Target These Second Year RBs ✅ 2026 Fantasy Football

Unfortunately for us, the loaded 2025 rookie running back class really never got going. We had horrible situations for Ashen Genty, injuries to the likes of Amarian Hampton and Cam Scataboo, Quinn Sean Judkins on top of that. And in fact, Hayden, maybe some of the more promising and surprising moments came from like true seventh rounders out there on the field.

Yeah, I thought there was not that much of a gap between the top guys and kind of the next tier of guys. I was kind of disappointed going back and talking about these guys. That does not mean that they can't be effective fantasy players. I'm trying to like play both sides of this. We'll get to the fantasy appeal, but also just all right, how close are they to Jir Gibbs and Bejan Robinson? I think short answer for me is not that close.

Interesting. Now, fortunately for us, the 2026 running back class in the NFL draft was horrible. So, all of these guys are going to get at least a second opportunity, if not a third. And many of them are going extremely early in your fantasy league. At least five of these names we're going to talk about today, the second-year breakouts are being selected as top 24 running backs over an underdog at this very moment where you can draft at this very moment. So, this is important because we're expecting massive strides and a lot of production and full seasons from a lot of these names when we only got a taste of them last year in uh great situations. So, we dove in, we watched all the snaps, we watched all the tape. This is the second year breakout week show. Hopefully you tuned in to the tight ends and the quarterback's episode. And we have wide receivers coming up tomorrow. So hit subscribe and watch this because now Hayden, let's talk about that 12th overall pick in drafts right now as the running back six despite last season the most forgettable 321 touches you will ever see. Ashen Genty is once again on our first round radar. What did you see when going back and watching?

I thought he was very similar to what he was at at Boise State. He's exceptional at forcing missed tackles once he has a little bit of space. So once you uh aren't contacted at the line of scrimmage is beyond that. The NFL average is 16 missed tackles per carry. Ashton Genty's at 29, almost doubles that. And when you watch his tape, there's lots of guys just bouncing off of him at the second level. And even at the first level when he's hit immediately, I think where maybe I was a little bit disappointed with Ashen Genty is I do think it took him a little bit longer to kind of get going than what I was hoping for. And I don't think that he has the elite foot quickness of the real true standout players across the NFL. He's more of your throwback type, which we were expecting here. I thought he was going to have maybe a little bit more burst out of the gate. Uh I do think there's going to be a lot of changes going on with the Raiders. All of them positive. He finishes the RB16 on RB11 usage last year. I still have him ranked as the RB9. I think he's going to get a ton of touches. He can handle it. I think there's more room for growth as a receiver. He flashed a couple of those downfield moments uh even during his rookie season. I think there's more to be unlocked there. Uh I just think there's a difference between some of the other top what 12ish overall selections and recent drafts versus versus Ashton Genty after watching his tape.

I'm unmoved based on my opinion of who he was coming into the league and what he was able to show during his rookie season. I think he'll win in the exact same ways that I anticipated. Unfortunately, and what we talk about every single week on this channel with stats versus film, I mean, the vast majority of running back production can just be totally destroyed by offensive line play and situations that you find yourselves in. And for me, Ashen Genty was easily in the worst of this group. And that is saying something because some of these running backs were in horrible situations last year. And all you have to do is look towards, you know, the yards before contact per attempt. Uh that was 0.6 last year. averaged 0.6 yards per carry before he was contacted. And that is, you know, despite breaking uh a ludicrous amount of force missed tackles, as you said, with his rate, but just overall that number was extremely high at 63. There were plenty of times where he forced a missed tackle that prevented a three-yard loss that only gave him a zero or one yard gain. Uh and so for us on the eye test, that looks awesome. For the underlying metrics, it absolutely looks horrible. Now, Chip Kelly also, I would say, kind of mismanaged this situation. Like, when you spend that early of a pick on a player, you can't have some rando subbing in for him uh in pure passing situations. I understand bring these players and these rookies along slowly, but as the season went along, he did handle 84% of the backfield touches. That is running back two across the league. So, while I might not rank him as the running back six, while I might not be drafting him as a 12th pick overall right now, and we can get into the reasons why, uh, I still am very optimistic of what he can be, uh, in a more composed and it just a platform for him to have success in the.

Yeah, I just wanted to play a little bit faster. I think that's partially just kind of athletically get it going a little bit, but I also thought he was maybe a little bit more indecisive than I was kind of hoping for. And I think that some of the plays that where he was hit behind the line of scrimmage was on him just a little bit. Obviously, the overwhelming part of that was just the offensive line. I mean, any of them after Coltton Miller was out of there, all five spots were brutal. The tight ends weren't blocking very well. On top of that, I thought there was scheme issues. Uh, you just really felt him going at that second level when he had some space. He's just too thick to to tackle. I think it's like kind of as simple as that. He runs really hard. I thought he had really nice hands throughout the season, too. Uh, we thought Mike Washington's an interesting prospect behind him. He's going to be I think a low volume almost Raheem Moert kind of change of pace guy off this off the uh off the edge. And I do think that Ashen Genty's bellcow profile here is absolutely going to translate. So I'm in the middle of the second round for fantasy purposes. I have no questions about his ability to handle the workload, catch passes, do all that type of stuff. I just think if you're the Raiders, do you have Jir Gibbs or Bjan Robinson in your backfield right now? I just think you don't. That's a strong statement based on where he was drafted. Uh, I want to give him a season of having just more opportunities to show that second level stuff because Jir Gibbs got that immediately. Bejan Robinson got that immediately uh based on their landing spots and his running style is different than those guys. But just what I love so much coming out of Boise State was it's not just he was able to force one missed tackle and pick up and create extra yards on his own. He like chained those moves together once he got to defensive backs, once he got to like the third and fourth level. And so, and this is more difficult to do in the NFL, but that allowed, you know, 16 yard gains to go for 50 yard gains. And he's not going to reel those off at the same rate. But that was like a rare combo of uh stamina, like tackle breaking stamina in the same run. And then just six runs later, he was able to do the exact same at. And that's going to be more difficult once again in the NFL. But, uh, I I just want him to have like the legit opportunity of getting to the second and third level untouched more.

Yeah. I wonder if he's gonna have like a Josh Jacobs level career, which I I think is a probably the baseline outcome. I think that you're hoping he has more Jonathan Taylor, Derek Henry, uh Saquon Barkley in him. I just think that he doesn't quite hit that threshold. Josh Jacob is one of my favorite running backs to watch. I think he's going to have a way better season this year. So, it's not like I'm really concerned about Ash and Jensy. I just think, you know, the ROI, I think we're going to look back and be like, that that was pretty tough. You know, so often when a head coach gets his first time as a head coach after just being a play caller, we like to copy paste what they did in their previous stop and say, "Well, this is just what he's going to do uh here at his new location." So, we know Clint Kubak last year he had Kin Walker who's being drafted right around Rashen Gentia in this like legit cluster of eight straight running backs on underdog at this moment. Everywhere from James Cook down to Derrick Henry and then you had Zack Charbanet as the backup. So, uh, we know Mike McDonald wanted their rotation to keep those guys healthy throughout the entire season. Do you think that Ashen Genty has a chance of getting the 75% workload, which is a lot more than what Kin Walker, Zack Sharney had last year, but actually less than what he had during his rookie season?

