June 27, 2025 • 30 mins
Long time listeners know we've been espousing the Do The Opposite draft strategy for 20 years... because it works! Charch and Kent identify mid-round runners to target for those of us sloughing the running back position for 5+ rounds,
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly
source for the nation's best fantasy football advice, speculation, and
whatever stupid stuff they decided to drop into the show. Now,
here's your host, Paul Charchian.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly. I'm Paul Charchian. Co host
today Kent Wyrock.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hey, Kent, Hey, how are we doing? Paul Well?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I spent last weekend at Circa Swim in Las Vegas
for the Scott Fishbowl, the first drafts len of the
Scott Fish Bowl season. And as much as I love Minnesota,
and as much as I love the Minnesota event, it
ain't the same as being at Stadium Swim at Circa.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Let me tell you, Kent, oh, one hundred percent. I've
been there for a different fantasy draft actually, and I
was out there with some buddies, so we had a
lot of fun. And man, it's it's that plays down
in the downtown is like nothing else that that's around it.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It's yeah, it's the oasis of downtown.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Isn't Circa Fremont Street and all the man that's going
on there, And then down at the end you got
circa just lighten up the city.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
All right now, since we're talking about Fremont Street, and
I don't want to go old man and everybody shaking
his fist in the front lawn. But Fremont Street has
got people bring their kids all the time to Fremont Street. A.
You shouldn't be bringing your kid to Fremont Street. It's
(01:34):
like every twelfth person is smoking a doobie. There's a
you know, barely clothed people. There's all the all the
weed shops, there's these all these T shirt places that
have got really really deeply disturbing T shirts and just
stuff that no kids should have to have, that you
(01:55):
know should have that, in my opinion, have all of
that input on them. And so I got two the
two problems with the parents and some of them I
think don't know how bad it's going to be until
they get there. And then I just don't think Las
Vegas should should have that stuff in such in an
area that is where you know you're going to track families.
(02:16):
I'm not saying that stuff shouldn't exist. I just think
it shouldn't be somewhere where you know it's swarming with families.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
But Paul, what about the guys wearing the twelve year
old Ninja turtle costumes asking you for money?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah? Getting sure friendly, Well right exactly. That that bugs
me too, is you know, like every fifteen feet there's
some performer trying to shake you down for money.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Oh, big time. It's a shakedown city. I mean, if
we're being honest, well.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
It's certainly become a shakedown city. But I had the
first I had the six pick of the Scout fish Bowl.
And this new weird scoring system Kent is basically anybody
with a ball in their hand a lot is worth
a lot. Tight ends are still at a premium. And
so with pick six overall, I took the second tight
end off the board in Trey McBride.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I was gonna say it was Bowers one, huh and
then McBride second.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, yep. He prow was the first to go, and
then McBride. And honestly, I don't I don't necessarily have
a problem with that. In round two, I got to
Pukinnakua was there in the middle of round two, so
I'm like, okay, I'll do that. A lot of quarterbacks.
There were five quarterbacks taken in the first round and
just yeah and yeah, and so I decided I didn't
(03:25):
intend to, didn't go into the draft planning to slough quarterback,
but I did, and I ended up later taking Drake May,
Jordan Love, Gino Smith, and now I may take a
couple more stabs at quarterback later. But you know, we
don't have anything to go by. We were the very
first draft to go off the board, so we don't
have any Scott fish Bowl ADP. We don't have a president.
We're not you know, we didn't crack open the scoring
(03:47):
system necessarily the way people are going to later on.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, there were some people doing some mock drafts out there.
You can, you can find a little bit of information
if you want. But what I've found over the years
that when you get to the real deal, people pull
out the strategies that they've keeping up their sleeves even
through the mock draft season. So, uh, it's pretty tough
to get a good read on Scott Fishful stuff before
it happens, because it's different every year. It's always something
new with Scott and and it's great. I love that
(04:11):
because it you know, it's a good reason for me
to kind of go through the numbers a little bit.
See how it affects things like are people going to
be asleep at the wheel going through their normal routines
or are they going to be prepared to know what's
a little bit more valuable in this type of scoring.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So yeah, it's a lot of fun Two because it's
all flex this year. There are no mandatory positions at all.
One of our teams went seven straight running backs to
open the draft, and one of them went six straight
wide receivers to open the draft, and that's this is
the only time you're ever going to do that.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I was gonna say that that's funny to me because
I don't know if I'm want to be drafting any
wide receivers. If I'm being honest, you don't find out. Yeah, yep, Yeah,
it's it's a weird scoring system, for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It is. And some people have got are going to
have some real advantages if they if they cracked the
code early on it for sure. Speaking of drafting a
a lot of receivers early today, you and I are
going to talk about do the opposite. Now Kent, longtime
listeners are familiar with do the opposite because we've been
talking about it on this show for almost twenty years,
(05:14):
and then some guy put his own spin on it,
while it's not his own spin, he took, he took
our spin, called it zero running Back, and he had
a bigger platform than this podcast did, apparently, and the
thing took off. But we're talking about fundamentally the same thing.
It originated here on this show and in the print
versions of Fantasy Football Weekly, and we still call it
(05:35):
do the opposite because we know that we were first
by a decade and we're not a Johnny come Lately
to this concept. The IgA idea Kent, as you probably know,
is that running backs have the highest injury rate and
the highest failure rate. So we shouldn't be spending our first,
our most valuable picks at the top of the draft
on the most dangerous position, and we should put that
(05:57):
risk into the middle of our draft and go with
other other position players quarterbacks, wide receivers, and tight ends.
And you know, running backs obviously get hurt constantly because
they get tackled constantly, and it's all kinds of contact
for them, in high speed contact. And the other part
is they just they just come and go so fast.
(06:17):
Ken I'm gonna give you from just two. We're just
two seasons removed from these players being top ten EIGHTP
running backs two seasons.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Jeremy I don't like this, but let's go for it running.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Back two, Austin Eckler running back four, Nick Chubb running
back seven, Romandre Stevenson running back, nine, Najie Harris running back, ten,
Travis Etn. All of them are outside of the top
thirty running backs now just two years later. Meanwhile, Kent,
(06:53):
here's the here's the wide receivers were from the same year,
twenty twenty three. Top ten wide receivers by ADP, Justin Jefferson,
Lamar Chase Tyreek Hill, Cooper Cup, Stefan Diggs, Ceedee lamb,
aj Brown, I'm on Ross Saint Brown, DeVante Adams, Garrett Wilson,
and Jalen Waddle. Almost all of.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Them essentially all still in the mix, right up to.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
All of them at least partially in the mix, and
most of them, most all of them going inside the
top thirty, unlike Eckler, Chubbs, Stevenson, Harrison, etn. And it
tells you about just the volatility and the drop off
cliff for running backs. And by the way, quarterbacks. Just
(07:36):
as a side note, only two of the of the
top ten quarterbacks from a couple of years ago are
outside of the top ten this year. Otherwise it's the
same eight guys. Eight of the ten of the are
still in the top ten ADP. Right now, there's so
much stability at the quarterback position.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So yeah, we kind of went through a banner change
around that time from the old guard of like the
Philip Rivers, Ben Rotha Burger era, and now we're in
this kind of new standard era. So that's going to
last for a long time.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I think I want to tell you one of those
ten quarterbacks that were in the top ten two years ago,
Deshaun Watson. Now, yeah, those dumbasses, and I remember at
the time, I'm like, you guys are crazy, you don't
know what you're doing. And I think everybody's optimistic they
were going to get the old Deshaun Watson in Cleveland,
(08:25):
but it did not obviously did not work out that way.
