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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 decide to drop into the show. Now, here's your host, Paul Chargian.
It's another edition of Fantasy Football Weekly. I am Paul Charchian. My co host today Brian Johnson. Hey, buddy, what's going on?
Charge? I am sweating my a off down here in Charlotte right now.
You still got thick Minnesota blood recoursing through your veins. This can't be easy. Summer in North Carolina.
It is still very thick. I'm like sweating gravy.
Oh man, from where exactly?
It is the dog days of summer. That's for sure. We'll find something to talk about football related, I'm sure though.
So a couple weeks ago, we did an episode with Matt Harrison and I about doing the Opposite, and like, when's you're with all of these early runners, when would you break do the opposite? When would you when do you actually would you actually take these uh, these top runners? And we got a bunch of feedback from that from people who said Okay, that's fine. But if I do sluff the running back position, who should I be targeting
in the mid rounds? As longtime listeners know, I don't generally take any running backs for at least four rounds, and so want to do is starting round five. Let's identify a running back in each of the rounds that we're ready to start. These are guys that are RB
ones and RB two's. If you if you are sluffing that position like I do, and you know, for that matter, Brian, even if you do take running backs in the first four rounds, because you know, the likelihood is that they're going to get hurt at some point or they're going
to disappoint for some reason. Because that position is so prone to variation, you're still might be taking a bunch of running backs in the middle of your draft, even if you took them early too, because you got to back up those positions more than you do any other position.
You do, and there are a lot of intriguing backups out there. We might even go over to running backs on the same team. Running this riddle today, we'll find out we don't know, we don't know who were ah,
we were draft in our respective rounds. But uh right, but yeah, and these are this is an important list because if you're if you're doing the opposite, odds are you're gonna be not single tapping, you're gonna be double tapping, triple tapping, maybe even quadruple tapping running backs in rounds five, six, seven, eight.
Nine to ten. Yeah, which is what I which, which is what I had always said was the do the opposite strategy is you hit those other positions for four rounds and then you just pound running backs. And to give you depth with these mid tier running backs, because at the end of the day, as we as as we know from years of of looking at the top ten running backs that are going to finish the season, half of them are going to come out of the mid rounds. And we want to have a bunch of
those guys on our rosters. So we're gonna give you our favorite running backs in the six rounds, spanning rounds five through ten. Now, Brian, obviously these runners are going to have some warts, otherwise they'd already be gone, right, I mean, so all of these guys are going to have some problems with them. But we're gonna make a case for why we would still take them in their
respective rounds. I don't know about you, but the traits that I was looking for heading into this, Brian, I wanted to find guys who are in especially in the earlier these like rounds five, six, seven, you're going to be able to get lead runners on NFL teams, Guys who are and you know, ideal. They're not in great spots. Usually they're on less than ideal offenses, less than ideal situations, but lead runners are still going to be out there.
Or I want part timers who are rul threats that they can give me a receiving line that's gonna balance out variable rushing production on a week to week basis because those guys are sharing, or guys who are just inexplicably slide for weird, unjustifiable public sentiment that are just I just think too low, so that my guy's sort of fall into those categories.
How about you, Yeah, I pretty much have one of each of those guys. And speaking to the last genre of running back per se guys that have slid too far, I've got one that almost checks all the boxes of a first or second round pick. He's going in the eighth round and It's not like he's a super secret, you know, sleeper or anything. But I just understand why he's just stuck in neutral in the eighth round, has been since March April, and even though tons of positive
steam coming out about this guy. But we'll get to him when we get to him.
All right, that's round eight preview of coming attractions. Yeah, round eight, but we start with round five again. We're gonna give you the one running back we would take in each of the rounds five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Beginning with round five, I'm taking James Cook, the running back from Buffalo, currently going off the board as RB thirteen. With Buffalo's dearth of receiving talent. Now we may see Buffalo's most balanced offense since Josh Allen
got there. You know, you'll remember Buffalo's wideouts are now Curtis Samuel Khalil Shakir. Both slock guys, so they kind of cancel each other out mvs. Machollins. And then a second round rookie Keon Coleman. I mean, this is this is now one of the most unsettled and proven, unproductive wide receiver groups in the NFL. So we may see a lot more running.
For Get sorry, don't forget Chase Claypole. I left him off the list.
Personally or very particularly. You're not a believer, are you?
No, I'm not. There's one one underdog guy that he's become notorious kind of, you know, infamous because he's drafted Chase Cleets.
Like every draft, he's like eighty.
Percent Chase Claypool exposure. Granted he's the last round pick, but you still won't get he's got zero potential still to be a zero for the season.
