May 25, 2023 • 42 mins
Joe Pisapia, Andrew Erickson, and Derek Brown take a deep look at our expert consensus RB rankings and debate several running backs they have vastly different opinions on. Is it time to buy into Travis Etienne? The Pros will tell you!
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Timestamps:
Tony Pollard - 0:03:04
Bijan Robinson - 0:07:44
FantasyPros Championship at FFPC - 0:13:32
Nick Chubb - 0:17:09
Rhamondre Stevenson - 0:22:50
Travis Etienne - 0:26:02
Cam Akers - 0:31:58
Dameon Pierce - 0:36:46
Rashaad Penny/Khalil Herbert - 0:40:57
Alexander Mattison - 0:43:05
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy
Football Podcast. It is me Joey Pai, Joe Pizzapia, and
today we're gonna take a look at the early running
back ranks and tears.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That's right, We're going thirty deep on the running backs.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're gonna take a look at the Fantasy Pros expert
consensus rankings.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And then how are experts here?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
The one and only Derek Brown, Debro, the King of Rose,
Andrew Erics and mister Bigpod Energy. Where they differ from
the ECR and where they differ from each other. And
I can tell you this is gonna be a hot
show because I love Derek Brown. I love his beard,
I love his hat, I love everything about him. I
hate his running back ranks. And now he's spressing me
to go on to Team ericsonside, which is really upsetting
to me in the first place, just that notion. So
(00:42):
this is gonna be a hot show. You're gonna want
to watch this one. I'm telling you're gonna want to
watch on our YouTube channel, especially because you're gonna see
where these tiers are and that visual always helps. So
subscribe to our YouTube channel again. Fantasy Pros over on
YouTube YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros and click that
bell till that goes ding for notifications. Gentlemen, let's kick
it off here with the Elite tier on the ECR.
(01:03):
There's only four names on that S tier, that top
of the top grouping Christian McCaffrey up at the top,
Austin Eckler and have PPR at two, Jonathan Taylor at three,
Saquon Barkley at four. Obviously, I'm already annoyed because me
Jean Robinson isn't in that ECR tier yet, and I
want to emphasize yet now looking at this group, it's
not that different from what the boys have.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
As you can see on the S tier. You've got
your usual suspects here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
But I want to start with you, Derek Brown, because
you're putting Tony Pollard all the way at the top
of the pops here. You got to talk about this
because he is your number one RB or. Am I
having a stroke?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Nope, You're not having a stroke. I'm actually kind of
I'm happy and delighted that Joey Peede proved to me
that he can read it. Man, I'm super happy about this.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So I've been taking lesson, I've been taking extra school
tutoring after the show. Oh man, I'm hooked iconics, and
I'm hooked on Why you have Tony Pollard, who I
love and I loved last year?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
How is he the RB one? Is this just a
troll me? Like, what are you doing here?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Man, Tony Pollard is the truth. How could anybody not
sit here and love Tony Pollard? We want a path
to elite upside via rushing and receiving. How does Tony
Pollard not have that? Man? Like last year RB eight
and fantasy points per game. This is while he only
had a fifty percent snapshare and he didn't even get
fifty percent of the opportunities in this backfield, and he
(02:27):
was a top ten back. Now you're telling me this
year right now, he's got competition from Ronald Jones, iw hell,
no Malik Davis, no ric o'dowdo, who I love in Dynasty.
But no, who the hell is he gonna fight with
for touches? And don't come at me with Oh, they might,
they might resign Ezekiel Elliott right now we are recording
(02:49):
this show. Ezekiel Elliott is not on this depth. Chart.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Okay, what if he is? What if that happens, then
what happens to Tony Pollard in your ranks? Because he
is RB eight right now on Fantasy Pros and the Kings. Again,
if you want to see a fancy rose dot Com
slash rankings, that's where you can look along here. So
if that does happen and Zeke comes back on a
cooky little small deal, where does Tony Pollard end.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Up top five? He's not dropping out outside of my
top five ahead of consensus on him. And the other
part about this is I feel like we're having a
revisiting of you go back in time with you guys.
Wasn't there a time when we were like, man, you know,
I don't know if Austin Eckwer gets enough work. Man,
(03:31):
you know, I don't know if Austin eckwork gets the
red zone carries, the goal line carries. I feel like
we're dealing with a lot of the same things with
Tony Pollard, Like we haven't seen him own a backfield. Oh,
Zeke is still a free agent because well, ze sucks.
Tony Pollard last year was top fifteen in red zone
touchdown conversion rate. He was good when they gave him
(03:52):
red zone opportunities. Now we're saying he's gonna get a
bump and work. How much is to be determined, but
we've already got a sample that says that this dude
is elite regardless of whatever metric you pull up for him.
All right, all right, look he is eight ericson. You've
got him at ten. Tony Pollard, so you're on the
other end of the spectrum. And look, this is a
(04:13):
guy that I drafted everywhere last year because the price
was just impeccable.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
It was such a good return on investment. You could
see who that worm was going to turn in this backfield.
Now you've been very patient here waiting your time, Erickson,
talk to me about Tony Pollard on the other end
of the spectrum, because obviously you see something that Derek
Brown doesn't nor the UCR.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, he goes to the fact that he's never been
a featured back like that's he's never had tw hundred
carries in a season. So you're gonna ran guy RB
one then you don't think you can get two hundred
carries like That's the thing with me, which from an
efficiency standpoint, Yeah, he's gonna be efficient like he's always been.
But at the same time, Okay, if he's gonna get
more volume, do you think it's efficient, He's gonna stay
(04:50):
the same. Those things don't necessarily correlate. When you get
more volume, your efficiency usually goes down. There's a reason
why Pollard's been super efficients because he's had limited to
It's a lot easier to be good on a product
basis when you're not touching the ball three hundred times,
as you're not being subjected to the in between the
tackles types of running that Zekiel Elliott was getting. Tony
(05:11):
Pollard is getting the runs into space to pass out
of the backfield like it was advantageous of him in
the role that he was playing. And I mean, do
you really think I'm not going to add another running
back like they are possible?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, the fact that the running backs that you listed
that are that are alive in Dallas right now screamed
to me that they're going to add somebody else.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I think, I think it's all impossible. The other side
of this is we don't know how much they like
Malik Davis. We've seen backfields like think think about the
charges last year It's like, Okay, they're going to go
into week one with Joshua Kelly and Isaiah Spiller behind
Austin Eckler. We all said, oh, you know that's not
that great. Well, Dallas has had these guys on the roster.
(05:53):
I'm not going to rule out that Jerry and Mike
McCarthy like Malik Davis and Rico Dowbell more than we all. Right, Well, look, look,
I am.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I am excited about Tony Pollard, but I don't think
anyone is excited about Tony Power the way Derek Brown
is excited about Tony Pollard. Now I'm excited about Jean Robinson,
and thank goodness, Ericson, the level headed person that you
are today has him ranked at number two overall. That
is acceptable to me. I know not everybody want to
play him one. I want to put him one, but Ericson,
you've got him up at two. The ECR doesn't have
(06:24):
him in the top five in that S rank, So
why is he elite for you?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I just can't find a lot of holes to poke
in his game. You know, when I ranke running backs
a lot of the time, I'm not necessarily looking for Okay,
he's my number one running back. He has the highest
chance of finishing number one overall. There is some credence
to being looking at a player and saying, this guy
has the highest probability of finishing top five, which is
why I have him ranked second or finishing inside the
top three. Because if you look back at one of
(06:48):
these most one of the best running backs of fantasy
was Adrian Peterson. He like almost never finishes RB one,
but he was ranked as RB one every year because
he was always going to finish as the top three
running back and he stayed healthy. But for some reason,
there was always another running back that would always fitish
just ahead of him. Now that could be the case
of Bijeon. You know, he may not fish the RB
one overall. He probably won't, but I just feel so
good about it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I mean, I just don't think he's going to catch
enough passes to quit him as the RB one.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I think you're going to be surprised how many he catches.
Whenever you have a quarterback that you're concerned with, the
check down, Charlie all of a sudden starts to show
up there, and I would be shocked if he underperformed there.
To a lot of the expectations. I really do, and
I've said this now numerous times. If you go back
and look at Saquon's rookie season, he was RB two.
He was only behind Todd Gurley and his five million touchdowns.
(07:38):
If you look at Zeke's rookie season, he was RB
two overall in fantasy. There's no reason to end people
to say, well, the Falcons are terrible offense. The Giants
the year that Sekwon Barkley was a rookie, they won
five games. Don't tell me about how bad that Giant
team was because they were terrible.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But Joe Joe Eli Manning was tossing passes.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
He's all fame like.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So that goes without saying, all right, let's get to
another I hear who that you have debro in your
S tier, your super elite grouping here is Brees Hall.
Now I understand why, because he shows you that he.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Can be that guy.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But considering the ACL injury here and considering now that
you do have a team that's probably going to want
to throw the ball significantly more than they have in
the last few years because they have an actual quarterback
in Aaron Rodgers. How does this all affect Breese Hall?
And do you think this Breese Hall ranking is just
a little too high.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't think it's too high in the sense that
I want people above consensus on Breeze Hall. Breese Hall
is a low end RB one for a lot of
different people. If you're doing early best ball drafts, an
early redraft, I want you above consensus on Breeze because
everything that For people that are smarter about injuries than
I am have said that at right now they're not
concerned about Breefs simple tear of his ACL versus what Javonte?
(08:51):
What happened to Javonte? Or JK Dobbins. So right now
I'm projecting that Breeze is going to be ready to
roll week one. Maybe he splits a little bit of
the work, but he takes over the backfield within the
first month of the season. Man, And what we saw
at a Breesehall last year, you can't point to any
metric on the ground that he was not top three in.
And now we actually get competent quarterback play. And we
(09:14):
could say whatever we want about it about the level
of said quarterback play from Aaron Rodgers, But what is
going to happen in that backfield, and this offense is
we're not going to get stack boxes.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Brees Hall when he was on the field last year
saw these six highest average number of defenders in the box.
You look at Aaron Jones when he's had to face
over the last few years with Aaron Rodgers under center,
fifty fourth, forty seventh, thirty ninth. So now we're telling me,
and now we're talking about brees Hall top three efficiency
running back in the NFL last year, the health is
(09:47):
not a concern. The offensive line can play better because
they played terrible last year. I think they have nowhere
to go but up. Aaron Rodgers is in town, so
lighter boxes. Yeah, that's a bet I want to make. Okay,
that is a good ar argument. That is a Kojin,
very solid argument. It's nice to see you again, Derek.