So for do the opposite, we essue running backs for
five rounds. That was where I drew the line in
the sand. You get to decide if you want it
to be four, you wanted to be seven, or eight,
however far you want. But I for me, I go
five rounds. And let me tell you. If we were
to just draft Kent, you and I were going to
(08:47):
draft right through the middle of every round. Right now,
Let's go through five rounds without taking a running back,
and I'll tell you what your team would look like
picking guys by today's ADP as we're recording from the
middle of every round, and what your what your roster
would look like heading into round six. And then you
and I are going to reveal the running backs that
(09:09):
we would take beginning round six. So here's my here's
my sample draft. And obviously you could do your you
could do your own variations on these, and you might
be picking at the beginning of the first round, the
beginning of the first round, whatever, But we're just gonna
go through the middle. Your first five rounds could look
like ce d Lamb, Brock Bowers, Davante, Adams, or Terry McLaren. Kent.
(09:33):
You make the pick you want, Adams or mclauren. I
still like Adams there Adams to me too, Lamb, Bowers, Davante, Adams,
Jade and Daniels in the fourth round, and I'll go
Zay Flowers in the fifth round. So, Kent, how do
you feel about this team of CD Lamb, brock Bowers,
Davante Adams, Jaden Daniels, and Zay Flowers through five?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Well, I'll tell you what I'd be I'd be pretty
happy with that. If we can, you know, find some
running backs here that either can out outperform a or
if we get a little lotto ticket kind of on
the back end of the draft, we'll be fighting our
way into the playoffs maybe, but then by the time
we get there, we're gonna be crushing everyone. That's that's
that's the whole idea.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
That is the whole idea. It's you just either you
get just competent running backs who stay upright and you know,
just help you fill out your roster and let these
other superstar receivers go be great, or you hit a
lottery ticket with one of these picks and now you've
already got awesome receivers who are probably going to be fine.
(10:30):
And there we go. All right, I'm gonna let you
go first, Ken, So we've gone through five rounds, give
me your do the opposite first, do the opposite running
back you can get round six or later.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah. So the first one I'm gonna go with here
is Tony Pollard. And you know, depending on where you
look with ADP, like I looked at NFFC, he was
seventy two, so technically that last fifth round pick. But
we'll just say you can get him in the early
sixth round most likely. He's got three straight years of
thirteen hundred scrimmage yards and at least five touchdowns. That's
someone who's a running back too. That's someone who's you're
(11:04):
gonna throw in your lineup. You're gonna be fine with it.
You're gonna play the lotto tickets later and then get
someone who can have a little bit more upside than him, maybe,
but he's rock solid. Last year he was RB twenty
three points per game. He's never played fewer than fifteen
games in his six NFL seasons, which is a little
bit shocking to me. It's just rare to find a
running back these days that is, you know, always not
(11:28):
always healthy, but the best ability is availability.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So yeah, and I think that's key to do. The
opposite is we just alluded to this some minutes ago. Ken,
Just give me running backs who are going to be
healthy and just get me some decent point. Give me,
you know, ten PPR points on a weekly basis, and
that's all right, because we're talking round six, round seven,
round eight, round nine, round ten. Give me tech double
(11:52):
digit PPR points and that's a win in this. In this,
do the opposite format absolutely. And I know a lot
of people like to call this like the unning back
dead zone. It's a place where you don't want to
touch running backs because they're kind of, you know, still starters,
but not quite good enough to be the elite tier.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And I disagree. I think totally Pollard is pretty solid.
He's had positive rushing yards above expectation and every year
except twenty twenty three, so five out of six seasons.
It's pretty good. He was fifth among all running backs
in fifteen plus mile an hour rushes per game last year.
He's got the juice. And it's important that you find
guys that you know, a lot of this stuff can
(12:28):
come down to scheme and offensive line block and stuff
like that. So when they get their holes open to
them and available, they got to just you know, fly
through and pick up the yards and get the offense moving.
And I think Tony Poler is a guy who's capable
of that. He's not the most elusive of backs, but
he's someone who if you give him a good hole,
he's going to just run right through a real heart.
(12:49):
So he was doing these fifteen mile hour runs on
twenty two percent of his attempts last year. Where his
backup co running back whatever you want to call him,
to Jay Spears, he was only a fourteen percent of
that metric. So he's got a little bit more juice
where Spears might be a little bit more elusive, might
you know, force more mistackles. But Tony Pollard's the starter,
and yeah, we're just gonna We're gonna like that. So
(13:10):
you know, they added Kevin Zeeler to this offensive line.
They were twenty first in run block win rate last year,
So yeah, I really like it. I think that he's
going to do just good.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Kent. Let's take a quick break and when we come back,
more of the do the opposite running backs we are
targeting in the middle rounds of your draft. I'm gonna
go with Tyrone Tracy, the running back from the Giants.
You can get him in the ninth round so we
don't have to use like sixth round equity here. Currently
ADP is one hundred and three. There are few, if
(13:40):
any starting running backs being drafted lower than Tyrone Tracy.
He's running back thirty three as of this writing. Not
a special talent in my opinion, Kent, but I think
he can be helpful enough that he can validate a
ninth round pick. Giants offense should be better this year. Right,
last year we were going to work with Daniel Jones
and Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito. We got to half
(14:03):
a game out of Tim Boyle Oh boy Right. Malik
Neighbors threw one pass incomplete for the Giants last year.
I think he's the best passer on the team last season.
So now we get Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. Those
are sizeable upgrades. The Giants offense should be better. It's
not gonna be great, but it's going to be better
than it was last year. But the real thing for
(14:23):
me on Tyron Tracy where he gets interesting not a
lot of competition. Cam Scattabo is not going to be
in every down back. He's going to be a situational back,
and now as a sophomore, Tracy could be dramatically improved. Ken.
I know you know this, and some of our listeners do.
He's a converted wide receiver who is only a starting
running back one season in college and then last year,
(14:44):
so totally learning on the job the nuances of the
ring back position last year, and even with all the
disadvantages we talked about Tim Boyle and Drew Lock and
everything else, the average four point four yards per carry
in a backwards offense with a broken offensive line. So
I think Tyrone Tracy's the kind of guy that can
help you do the opposite approach.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, and I was I was coming here actually expecting
to disagree with you, but I liked some of his
advantaged metrics too, considering he was a late convert, he's
really picked it up quickly. And if they can put
together any kind of offense, he's in a good spot.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
He isn't a good spot. Who is your second do
the opposite runner?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, we're going with Isaiah Pacheco. And you know, this
one's a little bit unfortunate because last year was really
disappointing compared to his first two years in the league.