Yeah, I mean, I would put Gent's chances of handling the as big of a workload as anybody in the whole league. Like, I I I think it's as simple as that. And that's why he has such an incredible floor. Like for how terrible everything went around him, he was still the RB16 last year, which is like obviously not what you wanted. That was when the worst situation ever. So like in terms of the floor, his is as high as anybody's.

Let's talk about someone in that cluster of running backs. Uh running back nine drafted right now, the third pick of the second round. This is Omar Hampton with the LA Chargers. Turned 156 touches into 737 total yards and five touchdowns last year. Uh now he goes from a Greg Roman offense into a Mike McDaniel offense. What did you like and dislike when going back and watching him?

There's definitely two sides of the equation. I think he's one of the most physically gifted running backs in the NFL, like point blank period. His long speed is really, really good for somebody that's 220 pounds. I thought he had really soft hands out of the back field, so he's not like super one-dimensional. I think he has the profile to eventually become a bellcow back, but he also needs some like very real development in my opinion. I thought he had bad pacing as a runner. I thought his eyes as a runner were also pretty lackluster. I thought he was uh pretty late on some reps and then I thought he was too quick picking a hole on others. It was kind of all over the place. Obviously, the Chargers offensive line did very few favors. Hopefully, that's better with both the tackles hopefully healthy. Uh Tyler Bottish is definitely a better center. So you have the ingredients where this thing could actually look right. And when he got to the second level, I mean, it was outrageous. He had a couple reps against the Giants where like he turns the corner. It's like, okay, that guy should not be running that fast. And then on other reps, he's dragging Giants uh for like 10 yards at a time just putting the team on his back. So you really like some of the stuff. I just think in general, one stat to before I kick it to you, Hampton's rush yards over expected, negative 40% with three or fewer yards to go. And then on four or more yards to go plus 21%. So this like success rate if you will is way different when he has more space once things kind of got confined and up the middle. He was just not nearly as good. Partially offensive line I do think partially Omar and Hampton.

I was going to ask you that and you kind of explained it. What do those two very different outcomes tell you about him as as a player? Is that hey when he kind of runs into brick walls when he has to be extremely decisive uh as soon as he angles immediately that maybe it can be a bit lackluster in terms of his production and his outcome in those versus hey when you give him a bit of space which we'll talk about the Mike McDaniel facet of this then uh whoa baby we've got something uh that is different about him.

I think that's exactly right. I thought his vision wasn't good enough. So when you have to, you know, pick up three yards at a time and every little second matters, then it's it's you kind of get hurt by him. And then when you have more space and he's outrunning everybody, that's like an extra like 40 yards that another running back would not have gotten. So like, of course, the success rate is not always going to be super high on those, but he makes enough big plays where you can really dream of an upside. And that's just as a as a rusher. I do think there's plenty of elements as a receiver where he gets the ball cleanly out and swing passes, and on those plays, he can go up the sideline, too. His profile was very similar at North Carolina as I thought it was as a rookie. Like you you talked about the speed. I'll also talk about the weird tackle breaking where like on final contact he twists and turns and you know puts his body towards the defender and always wants these final moments to fight for extra yards. It leaves him open and susceptible to these massive weird hits that you don't see at the NFL very often. But at the same time he also again forces a high rate of missed tackles. I think it was 0.27. Uh, and then creates a bunch of hidden yards because of it. He's just a different type of player and I would even say he's more athlete than running back at this time in terms of his vision, his feel for space, setting up lanes, and all that type of stuff. So, I have some not real concerns about him as a true runner, just like things that aren't perfect and aren't ideal when you go through the running back checklist. But then I just look at the situation that he's freaking in and the size of 220 plus pounds with the speed that he has attached now to Mike McDaniel who in 2025 had the running back five in points per game, running back 11 in points per game in 2024. And then we go back three seasons ago to 2023 had both the running back three and running back four in points per game. So I ask myself, does it really even matter what qualms I have and what holes could potentially be in his profile if everything goes according to plan here? Because you have a play caller, a play designer in Mike McDaniel who has created space at every stop he has been in, has a great blocking scheme for that to really utilize a center and offensive tackles. And you your guards don't have to be perfect, which they aren't here for the Chargers because he can still be highly, and I mean highly productive if he remains the guy, the lead guy in this back.

Yeah, they're just going to get him off off and running on the edge. And that's exactly what he did for Miami for all those years as well. And we saw that with Shanahan at times, too. Depending on what style running back they have, I do think that Keith Mitchell does a lot of the same things that we used to. Ask you that because like right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right right now on fantasy football Twitter there's a lot of I am fading Omar and Hampton because of Katon Mitchell and Katon Mitchell has been like the apple of fantasy Twitter's eye for a very long time and I get it in like the small sample of touches that he has he explodes he fits in this type he has the juice and that is 100% correct but we know he's a couple years removed now from a significant injury the Ravens could have kept hold of him for very little and they chose not to and he wound up in the ideal situation for his talents. So, what is the likelihood that this even turns into a 50-50 split or that Amaran Hampton like, you know, doesn't just have this outright lead on the backfield?

Well, the good news is Katon Mitchell's like 40 lbs lighter than Amarian Hampton. So, at the goal line, we should expect Omar Hampton to get all those touches. I do think that we should not discount Kamani Vidal because Kamani Vidal is good in pass protection and I could see this being like a three-back committee to some degree. I thought Omarian Hampton's head was kind of spinning uh in pass protection. I thought that he was he has like the mask to do it, but he is just like trying to light guys up and then there's a lot of whiffs in pass protection on his tape. So, and I I do think that they like Kamani Vid Doll. So, I do wonder if this is almost like three guys with three kind of different profiles and all of them are going to get enough touches. It just comes down to like how potent is this McDaniel's offense going to be with Justin Herbert and are they going to throw the ball more than we typically see with McDaniel's offense because they have Justin Herbert instead of Tua. So I think like the big concern for me is just if Keaton Mitchell's doing a lot of the the the stuff on the ground that we like and he's kind of trusted uh even on small volume there is like some pressure Omar and Hampton does have to step his game up to have this crazy ceiling. Like the ceiling very obvious. I do think the guys he's being drafted next to, they just have much better floors. So, I'm actually a couple spots lower on Omarian Hampton fully acknowledging he can finish as like the 104 this year. Uh, and I love the Chargers offense. I just was wishing that Amarian Hampton offered maybe a little bit more trustworthiness on tape and I'm not sure if we we got that solved.