Where you were we're in the Tony Pollard segment. But
it's nice that you're back.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
All right, Let's get to this other take here on
the other end here, because nobody was higher on Breeze
Hall last year than Andrew Erickson. To your credit, Andrew,
you crushed this one. You're all over Breeze Hall. You
have him as the first guy in your A tier.
Interestingly enough, if you go on the ECR, the A
tier is Bjeon at number five overall than Josh Jacobs,
(10:29):
Nick Chubb, Tony Pollard, Derreck Henry, all guys coming off
you know, either good seasons with Pollard and Josh Jacobs,
or guys with high expectations or track record like Derrick Henry.
You gotta go all the way at number eleven. At
Brecee Hall, he is in the B tier in terms
of where the ECR has and remandres at ten. Breeze
is at eleven, so you are a little bit closer
(10:51):
to where the ECR is. But I know you love
Breece Hall. So Andrew, do you think that as time
goes by, you're going to end up moving him up
closer to where Derek hasm.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Well, the only reason I don't have him in the
S tier is because of the injury. You know, I'm
trying to stay consistent. That's like why I didn't have
Cooper Cup in my S tier at wide receivers because
of the injury concerns with him coming off an injury
and Matthew Stafford. So I was trying to be consistent
with Look Brees Hall, Like, if we get more information,
if I learn more about his injury and I can
see him play during the pre or whatever, if I
can get more confirmation about his current health in real time,
(11:25):
then yeah, he's going to move into the stier because
I think from a talent standpoint, he's going to be
in there. Like I struggled trying to rank him, but
looking back at what I did with wide receivers, I
was trying to stay consistent. So that's why I put
him at the top of the A tier. Again, I
still want to be over consensus on Breese Hall. I mean,
you can draft him some of these best ball drafts
in the fourth round as your RB one, and I
(11:46):
think you can draft two stud receivers and then draft
Breese Hall as your hero running back. If he's healthy,
your team is going to dominate with that particular build.
So yes, you want to continue to draft Breese Hall.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, and look right now, some of these early age
got going on some of these places, like in the
FFPC Fantasy Pros Championship. You know, Breece Hall you're getting
some value on. Still, the later you draft in that,
the better chance you are going to miss out on
that value. So if you're going to I strongly suggest
that you get on that earlier than later, and you
(12:17):
head over to Fantasypros dot com slash Championship because that's
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you draft early, like I'm talking about, to get these
values on some of these guys like Breeze Hall and
maybe Jon two, you get an extra thirty five dollars
early bird credit if you sign up by June one
and you draft by June fifteenth. So again million dollar
(12:37):
first prize, and we're also giving away a bunch of
Fantasy Pros Betting Pros premium subs. So go get on that,
Go get on that early value. Nick Chubb is at
seven overall.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I gotta talk.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
This is another player that you know, big differences in
terms of what everybody thinks of them here at this table.
So the ECRs at seven, they have him in the
A tier. If you look at the rankings for Andrew Erickson,
you have him as the number three RB overall, and
you can argue he is the best pure running back
in the NFL right now, Like I'll listen to that
(13:08):
argument for sure. And ironically, when you've got him, Derek,
you've got Nick Chubb all the way in the A tier.
So it's kind of all over the place between the
two of you and the expert consensus. Andrew talk about
the very high ranking of Nick Chubb. Is it just
a simple fact of, Hey, you're buying into this Browns
offense year over year being much improved, and all of
(13:29):
a sudden you put Deshaun Watson top five rebound season
in there, and Nick Chubb all of a sudden becomes
a huge beneficiary of it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I mean, it's a combination of the upside. I think
that Nick Chubb has this year that he hasn't had
in past years. When you look at Okay, we can
finally see him locked more as a receiver out of
the backfield. Cream Hunt is not there on the team.
They have Jerome Ford there. He's not an established backup.
He hasn't done anything at the NFL level that would suggest, oh, well,
he's going to take on cream Hunt's role. Not necessarily
the case. I mean, Nick Chubb had the quietest fifteen
(13:57):
hundred rushing yard season last year that no one sees
every year five yard expert carry while also averaging like
two hundred plus carries every single season. So I'm just
trying to poke holes. Where's Nick Chubb? Like, where's his flaw?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Like?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
How does he fail? Last year he was RB six
with Jacobe Prissett a quarterback. It was only until Deshaun
Watson came back that Nick Chubb starts to struggle on
the ground. I think Sean Watson's gonna bounce back. I
think with Deshaun Watson, it's gonna be a top ten offense.
And what does that mean touchdown opportunities. Nick Chubb could
score fifteen touchdowns, rush for fifteen hundred yards, and have
career high interceptions and targets. So that's why he's the
(14:32):
top of the running back for him because even if
he doesn't do all those things. Oh no, he finished
as RB eight. What a horrible pick. But now you
have this untapped potential upside that he's never had in
a lot of these past seasons. So I think that
Nick Chubb is like the perfect pick. I just don't
see where you pick me, Like, oh, I drafted Nick
Chubb in the second round. It was a horrible pick.
It was a disaster.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Oh I love him in the second round. You give
me Chubb in the second round. Forget it. I'm the
president of the Chubb Club. Everybody knows that if Fantasy pros,
then I him the first president of the Chubb Club president.
I wish your T shirt.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Well, they told me I can't wear it on air.
I don't know why, uh now, Derek Brown to use
your logic against you, which you know is my favorite
thing to do. Nick Chubb behind him, We've got Jerome Ford,
We've got Demitric Felton, We've got John Kelly.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So why are you sour on Nick Chubb? Because ain't
nobody around that. I'm worried about how am I sour
on him? He's, you know, exactly in a lot of
different drafts. I have no problem with going with Nick
Chubb as like a hero RB if you go wide
receivers and he falls down the board a little bit.
(15:39):
The other thing about it is, I don't know if
he's as locked into being where he's been in previous
seasons from an ADP standpoint, because not everybody is as
high on Deshaun Watson bouncing back, including myself as Ericson is.
So I think that some of that considering because the
lasting taste that we had in our mouth from this
Cleveland Brown offense last year was oh, good lord, Deshaun
(16:03):
Watson sucks. Nick Chubb was rattling off front of yard
games and then Deshaun Watson came back and they were
all go, poof, They're out the window. And I'm not
far off of what Nick Chubb. Yes, he was RB
six last year, He's been RV ten and two of
the last four years, so we put him at RB
eleven is not throwing shade at Nick Chubb, but we
haven't seen a massive pass game role for Nick Chubb. Ever,
(16:26):
I'm not gonna rule out that Jerome Ford is not
going to factor into that backfield. I mean, Kareem Hunt,
as bad as he was last year, and he was
really bad, he still had a role in his backfield.
So if Jerome Ford is better than Kareem Hunt, and
I don't think that takes a lot of like mental
hurdles to sit here and get to that point this year,
then if the Browns are saying we look, we do
(16:49):
not want Nick Chubb getting more than that three hundred carries,
because he got three hundred freaking carries last year. Is
he gonna get more than that? Is he gonna go
Derrick Henry? I don't think so. I think this team
does not want to run him into the ground. Him
eclipsing that type of workload or getting a higher pass
game workload. Those are things that I just feel like
it's we're splitting hairs and it really is. Is is
(17:09):
trying to thread the needle to expect those things to happen.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
So you're not gonna draft Nick Chubb because of drum Ford.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I never said I wasn't gonna draft Nick Chubb, but.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You're not gonna get them an RB eleven. Like that's
the thing.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I just laid the case out. Eric said, people are not.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Okay. How good is the Brown office has been the
entire time Nick Chubb has been there? How good has
the Brown has ever been?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
How is it offense when Deshaun Watson their current quarterback?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Is it doesn't the thing Nick Chubb showed it has
shown us that he is QB proof, that he's going
to be a top ten running back no matter what.
But now you have the opportunity with Deshaun Watson if
he returned to elite status, Nick Chubb can be a
top three running.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Back, top top three, not three with no pass catching?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
What do you mean? What do you mean no pass catching?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
How how many? Wait? Wait, wait, guys, I'll take care.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I think the perfect place is where the ECR has
him at seven, because I think that splits the difference
of all of your potential upside Erickson that you were
laying out there, which I'm trying to buy into and
I'm slowly getting there. And then all of the realizations
that Derek Brown is throwing some cold water on like
you know what, if it looks a lot like it
(18:20):
did in December for the Cleveland Browns offense, that would
certainly be a huge bummer. But this is a good
conversation a lot of on the running backs to get to,
including Ramandre Stevenson, who you are very high on, Derek Brown.
You have him as the RB three. I don't think
anybody could love Breeze Holland or Andre Stevenson more than
Andrew Rickson. Yet here we sit, I don't know if
you've done too many shows together last year. I don't
(18:41):
know what's going on here talk about I understand the
Patriots are gonna be a run first offense.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So is.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
This your feeling that Bill O'Brien gets this offense back
to being at least respectable, because from a scoring standpoint,
they certainly weren't. And I think we can all understand
that if you go back historically and look at Bill O'Brien,
not listen, but look at.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
What he did on the field.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
He goes with certain running backs, and that's the guy.
So I don't want to hear about this, Yeah, we're
gonna we like all of our running backs nonsense, because
I've heard that story. But the data does not prove
that out at all.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Exactly all we hear is narrative street Well, Bill has
never done this with running backs. What did he do
with Romandre last year? He used him as an every
down workhorse in a bad, horrible, terrible offense. He was featured.
What do we have this year? This offense is going
to be better than it was last year. I don't
(19:35):
think that that should not be earth shattering news. Two
defensive minded coaches that are total morons trying to run
an offense versus Bill O'Brien running an offense is not
a huge intuitive lead that, oh look at that, Holy crap,
they're gonna be better. Bill O'Brien has loved using one
running back throughout his tenure in Houston. You can go
(19:56):
back to Lamar Miller days. You can go look at
Carvel's hide. Every single freaking time the last five years
I went back, every one of his running backs have
gotten at least a sixty percent opportunity share. Some of
those guys have gotten up to seventy three percent if
they could work in the passing game. So you're telling
me that Bill O'Brien is going to probably add his floor.