But I bet if we go remember what the Bears gave up for him, it was like a second round pick, I think, which is seems unbelievable now.
Uh.
For James Cook, last year's fifty four targets. You know, if if this is gonna be a more balanced offense, and given the guys they've got catching balls, wouldn't you throw more to James Cook? I could see him turn fifty four targets from last year into seventy seventy five eighty I could see I could see Cook finishing with sixty receptions, six hundred yards, five maybe six receiving touchdowns. That'd be an uptick of about thirty percent. Over his
receiving utilization. Last year, they added in rookie runner Rate Davis from Kentucky, who I like and we talked about. We talked about him with Thor quite a bit around the draft. He thinks Ray Davis is a jack of all trades, utility guy who's good at a lot of things, but he's not special at anything. So I don't think Ray Davis takes a lot away from James Cook. I think he's just sort of a change of pace guy.
Now I don't love that. Of course, Josh Allen sweeps up all the touchdowns up close, but that's the only real reason for James Cook to drop into the fifth round. And he'd be somebody that I'd be perfectly happy starting if I had sleft the running back position.
Yeah, sadly Cook has the potential to be the Bills leading receiver. It's probably gonna be Dalton king Gate or James Cook. Am I gonna be one of those wide receivers. It's not gonna be Chase Claypool.
We know that maybe Kean Coleman's gonna be great, you know, but we don't. But we don't know the opportunity will be there, So let's move to the sixth round, Brian, who is the running back that you're ready to go to war with in the sixth round.
I'm going with Seattle's Kenneth Walker, who is going earlier in drafts last summer. Seattle did draft draft Zach Charbona last year. We'll get into him in a minute, but h Kenneth Walker still the lead back in Seattle. Walker had over twice as many rush attempts as sharbon Ay did in Sharbonay's rookie year last year. And what's more, Charboney never garnered more than ten touches in a game that Walker was fully healthy. Now, Walker did miss some time.
When he did, sharbon A was getting bell cow usage. So that seems to be you know, their mo in Seattle with the running backs, even though there's a totally new regime now that Pete Carroll has retired and Mike McDonald has taken over as head coach, but we can expect Seattle to run the ball a lot under Mike McDonald and also a new offensive coordinator in Seattle in Ryan Grubb, who is a local guy. He was the University of Washington's offensive coordinator, ran a very high paced offense.
I know you can't. It's not apples to apples when we're talking college to NFL, but a very high paced offense at Washington and Seattle over the last three years, one of the slowest paced offenses in football. They've averaged fifty eight, fifty five, and fifty six plays per game over the last three years. Washington University of Washington was
averaging nearly seventy plays per game. So so Grubb and mcdonald're gonna want to pick up the place pace a little bit more than a little bit a lot for the Seahawks, who would be running a lot of pro style routes and pro style progressions is the word coming out of Seattle, which means a lot of motion, a lot of play action, and a lot of screens. So I like Walker more than Zach Sharbonay in the past game. And of course, like you said, there's words for all
these guys. Sharboney is going to steal touches, probably near the goal line.
But you know what, that's not even a guarantee, really.
Not even a guarantee. But you know, Walker doesn't have any like eye popping metrics when you when you do the deep dive pro football focused stuff. But you've watched him. I've watched him. He he has just had eye popping plays at times, like this guy is legit, but injuries have popped up throughout his career. But hopefully he can he can play a full seventeen game season. I still
think he's a good value in the sixth round. Kenneth Walker. Yeah, I look, and you know he's just I could still draft sharbon A in like the eleventh round, and I don't hate that. I don't like drafting, you know, two running backs on the same team, especially if you're gonna spend an early round like I don't like drafting them like Christian McCaffrey and Elijah Mitchell. You got to go
all in on a guy in that case. But if you're waiting until round six and eleven to you know, get a monopoly on a backfield in Seattle, I don't hate it. But uh, anyway, that's enough.
I just don't think charbon is a factor here, even though he is. He looks built for the goal line role. They gave him six cracks at carries inside the five last year. Zach Charbony scored one time on six carries. Meanwhile, Kenneth Walker was given fifteen opportunities. He scored five times. I'd like that to be a little higher. I'd have been happier with six or seven that. But still, I don't think there's a I think I'm I'm not ready to suggest that Sharbona is gonna get goal line work here.
I'm with you. I think, yeah, he's not like Walker's not gonna get phase out the goal line by any means. He's got the same same goal line. And what's working against both of these guys Walker and sharbonnay one more wart of course, there are gonna be wards for these guys. Not a great line. Offensive line for the Yawks are projected to be bottom third. They were probably ranked thirtieth overall I Pro football focused last year, so not ideal there.