Yeah, if he fails, it's for the reasons that we brought up, you know, so I I shouldn't just, you know, shoe those away as an outcome here. I believe it's just far likelier that the first round pick from last season that the head coach and general manager are still attached to this team that selected him there who had some real moments and still creates yards on his own and now goes into a scheme that probably accentuates his strengths and minimizes his weaknesses.

Yes. To hold on to the job, you know.

In some level he is like Katon Mitchell but plus 20 pounds, you know.

Exactly. Uh, now there's also an outcome where both of these guys are actually good values and it's weird to say that about someone who is the fifth pick of the second round in Marin Hampton and then like the fifth pick of the 12th round which uh Keaton Mitchell is at this point and again we just have to look back to 2023. I mean the Dolphins and this would be a tremendous outcome here for the Chargers. The Dolphins that year were second best in terms of points for per game at 29.2 to and again that was a running back three and running back four in points per game with Raheem Mosert and Devon Achan. Now Achan had a whole bunch of yards. He had a whole bunch of receptions and Raheem Moser went absolutely nuclear in terms of inside the 10 and inside the 15 yard line in terms of scoring touchdowns like the most since John Rigggins I believe of a 30 plus year old. But Hayden, if you look across the league and you stack quarterback and skilled players and offensive tackles and offensive line and play caller, I think there's a pathway for the Los Angeles Chargers to score the second most points in the league this year.

Yeah, ultimately with my Omaran Hampton takeaway, it's I can nitpick this thing, but it's just a dangerous game to nitpick this. So, I think he's firmly a second round pick. He should not be at the round one two turn. I do think, you know, Omarian Hampton hopefully turns into Derrick Henry and Dererick Henry gets selected after him. So, I think we can nitpick a couple draft picks overall here. This is the general range uh that he belongs in. And I do think that Katon Mitchell can pay off his ADP more in baseball because it'd be hard to predict when he's going to have his 40 yard touchdowns, but I do think they are coming. Keep in mind though, Katon Mitchell has one career game over 10 carries. So, like as excited as we can get here, the baseline outcome is Katon Mitchell averages seven carries, Omar Hampton gets 14, and then he catches some passes and gets the goal line work. And then all all of a sudden he's like a low-end RB1. So, I think that's my baseline expectation. Um, and I I just really believe in Herbert with McDaniels.

Two Chargers are going in the 12th round. We just did our tight end show. Aronda Gadston is the 11th pick of the 12th round. Katon Mitchell is the fifth pick of the 12th round. Which of those are you more likely to draft this year?

Yeah, it'll be Katon in half PBR.

Yeah. Because like you know if something does happen to a Martin then the Katon Mitchell stuff like goes skyhigh versus I'm not sure that the outcome case is there for Aronda Gatson to be like a league winner at his position.

Remember guys though like go type in like Harbaugh Kamani Vidal like there is like a little fascination like this is not a two-person race like I'm telling you this will be there will be three guys involved here in terms of snaps. Just the injury front, left ankle fracture week five against the Commanders and then he had another ankle injury in week 17 for Omar and Hampton last year. Uh, one final thought on this Mike McDaniel system now for three plus years, four plus years in the league. Uh, his offenses have ranked fifth in yards per rush to running backs, fifth in success rate, and first in explosive run rate.

Yeah, Hampton's fast, man.

He's big and fast. And then tries to break tackles and win on final contact.

Yeah. So, I can say all the rest of the stuff, but that's a recipe in this offense for just success.

Real success. All right, before we go anywhere further, our goal this season is to reach 200,000 subscribers. Now, we have to get to 175,000 first. And the only way for us to get there is for you, yes you listening or watching right now, to hit subscribe. It's totally free. We are doing our best to help you win your fancy leagues and be entertaining along the way. We want to be the source for you this entire summer, June, July, August, September, all of it to win your fantasy league. So, if you could do us a massive favor, shout out to those of you who already have, hit that subscribe button. Let's talk about Cam Scaboo. He's next up on this list. Running back 19, being drafted, the seventh pick of the fourth round. Uh what a fun player. He was in college, then stayed on the board way too late in the actual NFL draft, and then shows up and averages over 90 yards when given the starting job until what, about week eight, where he dislocated his right ankle, fractured his fibula, and then ruptured his deltoid ligament. So, what do you think about Cam Scataboo here entering year two?

Rookie tape is pretty underrated. He fought really, really hard for lots of extra yards. Maybe fought too hard at times out there. Just completely sacrificed seeing his body. He has crazy bellcow potential just because of how he operates, how thick he is, and also how nice his hands are on top of that. So, he can actually play a bunch of snaps. Uh he was the RB 11, RB8, RB9, 4, 14, and 15 in expected points when he was the starter there. He was a clear RB1 during that stretch. Uh, I thought that the Giants offensive line was kind of uh dismantled. I think it's going to be better this year due to health and draft picks. Uh, obviously when you have the Harbaughs, they want to run the ball. We saw the Jackson Dart comment where they want to feed the ball to Cam Scataboo. Uh, and I thought maybe he's a step faster than people were giving him credit for um, back as a as a prospect. There's a couple times where he was beating guys at least to the first down marker. He's never going to be running away from guys, but you can do a lot of fun things in the pass game. He can run routes, stay on the football field, he catches everything. And uh I like Tyrone Tracy, but I just don't think that he runs nearly as hard as Cam Scatterabus. So, I do feel good that he's going to be a foundational back for for the Giants here. I don't know about obviously the ankle injury and what that's going to mean for him. I did see him do a backflip in a softball game uh last month uh which pretty on brand for Cam Scatteraboo, like pushing the limits. Uh but good news, he did land it and seemed to be moving. Okay. Yeah, we've talked about it in in previous shows. Uh, it's somewhat anecdotal, but everyone that has, you know, fractured and dislocated their ankle and fractured their fibula, uh the last four or so big names of fantasy football have seen massive drastic per-touch output drop uh in in their next season. I'm hoping that Scottoo is different because he is a different kind of cat. He's a madman on the field. Uh, I know that there were questions entering the league of if he could win in the same way in the NFL as he did in college because of his perceived lack of athleticism. Um, and then it's just more difficult to break a tackle. It was one for one. It was basically the same. And I would continue to add that like I think very little about his athletic prowess pops, but he has underrated vision and feel I think for the position and he just simply refuses to go down. He wants to claw, scrape, lower his shoulder, break through a wall like the Kool-Aid Man uh on on final contact, lower his helmet to basically the turf to submarine you on top of it. He gets skinny and small between the tackles, I think, really well. What also I thought translated was his kind of lack of ability to pull away on these 20 plus yard runs. But still, if you're chugging along for 4, 7, 8, 6, 12, 15 yard runs, then that always works cuz he's always finishing forward. So, I wish I was a doctor. I wish I went to medical school and I knew how to project him doing this stuff because for as much as the Giants have talked about running the football and utilizing running backs, they invested nothing in the position.