But again, he's going in the sixth round. You know
that the health concerns are valid. It's kind of based
on his aggressive running style. You know, last year he
had a fractured fibula and that was the reason that
he went on ir We two came back, tried to play,
didn't look so good, and the Chiefs really leaned on
(15:40):
cream Hunt instead, even all the way through the playoffs,
which might fear, you know, make some people afraid to
be drafting Pacheco here. But personally, I think that if
he can bounce to any kind of form like he
was in his first two seasons, that he's in a
good spot. First two year prior he was tenth to
success rate, fourth and success rate, and then in rushing
yards over expectation per attempt eighth and thirteenth, so not
(16:03):
bad number the efficiency metrics going for him. If he
can just get healthy of a good long off season.
They brought back Kareem Hunt on a cheap deal. I
think he's just going to be an insurance case. You know,
he really wasn't that good last year. He had some
pretty rough metrics and he's turning thirty. He was tied
for second worst yards after contact per attempt too. The
only one worse was Javonte Williams, So that's telling you
(16:25):
something great.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That that is, and we'll actually mentioned him later in
passing Kareem Hunt. By almost any metric you can think of,
was the worst running back in the NFL at his
number of carries last season. Yep, my second do the
opposite running back Denver's JK Dobbins currently going off the
board round twelve. Now, there could be some It could
(16:48):
be that he's he's sneaking higher, and we haven't seen
a lot of the ADP lists sort of adjust since
his signing, but that was two weeks ago. I mean
I think by now, I think he's settling into round twelve.
And I found out due to research on JK. Dobbins
his full name ja kaaln Jay apostrophe Kaylin and that's
(17:09):
the JK in JK. Dobbins never knew that. Yep, God
bless him. He's had an ACL, an MCL, and an
achilles rupture and has no earthly business being an NFL
running back at this point with all those injuries. But
he's only twenty six years old and Kent. Let's remember,
(17:29):
Dobbins was on pace to be the comeback player of
the Year. Through ten games. He was like the money
line Vegas leader and then he suffered an mcl' sprain.
He missed a month and then came back at the
bitter end of the season and didn't do very much
after this after the knee injury, But through those ten
games through Week eleven, he averaged four point eight yards
(17:50):
per carry of seventy two rushing yards per game and
almost a full touchdown per game. He had eight touchdowns
and eight in ten games, and his twenty one percent
broken tackle rate ninth best during those first eleven weeks
of the season for JK. Dobbins. So Denver signs him.
(18:11):
We all know that they also drafted RJ. Harvey, and
it was very excited about that because RJ. Harvey had
this clear path to a bunt to a starting job.
I think JK. Dobbins at a minimums is going to
be the starter for a month or two Kent, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
And you know with RJ. Harvey what he did last
year and the year before. We're both very good collegiate seasons,
don't get me wrong, but it's always a little bit
sketchy when it requires you being a few years older
than the guys you're playing against in terms of you know,
these guys are you know, still growing in physicality and
athleticism and stuff. So if you need to have those
bonus years of growth in order to put up these numbers,
(18:48):
I get a little sketched out. What he did was great,
But Jigie Dobbins is getting a deal that could be
worth up to five point something million. And I joked
on Twitter X whatever you want to call it, that
that's more than the rest of the running back room
combined in Denver right now. Probably, I don't think they're
not going to use him. I think they're going to
let him hit the field plenty.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I think so too. The fact that Dobbins they you know,
they drafted Harvey, they got some looks at him in OTAs,
and then they signed JK. Dobbins, And I think, to me,
it just it's screams that Harvey's not going to be
ready for a sizeable workload early in the season. I
think that person's going to be JK. Dobbins. All right,
let's go to your third and final do the opposite player, Kent?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
All right, we're going with Isaac Garrindo over in the
Santa Francisco forty nine ers.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
There's your lottery ticket right there.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Baby, Yeah, No, kidding twelfth rounder right now, so certainly
you don't have to invest a lot of capital into him.
And he is a handcuff. He's not a guy you're
going to be flexing on any given week or anything
like that unless they change up their style. But Kyle
Shanahan has always seemed to lean into one player getting
the majority of the workload. So I really should have
just labeled my selection here. Whoever the handcuff is on
(19:58):
a Kyle Shanahan team, that's really all you need to
draft in the later rounds and you'll be okay. You know,
Christian McCaffrey, we all hope that he plays a full season.
I know I will, but you know he's only played
two complete one since twenty twenty. And you know last year,
of course, they went through four running backs and then
you know, Grendo came in after Jordan Mason went down,
and he did pretty good. He was thirty one attempt,
(20:18):
one hundred and thirty five rushing yards, two touchdowns, and
in those two games caught six targets for sixty eight
receiving yards. He was solid. So I don't think that
Patrick Taylor is any kind of a competition. They drafted
a sixth or fifth rounder who's not going to be
competition for them. He's just a really solid handcuff in
an offense that I think is going to bounce back
(20:39):
in a big way. They have a really easy strength
of schedule right now for the twenty twenty five years.
So you know, this San Francisco team, they're good. And
if you get the good running back on a good team.
And unfortunately, if Christian McCaffrey were to go down, I
think Gorendo's gonna pick up a lot of fantasy points
later in the year.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Maybe the biggest lottery ticket there is in fantasy football
is Grendo. If anything happens with Christian McCaffrey again, and
he's missed significant time in three the last six seasons,
and if Grendo can himself stay healthy after CMC goes down,
which has been an ongoing issue for Isaac Garndo.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Actually, this was funny part of part of my research.
Real quick here. It was you know, he had his
lineal issues in terms of health, and the rest of
the running back room did too. I checked the NFLPA
report card for training staff. San Francisco twenty fifth out
of thirty two. That's not gonna come to a shotgun.
So maybe we need to shy away from all running
backs down there. But I just thought that was funny.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
That is good, all right. My final do the opposite player,
and I hate to keep beating the same drum over
and over again, so I'm gonna keep this short. But
not everybody listens to every word I say in every
podcast can as much as I'd like to think that
everybody is so dialed in that they are transcribing every
word we say. Some people haven't heard me bang the
drum for Jordan Mason yet, but I think I think
(21:58):
it's starting to change. I'm not saying I'm personally moving
the needle on him, but Jordan Mason's ADP has gone
up four rounds in the last six weeks. And I've
been banging the drum for Jordan Mason in Minnesota all
off season since the trade, and especially in the last
couple of months when the Vikings didn't make any changes
through the draft at running back. As I've said many times,
(22:21):
he's going to be the goal line guy. It's going
to be closer to a fifty to fifty split in
Minnesota than people believe Aaron Jones is still a good back,
but he's also an aged back at year thirty. With
the miles that he's got. He managed to stay upright
for seventeen games last year, but they used him a
lot more than they want to. And at the end
of the day, especially Jordan Mason can't catch, but he's
(22:43):
going to offset what he can't catch through touchdowns. He
could be easily sitting on a ten touchdown season, I believe,
and most a double digit touchdown season for Jordan Mason,
to me, is is very plausible.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, And you know we've talked about this before, of course,
and I actually went and looked at it Aaron Jones
to see if he had any kind of a falloff
inefficiency because he was used more than he was in
previous seasons at Green Bay. But honestly, he still looked
pretty good for last year. And I know he's getting
older and I know he's had a lot of touches
over the course of his career. But at rising price
on Jordan Mason, boy, I hope he stays cheap enough
(23:16):
to extract the value from it. That's my only concern.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Now going in the eighth round and it's the gap
between him and Aaron Jones. It used to be like
a five round gap. Now Jones is going down, Mason's
going up. But in a do the opposite scenario, I
I'd rather have Jordan Mason and you could draft both
if you wanted to. Maybe you you know, you just go, Hey,
Viking's gonna be up to the backfield. Lock up the
backfield if you want to do that one guy gets hurt,
(23:40):
whatever you got, or she could start both on a
pinch if you needed to. Notable by his absence, Javonte Williams,
neither one of you, neither one of us chose Dallas,
the Dallas starting running back. Even at ADP one hundred
and thirteen. You and I aren't on Javonte Williams. He's
(24:02):
the being the lowest drafted clear starting NFL running back.