(20:18):
Give Ramandre Stevenson, who over the last two years has
been one of the most efficient running backs through the
air and on the ground, and he's gonna get that
type of opportunity in a better offense with Still, even
if you take mac Jones out of the equation, you
put Bailey Zappi under center, Neither one of those dudes
can run. They're going to check the ball down and
(20:42):
what is the great pass catcher that we're talking about
is going to steal targets away from Mandre who's that?
DeVante Parker, Taekwan Thornton. These are your heroes, Hellshan Boudi,
oh body, all right? Yeah, he is.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Now you've got him in your S tier still, So
I don't want to you know, let's not belabor Stevenson.
I just wanted to elaborate and expand upon the infatuation
of Vermondre Stevenson and Derek Brown together. What's interesting enough
is that he is in the B tier uh to start, So.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
He's not even you guys have have him as s's.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
You've got him all the way up near the top Debro,
and then when you look at the B tier over
on the fancy bros ECR, you got Ramandre at ten,
brees Hall at eleven, who we already talked about, Travis atn,
Najee Harris at thirteen, ken Walker fourteen, Aaron Jones at fifteen.
This is an interesting spot because we already have basically
highlighted two guys in Stevenson in the Hall that we
think are going to well outperform this ADP. And then
(21:40):
there's some other ones like Travis etn who I think
are a little bit more Uh. I would say, you know,
the dividing line is much deeper on because Debro you've
got him as a B tier as basically an RB two,
whereas ericson you've still got him closer to where ECR
is as an a tier guy. So ericson, let's talk
about ATN, who has dealt with some injuries. Obviously, the
(22:01):
first year was a boss. Last year looked much better.
Last year was really his rookie season, and we saw
the Jags make enormous improvements year over year. So are
you just buying into the overall improvements of this offense
to carry and hold and you saw enough last year
with Atn where you think there's even more room to grow.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, I mean when you look at what ETN did
basically in his pseudo rookie season, I mean, his numbers
look exactly like Jonathan Taylor from Jonathan Taylor's first two
years in the NFL. And I think that what's getting
where people are overlooking with Etn, at least the way
I view it, is they're just disappointed because, oh, he
didn't catch enough passes, Like why was he used more
in the passing game? And I've been harping on this
(22:39):
point so often on a lot of these shows, and
I talk about Travis Etn, which because you don't you
don't you know, coordinate running back targets when all your
skill players are healthy.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Why do you think.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Austin Eckler caught so many passes last year because all
the receivers were hurt. Why did Reminder Stevenson catch so
many passes last year because all the receivers are hurt
or sucked. When all the Jacksonville Jaguars receivers and tight
ends are all healthy, the offensive codat is not going
to scheme up plays for Trevor Lawrence to dump the
ball off the Travis Etn. That doesn't make any sense,
Like why would you do that. You have Kirk, you
(23:11):
have Evan Ingram, you have Zay Jones. Like those are
going to create more expected points on a per pass basis,
so that's where the ball is going to go. So
with Etn, everyone was disappointed by his pass game role
when the fact that they overlooked that, Oh he was
like top five and most running backfficiency metrics. He rushed
the ball over two hundred times. He was a workhorse.
Once they traded away James Robinson and it's like, oh
(23:32):
RB twelve, It's like wait, what He's on an ascending
offense and he is massively overdue for touchdown regression. There
are so many plays you can in my mind, like
replays where Etn dropped the ball at the one yard
line or he gets stuffed at the one yard line.
It's like, if he converts some of those touchdowns, We're
looking at him way differently. And I want to be
part of an offense that people are buying. It seems
(23:53):
like everyone who wants a piece of the Jags except
Travis Etn. And I'm like, if he's the workhorse, then
why are we not liking him?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So it's not gonna get more targets for the receivers.
But Calvin Ridley now in town.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
You don't sarily know that it's one guy.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Well Calvin, I think I do know that.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
But is Calvin Ridley targets from Zay Jones? They're not
operating the same area the field. What I'm looking at,
what I'm looking at specifically is look at Evan Ingram.
Evan Ingram has been a guy that's been hurt all
the time. Where do Titans operate on the field at
the intermediate level? That's a fair laugh. And Evan Ingram
stayed healthy all of last year. Like, do you think
(24:31):
it's gonna happen again? If it doesn't happen again, Etn
is going to cast more passes because Evon Ingram's not
on the field. IACU the up short targets.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
It's an interesting it's an interesting argument for So let's
go to the other side, Derek Brown, who does not
seem to like Travis Atn in his rankings.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So why Debro, Why it's the same situation as Kenneth Walker.
They drafted a guy in the third round.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
No, No, Tank Bigsby is different from sach Jarboney. The
third and second round is not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I agree, and I don't think Tank Bigsby is anything close.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
To That's not the same thing. It's not the same draft.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I think Debro knows that in his heart of hearts. Okay,
we're gonna sharbona guy. I've done enough draft shows with you,
Debro to know you're a sharbon a guy.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Okay, So we're gonna shade a guy that was top
fifteen and in yards contact per attempt and pff elusive
rating over the last in two of the last three seasons.
We're gonna shade that guy who just arrived in Jacksonville.
He's a North South runner and Travis Etn for everything
that that Erickson is talking about touchdown regression. The other
(25:33):
side of this is maybe Travis Etn is just a
bad goal line back. He was fifty seventh out of
sixty five running backs and red zone touchdown conversion rate.
You could talk We could talk about that being unlucky.
We can also talk about that being part of Etn's
running style. He's not a hard runner. He's a runway back.
He relies on speed. He's not a tackle breaker, as
(25:53):
he is so much an elusive back because of his
speed to get around the edge and outrun people. So
I think it's telling when Jacksonville brought back to Michael Hasty,
they had trust in him, and they signed Ernest Johnson,
and they still felt the need to bring in a
back like Tank Bigsby in the third round. He's gonna
(26:13):
factor into this backfield. And I want to sit here
and throw the flip side back to Ericson in the
conversation and the argument you're making for Etn being a
better pass catcher getting more pass game work, what happens, Ericson,
if Jacksonville stays healthy again, what happens if that help
happens is not Travis Etn. It's not Okay, so one
(26:36):
hundred percent definitively not gonna happen. They're all gonna get hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Right that they were the healthiest team last year, would
you bet if you had to make a bet on?
Oh yeah, the team of stayed healthy. That excellent. So
be the healthiest team again for two straights years.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Get hurt. Evn Ingram can get hurt. Calvin Ridley and
Christian Kirk can still mean less targets for Etn. You
know what's fascinating too, that you've got to bis be
in your top fifty here, oh your top thirty rather
excuse me, Ericson doesn't have him at all in his
top thirty.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, because he's not that great. And you know when
Debro's talking about him being top fifteen, it's because he
wasn't good enough to be in the top ten. That's
why he says top ex Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Good lord, come on, oh lord, all right, let's go
to the next one here, because this is fun. This
is the best time going to have all week. I
can tell you right now, this is great. I could
do this for three hours.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
We won't like no, no, no, that's that's for that's
for discord.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's when he joined the discord on the chat and
then when you join Fast Roads Discord you get these conversations,
unfiltered transition.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's that's right.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Let's talk a little about cam Akers, another guy that
is a big difference here in terms of where you
guys have him, where the ECR has him, because if
you look in this next tier here where you start
to drop down. So we did the S, we did
the A, we did the B. So in the C
tier right now on the ECR, you've got Dalvin Cook.
You've got Jamior Gibbs at seventeen, which is I think
(27:56):
the three of us all agree that's steel there, Like,
that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
That's not going to hold again.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Early FFPC Fantasy Pro Championship drafts, you better be drafting
him if that's where he's going.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
JK.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Dobbins, Joe Mixon, who we're gonna talk about in a second,
Miles Sanders, Damian Pierce, cam Akers, James Connor, Rashad White,
Isaiah Pacheco. There's a lot of guys in this list
that are different here with your rankings. Cam Akers is
the first one because you continue to be very pro
cam Akers.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Debro ericson not so much. Ericson's got him in Tier B,
You've got him in Tier A. Ericson.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Let's talk about cam makers here for a second. Let's
let you be negative first and seef Debro can pull
this out of the tailspin. So why are you negative
on cam Makers when if you do look at when
he was given the touches and committed to the performances
were pretty good last year to close out the season.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, where's cam Makers in terms of ECR.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Cam Makers in terms of ECR is deda da RB
twenty two in half VPR.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
That's where I have him ranked. Like, I'm not low
on cant maker.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
You or just consensus. That's fine, So Debro, you are
much higher obviously it's.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Not actually I'm higher on I'm I have cam Makers
at RB nineteen or RB nineteen.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, okay, I like him a little more at ACR.
But no one can like him as much as Derek Brown.
So Derek Brown, why do you like him so much?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I mean we saw that last year inside of a
broken offense, he was an RB one Like weeks thirteen
through eighteen he was the RB six and fantasy points
per game.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
But it's not going to be a broken offense this
year act if exact healthy exactly, it's not going to
be a broken offense.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So we're going to have a more efficient offense. We're
gonna have more scoring opportunities. And when cam Akers was
given this workhorse role or actually, you know what earned
the workhorse role week thirteen through eighteen, he had seventy
two percent or higher the snaps only one time did
he not do that. He averaged nineteen touches per game,
(29:46):
and he got one hundred percent of the carries inside
the ten yard line for the Rams. So when the
Rams get inside the ten and we're saying, okay, the
offense is going to be better than it was last year.
Although last year in this same role we saw Acres
performance in RB one better offense. He gets all the
goal line work. And yet people are like, yeah, but
(30:09):
I've been burned by cam Acres so much.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I just don't know what I'm gonna do. And but
we like Cooper Cup He's a definitive top five wide receiver,
so we believe that he bounces back. But somehow the
offense sucks besides that, and it's just it's it feels
like people are cherry picking what they want to believe in.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Well, in all fairness, there's a blueprint for that narrative,
because if you go back and look at the blueprint
of that narrative, when you know Cooper cut was lighting
it up and they went to the Super Bowl that year,
it wasn't like that backfield was, you know, incredibly fruitful
in fantasy.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
It wasn't. Well, it's probably good. I mean a lot
of that has to do with the fact that Darryl
Henderson's terrible.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
With Darryl Henderson. It was Malcolm Brown and it was
Cam Akers who was also there. He was in that
mix as well.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
So interesting conversation to HAMI was coming back from the Achilles.
It was a totally different situation too, stand but you know,
it's still one of those things. So when you have
in this tier Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon, what's so
interesting is that you've got them in the B tier.
So Debro's got back to back cook over mix and Ericson.