But again, you're not going to get a ten out of ten in every checkbox with these guys.
I hear what you're saying, let's go to round seven. This is one of those I can't believe this guy's here moments, and I would definitely go to war with this guy as my RB one, not even my RB two. And round seven, Ramandre Stevenson, I'm ready to be heard again, Brian. Everything around Stevenson suggests a major bounce back coming. Last year he suffered from non functional quarterback play. Remember Mac
Jones Bailey zappy. Stevenson labored his defenses new he was the really, by far, the biggest threat on offense, and they just played to stop him. Knowing that Jones are zappy, he was going to throw the game away at some point, so he that was a struggle. Remember the season before last he was five yards per carry and then last year that fell down to four yards per carry because of this, and then you may recall high ankle sprain ended his season in Week thirteen. But let's look ahead
to this year. Obviously, the Patriots, who know him better than anybody else, believe in him because they just signed him to a fat new four year extension. We're thirty six million dollars for this position. That's a lot of money. So the team knows him, they know that they feel comfortable relying on him, and they doubled down on Stevenson. Ezekiel Elliot gone replaced by Antonio Gibson. Zeke stole five
goal line carries from Stevenson last year. Those will go back to Remandre this year because Gibson's not getting goal line carries. But most importantly, Jacoby for said is a proven functional starter. He's not. He's he would be the he would be the starting quarterback for probably you know, three or four different teams. He's proven he can that while he was with Cleveland. He's proved that he can be he can be somebody that can help an offense.
He's going to be way better. And then there's also the very real possibility Drake May is the third overall pick is going to be really good too. So one way or another, the New England passing game is going to be way more viable. It's going to take way more pressure off of Romandre Stevenson and I love Romandre. He's a great just like, do everything back. He's every part of the field. He can be on the field, goal line back by the way he was, he is
a good goal line back. He's already scored nine touchdowns from inside the five throughout his career, and that was when he was sharing time with Day and Harris for a lot of that. He can catch, although he's been under utilized as a receiver and Antonio Gibson will take some of that work because he can catch too. But over the past two years, in games in which Ramandrea has started, he's averaged a pretty healthy three and a
half receptions per game. Now, it's not like it's bombs away, you know, deep stuff, but I like that he's getting you three and a half catches for about twenty receiving yards in his starts over the past two years. That's five and a half fantasy points right there. It's a nice head start into your fantasy week with Ramandre Stevenson in round seven.
Yeah, I love it. Don't quit on Remandre. I won't either. I'm gonna stick with Remandree Remandre to the wheels fall off. It's like Zach Moss. Never gave up on Zach Moss.
Look at him now, now, look now, look exactly this happens. Happened too many times in my career where I toued some guy doesn't work out, and then by the time we've all decided he's not gonna do something explosion. But we'll see Zach Moss is another guy that we may maybe he that's going to make an appearance. After we take this break, we find out who the running backs are that we're ready to put into our starting lineups that you can get in rounds eight, nine, and ten.
Coming up next, Welcome back segment two Fantasy Football Weekly. Paul Charging Brian Johnson with you. You can follow us on Twitter at Paul Charging, Brian is at bt x J. If you're interested in Guillotine leagues and you should be Guillotine leagues, it's your opening soon ish. I can't put a date on it yet, but there's lots of stuff brewing.
It's going to be super cool, hang tight. But you can follow our Guillotine Leagues on Twitter at gl chop as well and check the show notes if you want to jump onto the official Fantasy Football Weekly Discord channel for all kinds of discussion, episode feedback ideas that you want to share how your drafts are going. If we just did a mock rookie draft on the Discord channel and we talk about music and whisky and games and all kinds of stuff, so we encourage you to jump
on board the FFW Discord channel. Follow the link in the show notes.
I gotta make more of a my presence felt in the Discord channel. I've been slack and I promised to uh and when I say slack slack too, So I got I gotta jump on discord. I promise, I vow to do that. I love it.
Let's go to round eight. Brian, you've sloughed the running back position through the first at least four rounds. Maybe you picked one up in five, six or seven, but now it's here, it's round eight. Is there somebody you touted this early? You said you loved your round A guy make your case for who you're taking in round eight.