He's not. I don't believe he's really locked into any
kind of a duel for the starting job. I believe
that's his job. Tell me a little bit about Kent,
why you didn't choose to Javonte Williams, and then I'll
explain some of my rationale too.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
I wanted to. Honestly, I really did. I I liked
him when he was coming into the league, and I
tried to stick with him as he was kind of
going down in value and usage, and unfortunately he just
kept going down. And unfortunately, I think that trend is
going to continue. It is probably his backfield. I just
worry that they're going to do like a three way
(24:38):
deployment between him Miles Sanders. Unfortunately is you know, still there.
He's Miles Sanders isn't going to take the lead job,
but he's going to be a thorn in your side.
I think that's the best way to describe Sanders these days.
And then Jayden Blue, you know who, granted doesn't have
a huge resume on the collegiate side of things, I
think they like him, and I think a lot of
people that I've seen and you know, the prospect Space
(25:02):
has really enjoyed his film. So you know, he's got
an opportunity with two, you know, so to speak, deadbeat
running backs ahead of him. What reason is there for
him to not jump ahead. That's That's kind of where
I'm at right now.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, I just just a little bit part of it
was eye test on Javonte Williams in broken tackle rate
last year. He was forty first forty first round among
running backs that's not starting running back territory territory. He
averaged three point seven yards per carry. You know, there's
(25:35):
just there were no metrics that made you feel good
about Javonte Williams. And he's two years off the ACL
ken So I just think that, you know, there's a
point at which you go, Okay, if you were going
to come back from the ACL in a really meaningful way,
it probably would have already happened, didn't. And last last
metric I'll give you on Javonte Williams yards yards after contact,
(25:59):
which I think is a is a really really important
stat for running backs. Javonte Williams dead last among runners
with at least one hundred series.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I just can't get away from these metrics. Man, It's
just always been going down with him, and it's it's
hard to justify. You know, he doesn't even have the
volume locked up. I would. I would say he's the
leader right now, but he's not like locked into the
workhorse role. So if you don't even have the efficiency
to justify it, I don't know. I couldn't bring myself.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
To do it. Same talk to me. Was there was
there anybody else on your short lift list that just
you know, you didn't quite couldn't quite make the cut
into your three do the opposite running backs?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah, I considered Rushad White. I know, you know, you
have your Bucky Irving I go on repeat season. So
I think, you know, in the eleventh round, he's probably
someone who in PPR league of any style, you're probably
going to be able to flex him occasionally as a
fill in player, but he does still have the handcuff status.
(26:58):
I don't think Sean Tucker is going to be a
guy to up in in front of Rashad White. And
when Rashad White was the leader, even though he was
a ho hum runner and wasn't the most electric guy,
he was running back fourteen in points per game when
he was by himself. So I think he's you know,
this is a good offense. You know, you got Baker
coming back, you got the receivers coming back, you have
a new receiver in town. They're gonna be scoring a
(27:19):
lot of points. And you know, again a handcuff situation,
but you might be able to sneak a flex here
or there.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Just a handcuff to me, But I you know, that's
I'm just, I just I can't go with you on
the Rashad White journey because Bucky's a good pass catcher.
I don't think he's gonna yield automatically yield those third downs.
And I think Bucky's a sneaky candidate for like two
thousand total yards, So I can't do it.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Potentially, what if I told you that from week eleven on?
So this is after the buye and I don't know
if you recall, but Bucky got hurt in week six,
so I was gonna look at that first and then
went to the buy which would be even more in
Bucky's favor. Yeah, the snap percentage split was only fifty
percent to Bucky Irving forty. Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
That does surprise me.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
That more balanced than I think I was expecting to.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So, but that's okay, that snaps, right, that snaps. I'm
guessing Rashad White was in on passing downs and that
does not represent his touches. He's probably a better blocker
and guessing and I'm guessing that that was that was
part of It's just my just a hunch there, but
I don't you know. Yep, Yeah, good job to take
(28:27):
Ken there's a ton of fun. Do the opposite. This
is a you know, this is a it's a time tested,
proven you know, in years past we've done really deep
dives and do the opposite. We show all the data
and we show you, you know, the dangers of of
you know, running backs of the last five years. Here's
the failure rate, here's the failure rate and receivers, stuff
like that. Honestly, we've gone away from it a little
(28:47):
bit just because zero running back has become so popular.
People write are writing about it and talking about it,
and you know, I just, you know, I don't feel
like we have to justify the existence of do the opposit,
said Ken, as much as we used to.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, it's it's certainly shifted year to year two. I
think people kind of react a little bit too much
to the prior season. And so if you just keep
with a steadfast kind of system year in year out,
you're probably gonna end up with more wins than losses.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Agreed. Agreed. And if you do get your lottery ticket
comes in, and typically half of the top ten running
backs will come from outside of round six or below.
If your lottery ticket does come in and you're sitting
with Ceed Lamb and Brock Bauers and Devonte Adams and
Jaden Daniels and Za Flowers. Bang, that's it. You've got it. Now,
(29:37):
you have it right, You've got an absolute juggernaut team.
So and do we know if it's gonna be JK.
Dobbins or Tony Pollard or Tyrone Tracy. You know, we
don't know who it's going to be. But odds are
one of those guys is gonna pop for any of
the reasons that we gave.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I was gonna say, my last thing is here is
you know, maybe your league pays out through third place
or whatever, but essentially speaking, fourth through last place are
equal to me. I'm I'm swinging for the fences first
place if I can do it, obviously, and if anything
other than that, I don't care. That the strategy should
really be about maximizing your upside going for that trophy.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yes, this isn't a guillotine league. We're trying to reduce risk.