And you would think that that means really good things for Cam Scataboo. And if he was healthy, boy oh boy, this would be much earlier than the fourth round. So there's a chance that this is tremendous value for us. But I'm a little bit concerned just based on recent issues with this injury.

Yeah, I think it just comes down to how much of is already priced in. He's the RB9 from week 2 to week uh seven when he was healthy and then he's currently being drafted as what the RB19. So like there's some level of discount. I'm hopeful that the Giants are going to be a better football team this year than they were this last season and Jackson Dart going into year two. Francis Mino is going to certainly help. Um, so I do think at least some of this ankle injury is is priced in here and there are some outcomes where it was too much priced in and there's going to have a runway here. Um, and then there's the Malik Neighbors part of it too. Like if we don't see Malik Neighbors until, you know, week five, week six, somewhere in that range and he's not the same player. Like we're running out of options and like how many passes would he catch early in the season? On top of that, uh, last note, he had a 40-inch vertical. So, like the the really lack of athleticism, I think people just got a little bit too carried away with it. Like he's not he's he has too short of legs to have like be like a long distance runner here, but in the short areas like there's some like legit power that he's playing with some short area burst. Um, and obviously like the crazy will.

Well, you have to have a 40-inch vertical if you're going to do backflip safely landed it because that would not have been a good look.

Yeah, those go hand in hand. The jumps were exceptional. Obviously like the movement stuff, he he didn't do any agilities, but like the the the running elements uh were not as quick as as other backs out there. But so often that then becomes your athletic profile is your 40 time and people stop there and stop looking. So I I I want it to work. I I really want this to happen. Uh because you and I were huge fans and then he just kept falling in the draft and then he goes and and has an awesome rookie season when out there on the field. So he can be like, you know, one of not one of the face of the NFL per se, but uh he he's up there as a personality and then play and then in this system if this team works then uh I think you'll be seeing a lot a lot more of Cam Scataboo because the backfield is Scataboo, Tyrone Tracy, and Devin Singleary. They change nothing about it.

They added Patrick Ricard. They added Patrick Ricard.

Kind of honestly they're kind of twins. Uh Ricard and Scataboo. Scatville kind of reminds me of Mark Ingram. You know, if things go well throughout his career, like that's Mark Mark Ingram, he's he's on broadcast.

Next in the same round at the end of it, the 12th pick of the fourth round, Trevian Henderson as running back 20. His rookie season over 1,000 total yards, 10 touchdowns on 215 touches. That's just during the regular season. Uh he is the first Patriots running back drafted by quite a large margin. Uh again, 12th pick of the fourth round Trevian. Then the third pick of the seventh round is Randre Stevenson. So what do you want to say after watching Trevian's rookie season?

I think he really reminds me of Raheem Moert and I think that's usually a a compliment and I think that in a good offense you can have crazy seasons from Raheem Moert types. Trayvon Henderson when he has space is winning pretty much every single race. Uh some of those were between the tackles when kind of the seas parted and he hit the gap and he's going to outrun the safety. Other times it was kind of just like a wall. He'd stop his feet. All the Buccaneers defenders would close in and then he would bounce it outside and then he would win those races as well. I think that there was more uh in the receiving game than the Patriots got to. I think part of the reason why we didn't see even more of that out of Trayvon was because one, Raandre was equally as good at it, if not even better. And two, I think the one thing that was just completely shocking to me is Trayvon was straight up bad in pass protection after being very good at Ohio State when I went back and watched it. There was a couple mental reps, but a lot of it kind of just came down to he's 200 lbs, you know, like these are NFL linebackers. I think that's going to be kind of difficult to overcome. I'm hoping his vision gets a little bit kind of sped up. I think there were some times where he was kind of indecisive, especially earlier in the season. The Patriots kind of navigated that. They threw him some more pitches, got him out in space a little bit more. I thought that was good coaching. I trust Tayvon the the the person to improve in these kind of uh these like more mental ways going into year two. And then I have a full faith in Drake May here. So uh I think you can nitpick some of the parts of his game, but it's kind of like the Omar and Hampton conversation where when you're that fast and your offense is this good that it's hard to get too bearish. I just think the one difference is what if like Raander is actually like a pretty good running back and he's just not.

Well, he is a pretty good running back, you know.

But I think he's pretty disrespected in fantasy for the most part.

Got it. Yeah, he Raandre was on our running back sleepers video last year. He was on the thumbnail. So, uh we were I mean I was drafting both of of these guys and certainly both had their moments last year. It's pretty simple. Like with better blocking, Trevan Henderson's going to be a more efficient runner. And I don't want us to forget how poor the Patriots run blocking was last season for the vast majority of the year, despite them going to the Super Bowl. You know, we can think about them as the Super Bowl contender from the AFC, whereas it felt like from, I don't know, weeks one through freaking 12, they could not run the ball between the tackles. Yep. And it also include the tight ends like Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper were getting whooped and then they've made a ton of offensive line changes this offseason because they saw the exact same thing that we did. You know, like Will Campbell's at left tackle, but you also draft Caleb Lumu. You know, that's hanging the wings. You go out and sign Elijah Ver Tucker who is awesome when healthy but then injured quite frequently. And then you move your left guard to center and Jared Wilson and send away Garrett Bradberry who's a bit too light and too easily to move off uh at that center spot.

So if just the blocking improves and he is given more lanes then you're going to see just explosiveness and ridiculous speed. Uh he had four touchdown runs last season of 50 or more yards as you were saying. That's the most in the NFL. In fact, that's the most 50-yard touchdown runs by a rookie in a season since Saquon Barkley in 2018. Now, do I expect, you know, four more 50-yard touchdown runs next season? Probably not in the same exact way, but it is possible if because his speed to pull away from defenders is ridiculous. It is insane. Now, he has some flaws in his game. I was stunned about the pass protection. Like I'm going back and think about the Michigan State tape when he is picking up uh his assignments and seeing blitzes and you know putting his nose in there. The guys are obviously bigger and faster in the NFL. They can confuse you a bit more. The game just needs to slow down for him I think in that area a little bit.

Yeah. So I want to ask you this is the next part. Do you think it's fair that there's almost a three round gap between Trian Henderson and Reandre Stevenson right now? And why do you think that three round gap exists? Do you just believe that fantasy drafters have this conclusion that he's just going to command this backfield and take a huge step in year two?

