camara's value, you know, all those Derek Carr checkdowns with that bomb shoulder, delicious. We also disagree on Jackson Dart, which you were pretty... I do not think he's a first round town. You were pretty chill about him on the show. Have you gone back? I did go back and I watched several more games and I'm, I am not bullish on Jackson Dart. I don't think he's a first round. Quarterback. As in talent, but he might get drafted in the first. Right, right, right. Yes, he might go there. I just don't, I wouldn't have him graded that way. We had some other contract updates. The Browns bringing back Joe Flacco on a one-year deal, just $4 million, up to $13 million if seemingly he became a starter during the year. Which the, who knows? The newest thing that came out very recently was the Browns are unlikely to take, should do her standards. I don't know if you mentioned that, Andy, when we were saying it, but.

I still think it's Kirk Cousins. That's what I think is going to clear. It could be Kirk Cousins. They would have to trade draft capital and then figure out how they're going to pay the salary. I think it's already done. Do you? I do. And that's based on Miles Garrett's resigning with the team and interviews about his knowledge of who's going to play quarterback for them this year and just putting and my thought that. Kirk Cousins won't be sitting on that bench in Atlanta when all set and done. You know, I can't imagine that Miles Garrett's, you know, excited about, oh, I know Joe Flacco's signing a $4 million deal. You're not going to know who you would get in the draft. I think it's Kirk Cousins. We'll find out. You get Kirk Cousins and Travis Hunter there. That would be a really interesting offense. We still think Kirk Couss is good. I think Kirk Cousins. The dude got benched for a team trying to get into the playoffs.

I think that another year removed from that Achilles injury could be good for him. He's not the age where I think he has to have fallen off. Obviously, he had a massive injury, and he played like crap down the stretch. But he also had, I mean, it was this last year where he had 500-yard throwing game. He did. He had that one incredible game. Yeah, it was like 504 or something like that. And so, I don't know. I mean, I'm not saying Kirk Cousins is going to take a team to the Super Bowl. I'm just saying if you compare Kirk Cousins to Kenny Pickett.

It's a much better upgrade. Al-Azard going to stay with the Jets on a rework contract. Terrace Marshall Jr. This is in here? Oh, yeah. We have tiles here, so. The Eagles signed Terrace Marshall Jr. He probably won't. Go get that ring, young man. Probably won't make the team. He won't make the team. Oh, Ali Cox. Now, I just want to remind people that Terrace Marshall Jr. is still only 24 years old. He's 24 years old. Oh, yeah. So his future is bright, Mike. More total reception is the rest of his career. Marshall Jr. than Mingo. Mingo. Mingo. Mowley Cox, one year deal to come back to the Colts just so we can hit this. And Tyreek Hill weekly domestic dispute took place once again. Brief. In a high-rise condominium in Florida. Yeah, the NFL, they're tracking down the 911 audio. It's like.

Regardless of this terrible accusation, we were just putting together our top 15 rankings. Behind the scenes, we put together like our top 50 rankings. And Tyreek was the most interesting name to me prior to this news of like, what do you believe? What do you believe? You know, last year he played hundreds of more snaps than he did the year prior, had half as many yards. what's the cause? And you know, you go, oh, well, he was missing, you know, Tua for a handful of games, but Tua played the majority of the season. The injury was surgery. I'm pretty sure the dolphins had more passing yards last year than they did before. So, yeah, he's at the risk. Whatever the reason he sucked last year for Tariq Hill standards. So he's a year older, and he was lower in my rankings than I thought he would be.

All right, we'll be doing wide receiver rankings the top 15 on Thursday, so you can tune in for that. But right now, it's time for running backs. Running bags. All right, we are going to go one through 15. We'll keep it fairly brief, just an overview before the draft of where we have the running back sitting right now. So, yeah, it's like a vibes check. Yeah. I never know where you guys are on certain players at this time of year, so it's a chance to see. where you have them ranked, where I am thinking about certain players. And, you know, some interesting results here. We also had some research done on what makes the top 15 running back in general for fantasy football purposes. If you look at the last four years, the averages for a top 15 running back, you're going to be at about 19 opportunities a game, which puts you at around 300 opportunities. Reminder an opportunity is a,

That's going to be a target or a carry. There you go. Rushing attempts, you're normally in the 240s, 10 rushing touchdowns. That's the average. 85% of top 15 fantasy running backs have at least nine touchdowns. 59 targets, 47 receptions, 350 plus receiving yards, couple of receiving touchdowns, and a fantasy points per game of around 15. And one of the things I find. The most interesting is that all the top 15 running backs, they were on NFL teams that averaged 9.7 wins. So they're on winning teams. Only 8% of the top 15 running backs over the last four years were on teams with fewer than seven wins. And so there are some, right? It wasn't 0%. But if you're making an odds bet and your odds are sitting down at 8%, that is a losing bet.