This is your regular league where you have to be
the best out of twelve teams. And the place to
put the place to put your risk is that middle
is the middle of the draft. In my mind, because
if any of those guys pop your set at the
other positions. Now I'm repeating myself. I agree, Yeah, you
(30:33):
agree that I'm repeating myself. Appreciate that. Kat, great job today,
Thank you for listening, everybody. We'll be back next week
for more Fantasy Football Weekly. Fantasy Football Weekly is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly
source for the nation's best fantasy football advice, speculation, and
whatever stupid stuff they decided to drop into the show. Now,
here's your host, Paul Charchian.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly. I'm Paul Charchian. Co host
today Kent Wyrock.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hey, Kent, Hey, how are we doing? Paul Well?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I spent last weekend at Circa Swim in Las Vegas
for the Scott Fishbowl, the first drafts len of the
Scott Fish Bowl season. And as much as I love Minnesota,
and as much as I love the Minnesota event, it
ain't the same as being at Stadium Swim at Circa.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Let me tell you, Kent, oh, one hundred percent. I've
been there for a different fantasy draft actually, and I
was out there with some buddies, so we had a
lot of fun. And man, it's it's that plays down
in the downtown is like nothing else that that's around it.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
It's yeah, it's the oasis of downtown.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Isn't Circa Fremont Street and all the man that's going
on there, And then down at the end you got
circa just lighten up the city.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
All right now, since we're talking about Fremont Street, and
I don't want to go old man and everybody shaking
his fist in the front lawn. But Fremont Street has
got people bring their kids all the time to Fremont Street. A.
You shouldn't be bringing your kid to Fremont Street. It's
(01:34):
like every twelfth person is smoking a doobie. There's a
you know, barely clothed people. There's all the all the
weed shops, there's these all these T shirt places that
have got really really deeply disturbing T shirts and just
stuff that no kids should have to have, that you
(01:55):
know should have that, in my opinion, have all of
that input on them. And so I got two the
two problems with the parents and some of them I
think don't know how bad it's going to be until
they get there. And then I just don't think Las
Vegas should should have that stuff in such in an
area that is where you know you're going to track families.
(02:16):
I'm not saying that stuff shouldn't exist. I just think
it shouldn't be somewhere where you know it's swarming with families.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
But Paul, what about the guys wearing the twelve year
old Ninja turtle costumes asking you for money?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah? Getting sure friendly, Well right exactly. That that bugs
me too, is you know, like every fifteen feet there's
some performer trying to shake you down for money.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Oh, big time. It's a shakedown city. I mean, if
we're being honest, well.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
It's certainly become a shakedown city. But I had the
first I had the six pick of the Scout fish Bowl.
And this new weird scoring system Kent is basically anybody
with a ball in their hand a lot is worth
a lot. Tight ends are still at a premium. And
so with pick six overall, I took the second tight
end off the board in Trey McBride.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I was gonna say it was Bowers one, huh and
then McBride second.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, yep. He prow was the first to go, and
then McBride. And honestly, I don't I don't necessarily have
a problem with that. In round two, I got to
Pukinnakua was there in the middle of round two, so
I'm like, okay, I'll do that. A lot of quarterbacks.
There were five quarterbacks taken in the first round and
just yeah and yeah, and so I decided I didn't
(03:25):
intend to, didn't go into the draft planning to slough quarterback,
but I did, and I ended up later taking Drake May,
Jordan Love, Gino Smith, and now I may take a
couple more stabs at quarterback later. But you know, we
don't have anything to go by. We were the very
first draft to go off the board, so we don't
have any Scott fish Bowl ADP. We don't have a president.
We're not you know, we didn't crack open the scoring
(03:47):
system necessarily the way people are going to later on.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, there were some people doing some mock drafts out there.
You can, you can find a little bit of information
if you want. But what I've found over the years
that when you get to the real deal, people pull
out the strategies that they've keeping up their sleeves even
through the mock draft season. So, uh, it's pretty tough
to get a good read on Scott Fishful stuff before
it happens, because it's different every year. It's always something
new with Scott and and it's great. I love that
(04:11):
because it you know, it's a good reason for me
to kind of go through the numbers a little bit.
See how it affects things like are people going to
be asleep at the wheel going through their normal routines
or are they going to be prepared to know what's
a little bit more valuable in this type of scoring.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So yeah, it's a lot of fun Two because it's
all flex this year. There are no mandatory positions at all.
One of our teams went seven straight running backs to
open the draft, and one of them went six straight
wide receivers to open the draft, and that's this is
the only time you're ever going to do that.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I was gonna say that that's funny to me because
I don't know if I'm want to be drafting any
wide receivers. If I'm being honest, you don't find out. Yeah, yep, Yeah,
it's it's a weird scoring system, for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It is. And some people have got are going to
have some real advantages if they if they cracked the
code early on it for sure. Speaking of drafting a
a lot of receivers early today, you and I are
going to talk about do the opposite. Now Kent, longtime
listeners are familiar with do the opposite because we've been
talking about it on this show for almost twenty years,
(05:14):
and then some guy put his own spin on it,
while it's not his own spin, he took, he took
our spin, called it zero running Back, and he had
a bigger platform than this podcast did, apparently, and the
thing took off. But we're talking about fundamentally the same thing.
It originated here on this show and in the print
versions of Fantasy Football Weekly, and we still call it
(05:35):
do the opposite because we know that we were first
by a decade and we're not a Johnny come Lately
to this concept. The IgA idea Kent, as you probably know,
is that running backs have the highest injury rate and
the highest failure rate. So we shouldn't be spending our first,
our most valuable picks at the top of the draft
on the most dangerous position, and we should put that
(05:57):
risk into the middle of our draft and go with
other other position players quarterbacks, wide receivers, and tight ends.
And you know, running backs obviously get hurt constantly because
they get tackled constantly, and it's all kinds of contact
for them, in high speed contact. And the other part
is they just they just come and go so fast.
(06:17):
Ken I'm gonna give you from just two. We're just
two seasons removed from these players being top ten EIGHTP
running backs two seasons.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Jeremy I don't like this, but let's go for it running.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Back two, Austin Eckler running back four, Nick Chubb running
back seven, Romandre Stevenson running back, nine, Najie Harris running back, ten,
Travis Etn. All of them are outside of the top
thirty running backs now just two years later. Meanwhile, Kent,
(06:53):
here's the here's the wide receivers were from the same year,
twenty twenty three. Top ten wide receivers by ADP, Justin Jefferson,
Lamar Chase Tyreek Hill, Cooper Cup, Stefan Diggs, Ceedee lamb,
aj Brown, I'm on Ross Saint Brown, DeVante Adams, Garrett Wilson,
and Jalen Waddle. Almost all of.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Them essentially all still in the mix, right up to.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
All of them at least partially in the mix, and
most of them, most all of them going inside the
top thirty, unlike Eckler, Chubbs, Stevenson, Harrison, etn. And it
tells you about just the volatility and the drop off
cliff for running backs. And by the way, quarterbacks. Just
(07:36):
as a side note, only two of the of the
top ten quarterbacks from a couple of years ago are
outside of the top ten this year. Otherwise it's the
same eight guys. Eight of the ten of the are
still in the top ten ADP. Right now, there's so
much stability at the quarterback position.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So yeah, we kind of went through a banner change
around that time from the old guard of like the
Philip Rivers, Ben Rotha Burger era, and now we're in
this kind of new standard era. So that's going to
last for a long time.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I think I want to tell you one of those
ten quarterbacks that were in the top ten two years ago,
Deshaun Watson. Now, yeah, those dumbasses, and I remember at
the time, I'm like, you guys are crazy, you don't
know what you're doing. And I think everybody's optimistic they
were going to get the old Deshaun Watson in Cleveland,
(08:25):
but it did not obviously did not work out that way.