Yeah, I think it's just the younger, more exciting player, the faster player is kind of how we draft things. I I think Raandre Stevenson signed a big contract, lived up to it last year. And I think that Raandre has advantages in two very key key areas. One is pass protection and receiving. There was a couple remind Stevenson receptions I went back and watched them were like 30 yards down the football field and there remember one of the quotes being that Trayvon was supposed to be on the field but then they didn't trust him or whatever the happened and then here comes Raandre and the fact that Raandre can do those things is pretty exciting and then the second thing is uh inside the five yard line when Raandre was out there he handled 12 of the six 16 inside the five yard line carries between the two backs and obviously when you have what every bit of 40 pounds uh on them that's probably going to continue here. I want Trayvon Henderson to play with more physicality. I think that's in pass protection. I think that's on contact between the tackles. He can obviously run between the tackles if the C parts and split defenders and that's awesome. I think it's a little bit different. We're just talking about it's third and one and you got a linebacker hitting you. Are you able to kind of spin off of that and pick up the first down? I'm not sure if I saw that quite enough, which I think maybe lowers his ceiling just a little bit. Uh but like you said, like there's proof of concept. If Arandre misses time, Trayvon had uh 16.5 expected half PPR points in those three games, that's RB4 overall stuff, right? And we know he can run like the win. So like the proof of concept is there. If Raandre fumbles or gets injured, then Trayvon could be a total stud. So I have him ranked pretty close. I think maybe this is more like, hey, Raandre might be going a little bit too late. Uh he's a pretty quality player in a good offense. Like let's just not completely forget about him.

I was a huge believer in Trevon Henderson's talent coming into the league. I don't think I'm going to be drafting him a lot at this spot in the 12th pick of the fourth round. Uh I mean we're talking about the next pick being Jaylen Wadd, right? Like again the round five running backs when you look at Dave Montgomery and the workload that he has and maybe we're a bit too optimistic about that, but who else are they going to turn to? Devandre Swift, uh Quinn Sean Judkins, who we'll talk about here in a moment, Jadarian Price for example. Like I kind of like these round five running backs again more than the round four guys. And there are other wide receivers mixed in there that uh I'm intrigued by too. So like Terry Mcccluren versus Trevan Henderson. I think I'm siding with Terry McLaren in that spot. Yep. So it's it's tough for me to say that. I agree with a lot of what you're saying. He kind of pinballs on contact where he if they doesn't bring him down, he kind of bounces from this tackler into this tackler into this tackler.

Never forward. But at at the same time, uh that was with horrible blocking and then the only thing that worked for stretches of the season were those stretch runs, were those toss runs and then like the offensive running game kind of got going a bit more. Yeah. Uh a after that. So, and even when Roman was out, like they featured him in the passing game when he got to the red zone, too, in terms of creating some opportunities for him in that area. So just uh develop a little more like ease yourself in feel a bit more comfortable year two in the league. And uh his rare speed kind of gives him a different profile than a lot of the other running backs that we talk about, you know, across the league at this point.

I got him ranked right next to Basil Tune, who we'll get to in in just a second here. I think a lot of those wide receivers that you just mentioned, I would rather just go there and then just I don't think there's maybe that big of a difference between upside and floor in the next couple running backs in a row. And like fully understanding Trayvon could be a top five, top 10 running back in fantasy this year and as should every top 24 running back in in ADP.

Next is Quinnon Judkins, running back 24, the seventh pick of the fifth round. I'll say it, Hayden. After going back and watching Quinn Sean Judkins in season and for this show, I think he's the second best runner in this class.

My first note is Judkins had the best rookie running back tape in 2025. So, I I'll even go up a notch from there. There's a couple standout traits to me. One, he runs really hard and he's got like a great build. 6' 221 lbs. He just is a really tough tackle straight up. I think what makes him so good though is not the like physical traits that he has. He just plays so in control. I thought his vision was really good. He knows when to be patient. He knows when to be decisive. And then the other thing that he does is he keeps his feet underneath him. There's some other running backs who are more athletic than him in terms of the testing, but their feet get too far uh away from him and it's hard to adjust. Where Quinton Judkins is so balanced, he's able to pivot and make the right uh cut. uh so much faster because he's just so in control. So, I thought he was really outstanding as a runner. You cannot make the statistical case to back us. You just have to trust us. Go put on some highlights. He's fast enough. He's not super fast. He's just fast enough. I think his play speed and his understanding of getting to uh the right hole on time to allow for his athletic traits to to pick up. I thought he looked like one of the better running backs in the NFL.

I'll take it a notch further.

Let's go. I was shocked at how fast he was. I think the defensive backs in the field were shocked at how fast he was. I mean, there were plenty of times where they took an angle more than a dozen during his rookie season that they then were reaching for a tackle or then having to adjust while he was then picking up extra yards. So get a hand on him, then try to bring him down in the open field. I mean, one of his first runs for the season, he presses the line, bounces it to the outside, completely turns the corner on Marlon Humphrey, who again is shocked by his juice. And I I think that this goes into why the stats in the film can be so different for running backs compared to almost any other position because the underlying metrics, as you said, might not be kind for Quinn Sean in a lot of cases. Then you just go and watch like 25 carries is all you need to do, just 25. And you're like, "God damn." Yeah, this guy packs a punch. He wins on contact. He gets skinny through trash. He can work on the outside. He can go to the outside. And then he can also break tackles at the second and third level that lead to just crazy explosive plays. But because of the environment that he was in from the quarterback to especially the offensive line that gave him just 0.7 yards on average before contact which is third worst among all rookie running backs out there to being hit at or behind the line of scrimmage on 55% of his carries. And that's going to make those underlying numbers look poor or look average, right, at best, where to me, he is not average at anything when we're talking about carrying the football, he is excellent in a whole bunch of areas.

He also faced the highest amount of eight plus defender boxes according to NextGen stats at 45% of them. So, not only was the offensive line bad, teams did not care about the pass game at all. So, he was just having to navigate all that trash that you're talking about. So, I thought his vision was exceptional. Like you have to watch running backs and like pay attention to the linebackers because that's like more or less who they're responsible for. And his feel when the linebacker creeps up into one hole and he's going to go to the back side of it is just like so so fast. I think

As a receiver, they didn't do a whole lot with him there. It's not like there was anything that was standing out to me that he like can't do it. I do think that Dylan Samson is gonna be one of the better uh uh pass game running backs as as a compliment, but Dylan Samson's much smaller than Quint Junkkins, which means he handled 31 of 35 running back carries uh inside the five yard or inside the red zone. Uh, they didn't get to the inside the five yard line 35 times. That's a problem here.