Yeah, this guy checks all the boxes really for like a much earlier round pick. And if his predecessor was still in town, the person he was the understudy for, you'd be going in the first or second round. And I'm talking about the predecessor being Josh Jacobs used to be the former starting running back the Las Vegas Raiders. He is now with the Green Bay Packers. We're not talking about Jacobs. We're talking about Zamir White, who last year stepped in for Jacobs when he was injured and
pretty much was a bell coow. So let's get into the reasons why he was a bell coow. He's a bell coow because head coach Antonio Pierce is the man you have to love Antonio Pierce. Yes, who wants his RB one and he's on wax saying this to get his quote unquote magic number of twenty plus carries. I mean he has to love. Yeah, I mean Antonio Pierce. He is the head of the Bell Coow Conservation Society at this point. I mean, the bell Coow is a dying breed, but Antonio peers he wants to keep the
bell Cow intact, especially in his backfield. Now, Pierce, he didn't start the season as head coach last year. He came in about midway a little past midway through the season when Josh Jacobs was the starter under Antonio Pierce. In three of his four games under Pierce when he was healthy, he averaged twenty four opera tunities per game that carries and targets. And when Jacobs went down, Zamir White hit that same number in three of his four
starts under Pierce. So whoever starting at running back for the Raiders is gonna get bell Cow usage. And that's gonna be Zamir White. It's not gonna be Alexander Madison. He was referred to as as a depth piece quote unquote from Pierce himself in March, so he is a backup. They drafted Dylan Laub. I believe it is how you pronounced his last name, Lob, but he's just more of a third down pass catching threat. So it's Zamir White all the way. And now he is not the most
exciting name coming into his second year. That's why he's not going in the third fourth round. The Raiders aren't an exciting offense really, but they do have I mean, the real question mark is a quarterback for that offense. I mean DeVante Adams top five wide receivers still.
How about how about the next tier? How about six or ten?
Well, from a fantasy perspective, he's not the top five because of his quarterback, but I think skill wise, if you put him on the Bengals, he's you know, anyways, a lot of a lot of weapons in that offense for the Raiders. And you know, if I can get anybody who's gonna get guaranteed twenty plus carries a game in the eighth round, I don't care if they're a Pop Warner player, I'm gonna draft that that running back in the eighth round. And the Raiders have worked to
improve their offensive line. Colton Miller has developed into one of the better left tackles. They drafted Jackson Powers Johnson in the second round of the NFL Draft this year out of Oregon. So the Raiders they want to run the ball and they're they're just gonna run Zamere White into the ground. So if he's available, I'm reaching around on Zamir White, even though like him so much, so I do not understand.
The preview of the preseason shows right there the reach around. Making an early appearance on Fantasy Football Weekly. Let me throw. Let me throw another Zamir White stat that I gave out a couple of months ago. We were talking about the Raiders. Please do explosive runs for Zamir White. In his four starts, he had seven runs of more than ten yards. We'll take that, baby, That's what we want
to see. That, by the way, to give you some context, compared to Alexander Madison as the presumed backup Madison, his explosive run rate was half half of Zamir White. Samir White is a good runner, and I'm with you on this. That is a fantastic opportunity in the eighth round for Zamir White. Let's go to round number nine. This will be my last selection. You'll go round ten after this, Brian.
So let me get this straight. I'm in round nine and I can get the second highest scoring running back in the league last year, who led the entire NFL in touchdown score in round nine, Raheem Mostert. What WTF? What round nine? I get the lead back on the most dynamic rushing attack in the league. Yes, I understand. This is also a deep and complicated running back room featuring devon Ah Chan, Jalen Wright, Jeff Wilson to some
minor degree. Okay, I get that, But you know what, Mostar got paid more than anybody else last year, and sure a Chan highlight plays. Raheem most are finding himself in the end zone twenty one times. That's a highlight, baby, that I wanted my fantasy team. In the ninth round. Miami ran the ball thirty times from inside the five last year. That was the seventh most times from inside the five. That is a strong coaching pre election for scoring up close. And they scored fifteen times on those
thirty carries, which is excellent. You want a fifty percent conversion rate on carries inside the five. Miami hit it that was the fifth most at fifteen touchdowns rushing touchdowns scored from inside the five, and Mostard had the third most rushing attempts he had twenty. He scored twelve of the fifteen times from inside the five. That tells you plenty. Yes, he's old, thirty two years old, but he's so lightly used. Guy barely got to carry for the first four years
he was in the league. There's a lot to like about Raheem Moster that I shouldn't have to explain to people. And how in the world he's going in the ninth round is kind of crazy to me. Absolutely want Raheem Morris in the ninth round.
Yeah, I don't get why Mostard is going so late. I mean you saw in the second round two, which is absurd. Yeah, yeah, I was goot to say on the flip side eight Chan in the late second in early third, he's one of the easiest passes for me in that range. Just because of most I'm like, if I can get most of in the ninth I know Han has like a ridiculous per touch, you know metrics from Kerry, Yeah, not sustainable. So yeah, I love most of in the ninth totally with you there.