So for do the opposite, we essue running backs for
five rounds. That was where I drew the line in
the sand. You get to decide if you want it
to be four, you wanted to be seven, or eight,
however far you want. But I for me, I go
five rounds. And let me tell you. If we were
to just draft Kent, you and I were going to
(08:47):
draft right through the middle of every round. Right now,
Let's go through five rounds without taking a running back,
and I'll tell you what your team would look like
picking guys by today's ADP as we're recording from the
middle of every round, and what your what your roster
would look like heading into round six. And then you
and I are going to reveal the running backs that
(09:09):
we would take beginning round six. So here's my here's
my sample draft. And obviously you could do your you
could do your own variations on these, and you might
be picking at the beginning of the first round, the
beginning of the first round, whatever, But we're just gonna
go through the middle. Your first five rounds could look
like ce d Lamb, Brock Bowers, Davante, Adams, or Terry McLaren. Kent.
(09:33):
You make the pick you want, Adams or mclauren. I
still like Adams there Adams to me too, Lamb, Bowers, Davante, Adams,
Jade and Daniels in the fourth round, and I'll go
Zay Flowers in the fifth round. So, Kent, how do
you feel about this team of CD Lamb, brock Bowers,
Davante Adams, Jaden Daniels, and Zay Flowers through five?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Well, I'll tell you what I'd be I'd be pretty
happy with that. If we can, you know, find some
running backs here that either can out outperform a or
if we get a little lotto ticket kind of on
the back end of the draft, we'll be fighting our
way into the playoffs maybe, but then by the time
we get there, we're gonna be crushing everyone. That's that's
that's the whole idea.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
That is the whole idea. It's you just either you
get just competent running backs who stay upright and you know,
just help you fill out your roster and let these
other superstar receivers go be great, or you hit a
lottery ticket with one of these picks and now you've
already got awesome receivers who are probably going to be fine.
(10:30):
And there we go. All right, I'm gonna let you
go first, Ken, So we've gone through five rounds, give
me your do the opposite first, do the opposite running
back you can get round six or later.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah. So the first one I'm gonna go with here
is Tony Pollard. And you know, depending on where you
look with ADP, like I looked at NFFC, he was
seventy two, so technically that last fifth round pick. But
we'll just say you can get him in the early
sixth round most likely. He's got three straight years of
thirteen hundred scrimmage yards and at least five touchdowns. That's
someone who's a running back too. That's someone who's you're
(11:04):
gonna throw in your lineup. You're gonna be fine with it.
You're gonna play the lotto tickets later and then get
someone who can have a little bit more upside than him, maybe,
but he's rock solid. Last year he was RB twenty
three points per game. He's never played fewer than fifteen
games in his six NFL seasons, which is a little
bit shocking to me. It's just rare to find a
running back these days that is, you know, always not
(11:28):
always healthy, but the best ability is availability.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
So yeah, and I think that's key to do. The
opposite is we just alluded to this some minutes ago. Ken,
Just give me running backs who are going to be
healthy and just get me some decent point. Give me,
you know, ten PPR points on a weekly basis, and
that's all right, because we're talking round six, round seven,
round eight, round nine, round ten. Give me tech double
(11:52):
digit PPR points and that's a win in this. In this,
do the opposite format absolutely. And I know a lot
of people like to call this like the unning back
dead zone. It's a place where you don't want to
touch running backs because they're kind of, you know, still starters,
but not quite good enough to be the elite tier.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And I disagree. I think totally Pollard is pretty solid.
He's had positive rushing yards above expectation and every year
except twenty twenty three, so five out of six seasons.
It's pretty good. He was fifth among all running backs
in fifteen plus mile an hour rushes per game last year.
He's got the juice. And it's important that you find
guys that you know, a lot of this stuff can
(12:28):
come down to scheme and offensive line block and stuff
like that. So when they get their holes open to
them and available, they got to just you know, fly
through and pick up the yards and get the offense moving.
And I think Tony Poler is a guy who's capable
of that. He's not the most elusive of backs, but
he's someone who if you give him a good hole,
he's going to just run right through a real heart.
(12:49):
So he was doing these fifteen mile hour runs on
twenty two percent of his attempts last year. Where his
backup co running back whatever you want to call him,
to Jay Spears, he was only a fourteen percent of
that metric. So he's got a little bit more juice
where Spears might be a little bit more elusive, might
you know, force more mistackles. But Tony Pollard's the starter,
and yeah, we're just gonna We're gonna like that. So
(13:10):
you know, they added Kevin Zeeler to this offensive line.
They were twenty first in run block win rate last year,
So yeah, I really like it. I think that he's
going to do just good.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Kent. Let's take a quick break and when we come back,
more of the do the opposite running backs we are
targeting in the middle rounds of your draft. I'm gonna
go with Tyrone Tracy, the running back from the Giants.
You can get him in the ninth round so we
don't have to use like sixth round equity here. Currently
ADP is one hundred and three. There are few, if
(13:40):
any starting running backs being drafted lower than Tyrone Tracy.
He's running back thirty three as of this writing. Not
a special talent in my opinion, Kent, but I think
he can be helpful enough that he can validate a
ninth round pick. Giants offense should be better this year. Right,
last year we were going to work with Daniel Jones
and Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito. We got to half
(14:03):
a game out of Tim Boyle Oh boy Right. Malik
Neighbors threw one pass incomplete for the Giants last year.
I think he's the best passer on the team last season.
So now we get Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. Those
are sizeable upgrades. The Giants offense should be better. It's
not gonna be great, but it's going to be better
than it was last year. But the real thing for
(14:23):
me on Tyron Tracy where he gets interesting not a
lot of competition. Cam Scattabo is not going to be
in every down back. He's going to be a situational back,
and now as a sophomore, Tracy could be dramatically improved. Ken.
I know you know this, and some of our listeners do.
He's a converted wide receiver who is only a starting
running back one season in college and then last year,
(14:44):
so totally learning on the job the nuances of the
ring back position last year, and even with all the
disadvantages we talked about Tim Boyle and Drew Lock and
everything else, the average four point four yards per carry
in a backwards offense with a broken offensive line. So
I think Tyrone Tracy's the kind of guy that can
help you do the opposite approach.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, and I was I was coming here actually expecting
to disagree with you, but I liked some of his
advantaged metrics too, considering he was a late convert, he's
really picked it up quickly. And if they can put
together any kind of offense, he's in a good spot.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
He isn't a good spot. Who is your second do
the opposite runner?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, we're going with Isaiah Pacheco. And you know, this
one's a little bit unfortunate because last year was really
disappointing compared to his first two years in the league.