You've got mix and overcook. So why mix an overcook
(31:16):
for you? Ericson?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Because I know mixing is going to play the Bengals
and that's a good offense. And I think that they're
both guys that you're kind of hoping they score double
digit touchdowns. I don't think. I think we've seen the
last of them being efficient running backs like a running
style like a lot of the guys I have in
this tier, whether it goes from Rashad White, cam Akers,
James Connor, Mixon, Cook Pierce, are guys that I view
(31:38):
as RB twos that are volume based that I don't
expect a lot of efficiency from, And it's really how
how far will the offense take them? Like how much
volume can they handle?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Like?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
And that's why they're all the same tier for me,
because I don't really think there's a big difference between
a lot of them. Now I have them ranked in
a certain order in preference, but ultimately I either want
to be avoiding all these RB twos anyway and just
getting my studs early on and then taking shots later
in drafts, or getting whichever one guy the market teams
I hate this guy the most, like Josh Jacobs last year,
and they just draft him in like the eighth or
(32:07):
ninth round. Dick, Right, that's my RB two. If the
market says James Connor, we hate James Connor, I will
take my RB two in James Connor in round eight
or round nine, if that's where he falls, when people
are drafting Dalvin Cook mixing in rounds four and five
or what have you. That's the way I kind of
view this tier.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
There's another guy in this tier in ECR too, Damian
Pierce's at twenty one. Now, Debro, you've got him ranked
as an A ericson. You've got him ranked as a
V far closer to where the ECR is. So why
so high on Damian Pierce when you have a rookie
quarterback coming into a textan situation that is, you know,
certainly a tenuous one potentially in terms of what they're
(32:43):
going to be offensively.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
He was RB sixteen and expected Fantasy points last year
per game. I have him at RB sixteen. This offense
cannot look worse than it looked last year with Davis Mills.
Like CJ. Stroud, I don't think anybody is going to
sit here and fight me on this is a much
better quarterback than David Mills. Hands down. Even if you
say cidos draft doesn't play case, Keenum can still play
quarterback better than Davis Mills. They have better weapons around him.
(33:08):
I think the offensive line takes another step forward because
they did have parts and pieces, and as much as
Ericsson's talked about with San Francisco guys coming over, this
team is going to run the damn ball. And I'm
not worried about Devin Singletary. Nobody should be worried about
Devin Singletary because Devin Singletary hasn't been good in a
very very long time. So I don't think that he's
(33:29):
going to steal work away from Damian Pierce, who if
you look at everything last year outside of the RB
sixteen ranking and expected fantasy points, do was top twelve
an opportunities here, top twelve, innovated tackles now going into
an offense where again I think they're going to be
run heavy. Yeah, I'll look at Damian Pierce as the
top twenty back.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
What's the difference that la Damian Piers and Draves ETN?
Why do you have ETN? And it's separate here from
James gear.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Thank is actually good at football and Devin Singletary is not.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Has been able to hold off multiple running backs and
hold starting role on a Bill's offense for three years.
That doesn't make him good he's established player. Tank Bigsby
is not taking a single snap and you're looking at
him like, oh, well, he's gonna be a major tank
big bees better than Devin Singletary doesn't played to tell
you put out a ball.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Ask the people, like, I don't think it's a hot take.
Tank Bigsby is a better NFL player than Devin.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
But but I'm not asking you about the running backs
behind him.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Well, you can't even say that, Derek. You could say
he will be you will think you will be a BEBI.
That's fine. Will be is fair. You can't say he
is because he hasn't played.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You're facing Pierce over ETM because of their backups, not
because of the players themselves.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
No, I consider and tell you that I think Damian
Pierce is just as talented as Travis Etn.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, but he's playing with Trevor Lawrence and the other
one's playing with a Rooie quarterback in c. J. Stroud,
and it doesn't I'm nearly the amount of weapons to
make that offense.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Really, Ham, I just want to know why you have
Pierce had a separate tier above each Like, I just
want to I don't understand why, Like, why are they
separate tiers.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Because I'm not worried about his volume and I am
worried about so that is a that is a good counter.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
The volume for Damian Pierce, I think is going to
be there, especially because of the rookie quarterback. But again,
volume is great, quality volume is better. I don't know
if if Aten gets the quality volume I think he'll get.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I think he'll get volume two. I'm worried about Etn what.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Like, by how much? You don't think t is gonna
get two hundred carries?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, So if he gets two hundred carries, here's okay,
here's the downside case for Travis Etn. Okay, if he
doesn't get more pass game work like you're projecting ericson.
If he gets the same similar target share that he
got last year and he loses out on the red
zone opportunities to tank Bigsby. Where is the ceiling and
the floor coming for Travis Etn? If he is an
(35:41):
early down grinder in between the twenties, he doesn't get targets,
he doesn't get touchdowns, Tell me where that ceiling comes from,
because that can happen because we saw him not get touchdown.
So he's banking on it in the red zone last year.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
That can repeat his upside the person in fact that
he plays on a high powered offense and that he's explosive.
That is not two things that David Pierce is not.
Not explosive, not on a good offense.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Not Okay, you're saying Damian Peerce is not explosive. All right,
let's get this.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
He doesn't have one. Get some other Perce has long
speed that's very different, which is not that different.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
From Wow and everybody, everybody, you know, Stephen Ay, everybody.
Let's let's bring it back here. Let's get back here.
Let's get to a couple other players. I want to
touch on.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Rashad Penny and Khalil Herbert. These are two of these
you roll the dice on guys. They're in the F
tier I know for ud bro Uh in terms of
where you have them erics, and they're both in your
D tier if you're looking in the D tier over
on Fantasy Pros, the C R. Swift, Montgomery, Javante Williams,
Alvin Kamara, Brian Robinson. Then you get Khalil Herbert who
I just mentioned, James Cook, AJ Dillon, Jamal Williams, then
(36:55):
you get Rashad Penny and Damian Harris. That closes out
the top thirty six. That's basically the top thirty guys.
So when you're going, you know, in terms of the
ECR and your rankings here ericson, you're kind of looking
it feels like there's potential for or more potential upside
here for a Shad Penny and Khalil Herbert, because if
you look at the raw numbers, when these guys are
(37:16):
healthy and on the field, they perform. So is that
what you're kind of buying in? Are you drafting those guys?
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah? I believe in the talents with both players. I
know that both players are efficient and good when they
get opportunities. I just don't know. I don't know what
the roles are going to be, Like, I don't think
that anyone really knows. You know, the Bears is a
three headed backfield between Herbert Foreman and Roshaun Johnson. Don't
know who the best running back is, don't know how
the team's going to favor which guy. And then with
a Show Penny. It's I think that just looking at
(37:44):
the Eagles backfield right now, for Sean Penny is actually
the best pure rusher on the team. But it's a
matter of does the team view it that way and
how many games is he actually gonna play until he
breaks down? Where I mean, I could see Penny being like, yeah,
you have him for a couple of weeks and he's productive,
and you start him and then he gets hurt and
then you just move on. So that's the way I
kind of view these players that I'm probably more bullish
right now on Rashaud Penny just because I do think
(38:06):
that he is a better running back as a rusher
than DeAndre Swift is. Where Herbert, again, he doesn't have
any draft capital tied to him at all. They seem
to really like Rosha and Johnson in more of a
three down role. And even last year, as good as
Herbert was, like, the coaching staff still refused to give
him a featured role and they just kept like, we
got to keep feeding Dave Montgomery. And it's like maybe
(38:27):
the team just doesn't always doesn't view Herbert in a
bell cow style, And it's either going to be it's
going to be Herbert plus Roshawn or Herbert plus Foreman.
Either way, it's going to be Herbert alongside another running
back and not Herbert alone in the backfield.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
All right, we're running out of time here, so I
want to talk about one more guy that is on
Ericson's list but not on debros, which I think might
be sacrilege. It's a guy you've gotten your seatier Ericsson,
for goodness sake, and he is the RB thirty eight overall,
so he's not on the top thirty in Fantasy Pro
so in all fairness, but deebro, let's talk about this here.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Alexander Madison. It seems like it's not a question of if,
it's a question of when Dalvin Cook is somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
So when that happens, where does Madison go? Because I
think this is just your conservative rank, am I correct,
until that news happens, because clearly the social media team
in Minnesota has already put logos of Alexander Madison over
on Twitter and everywhere else.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, I mean, right now, this is just me being
conservative as far as Dalvin Cook is still in this
froster the other part of this, and I think Alexander
Madison's not very good as well. Like I mean, I
think that there is a possibility he can get beat
out for this starting job. The contract they brought him
(39:41):
back on was not fantastic. It's not like they paid
him starter money, they paid him backup money. So the
other part about this is if you look at Alexander
Madison's efficiency every single season, his yards utter contact per
attempt has dropped every single season in Minnesota, his break
percentage has dropped every single season. His pff elusive rating
(40:05):
is dropped. Now we're talking like he's got Like I'm
not telling you. The backfield competition is fantastic. But even
assuming Dalvin moves on, I don't know if he's a
definitive to hold that job. Yeah, some interesting ADPs I
see two in the FFPC on some of these names.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
We're talking about. Tony Pollard RB seventeen. It looks like
he's going our ADP seventeen overall, pardon me, not our
RB seventeen.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
My apologies.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
So I know Derek Brown almost had his strup when
I said that he is going at ADP of seventeen.
You have Nick Chubb at seventeen also, which is in drink,
Breise Hall at twenty four, vermondre Stevenson at twenty five,
some really fascinating RB values and so these other guys
we talked about, Damian Pierce fifty five is the ADP
for him. Alexander Madison. If you do think that like
(40:53):
Erickson does that, maybe you know Madison takes over. He
doesn't have to be great, he just has to be
in this offense. Well, he's at seventy seven. So if
you want to get manage of all of these ADPs again,
go over get the early bird credits. Sign up by
June first, go to fancaypros dot com Slash Championship. Use
the promo code Fantasy Pros to get your automatic twenty
five dollars off your entry, and don't forget to subscribe
to the YouTube channel too. Got incredible short form long
(41:15):
form content over here on the YouTube channel. Incredible arguments
with my two best friends here, Andrew Ericsson Derek Brown. Again,
we could do this all day, but I imagine the
discord will continue to do it there. So join Fantasypros
dot Com slash chat to hear us continue to yell
at each other all summer long because it's fun and
this is what you're here for.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
That'll do it for us. But the story of the
game goes on for Debro and Ericson. I'm Joey P.