Uh, but I think we're going to run into the same issues with Quinnon that you know, this offensive line, they got five new starters. How many of them are actually good? That's going to be a problem. The tight ends. We talked about Harold Fannon who's blocking in the tight end group. That's going to be a problem here. Uh, they haven't fully unlocked him as a receiver. That's a problem.

"I just know that Quinc Jun is a hell of a football player. So I can only rank him so low."

Well, the other thing that we're running into as well is I believe in week 16 he dislocated his right ankle and fractured his fibula on top of this. So, it's a similar conversation that we had about Cam Scataboo uh and the recent players who were very good fantasy performers who then dropped down a tier with that stuff. But Quinn Sean, "I think h if I'm just again reading reports and following Twitter kind of has been participating a bit more than Cam Scaboo so far this off seasonason and a lot of the Twitter docs are surprised with how much Quinch Sean has had. So, like again, not all these injuries are exactly the same, but I do want to give the same hesitancy with that statement to Quinn Sean as I did with Scat."

Yeah. And Scat that was like week eight. This was week 16. So Scout in theory has a twomonth head start. We still got what two months uh before we we get get started here or three months. So um, I think these guys will end up being fine. And I I believe like obviously we should expect that his efficiency and workload should be lighter than it was the previous year because of the injury. The sample size that we're going off of is like three or four running backs and like you know, I I don't think we should like fully like just only believe in those. There could be a lot of noise here as we know we do this show in 15 years and we have a lot more unfortunately dislocated ankles to to go off of. Uh, and Judkins and Scott are really young so maybe they can be outliers.

"I mean, it really sucks how many times we've already talked about offensive line changes and how that's going to positively impact and that's just a guess that it's going to right. We did that with Ashen Genty obviously the Chargers and getting rid of Bradley Boseman and getting their tackles back. Uh, we just did it with Trevian Henderson. uh, we did with Cam Scataboo and now we're doing it here with Quinn Chan Judkins because what I don't think a single one of the starters last year is returning. It's all five all starters. Five."

"Some of them retired. Some of some of them said I've seen enough."

"And if I implore you all just to go and watch the Vikings game. It was electric. Um"

"So good."

"And the Vikings in previous years have been one of the stingiest teams to run on. But you see Quinchan Judkins just dragging defenders again, making safeties angles look horrible. His cuts have explosiveness. He fights on final contact to get more yards. I thought his hands were fine, but I think I have a bit more hesitation than you maybe in his pass protection. Like he's good on these cut blocks and submarines, but then he kind of stops his feet uh as a standup guy and whiffs. Again, his final season in college, he was attached to Trevan Henderson, who was very good at that. And then at Old Miss, he had and was in a rotation always during that time. I remember our our draft profile and he had so many edge runs at Ohio State that I actually compared maybe his running style or how to be used in the league to Derk Henry and like getting him on the edge and full speed and then he's off the races big body who can move. Todd Monin coming in two years with Derrick Henry >> in his past. So, I'm expecting for as good as the Browns can be this year, as far as they can push this for Quinton Judkins to maximize whatever he can do. And I am honestly in love with his ADP right now in the middle of the fifth round if I haven't already selected two running backs already in drafts."

"Yeah, he's better than I thought. I was looking at my comps. My comps was uh Kareem Hunt, which turned out to be maybe a little bit"

"Well, Kareem Hunt's rookie year."

"Incredible."

"Yeah."

"Incredible."

"Yep."

All right, let's talk about Bashel Tutin, who is just after the turn of round five and six, the first pick of the sixth round running back 26. He played on just 21% of the offensive snaps on the Jaguars as a rookie. Just 93 touches into 386 yards. Uh, you could buzz through those 93 touches in about an hour, Hayden. So in that hour, what did you see?

"Well, unfortunately Josh, we have to get this one right. Uh, and that's going to be pretty difficult given, I think, Tootton's tape. Because I could see this one going either way. Uh"

"Why do we have to get it right?"

"Because it's freaking Liam Cohen, man. Go look at the Tampa Bay Bucks and then what Travis Han just did this last uh season when he was the RB 11. The good news is for Bachel Tuten, he doesn't even have to be great to be a great fantasy asset. He just has to be playable. Uh, last year he was teetering on the playability. And I do want to quickly mention Lquint Allen played just as many snaps as Basel Tutin. Those 20% snaps are not going away. If it's third and Trevor Lawrence might get hit, then Laquent Allen's going to stay on the football field. Fortunately for Toutin though, Chris Rodriguez is not on the football field. He's got a foot injury that we're going to have to uh figure out as we get closer to training camp. In terms of just the tape, really fun runner. Just I like his style of running just because he's fun to watch. He would probably drive me nuts as a coach because he's got this crazy speed. I think he plays a little bit out of control and that ends up kind of costing some game speed. Uh, he has good contact balance, but then he would kind of fumble out in space just because I can just tell things were moving really fast for Bashel Tuton. So, uh, I think there's a lot of development that needs to happen with him. One of his screen touchdowns, uh, he went to the left, all five of his linemen went to the right. He still scored a touchdown because he made a linebacker miss out in space. But it's these type of things that I think we aren't privy to of maybe why Tuton wasn't involved and maybe why they aimed for Chris Rodriguez who has a lot of familiarity. So if he's going to be out there, he's going to score a ton of fantasy points. We just have to figure out exactly what percentage snaps he's going to be out there."

Yeah. At the same time, they just willingly let Travis Aent go. And that gives, at least in my mind, some level of confidence that they have in Bashel Tutin. And then kind of the smallalish contract that they gave Chris Rodriguez and we'll talk about Rodriguez here in a moment. One run kind of encapsulated Bachel Tutin's rookie season for me. It was against the Arizona Cardinals. Kas Campbell got instant disruption, threw the right guard to the ground. There was an awesome jump cut to avoid him and have a two-ard loss. Then gets to the Phil defensive back on the edge. He presses with that outside foot then perfectly cuts inside with really nice speed to avoid contact. Then the next step, he just trips over himself, his own feet. And so that only equals a two- yard gain when it could have been a sevenyard gain at the very least. But if he broke another tackle or ran away from a defensive back, he could have gone and housed it. So like there were multiple, I thought, opportunities where he kind of just lost control of his body a little bit. Uh, got over his skis, lost balance, slept, tripped, all of it. that again stopped 12 yard runs from being like 35 yard touchdowns or 50 yard touchdowns like we saw from Trevian Henderson. At the same time, I thought he had some nice power and straightforward willingness during the and near the goal line. He actually was subbed in for those situations as well. Had the same mistackle force rate as Cam Scataboo, who we talked about breaking all these runs, too. But one cut and get up field. And so if Liam Cohen's offense, >> you know, as we saw last year, has really nice blocking and he has the game slow down for him a little bit, we know he has the speed to reach every single hole and get to every single scene at each level of the field. That that can mask maybe some of these possible vision questions. But if some of those questions were just because, you know, he was a zero star recruit who went from one school then move up to Virginia Tech and now he's, you know, just a better player on top of it, then we might have like the breakout player. Yes. If everything hits this year.