But again, he's going in the sixth round. You know
that the health concerns are valid. It's kind of based
on his aggressive running style. You know, last year he
had a fractured fibula and that was the reason that
he went on ir We two came back, tried to play,
didn't look so good, and the Chiefs really leaned on
(15:40):
cream Hunt instead, even all the way through the playoffs,
which might fear, you know, make some people afraid to
be drafting Pacheco here. But personally, I think that if
he can bounce to any kind of form like he
was in his first two seasons, that he's in a
good spot. First two year prior he was tenth to
success rate, fourth and success rate, and then in rushing
yards over expectation per attempt eighth and thirteenth, so not
(16:03):
bad number the efficiency metrics going for him. If he
can just get healthy of a good long off season.
They brought back Kareem Hunt on a cheap deal. I
think he's just going to be an insurance case. You know,
he really wasn't that good last year. He had some
pretty rough metrics and he's turning thirty. He was tied
for second worst yards after contact per attempt too. The
only one worse was Javonte Williams, So that's telling you
(16:25):
something great.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
That that is, and we'll actually mentioned him later in
passing Kareem Hunt. By almost any metric you can think of,
was the worst running back in the NFL at his
number of carries last season. Yep, my second do the
opposite running back Denver's JK Dobbins currently going off the
board round twelve. Now, there could be some It could
(16:48):
be that he's he's sneaking higher, and we haven't seen
a lot of the ADP lists sort of adjust since
his signing, but that was two weeks ago. I mean
I think by now, I think he's settling into round twelve.
And I found out due to research on JK. Dobbins
his full name ja kaaln Jay apostrophe Kaylin and that's
(17:09):
the JK in JK. Dobbins never knew that. Yep, God
bless him. He's had an ACL, an MCL, and an
achilles rupture and has no earthly business being an NFL
running back at this point with all those injuries. But
he's only twenty six years old and Kent. Let's remember,
(17:29):
Dobbins was on pace to be the comeback player of
the Year. Through ten games. He was like the money
line Vegas leader and then he suffered an mcl' sprain.
He missed a month and then came back at the
bitter end of the season and didn't do very much
after this after the knee injury, But through those ten
games through Week eleven, he averaged four point eight yards
(17:50):
per carry of seventy two rushing yards per game and
almost a full touchdown per game. He had eight touchdowns
and eight in ten games, and his twenty one percent
broken tackle rate ninth best during those first eleven weeks
of the season for JK. Dobbins. So Denver signs him.
(18:11):
We all know that they also drafted RJ. Harvey, and
it was very excited about that because RJ. Harvey had
this clear path to a bunt to a starting job.
I think JK. Dobbins at a minimums is going to
be the starter for a month or two Kent, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
And you know with RJ. Harvey what he did last
year and the year before. We're both very good collegiate seasons,
don't get me wrong, but it's always a little bit
sketchy when it requires you being a few years older
than the guys you're playing against in terms of you know,
these guys are you know, still growing in physicality and
athleticism and stuff. So if you need to have those
bonus years of growth in order to put up these numbers,
(18:48):
I get a little sketched out. What he did was great,
But Jigie Dobbins is getting a deal that could be
worth up to five point something million. And I joked
on Twitter X whatever you want to call it, that
that's more than the rest of the running back room
combined in Denver right now. Probably, I don't think they're
not going to use him. I think they're going to
let him hit the field plenty.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I think so too. The fact that Dobbins they you know,
they drafted Harvey, they got some looks at him in OTAs,
and then they signed JK. Dobbins, And I think, to me,
it just it's screams that Harvey's not going to be
ready for a sizeable workload early in the season. I
think that person's going to be JK. Dobbins. All right,
let's go to your third and final do the opposite player, Kent?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
All right, we're going with Isaac Garrindo over in the
Santa Francisco forty nine ers.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
There's your lottery ticket right there.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Baby, Yeah, No, kidding twelfth rounder right now, so certainly
you don't have to invest a lot of capital into him.
And he is a handcuff. He's not a guy you're
going to be flexing on any given week or anything
like that unless they change up their style. But Kyle
Shanahan has always seemed to lean into one player getting
the majority of the workload. So I really should have
just labeled my selection here. Whoever the handcuff is on
(19:58):
a Kyle Shanahan team, that's really all you need to
draft in the later rounds and you'll be okay. You know,
Christian McCaffrey, we all hope that he plays a full season.
I know I will, but you know he's only played
two complete one since twenty twenty. And you know last year,
of course, they went through four running backs and then
you know, Grendo came in after Jordan Mason went down,
and he did pretty good. He was thirty one attempt,
(20:18):
one hundred and thirty five rushing yards, two touchdowns, and
in those two games caught six targets for sixty eight
receiving yards. He was solid. So I don't think that
Patrick Taylor is any kind of a competition. They drafted
a sixth or fifth rounder who's not going to be
competition for them. He's just a really solid handcuff in
an offense that I think is going to bounce back
(20:39):
in a big way. They have a really easy strength
of schedule right now for the twenty twenty five years.
So you know, this San Francisco team, they're good. And
if you get the good running back on a good team.
And unfortunately, if Christian McCaffrey were to go down, I
think Gorendo's gonna pick up a lot of fantasy points
later in the year.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Maybe the biggest lottery ticket there is in fantasy football
is Grendo. If anything happens with Christian McCaffrey again, and
he's missed significant time in three the last six seasons,
and if Grendo can himself stay healthy after CMC goes down,
which has been an ongoing issue for Isaac Garndo.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Actually, this was funny part of part of my research.
Real quick here. It was you know, he had his
lineal issues in terms of health, and the rest of
the running back room did too. I checked the NFLPA
report card for training staff. San Francisco twenty fifth out
of thirty two. That's not gonna come to a shotgun.
So maybe we need to shy away from all running
backs down there. But I just thought that was funny.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
That is good, all right. My final do the opposite player,
and I hate to keep beating the same drum over
and over again, so I'm gonna keep this short. But
not everybody listens to every word I say in every
podcast can as much as I'd like to think that
everybody is so dialed in that they are transcribing every
word we say. Some people haven't heard me bang the
drum for Jordan Mason yet, but I think I think
(21:58):
it's starting to change. I'm not saying I'm personally moving
the needle on him, but Jordan Mason's ADP has gone
up four rounds in the last six weeks. And I've
been banging the drum for Jordan Mason in Minnesota all
off season since the trade, and especially in the last
couple of months when the Vikings didn't make any changes
through the draft at running back. As I've said many times,
(22:21):
he's going to be the goal line guy. It's going
to be closer to a fifty to fifty split in
Minnesota than people believe Aaron Jones is still a good back,
but he's also an aged back at year thirty. With
the miles that he's got. He managed to stay upright
for seventeen games last year, but they used him a
lot more than they want to. And at the end
of the day, especially Jordan Mason can't catch, but he's
(22:43):
going to offset what he can't catch through touchdowns. He
could be easily sitting on a ten touchdown season, I believe,
and most a double digit touchdown season for Jordan Mason,
to me, is is very plausible.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, And you know we've talked about this before, of course,
and I actually went and looked at it Aaron Jones
to see if he had any kind of a falloff
inefficiency because he was used more than he was in
previous seasons at Green Bay. But honestly, he still looked
pretty good for last year. And I know he's getting
older and I know he's had a lot of touches
over the course of his career. But at rising price
on Jordan Mason, boy, I hope he stays cheap enough
(23:16):
to extract the value from it. That's my only concern.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Now going in the eighth round and it's the gap
between him and Aaron Jones. It used to be like
a five round gap. Now Jones is going down, Mason's
going up. But in a do the opposite scenario, I
I'd rather have Jordan Mason and you could draft both
if you wanted to. Maybe you you know, you just go, Hey,
Viking's gonna be up to the backfield. Lock up the
backfield if you want to do that one guy gets hurt,
(23:40):
whatever you got, or she could start both on a
pinch if you needed to. Notable by his absence, Javonte Williams,
neither one of you, neither one of us chose Dallas,
the Dallas starting running back. Even at ADP one hundred
and thirteen. You and I aren't on Javonte Williams. He's
(24:02):
the being the lowest drafted clear starting NFL running back.