And so later in the draft, when you're looking at Romandre Stevenson or Brian Robinson, Jr., maybe Ramandre is a better player. But, like, I would let those late picks tie break to me for the better team, the better offense. Who's going to win more games? Also, just for the record, as we marched through these players, we're not putting any rookies in the initial rankings, whereas it's very, very possible. I mean, Gentie will be in our top 15. Oh, for sure. And it's possible there's another name or two. depending on the landing spot. So no rookies in the initial rankings. We'll do that after the draft. But we'll start here at number one. He's number one for both of you. He's sitting at two on my list at Saquan Barclay. I went back and forth flipping my one to year one over and over and over. Did you? Yeah. So, yeah, my number one is Bijon who I'm talking about. I'm switching right now. Right when we start. I'll hold out. All right. Seguan Barclay.

I was looking this up. He's rushed for 20 plus yards 24 times over the last two years, which ties Derek Henry. So you get that big play stuff that you saw in Philly last year that you didn't have as many of those in New York because of offensive line play. But this was a Cinderella dream come true season for Saquo and Barclay. Everything, you know, you talk about looking at both sides of a situation. Free agent. signed by Philly, leaving New York, older than some of the other running backs. Everything you could have possibly thought could go right for him went right last year, played for the number one offensive line, was number one in yards before contact. So again, that wasn't breaking tackles. That was literally gaining yards before anybody got an opportunity to tackle. So making the right reads, 66% of his rushing yards came before contact. Yeah, I mean, it was.

It was a perfect storm for him. The total touchdowns were awesome. The issue, the only negative is that he was not very involved in the passing game. No, it was irrelevant, wasn't needed. He was the running back one in fantasy points, scored enough touchdowns, got enough yardage. But it does mean if things go poorly for him in the touchdown category, which that can be a category that bounces back and forth from year to year. then he doesn't seem to have that past catch. He's certainly got the past catching ability, but with Jalen Hertz and this Eagles offense, they don't seemingly use Saquana in that way. He only had 33 receptions. That would be like the only knock. And when I kept going back and forth between, is it Sequin or is it Bijan is my number one, it's really the passing work that was like the tiebreaker to me. 345 rushing attempts is a... That's a lot. A massive...

amount and it's way more than he's ever had. He had never broken 300. He got to 345. Really? He had never had more than 300 care. Not that I see. Not an intents. No, he got to 295 in 2022, but never over 300. He also had, you know, 13 rushing touchdowns. So, you know, when you talk about things that are prime for some variability, the. The long touchdown runs, the total touchdowns on the ground, but it's all in front of him right now. Yeah, I don't. It's very easy and very common. Whoever finishes RB1 last year, you frequently do put them at RB1 this year. But like this in particular, it's like, I don't, Sequin Barkley, injury aside is like it's going to be a success. Let's say somehow the Eagles aren't nearly as good as they were when they were.

winning a Super Bowl last year. Like, they're going to be very, very good. And the fall off for Barclay to me is like he's safe where I don't worry about that team imploding. And he'll, maybe he's at nine rushing touchdowns, but he's, I'm locking him one. We still haven't had the vote for the push push. That'll be in May. And so that, if the push push gets banned and you're talking about a guy who. you know, in Jalen Hertz who has 10 tush-bush touchdowns on the docket going away, even if five of those turn into handoffs for Barclay, that is a real needle mover. That would be an interesting discussion on the implications because it would help Barclay. It would probably help A.J. Brown around the goal line as well. I wonder if they would just find a sneak play. Yeah. Well, he can just, yeah, he could just. That's what I mean. I was like, okay, fine, we won't push. You could just sneak the way.

Brady. Yeah, Brady didn't squat 600 pounds. And it's like, I wonder what his conversion was on fourth and one. Kyle, you should look that up because I feel like it's got to be. Brady was unbelievable. It's got to be like 90%. He just read the right gaps. All right. And number two is Bijan. He's number one on, I guess now Jason in my list. That's right. Mike has him at three. I tried to look up an interesting little fact or stat on all of our top 15 running backs. For Bijon, the one that I found is not only, or things that surprised me, he had the second most total touches in the NFL last year, which was just behind Seguan, who we talked about. He was only stuffed on 14% of carries, which was the second best number in the entire league. So freaking good, man. He's younger, obviously. But when you talk about, you know, Mike, you brought up the stability in Philly, the offensive pieces. They're locked up. You know what you're getting, the offensive line.

There are more variables in Atlanta. Now, you know, it's hard to repeat as number one at the running back position. So this is a player in Bijon that has every ability to be that number one. But you're also going to get a whole season with, you know, Kirk Cousins is not going to be the starter. But Bejohn should be the backbone, right? And he was game script proof for Atlanta last year. It was really impressive. High success rate ever for a running back of 250 plus carries. He was solid. And, I mean, he closed out the year. So Michael Pennix played the last three games, 16, 17, and 18 where Bijan was running back 8, 5, and 2. Now two of those three teams, you had the New York Giants and you had the Carolina Panthers. So, and one of those teams was Washington. So RB5 against Washington, playoff team. The other two teams that you're like, we should beat the crap out of this team.