"Yeah, definitely. So, and like if Chris Rodriguez foot lingers then like it's just going to be him because Laquent Allen just cannot move the same way that Basel does. When I was talking about Quint Judkins playing in control and his feet being underneath him and playing more athletic than what his numbers would suggest, the inverse is true for Toutton. Like those two guys watching their tape almost back to back in like the next couple hours, it was very evident like one's in control, one is not. Uh, I liked when Jacksonville started just giving him a bunch of pitches. There was one game where he gave they gave him six pitches that included like at the goal line. I think maybe that kind of like just slowed things down for him a little bit, gave him a little bit more space to operate. He should be watching as much Devon Achan tape as possible because that's like what he should look like. He did not look like that as a rookie. That's how it it should look like. And Liam Cohen could really throw um Tuton some screens this year because Chris Rodriguez is not going to do that. The Quinn Allen's in there for protection reasons. So these are crazy reception seasons. Like there's a chance Toutin can do that. I don't trust him pass protecting at all. Uh, and I don't like that he was running the wrong way on some routes, but like in theory that upside does exist in fantasy."

"It's interesting. You know, we we just talked about Mike McDaniel and how all of his running back kind of have this, you know, string through them, a throughine of at least having speed, but you have the Moserts to the H Chans, uh, to the Keat Mitchells to the Jaylen Wrights, like they have something in common."

"Liam Cohen's running backs are kind of all different in a way. Like you go from again Chris Rodriguez with Kentucky to Bucky Irving and"

"They're not even great athletes."

"Rashad White."

"Yeah."

"And then you have Travis Aan this past season. And then now you have Bachel Tutin. And like the throughine between all those guys is wildly different. And while like maybe the size of Tutin and Bucky Irving is somewhat similar, you could not find like any different running styles than than those two. Like they are drastically opposed to each other."

Quickly on Chris Rodriguez because again this is important. There's history there. There's commonality from Liam Cohen and during his time and this was the only move that they made after, you know, Travis Han went to the New Orleans Saints. From Rhino Howaleran, quote, "According to a team source, Chris Rodriguez had a procedure on his left foot following an injury earlier in the offseason program, but is expected to be ready for the start of training camp in late July." Now, there's been a lot of speculation. Hey, is this a Jones fracture? Is this turf toe? Is it Liz Frank? uh those three things never want to hear foot injuries with running backs and Liam Cohen even got on the mic today and said you know I'm not worried mentally about any of the time that Chris Rodriguez misses because he's obviously uh knows exactly what we do from a playbook standpoint but for a guy who is also you know a lesser athlete than many of the other players out there playing running back uh"

"This only boosts Bajel Tutin's I think potential and possibility of reaching the ceiling outcome for us and we're able to get that what in the sixth round at this point. That's incredible."

"Yep. Yep. I ranked him one spot ahead of uh Trayvon Henderson. I think the profiles are almost identical. Um, for maybe slightly different reasons, but the the upside's evident, the downside risk, we we saw it play out this last season. Uh, I just feel, you know, better about Raandre Stevenson than injured Chris Rodriguez at this point. Um, so we'll see. Just to ask about that real quick."

"Does that mean you have Toutin way above ADP or does that mean you have Hindo way below ADP?"

"Uh, more Hendo down below like like you said the round four five turn those wide receivers are pretty pretty fun to me. So I think right after you get out of those guys then I think I start sliding in Quinnshod's in there uh, Tutin and uh Tvon. I feel so much better about Quinn Judkins uh his tape and I feel obviously way worse about his situation. So ranking those three guys in in a row, I think I ended up in that area. Like they just get there in totally different ways."

Okay, one round later, Arjie Harvey goes at the end of the seventh round as the running back 31, so five spots later at the position. Um, 896 yards from scrimmage as a rookie with 12 touchdowns on 193 touches. So what' you see from RJ Harvey after combing through his rookie tape?

"A >> that is a really good setup for R.J. Harvey to score fantasy points. The offensive line was really good. Shawn Payeyton does a really good job of scheming things up. They all stayed healthy until Bo Nicks got injured really late. And then once JK Dobbins went down, RJ Harvey went on a a really nice run in terms of fantasy. He was the RB1 17 on RB10 usage without JK Dobbins. Uh, but I think the tape was pretty hit and miss. And I think there's a lot more misses than hits. Now, if you took his like three best runs of the season where he was running up the middle, bouncing off guys, and then winning with speed, you'd be completely convinced that this guy's going to go crazy in fantasy. I thought there was a lot of kind of wasted plays as well. The underlying metrics, given how good the Broncos offensive line was, was really bad. 40 seconds 42nd EPA per carry. Uh, negative8 rush yards over expected. That's out of 46 qualifying running backs. Who's 32 32nd in that last stat there. Um, and then NextGen stats had him with the second highest time spent behind the line of scrimmage. I think that was maybe the more frustrating part. I thought there were some reps where he was just a little bit indecisive trying to cut things outside. He has the athleticism to make it work sometimes. Not enough athleticism to do it all the time, especially when you have one of the best offensive lines out there. So, I thought his tape there were some things that there's some explosiveness to his game that you certainly felt. I thought the rest of it is probably the reason why they gave $10 million guaranteed back to JK Dobbins despite another uh season ending injury. So, with a lot of the running backs, we've already talked about Hampton and the Chargers, Scataboo and the Giants, uh, we just talked about it with Bashel Tutin and Jaguars, we are looking for the runner that is going to claim the line share of work and potentially has not just top 12 running back outcome, but maybe top five running back outcomes this season. I'll go as far to say that's impossible with the Broncos backfield. Like this is just how Shawn Peyton utilizes running backs is that he gives a whole bunch of players a whole bunch of touches. Um, not a single running back under Shawn Peyton has ever hit 250 carries and that's what 13 years in the league as a play caller and a head"

"Great offenses. Yeah."