We'll see you next time. Kids. Thanks for listening to
the Fantasy Pros Football podcast. Follow us on Twitter and
Instagram at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube channel
at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy prost
Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy
Football Podcast. It is me Joey Pai, Joe Pizzapia, and
today we're gonna take a look at the early running
back ranks and tears.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That's right, We're going thirty deep on the running backs.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're gonna take a look at the Fantasy Pros expert
consensus rankings.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And then how are experts here?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
The one and only Derek Brown, Debro, the King of Rose,
Andrew Erics and mister Bigpod Energy. Where they differ from
the ECR and where they differ from each other. And
I can tell you this is gonna be a hot
show because I love Derek Brown. I love his beard,
I love his hat, I love everything about him. I
hate his running back ranks. And now he's spressing me
to go on to Team ericsonside, which is really upsetting
to me in the first place, just that notion. So
(00:42):
this is gonna be a hot show. You're gonna want
to watch this one. I'm telling you're gonna want to
watch on our YouTube channel, especially because you're gonna see
where these tiers are and that visual always helps. So
subscribe to our YouTube channel again. Fantasy Pros over on
YouTube YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros and click that
bell till that goes ding for notifications. Gentlemen, let's kick
it off here with the Elite tier on the ECR.
(01:03):
There's only four names on that S tier, that top
of the top grouping Christian McCaffrey up at the top,
Austin Eckler and have PPR at two, Jonathan Taylor at three,
Saquon Barkley at four. Obviously, I'm already annoyed because me
Jean Robinson isn't in that ECR tier yet, and I
want to emphasize yet now looking at this group, it's
not that different from what the boys have.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
As you can see on the S tier. You've got
your usual suspects here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
But I want to start with you, Derek Brown, because
you're putting Tony Pollard all the way at the top
of the pops here. You got to talk about this
because he is your number one RB or. Am I
having a stroke?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Nope, You're not having a stroke. I'm actually kind of
I'm happy and delighted that Joey Peede proved to me
that he can read it. Man, I'm super happy about this.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So I've been taking lesson, I've been taking extra school
tutoring after the show. Oh man, I'm hooked iconics, and
I'm hooked on Why you have Tony Pollard, who I
love and I loved last year?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
How is he the RB one? Is this just a
troll me? Like, what are you doing here?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Man, Tony Pollard is the truth. How could anybody not
sit here and love Tony Pollard? We want a path
to elite upside via rushing and receiving. How does Tony
Pollard not have that? Man? Like last year RB eight
and fantasy points per game. This is while he only
had a fifty percent snapshare and he didn't even get
fifty percent of the opportunities in this backfield, and he
(02:27):
was a top ten back. Now you're telling me this
year right now, he's got competition from Ronald Jones, iw hell,
no Malik Davis, no ric o'dowdo, who I love in Dynasty.
But no, who the hell is he gonna fight with
for touches? And don't come at me with Oh, they might,
they might resign Ezekiel Elliott right now we are recording
(02:49):
this show. Ezekiel Elliott is not on this depth. Chart.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Okay, what if he is? What if that happens, then
what happens to Tony Pollard in your ranks? Because he
is RB eight right now on Fantasy Pros and the Kings. Again,
if you want to see a fancy rose dot Com
slash rankings, that's where you can look along here. So
if that does happen and Zeke comes back on a
cooky little small deal, where does Tony Pollard end.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Up top five? He's not dropping out outside of my
top five ahead of consensus on him. And the other
part about this is I feel like we're having a
revisiting of you go back in time with you guys.
Wasn't there a time when we were like, man, you know,
I don't know if Austin Eckwer gets enough work. Man,
(03:31):
you know, I don't know if Austin eckwork gets the
red zone carries, the goal line carries. I feel like
we're dealing with a lot of the same things with
Tony Pollard, Like we haven't seen him own a backfield. Oh,
Zeke is still a free agent because well, ze sucks.
Tony Pollard last year was top fifteen in red zone
touchdown conversion rate. He was good when they gave him
(03:52):
red zone opportunities. Now we're saying he's gonna get a
bump and work. How much is to be determined, but
we've already got a sample that says that this dude
is elite regardless of whatever metric you pull up for him.
All right, all right, look he is eight ericson. You've
got him at ten. Tony Pollard, so you're on the
other end of the spectrum. And look, this is a
(04:13):
guy that I drafted everywhere last year because the price
was just impeccable.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
It was such a good return on investment. You could
see who that worm was going to turn in this backfield.
Now you've been very patient here waiting your time, Erickson,
talk to me about Tony Pollard on the other end
of the spectrum, because obviously you see something that Derek
Brown doesn't nor the UCR.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, he goes to the fact that he's never been
a featured back like that's he's never had tw hundred
carries in a season. So you're gonna ran guy RB
one then you don't think you can get two hundred
carries like That's the thing with me, which from an
efficiency standpoint, Yeah, he's gonna be efficient like he's always been.
But at the same time, Okay, if he's gonna get
more volume, do you think it's efficient, He's gonna stay
(04:50):
the same. Those things don't necessarily correlate. When you get
more volume, your efficiency usually goes down. There's a reason
why Pollard's been super efficients because he's had limited to
It's a lot easier to be good on a product
basis when you're not touching the ball three hundred times,
as you're not being subjected to the in between the
tackles types of running that Zekiel Elliott was getting. Tony
(05:11):
Pollard is getting the runs into space to pass out
of the backfield like it was advantageous of him in
the role that he was playing. And I mean, do
you really think I'm not going to add another running
back like they are possible?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, the fact that the running backs that you listed
that are that are alive in Dallas right now screamed
to me that they're going to add somebody else.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I think, I think it's all impossible. The other side
of this is we don't know how much they like
Malik Davis. We've seen backfields like think think about the
charges last year It's like, Okay, they're going to go
into week one with Joshua Kelly and Isaiah Spiller behind
Austin Eckler. We all said, oh, you know that's not
that great. Well, Dallas has had these guys on the roster.
(05:53):
I'm not going to rule out that Jerry and Mike
McCarthy like Malik Davis and Rico Dowbell more than we all. Right, Well, look, look,
I am.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I am excited about Tony Pollard, but I don't think
anyone is excited about Tony Power the way Derek Brown
is excited about Tony Pollard. Now I'm excited about Jean Robinson,
and thank goodness, Ericson, the level headed person that you
are today has him ranked at number two overall. That
is acceptable to me. I know not everybody want to
play him one. I want to put him one, but Ericson,
you've got him up at two. The ECR doesn't have
(06:24):
him in the top five in that S rank, So
why is he elite for you?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I just can't find a lot of holes to poke
in his game. You know, when I ranke running backs
a lot of the time, I'm not necessarily looking for Okay,
he's my number one running back. He has the highest
chance of finishing number one overall. There is some credence
to being looking at a player and saying, this guy
has the highest probability of finishing top five, which is
why I have him ranked second or finishing inside the
top three. Because if you look back at one of
(06:48):
these most one of the best running backs of fantasy
was Adrian Peterson. He like almost never finishes RB one,
but he was ranked as RB one every year because
he was always going to finish as the top three
running back and he stayed healthy. But for some reason,
there was always another running back that would always fitish
just ahead of him. Now that could be the case
of Bijeon. You know, he may not fish the RB
one overall. He probably won't, but I just feel so
good about it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I mean, I just don't think he's going to catch
enough passes to quit him as the RB one.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I think you're going to be surprised how many he catches.
Whenever you have a quarterback that you're concerned with, the
check down, Charlie all of a sudden starts to show
up there, and I would be shocked if he underperformed there.
To a lot of the expectations. I really do, and
I've said this now numerous times. If you go back
and look at Saquon's rookie season, he was RB two.
He was only behind Todd Gurley and his five million touchdowns.
(07:38):
If you look at Zeke's rookie season, he was RB
two overall in fantasy. There's no reason to end people
to say, well, the Falcons are terrible offense. The Giants
the year that Sekwon Barkley was a rookie, they won
five games. Don't tell me about how bad that Giant
team was because they were terrible.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But Joe Joe Eli Manning was tossing passes.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
He's all fame like.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So that goes without saying, all right, let's get to
another I hear who that you have debro in your
S tier, your super elite grouping here is Brees Hall.
Now I understand why, because he shows you that he.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Can be that guy.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But considering the ACL injury here and considering now that
you do have a team that's probably going to want
to throw the ball significantly more than they have in
the last few years because they have an actual quarterback
in Aaron Rodgers. How does this all affect Breese Hall?
And do you think this Breese Hall ranking is just
a little too high.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't think it's too high in the sense that
I want people above consensus on Breeze Hall. Breese Hall
is a low end RB one for a lot of
different people. If you're doing early best ball drafts, an
early redraft, I want you above consensus on Breeze because
everything that For people that are smarter about injuries than
I am have said that at right now they're not
concerned about Breefs simple tear of his ACL versus what Javonte?
(08:51):
What happened to Javonte? Or JK Dobbins. So right now
I'm projecting that Breeze is going to be ready to
roll week one. Maybe he splits a little bit of
the work, but he takes over the backfield within the
first month of the season. Man, And what we saw
at a Breesehall last year, you can't point to any
metric on the ground that he was not top three in.
And now we actually get competent quarterback play. And we
(09:14):
could say whatever we want about it about the level
of said quarterback play from Aaron Rodgers, But what is
going to happen in that backfield, and this offense is
we're not going to get stack boxes.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Brees Hall when he was on the field last year
saw these six highest average number of defenders in the box.
You look at Aaron Jones when he's had to face
over the last few years with Aaron Rodgers under center,
fifty fourth, forty seventh, thirty ninth. So now we're telling me,
and now we're talking about brees Hall top three efficiency
running back in the NFL last year, the health is
(09:47):
not a concern. The offensive line can play better because
they played terrible last year. I think they have nowhere
to go but up. Aaron Rodgers is in town, so
lighter boxes. Yeah, that's a bet I want to make. Okay,
that is a good ar argument. That is a Kojin,
very solid argument. It's nice to see you again, Derek.
Where you were we're in the Tony Pollard segment. But
it's nice that you're back.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
All right, Let's get to this other take here on
the other end here, because nobody was higher on Breeze
Hall last year than Andrew Erickson. To your credit, Andrew,
you crushed this one. You're all over Breeze Hall. You
have him as the first guy in your A tier.