But it's just, you know, it's nice to see they really, really turned to Bijon at the end. In that three game, in that three game sample with Michael Pennix, very small. But we love to extrapolate those out. Yeah, we do. You want to hear what the fun one? We got a fun one. Well, we got a nice 69 targets. So that passing volume was still there. I wish that was higher. You wish it was higher, but it couldn't be because he was on pace for 380 carries, 2006 rushing yards and 34 touchdowns on the ground. Bejan is. strange to me because a great player, incredible fantasy football player, but you got for this, this fantasy sandwich here, we got Sequin at the top, and then we got Jamir Gibbs next. It's like, Bejohn's not nearly as exciting as those. No, he's not. You just want the big breakaway touchdown runs. And Bijan has not had those yet. I will flash. He still can. He flashes on every single play, but he just doesn't have that 70-yarder.

Breakway. I think that those are not predictable, but still can happen for him. And I think will happen. I call him they're predictable with Jemir Gibbs. Well, sure. I think we've seen enough Bijan to know that that's not going to be the major part of his game. But he's, you know, he's only had two seasons in the league so far. He's looked great on pretty much every carry. And he's about to peak. You know, the best running back year or age for max peak is 24 years old. So he's currently 23.8 years old, I believe. No, 23. He only ran for 10 or more yards on 11 of 121 carries. That was the fifth worst number in football. Yeah, he doesn't. So, you know. He doesn't get those. He just keeps gouging you. What's amazing is his teammate, Tyler Algier.

fourth best on those kind of carries, percentage-wise, of his carries. Sure. He doesn't get as many carries, but he made. The defenders are relaxing. Yeah, there ain't no way they're giving this one to Al Juer. Oh, they did it again. Yeah. So, so, you know, number one, Sequin, number two, Bejohn so far. And we'll take a break. We'll jump into the rest of the rankings. Jamir Gibbs. Jamir Gibbs comes in at number three. Mike, you have them up at number two. I've got thoughts on Gibbs. One of the... Fun facts I looked up. Number one, an EPA per play out of all running backs. That makes sense. So if you're not familiar with that stat that is expected points added per play, it's a metric that quantifies how much a team's performance on a play changes when you give somebody an opportunity. That is almost double the number of Sequin. He was by far number one in the NFL. We all know what the talent and ability of Jemir Gibbs is, but I...

When I got in here, and I looked at these names, there's not that many names in the top running backs that I feel amazingly 100% confident about. There aren't. But Gibbs is one, correct, or not? I'm still, no. You're not. Sequant and Bejanon. And I think to some degree, Derek Henry. Christopher McAfee? No. No, because I still, I mean, Christian McAfee, sure, he could. He could be. But you're nervous about it. That team has been dismantled. You're figuring out the quarterback. You have different offensive pieces. He's been hurt. I'm just saying from a, like, I love Jemir Gibbs, but I do not expect one bit that this team tries to philosophically change with David Montgomery. No, they don't. And if you look at the last four, so David Montgomery got injured in week 15.

So 15 through 18, that last month of the season, Gibbs was nuclear. In half PPR, he's scoring 30 fantasy points a week. Prior to that, he was fantastic. You know, no one is complaining about having them, but he wasn't that elite. He wasn't number three overall. Right. He wasn't the, I mean, 16.9 fantasy points per game. That's pretty nice, but it's not 29 point something else. Like, when David Montgomery was there, it's sad and frustrating how greedy we are watching those two players. I mean, like, I want more. They're doing awesome things. But I do see your point, Andy, of like, he's not going to be what we saw at the end of the year when Monty is there. The lions are not going away from David Montgomery. He's still, I mean, he's still talent-wise, you know, I think if he had the amount of opportunities that we expect Bijon to get, I would have Gibbs ranked higher. Yeah, me too. Like Gibbs, I think is a better.

fantasy football running back than Bijon. If opportunities were equal. So per touch, he's the better. I mean, literally he's number one in expected, or EPA per play. So it's like, it's just not, I don't have the confidence that he's going to get the opportunities that guarantee him number three as opposed to six or seven. One of the funniest stats that I didn't even realize, you know, you could track was. scoring the first touchdown in a game. Derek Henry scored the first touchdown in a game seven times this year, right? No number two was? It's got to be David Montgomery. David Montgomery started every game. Six times this year he was the first touchdown scored in the entire game. Even with David Montgomery and everything that's there, because I don't disagree. I don't think this is. And by the way, we all of them ranked two or three. It's not a full Gibbs takeover. But I'm also factoring in.