He's not. I don't believe he's really locked into any
kind of a duel for the starting job. I believe
that's his job. Tell me a little bit about Kent,
why you didn't choose to Javonte Williams, and then I'll
explain some of my rationale too.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
I wanted to. Honestly, I really did. I I liked
him when he was coming into the league, and I
tried to stick with him as he was kind of
going down in value and usage, and unfortunately he just
kept going down. And unfortunately, I think that trend is
going to continue. It is probably his backfield. I just
worry that they're going to do like a three way
(24:38):
deployment between him Miles Sanders. Unfortunately is you know, still there.
He's Miles Sanders isn't going to take the lead job,
but he's going to be a thorn in your side.
I think that's the best way to describe Sanders these days.
And then Jayden Blue, you know who, granted doesn't have
a huge resume on the collegiate side of things, I
think they like him, and I think a lot of
people that I've seen and you know, the prospect Space
(25:02):
has really enjoyed his film. So you know, he's got
an opportunity with two, you know, so to speak, deadbeat
running backs ahead of him. What reason is there for
him to not jump ahead. That's That's kind of where
I'm at right now.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, I just just a little bit part of it
was eye test on Javonte Williams in broken tackle rate
last year. He was forty first forty first round among
running backs that's not starting running back territory territory. He
averaged three point seven yards per carry. You know, there's
(25:35):
just there were no metrics that made you feel good
about Javonte Williams. And he's two years off the ACL
ken So I just think that, you know, there's a
point at which you go, Okay, if you were going
to come back from the ACL in a really meaningful way,
it probably would have already happened, didn't. And last last
metric I'll give you on Javonte Williams yards yards after contact,
(25:59):
which I think is a is a really really important
stat for running backs. Javonte Williams dead last among runners
with at least one hundred series.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
I just can't get away from these metrics. Man, It's
just always been going down with him, and it's it's
hard to justify. You know, he doesn't even have the
volume locked up. I would. I would say he's the
leader right now, but he's not like locked into the
workhorse role. So if you don't even have the efficiency
to justify it, I don't know. I couldn't bring myself.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
To do it. Same talk to me. Was there was
there anybody else on your short lift list that just
you know, you didn't quite couldn't quite make the cut
into your three do the opposite running backs?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah, I considered Rushad White. I know, you know, you
have your Bucky Irving I go on repeat season. So
I think, you know, in the eleventh round, he's probably
someone who in PPR league of any style, you're probably
going to be able to flex him occasionally as a
fill in player, but he does still have the handcuff status.
(26:58):
I don't think Sean Tucker is going to be a
guy to up in in front of Rashad White. And
when Rashad White was the leader, even though he was
a ho hum runner and wasn't the most electric guy,
he was running back fourteen in points per game when
he was by himself. So I think he's you know,
this is a good offense. You know, you got Baker
coming back, you got the receivers coming back, you have
a new receiver in town. They're gonna be scoring a
(27:19):
lot of points. And you know, again a handcuff situation,
but you might be able to sneak a flex here
or there.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Just a handcuff to me, But I you know, that's
I'm just, I just I can't go with you on
the Rashad White journey because Bucky's a good pass catcher.
I don't think he's gonna yield automatically yield those third downs.
And I think Bucky's a sneaky candidate for like two
thousand total yards, So I can't do it.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Potentially, what if I told you that from week eleven on?
So this is after the buye and I don't know
if you recall, but Bucky got hurt in week six,
so I was gonna look at that first and then
went to the buy which would be even more in
Bucky's favor. Yeah, the snap percentage split was only fifty
percent to Bucky Irving forty. Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
That does surprise me.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
That more balanced than I think I was expecting to.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So, but that's okay, that snaps, right, that snaps. I'm
guessing Rashad White was in on passing downs and that
does not represent his touches. He's probably a better blocker
and guessing and I'm guessing that that was that was
part of It's just my just a hunch there, but
I don't you know. Yep, Yeah, good job to take
(28:27):
Ken there's a ton of fun. Do the opposite. This
is a you know, this is a it's a time tested,
proven you know, in years past we've done really deep
dives and do the opposite. We show all the data
and we show you, you know, the dangers of of
you know, running backs of the last five years. Here's
the failure rate, here's the failure rate and receivers, stuff
like that. Honestly, we've gone away from it a little
(28:47):
bit just because zero running back has become so popular.
People write are writing about it and talking about it,
and you know, I just, you know, I don't feel
like we have to justify the existence of do the opposit,
said Ken, as much as we used to.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, it's it's certainly shifted year to year two. I
think people kind of react a little bit too much
to the prior season. And so if you just keep
with a steadfast kind of system year in year out,
you're probably gonna end up with more wins than losses.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Agreed. Agreed. And if you do get your lottery ticket
comes in, and typically half of the top ten running
backs will come from outside of round six or below.
If your lottery ticket does come in and you're sitting
with Ceed Lamb and Brock Bauers and Devonte Adams and
Jaden Daniels and Za Flowers. Bang, that's it. You've got it. Now,
(29:37):
you have it right, You've got an absolute juggernaut team.
So and do we know if it's gonna be JK.
Dobbins or Tony Pollard or Tyrone Tracy. You know, we
don't know who it's going to be. But odds are
one of those guys is gonna pop for any of
the reasons that we gave.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I was gonna say, my last thing is here is
you know, maybe your league pays out through third place
or whatever, but essentially speaking, fourth through last place are
equal to me. I'm I'm swinging for the fences first
place if I can do it, obviously, and if anything
other than that, I don't care. That the strategy should
really be about maximizing your upside going for that trophy.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yes, this isn't a guillotine league. We're trying to reduce risk.
This is your regular league where you have to be
the best out of twelve teams. And the place to
put the place to put your risk is that middle
is the middle of the draft. In my mind, because
if any of those guys pop your set at the
other positions. Now I'm repeating myself. I agree, Yeah, you
(30:33):
agree that I'm repeating myself. Appreciate that. Kat, great job today,
Thank you for listening, everybody. We'll be back next week
for more Fantasy Football Weekly. Fantasy Football Weekly is a
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