Interestingly enough, if you go on the ECR, the A
tier is Bjeon at number five overall than Josh Jacobs,
(10:29):
Nick Chubb, Tony Pollard, Derreck Henry, all guys coming off
you know, either good seasons with Pollard and Josh Jacobs,
or guys with high expectations or track record like Derrick Henry.
You gotta go all the way at number eleven. At
Brecee Hall, he is in the B tier in terms
of where the ECR has and remandres at ten. Breeze
is at eleven, so you are a little bit closer
(10:51):
to where the ECR is. But I know you love
Breece Hall. So Andrew, do you think that as time
goes by, you're going to end up moving him up
closer to where Derek hasm.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Well, the only reason I don't have him in the
S tier is because of the injury. You know, I'm
trying to stay consistent. That's like why I didn't have
Cooper Cup in my S tier at wide receivers because
of the injury concerns with him coming off an injury
and Matthew Stafford. So I was trying to be consistent
with Look Brees Hall, Like, if we get more information,
if I learn more about his injury and I can
see him play during the pre or whatever, if I
can get more confirmation about his current health in real time,
(11:25):
then yeah, he's going to move into the stier because
I think from a talent standpoint, he's going to be
in there. Like I struggled trying to rank him, but
looking back at what I did with wide receivers, I
was trying to stay consistent. So that's why I put
him at the top of the A tier. Again, I
still want to be over consensus on Breese Hall. I mean,
you can draft him some of these best ball drafts
in the fourth round as your RB one, and I
(11:46):
think you can draft two stud receivers and then draft
Breese Hall as your hero running back. If he's healthy,
your team is going to dominate with that particular build.
So yes, you want to continue to draft Breese Hall.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, and look right now, some of these early age
got going on some of these places, like in the
FFPC Fantasy Pros Championship. You know, Breece Hall you're getting
some value on. Still, the later you draft in that,
the better chance you are going to miss out on
that value. So if you're going to I strongly suggest
that you get on that earlier than later, and you
(12:17):
head over to Fantasypros dot com slash Championship because that's
the place to be and use that promo code Fantasy
Pros when you go ahead and sign up, and if
you draft early, like I'm talking about, to get these
values on some of these guys like Breeze Hall and
maybe Jon two, you get an extra thirty five dollars
early bird credit if you sign up by June one
and you draft by June fifteenth. So again million dollar
(12:37):
first prize, and we're also giving away a bunch of
Fantasy Pros Betting Pros premium subs. So go get on that,
Go get on that early value. Nick Chubb is at
seven overall.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I gotta talk.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
This is another player that you know, big differences in
terms of what everybody thinks of them here at this table.
So the ECRs at seven, they have him in the
A tier. If you look at the rankings for Andrew Erickson,
you have him as the number three RB overall, and
you can argue he is the best pure running back
in the NFL right now, Like I'll listen to that
(13:08):
argument for sure. And ironically, when you've got him, Derek,
you've got Nick Chubb all the way in the A tier.
So it's kind of all over the place between the
two of you and the expert consensus. Andrew talk about
the very high ranking of Nick Chubb. Is it just
a simple fact of, Hey, you're buying into this Browns
offense year over year being much improved, and all of
(13:29):
a sudden you put Deshaun Watson top five rebound season
in there, and Nick Chubb all of a sudden becomes
a huge beneficiary of it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I mean, it's a combination of the upside. I think
that Nick Chubb has this year that he hasn't had
in past years. When you look at Okay, we can
finally see him locked more as a receiver out of
the backfield. Cream Hunt is not there on the team.
They have Jerome Ford there. He's not an established backup.
He hasn't done anything at the NFL level that would suggest, oh, well,
he's going to take on cream Hunt's role. Not necessarily
the case. I mean, Nick Chubb had the quietest fifteen
(13:57):
hundred rushing yard season last year that no one sees
every year five yard expert carry while also averaging like
two hundred plus carries every single season. So I'm just
trying to poke holes. Where's Nick Chubb? Like, where's his flaw?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Like?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
How does he fail? Last year he was RB six
with Jacobe Prissett a quarterback. It was only until Deshaun
Watson came back that Nick Chubb starts to struggle on
the ground. I think Sean Watson's gonna bounce back. I
think with Deshaun Watson, it's gonna be a top ten offense.
And what does that mean touchdown opportunities. Nick Chubb could
score fifteen touchdowns, rush for fifteen hundred yards, and have
career high interceptions and targets. So that's why he's the
(14:32):
top of the running back for him because even if
he doesn't do all those things. Oh no, he finished
as RB eight. What a horrible pick. But now you
have this untapped potential upside that he's never had in
a lot of these past seasons. So I think that
Nick Chubb is like the perfect pick. I just don't
see where you pick me, Like, oh, I drafted Nick
Chubb in the second round. It was a horrible pick.
It was a disaster.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Oh I love him in the second round. You give
me Chubb in the second round. Forget it. I'm the
president of the Chubb Club. Everybody knows that if Fantasy pros,
then I him the first president of the Chubb Club president.
I wish your T shirt.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Well, they told me I can't wear it on air.
I don't know why, uh now, Derek Brown to use
your logic against you, which you know is my favorite
thing to do. Nick Chubb behind him, We've got Jerome Ford,
We've got Demitric Felton, We've got John Kelly.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So why are you sour on Nick Chubb? Because ain't
nobody around that. I'm worried about how am I sour
on him? He's, you know, exactly in a lot of
different drafts. I have no problem with going with Nick
Chubb as like a hero RB if you go wide
receivers and he falls down the board a little bit.
(15:39):
The other thing about it is, I don't know if
he's as locked into being where he's been in previous
seasons from an ADP standpoint, because not everybody is as
high on Deshaun Watson bouncing back, including myself as Ericson is.
So I think that some of that considering because the
lasting taste that we had in our mouth from this
Cleveland Brown offense last year was oh, good lord, Deshaun
(16:03):
Watson sucks. Nick Chubb was rattling off front of yard
games and then Deshaun Watson came back and they were
all go, poof, They're out the window. And I'm not
far off of what Nick Chubb. Yes, he was RB
six last year, He's been RV ten and two of
the last four years, so we put him at RB
eleven is not throwing shade at Nick Chubb, but we
haven't seen a massive pass game role for Nick Chubb. Ever,
(16:26):
I'm not gonna rule out that Jerome Ford is not
going to factor into that backfield. I mean, Kareem Hunt,
as bad as he was last year, and he was
really bad, he still had a role in his backfield.
So if Jerome Ford is better than Kareem Hunt, and
I don't think that takes a lot of like mental
hurdles to sit here and get to that point this year,
then if the Browns are saying we look, we do
(16:49):
not want Nick Chubb getting more than that three hundred carries,
because he got three hundred freaking carries last year. Is
he gonna get more than that? Is he gonna go
Derrick Henry? I don't think so. I think this team
does not want to run him into the ground. Him
eclipsing that type of workload or getting a higher pass
game workload. Those are things that I just feel like
it's we're splitting hairs and it really is. Is is
(17:09):
trying to thread the needle to expect those things to happen.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
So you're not gonna draft Nick Chubb because of drum Ford.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I never said I wasn't gonna draft Nick Chubb, but.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You're not gonna get them an RB eleven. Like that's
the thing.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I just laid the case out. Eric said, people are not.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Okay. How good is the Brown office has been the
entire time Nick Chubb has been there? How good has
the Brown has ever been?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
How is it offense when Deshaun Watson their current quarterback?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Is it doesn't the thing Nick Chubb showed it has
shown us that he is QB proof, that he's going
to be a top ten running back no matter what.
But now you have the opportunity with Deshaun Watson if
he returned to elite status, Nick Chubb can be a
top three running.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Back, top top three, not three with no pass catching?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
What do you mean? What do you mean no pass catching?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
How how many? Wait? Wait, wait, guys, I'll take care.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I think the perfect place is where the ECR has
him at seven, because I think that splits the difference
of all of your potential upside Erickson that you were
laying out there, which I'm trying to buy into and
I'm slowly getting there. And then all of the realizations
that Derek Brown is throwing some cold water on like
you know what, if it looks a lot like it
(18:20):
did in December for the Cleveland Browns offense, that would
certainly be a huge bummer. But this is a good
conversation a lot of on the running backs to get to,
including Ramandre Stevenson, who you are very high on, Derek Brown.
You have him as the RB three. I don't think
anybody could love Breeze Holland or Andre Stevenson more than
Andrew Rickson. Yet here we sit, I don't know if
you've done too many shows together last year. I don't
(18:41):
know what's going on here talk about I understand the
Patriots are gonna be a run first offense.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So is.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
This your feeling that Bill O'Brien gets this offense back
to being at least respectable, because from a scoring standpoint,
they certainly weren't. And I think we can all understand
that if you go back historically and look at Bill O'Brien,
not listen, but look at.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
What he did on the field.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
He goes with certain running backs, and that's the guy.
So I don't want to hear about this, Yeah, we're
gonna we like all of our running backs nonsense, because
I've heard that story. But the data does not prove
that out at all.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Exactly all we hear is narrative street Well, Bill has
never done this with running backs. What did he do
with Romandre last year? He used him as an every
down workhorse in a bad, horrible, terrible offense. He was featured.
What do we have this year? This offense is going
to be better than it was last year. I don't
(19:35):
think that that should not be earth shattering news. Two
defensive minded coaches that are total morons trying to run
an offense versus Bill O'Brien running an offense is not
a huge intuitive lead that, oh look at that, Holy crap,
they're gonna be better. Bill O'Brien has loved using one
running back throughout his tenure in Houston. You can go
(19:56):
back to Lamar Miller days. You can go look at
Carvel's hide. Every single freaking time the last five years
I went back, every one of his running backs have
gotten at least a sixty percent opportunity share. Some of
those guys have gotten up to seventy three percent if
they could work in the passing game. So you're telling
me that Bill O'Brien is going to probably add his floor.
(20:18):
Give Ramandre Stevenson, who over the last two years has
been one of the most efficient running backs through the
air and on the ground, and he's gonna get that
type of opportunity in a better offense with Still, even
if you take mac Jones out of the equation, you
put Bailey Zappi under center, Neither one of those dudes
can run. They're going to check the ball down and
(20:42):
what is the great pass catcher that we're talking about
is going to steal targets away from Mandre who's that?
DeVante Parker, Taekwan Thornton. These are your heroes, Hellshan Boudi,
oh body, all right? Yeah, he is.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Now you've got him in your S tier still, So
I don't want to you know, let's not belabor Stevenson.