All right' So go to our final round round ten, Brian, who you taking?
All right?
Again? Uh?
Right?
In this range, it's more about opportunity than environment. Really, if you can get a guy that's gonna get a starting workload at running back, I'm gonna pounce on him. I don't care what team he plays for, even if it's the New York Football Giants, who quite frankly, have you watched the New Hard Knocks, it's like more of the off season edition.
You know, I haven't seen it. I've not seen it yet, but my understanding is there's some pretty juicy stuff in there, including you get to see through their evaluation of why they weren't going to re sign say Kwon Barkley, why they still say they believe in Daniel Jones, and the fact that they pass on quarterback tells me they do believe in Daniel Jones.
Yeah, they really believe in Daniel Jones. They believe him so much that uh shines or shown that the GM They said, Uh even Patrick Mahomes wasn't winning games for us last year?
Ah, well, little bit, he's probably right about that. Actually, Yeah, maybe I like they could self evaluate their own team and know that there's that they're potentially not great.
We don't care about reality football when it comes to the Giants, especially here, but we do care about fantasy and uh, we're talking running back. So I like Devin's Singletary in the tenth round. Uh, taking the place of Saquon Barkley, who they the Giants let walk uh down south to Philly, just down south on the Turnpike. And hey, is Singletary an upgrade Overquon Barkley. He quite possibly could be,
according to Ian Harditz of Fantasy Life. According he did the research, so I'm just gonna credit him for all this, all these stats. Uh, Singletary has a better PFF rushing grade over his career than Saquon Barkley. His averaged more yards per carry, has averaged more yards after a contact per carry. Singletary has forced more mistackles per carry than Saquon Barkley, and has a higher explosive run rate than Saquon Barkley. Yes, throughout his career.
I hammered Barkley. Sorry for the interruption. I had hammered Barkley two shows ago when we were undoing the opposite and like no other his ADP has picked fifteen middle of the second round for Barkley, and we were talking about where would you actually take it, and I dropped him all the way down to like round six is where I'm interested in Barkley. I'll just re I'll hit
on some of the talking points I had then. He finished last year as Pro Football Focus running back forty three, he was fifty fourth and elusiveness, he was thirtieth in rushing yards over expectation percentage and in Philadelphia's quarterbacks gonna eat all his short touchdowns. This is a disaster. Actually, no, I'm going back looking back at my notes. I hadn't pay round eight where I would take Barkley, and I
had Remandre before him, Jonathan Brooks, a mere White. I mean, there's a bunch of runners going where I would that I would rather have than Saquon Barkley. So just to I realized this is more about Devin Singletary than Barkley. But just want to take another opportunity to hammer the remains life remains.
Okay, bart rays Barkley catching several strays on this podcast. Yeah, okay, so you know you're definitely not drafting Saquon Barkley. So this is a perfect podcast for those not drafting Barkleys. You wait for the later rounds. But yeah, Singletary a great dude. The opposite candidate in the tenth round. The Giants guaranteed him almost ten million dollars of this season, so he's going to be getting the ball they're not going to be given Tyrone Tracey. He was a rookie.
A ton of carries Eric Gray in his second year. Singletary has averaged more than four and a half yards for carrying each of his last two seasons. Now, granted, he's been running behind better offensive lines in Buffalo and
Houston last year. The Giants offensive line was among the NFL's worst last season, but that was partially due to injuries or healthy right now, but again that there are gonna be some words for these guys, but words for these guys going in these rounds with Devin Singletary, he's gonna be getting that guaranteed fifteen to twenty touches when healthy, and he's healthy right now, So an easy smash pick in the tenth round when doing the opposite.
So let's assume I went with a wide receiver in the first round. I went tight end in the second round and came back to wide receiver in the third round. Fourth round is maybe my quarterback. And I'm rolling into round five and I'm able to get three or four of these guys in the next six rounds. I'm so ready to go to war with this group. James Cook, Kenneth Walker, Ramandre Stevenson, Zamir White, Raheem Moster, Devin Singletary, game on Baby. Ready to roll into my season.
Yeah, I almost liked that the the ladder more than the former, meaning that the last three the white.
Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you up by ADP for sure. I would rather do that so we might slough past four rounds. It's very possible that it works out that way. Uh, Brian, great job, Thank you for Thank you for your time and your expertise on this. Thank you for listening. Everybody. We always love having you here at Fantasy Football Weekly. I'll be back next week for more and again. Check out the Discord channel and get all the show notes there. You can follow us
on Twitter. Guillotine Leagues coming soon. Calculate everybody, Bye bye. 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.