I just wanted to elaborate and expand upon the infatuation
of Vermondre Stevenson and Derek Brown together. What's interesting enough
is that he is in the B tier uh to start, So.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
He's not even you guys have have him as s's.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
You've got him all the way up near the top Debro,
and then when you look at the B tier over
on the fancy bros ECR, you got Ramandre at ten,
brees Hall at eleven, who we already talked about, Travis atn,
Najee Harris at thirteen, ken Walker fourteen, Aaron Jones at fifteen.
This is an interesting spot because we already have basically
highlighted two guys in Stevenson in the Hall that we
think are going to well outperform this ADP. And then
(21:40):
there's some other ones like Travis etn who I think
are a little bit more Uh. I would say, you know,
the dividing line is much deeper on because Debro you've
got him as a B tier as basically an RB two,
whereas ericson you've still got him closer to where ECR
is as an a tier guy. So ericson, let's talk
about ATN, who has dealt with some injuries. Obviously, the
(22:01):
first year was a boss. Last year looked much better.
Last year was really his rookie season, and we saw
the Jags make enormous improvements year over year. So are
you just buying into the overall improvements of this offense
to carry and hold and you saw enough last year
with Atn where you think there's even more room to grow.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah, I mean when you look at what ETN did
basically in his pseudo rookie season, I mean, his numbers
look exactly like Jonathan Taylor from Jonathan Taylor's first two
years in the NFL. And I think that what's getting
where people are overlooking with Etn, at least the way
I view it, is they're just disappointed because, oh, he
didn't catch enough passes, Like why was he used more
in the passing game? And I've been harping on this
(22:39):
point so often on a lot of these shows, and
I talk about Travis Etn, which because you don't you
don't you know, coordinate running back targets when all your
skill players are healthy.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Why do you think.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Austin Eckler caught so many passes last year because all
the receivers were hurt. Why did Reminder Stevenson catch so
many passes last year because all the receivers are hurt
or sucked. When all the Jacksonville Jaguars receivers and tight
ends are all healthy, the offensive codat is not going
to scheme up plays for Trevor Lawrence to dump the
ball off the Travis Etn. That doesn't make any sense,
Like why would you do that. You have Kirk, you
(23:11):
have Evan Ingram, you have Zay Jones. Like those are
going to create more expected points on a per pass basis,
so that's where the ball is going to go. So
with Etn, everyone was disappointed by his pass game role
when the fact that they overlooked that, Oh he was
like top five and most running backfficiency metrics. He rushed
the ball over two hundred times. He was a workhorse.
Once they traded away James Robinson and it's like, oh
(23:32):
RB twelve, It's like wait, what He's on an ascending
offense and he is massively overdue for touchdown regression. There
are so many plays you can in my mind, like
replays where Etn dropped the ball at the one yard
line or he gets stuffed at the one yard line.
It's like, if he converts some of those touchdowns, We're
looking at him way differently. And I want to be
part of an offense that people are buying. It seems
(23:53):
like everyone who wants a piece of the Jags except
Travis Etn. And I'm like, if he's the workhorse, then
why are we not liking him?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So it's not gonna get more targets for the receivers.
But Calvin Ridley now in town.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
You don't sarily know that it's one guy.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Well Calvin, I think I do know that.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
But is Calvin Ridley targets from Zay Jones? They're not
operating the same area the field. What I'm looking at,
what I'm looking at specifically is look at Evan Ingram.
Evan Ingram has been a guy that's been hurt all
the time. Where do Titans operate on the field at
the intermediate level? That's a fair laugh. And Evan Ingram
stayed healthy all of last year. Like, do you think
(24:31):
it's gonna happen again? If it doesn't happen again, Etn
is going to cast more passes because Evon Ingram's not
on the field. IACU the up short targets.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
It's an interesting it's an interesting argument for So let's
go to the other side, Derek Brown, who does not
seem to like Travis Atn in his rankings.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So why Debro, Why it's the same situation as Kenneth Walker.
They drafted a guy in the third round.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
No, No, Tank Bigsby is different from sach Jarboney. The
third and second round is not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I agree, and I don't think Tank Bigsby is anything close.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
To That's not the same thing. It's not the same draft.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I think Debro knows that in his heart of hearts. Okay,
we're gonna sharbona guy. I've done enough draft shows with you,
Debro to know you're a sharbon a guy.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Okay, So we're gonna shade a guy that was top
fifteen and in yards contact per attempt and pff elusive
rating over the last in two of the last three seasons.
We're gonna shade that guy who just arrived in Jacksonville.
He's a North South runner and Travis Etn for everything
that that Erickson is talking about touchdown regression. The other
(25:33):
side of this is maybe Travis Etn is just a
bad goal line back. He was fifty seventh out of
sixty five running backs and red zone touchdown conversion rate.
You could talk We could talk about that being unlucky.
We can also talk about that being part of Etn's
running style. He's not a hard runner. He's a runway back.
He relies on speed. He's not a tackle breaker, as
(25:53):
he is so much an elusive back because of his
speed to get around the edge and outrun people. So
I think it's telling when Jacksonville brought back to Michael Hasty,
they had trust in him, and they signed Ernest Johnson,
and they still felt the need to bring in a
back like Tank Bigsby in the third round. He's gonna
(26:13):
factor into this backfield. And I want to sit here
and throw the flip side back to Ericson in the
conversation and the argument you're making for Etn being a
better pass catcher getting more pass game work, what happens, Ericson,
if Jacksonville stays healthy again, what happens if that help
happens is not Travis Etn. It's not Okay, so one
(26:36):
hundred percent definitively not gonna happen. They're all gonna get hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Right that they were the healthiest team last year, would
you bet if you had to make a bet on?
Oh yeah, the team of stayed healthy. That excellent. So
be the healthiest team again for two straights years.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Get hurt. Evn Ingram can get hurt. Calvin Ridley and
Christian Kirk can still mean less targets for Etn. You
know what's fascinating too, that you've got to bis be
in your top fifty here, oh your top thirty rather
excuse me, Ericson doesn't have him at all in his
top thirty.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, because he's not that great. And you know when
Debro's talking about him being top fifteen, it's because he
wasn't good enough to be in the top ten. That's
why he says top ex Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Good lord, come on, oh lord, all right, let's go
to the next one here, because this is fun. This
is the best time going to have all week. I
can tell you right now, this is great. I could
do this for three hours.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
We won't like no, no, no, that's that's for that's
for discord.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's when he joined the discord on the chat and
then when you join Fast Roads Discord you get these conversations,
unfiltered transition.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
That's that's right.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Let's talk a little about cam Akers, another guy that
is a big difference here in terms of where you
guys have him, where the ECR has him, because if
you look in this next tier here where you start
to drop down. So we did the S, we did
the A, we did the B. So in the C
tier right now on the ECR, you've got Dalvin Cook.
You've got Jamior Gibbs at seventeen, which is I think
(27:56):
the three of us all agree that's steel there, Like,
that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
That's not going to hold again.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Early FFPC Fantasy Pro Championship drafts, you better be drafting
him if that's where he's going.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
JK.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Dobbins, Joe Mixon, who we're gonna talk about in a second,
Miles Sanders, Damian Pierce, cam Akers, James Connor, Rashad White,
Isaiah Pacheco. There's a lot of guys in this list
that are different here with your rankings. Cam Akers is
the first one because you continue to be very pro
cam Akers.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Debro ericson not so much. Ericson's got him in Tier B,
You've got him in Tier A. Ericson.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Let's talk about cam makers here for a second. Let's
let you be negative first and seef Debro can pull
this out of the tailspin. So why are you negative
on cam Makers when if you do look at when
he was given the touches and committed to the performances
were pretty good last year to close out the season.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, where's cam Makers in terms of ECR.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Cam Makers in terms of ECR is deda da RB
twenty two in half VPR.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
That's where I have him ranked. Like, I'm not low
on cant maker.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
You or just consensus. That's fine, So Debro, you are
much higher obviously it's.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Not actually I'm higher on I'm I have cam Makers
at RB nineteen or RB nineteen.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, okay, I like him a little more at ACR.
But no one can like him as much as Derek Brown.
So Derek Brown, why do you like him so much?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I mean we saw that last year inside of a
broken offense, he was an RB one Like weeks thirteen
through eighteen he was the RB six and fantasy points
per game.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
But it's not going to be a broken offense this
year act if exact healthy exactly, it's not going to
be a broken offense.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So we're going to have a more efficient offense. We're
gonna have more scoring opportunities. And when cam Akers was
given this workhorse role or actually, you know what earned
the workhorse role week thirteen through eighteen, he had seventy
two percent or higher the snaps only one time did
he not do that. He averaged nineteen touches per game,
(29:46):
and he got one hundred percent of the carries inside
the ten yard line for the Rams. So when the
Rams get inside the ten and we're saying, okay, the
offense is going to be better than it was last year.
Although last year in this same role we saw Acres
performance in RB one better offense. He gets all the
goal line work. And yet people are like, yeah, but
(30:09):
I've been burned by cam Acres so much.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I just don't know what I'm gonna do. And but
we like Cooper Cup He's a definitive top five wide receiver,
so we believe that he bounces back. But somehow the
offense sucks besides that, and it's just it's it feels
like people are cherry picking what they want to believe in.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Well, in all fairness, there's a blueprint for that narrative,
because if you go back and look at the blueprint
of that narrative, when you know Cooper cut was lighting
it up and they went to the Super Bowl that year,
it wasn't like that backfield was, you know, incredibly fruitful
in fantasy.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
It wasn't. Well, it's probably good. I mean a lot
of that has to do with the fact that Darryl
Henderson's terrible.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
With Darryl Henderson. It was Malcolm Brown and it was
Cam Akers who was also there. He was in that
mix as well.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
So interesting conversation to HAMI was coming back from the Achilles.
It was a totally different situation too, stand but you know,
it's still one of those things. So when you have
in this tier Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon, what's so
interesting is that you've got them in the B tier.
So Debro's got back to back cook over mix and Ericson.
You've got mix and overcook. So why mix an overcook
(31:16):
for you? Ericson?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Because I know mixing is going to play the Bengals
and that's a good offense. And I think that they're
both guys that you're kind of hoping they score double
digit touchdowns. I don't think. I think we've seen the
last of them being efficient running backs like a running
style like a lot of the guys I have in
this tier, whether it goes from Rashad White, cam Akers,
James Connor, Mixon, Cook Pierce, are guys that I view
(31:38):
as RB twos that are volume based that I don't
expect a lot of efficiency from, And it's really how
how far will the offense take them? Like how much
volume can they handle?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Like?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
And that's why they're all the same tier for me,
because I don't really think there's a big difference between
a lot of them. Now I have them ranked in
a certain order in preference, but ultimately I either want
to be avoiding all these RB twos anyway and just
getting my studs early on and then taking shots later
in drafts, or getting whichever one guy the market teams
I hate this guy the most, like Josh Jacobs last year,
and they just draft him in like the eighth or
(32:07):
ninth round. Dick, Right, that's my RB two. If the
market says James Connor, we hate James Connor, I will
take my RB two in James Connor in round eight
or round nine, if that's where he falls, when people
are drafting Dalvin Cook mixing in rounds four and five
or what have you. That's the way I kind of
view this tier.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
There's another guy in this tier in ECR too, Damian
Pierce's at twenty one. Now, Debro, you've got him ranked
as an A ericson. You've got him ranked as a
V far closer to where the ECR is. So why
so high on Damian Pierce when you have a rookie
quarterback coming into a textan situation that is, you know,
certainly a tenuous one potentially in terms of what they're
(32:43):
going to be offensively.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
He was RB sixteen and expected Fantasy points last year
per game. I have him at RB sixteen. This offense
cannot look worse than it looked last year with Davis Mills.
Like CJ. Stroud, I don't think anybody is going to
sit here and fight me on this is a much
better quarterback than David Mills. Hands down. Even if you
say cidos draft doesn't play case, Keenum can still play
quarterback better than Davis Mills. They have better weapons around him.
(33:08):
I think the offensive line takes another step forward because
they did have parts and pieces, and as much as
Ericsson's talked about with San Francisco guys coming over, this
team is going to run the damn ball. And I'm
not worried about Devin Singletary. Nobody should be worried about
Devin Singletary because Devin Singletary hasn't been good in a
very very long time. So I don't think that he's
(33:29):
going to steal work away from Damian Pierce, who if
you look at everything last year outside of the RB
sixteen ranking and expected fantasy points, do was top twelve
an opportunities here, top twelve, innovated tackles now going into
an offense where again I think they're going to be
run heavy. Yeah, I'll look at Damian Pierce as the
top twenty back.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
What's the difference that la Damian Piers and Draves ETN?
Why do you have ETN? And it's separate here from
James gear.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Thank is actually good at football and Devin Singletary is not.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Has been able to hold off multiple running backs and
hold starting role on a Bill's offense for three years.
That doesn't make him good he's established player. Tank Bigsby
is not taking a single snap and you're looking at
him like, oh, well, he's gonna be a major tank
big bees better than Devin Singletary doesn't played to tell
you put out a ball.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Ask the people, like, I don't think it's a hot take.
Tank Bigsby is a better NFL player than Devin.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
But but I'm not asking you about the running backs
behind him.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Well, you can't even say that, Derek. You could say
he will be you will think you will be a BEBI.
That's fine. Will be is fair. You can't say he
is because he hasn't played.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
You're facing Pierce over ETM because of their backups, not
because of the players themselves.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
No, I consider and tell you that I think Damian
Pierce is just as talented as Travis Etn.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, but he's playing with Trevor Lawrence and the other
one's playing with a Rooie quarterback in c. J. Stroud,
and it doesn't I'm nearly the amount of weapons to
make that offense.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Really, Ham, I just want to know why you have
Pierce had a separate tier above each Like, I just
want to I don't understand why, Like, why are they
separate tiers.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Because I'm not worried about his volume and I am
worried about so that is a that is a good counter.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
The volume for Damian Pierce, I think is going to
be there, especially because of the rookie quarterback. But again,
volume is great, quality volume is better. I don't know
if if Aten gets the quality volume I think he'll get.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I think he'll get volume two. I'm worried about Etn what.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Like, by how much? You don't think t is gonna
get two hundred carries?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, So if he gets two hundred carries, here's okay,
here's the downside case for Travis Etn. Okay, if he
doesn't get more pass game work like you're projecting ericson.
If he gets the same similar target share that he
got last year and he loses out on the red
zone opportunities to tank Bigsby. Where is the ceiling and
the floor coming for Travis Etn? If he is an
(35:41):
early down grinder in between the twenties, he doesn't get targets,
he doesn't get touchdowns, Tell me where that ceiling comes from,
because that can happen because we saw him not get touchdown.
So he's banking on it in the red zone last year.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
That can repeat his upside the person in fact that
he plays on a high powered offense and that he's explosive.
That is not two things that David Pierce is not.
Not explosive, not on a good offense.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Not Okay, you're saying Damian Peerce is not explosive. All right,
let's get this.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
He doesn't have one. Get some other Perce has long
speed that's very different, which is not that different.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
From Wow and everybody, everybody, you know, Stephen Ay, everybody.
Let's let's bring it back here. Let's get back here.
Let's get to a couple other players. I want to
touch on.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Rashad Penny and Khalil Herbert. These are two of these
you roll the dice on guys. They're in the F
tier I know for ud bro Uh in terms of
where you have them erics, and they're both in your
D tier if you're looking in the D tier over
on Fantasy Pros, the C R. Swift, Montgomery, Javante Williams,
Alvin Kamara, Brian Robinson. Then you get Khalil Herbert who
I just mentioned, James Cook, AJ Dillon, Jamal Williams, then
(36:55):
you get Rashad Penny and Damian Harris. That closes out
the top thirty six. That's basically the top thirty guys.
So when you're going, you know, in terms of the
ECR and your rankings here ericson, you're kind of looking
it feels like there's potential for or more potential upside
here for a Shad Penny and Khalil Herbert, because if
you look at the raw numbers, when these guys are
(37:16):
healthy and on the field, they perform. So is that
what you're kind of buying in? Are you drafting those guys?
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah? I believe in the talents with both players. I
know that both players are efficient and good when they
get opportunities. I just don't know. I don't know what
the roles are going to be, Like, I don't think
that anyone really knows. You know, the Bears is a
three headed backfield between Herbert Foreman and Roshaun Johnson. Don't
know who the best running back is, don't know how
the team's going to favor which guy. And then with
a Show Penny. It's I think that just looking at
(37:44):
the Eagles backfield right now, for Sean Penny is actually
the best pure rusher on the team. But it's a
matter of does the team view it that way and
how many games is he actually gonna play until he
breaks down? Where I mean, I could see Penny being like, yeah,
you have him for a couple of weeks and he's productive,
and you start him and then he gets hurt and
then you just move on. So that's the way I
kind of view these players that I'm probably more bullish
right now on Rashaud Penny just because I do think
(38:06):
that he is a better running back as a rusher
than DeAndre Swift is. Where Herbert, again, he doesn't have
any draft capital tied to him at all. They seem
to really like Rosha and Johnson in more of a
three down role. And even last year, as good as
Herbert was, like, the coaching staff still refused to give
him a featured role and they just kept like, we
got to keep feeding Dave Montgomery. And it's like maybe
(38:27):
the team just doesn't always doesn't view Herbert in a
bell cow style, And it's either going to be it's
going to be Herbert plus Roshawn or Herbert plus Foreman.
Either way, it's going to be Herbert alongside another running
back and not Herbert alone in the backfield.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
All right, we're running out of time here, so I
want to talk about one more guy that is on
Ericson's list but not on debros, which I think might
be sacrilege. It's a guy you've gotten your seatier Ericsson,
for goodness sake, and he is the RB thirty eight overall,
so he's not on the top thirty in Fantasy Pro
so in all fairness, but deebro, let's talk about this here.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Alexander Madison. It seems like it's not a question of if,
it's a question of when Dalvin Cook is somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
So when that happens, where does Madison go? Because I
think this is just your conservative rank, am I correct,
until that news happens, because clearly the social media team
in Minnesota has already put logos of Alexander Madison over
on Twitter and everywhere else.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, I mean, right now, this is just me being
conservative as far as Dalvin Cook is still in this
froster the other part of this, and I think Alexander
Madison's not very good as well. Like I mean, I
think that there is a possibility he can get beat
out for this starting job. The contract they brought him
(39:41):
back on was not fantastic. It's not like they paid
him starter money, they paid him backup money. So the
other part about this is if you look at Alexander
Madison's efficiency every single season, his yards utter contact per
attempt has dropped every single season in Minnesota, his break
percentage has dropped every single season. His pff elusive rating
(40:05):
is dropped. Now we're talking like he's got Like I'm
not telling you. The backfield competition is fantastic. But even
assuming Dalvin moves on, I don't know if he's a
definitive to hold that job. Yeah, some interesting ADPs I
see two in the FFPC on some of these names.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
We're talking about. Tony Pollard RB seventeen. It looks like
he's going our ADP seventeen overall, pardon me, not our
RB seventeen.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
My apologies.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
So I know Derek Brown almost had his strup when
I said that he is going at ADP of seventeen.
You have Nick Chubb at seventeen also, which is in drink,
Breise Hall at twenty four, vermondre Stevenson at twenty five,
some really fascinating RB values and so these other guys
we talked about, Damian Pierce fifty five is the ADP
for him. Alexander Madison. If you do think that like
(40:53):
Erickson does that, maybe you know Madison takes over. He
doesn't have to be great, he just has to be
in this offense. Well, he's at seventy seven. So if
you want to get manage of all of these ADPs again,
go over get the early bird credits. Sign up by
June first, go to fancaypros dot com Slash Championship. Use
the promo code Fantasy Pros to get your automatic twenty
five dollars off your entry, and don't forget to subscribe
to the YouTube channel too. Got incredible short form long
(41:15):
form content over here on the YouTube channel. Incredible arguments
with my two best friends here, Andrew Ericsson Derek Brown. Again,
we could do this all day, but I imagine the
discord will continue to do it there. So join Fantasypros
dot Com slash chat to hear us continue to yell
at each other all summer long because it's fun and
this is what you're here for.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
That'll do it for us. But the story of the
game goes on for Debro and Ericson. I'm Joey P.
We'll see you next time. Kids. Thanks for listening to
the Fantasy Pros Football podcast. Follow us on Twitter and
Instagram at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube channel
at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy prost
Hosts And Creators
Andrew Erickson
Joe Pisapia
Derek Brown
Thor Nystrom
Ryan Wormeli
Pat Fitzmaurice
Matthew Freedman
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