"Yeah. Not Reggie Bush, Deuce Mallister, Alvin Chimera, Mark Ingram, Javvante Williams even two years ago. I mean, Gavvonte Williams and RJ Harvey's actual statistical profiles in their two seasons with the Broncos is nearly identical with that stuff. So, this is what Shawn Peyton wants. Like, he wants multiple guys to touch the ball. Now, obviously R.J. Harvey's going the earliest of these Broncos guys. And how I can pitch that is actually 25 different running backs have hit 50 targets with Shawn Payeyton. And RJ Harvey was just the 25th. And some of those plays were some of his best across the entire season. And especially when we talk about the red zone. Um, I mean, he had the same number of red zone targets last year as Zay Flowers >> and had three more touchdowns inside the red zone than Z Flowers did just in re receptions and receiving yards. Yep. >> And that's not even talking about the goal line stuff. I mean, he had five touchdowns within the five yard line. All of those were in in close games. Um, there were about six or seven times when they got in the red zone where they called like this bootleg right with him slipping out or he was inserting after this weird alignment that was even outside the tackle through the line of scrimmage and then catching the ball. So, I think that it's impossible to make good on a second round draft capital that the Denver Broncos spent on RJ Harvey to say, "Well, he's just insert blank lead running back on an NFL team." Instead, I think that Shawn Payeyton, and I'll be Davis Webb as quote unquote calling plays now, wants to utilize these three running backs in different ways, and namely two in JK Dobbins and R.J. Harvey. and how RJ Harvey's kind of like found his role in this. Now, what does that mean for fantasy purposes? Does that mean he's a good pick or a bad pick? I'm still deciding that at this point, but uh, that's kind of where I am at with his standing in this offense at this moment."

"I think he's a committee back. I think he's a pass uh pass game back and that's how Shawn Peyton utilizes him. There's a history like you keep mentioned with the Shawn Payeyton of they get into roles and it's hard to shake out of those. When JK Dobbins was healthy, RJ Harvey was the RB36 on RB54 usage. half PPR, he's being drafted as the RB31. So like the market is expecting uh RJ Harvey to play a lot more than he did uh with JK Dobbins. And we haven't brought up Jonah Coleman, who I think is at least somewhat interesting because Jonah Coleman was a Bellcow. He's not very splashy, but Jonah Coleman I do think if JK Dobbins misses time, Jonah Coleman would eat into some of the touches that R.J. Harvey was getting without uh JK Dobbins this last year. Like I I think that the the upside case in terms of like ranking in terms of handcuffs I do think takes a hit because Jonah Coleman is involved. So I think in full PPR and a deep league and stuff I think there's like some interesting outcomes for for R.J. Harvey. Uh, I don't think I was sold on this tape. And it wasn't even just Jake uh JK Dobbins returning and the Joan Coleman selection. They were like linked to Jerian Price in the draft. They were linked to Travis Han, Kenneth Walker, every big running back. Shawn Peyton made sure to get on K. Adams podcast and say, "Hey, we're we're looking to to find uh this next guy." They ultimately settled on $10 million guaranteed Jake Dobs, which is more money than I was expecting."

"Yeah. I mean, but it's just a one-year contract, you know."

"Yeah. But 10 million like that's that's pretty good, you know? Uh, so I I think like week one comes around, guess who's going to be leading this team in touches? It'll be JK Dobbins. And right now, he's getting priced way down. Now, that's not how we should be ranking these guys in fantasy long term. But in my rankings, >> like the JK Dobbin stuff is every year is a career year until it's not because he has averaged like seven and a half games played per season in his NFL career."

"Yeah, definitely. So, so I have him pretty close in my rankings. I think early on the season it will definitely be JK Dobbins. JK Dobbins is somehow only 27 years old. So, if you can figure this thing out and like I mean I don't know what his leg"

"I want. Trust me, if if we got a 17 games of JK Dobbins, it would be freaking sweet. And I hate trying to predict injuries, but like at some point, you know, we can all say"

"He's on pace for this and then it's just impossible for like if JK Dobbins fulfilled his on-pay stats every single year, he'd be a Hall of Famer at this point."

"He literally would. He literally would."

"So, it just it just hasn't happened."

"Yeah. But what we do know is that like again RJ Harvey 47 passes that's running back eight in the NFL last year. 350 plus yards that's running back eight in the NFL and five receiving touchdowns that's running back three in the NFL last season. I also like we can talk about how much JK Dobbins more work he had than RJ Harvey to start the season. I don't think that we're going to get the same difference, the same split in that to open this season after, you know, you do have RJ Harvey, you know, seeing the vast majority of the running back work. Like, I don't think he's going to have anywhere from five to seven touches >> in the first eight games of last season of this season again, if that makes sense."

"Yeah, I have both of them in my RB30s. Neither of them are inside my top 32 fantasy running backs. And I think it'll be a committee like you said and like that's not even factoring in or that's factoring in Jonah Coleman like going to get he's not getting zero touches Jonah Coleman he's going to get five and uh he can get some goal line work too because he's Jonah Coleman's a big boy too I mean he's like 5'8 but 220 so uh he's an interesting guy like very different than RJ Harvey in my opinion"

"I'm not fronting off RJ Harvey either just improving"

"Yeah, once once he gets into the league"

"Uh, in his second season. So that's a possibility. They are quite close just in terms of running back rankings overall. It's running back 31 and running back 35 between the two."

Okay, let's talk Kungai who really became a channel favorite during last preseason. Just the more you dug into the depth chart, uh, the more we were advocating him as what a round 15 plus pick last year. Uh, and then just like DeAndre Swift from about week seven on, you saw real strides both with him and this running game and how they leaned into the strength. So, right now he's being selected as running back 33, the seventh pick of the eighth round. Uh, is this one of the more straightforward evaluations that you saw?

"It really is. I like the ADP. I have him ranked ahead of R.J. Harvey. Uh, in fantasy, I think that he's definitely better than R.J. Harvey in terms of the rookie tape. I think he plays with a ton of energy. He plays with a ton of contact balance. And then he's not crazy athletic, but he's definitely athletic enough. He reminds me stylistically of Isaiah Pacheco, but like Isaiah Pacheco actually moving forward like like, you know, in an efficient manner. It's just like he plays with all that energy that you love. And I think that he has a little bit different of a style than DeAndre Swift. Ben Johnson understood that they had a little bit different type of carries they would get to. They ultimately by the end of the season were were rotating drives one to one where Swift would get the first uh drive out of each half and then Manungai would get the next. That was enough to kind of be where this ADP is and like the low RB30s. And then there were some games where Manungai went absolutely crazy because uh their right guard right tackle combination was as good as it gets. Ben Johnson's outstanding uh and I think Kyle Manungai is a rock solid player. So, I thought if DeAndre Swift didn't improve last year on tape, I think we'd be like, "All right, Manunga might just take this whole thing over." I'm not expecting that to be the case. But, if it did, there's no RB3 right now and Manungai would be vaulted really high up in our weekly rankings. So, I think right now he's kind of priced at his like median outcome. And I think it's way more likely that he like breaks out than he completely goes away. It is so fitting that he is right next to Blake Cororm when it comes to running back selected because at times it was two for one for both in terms of two drives to DeAndre Swift and Kairen Williams and then one drive to Manungi and Blake Corm. Then there were other contests where it was literally one for one >> as well and you saw some really nice moments uh from both."

Manungai 187 touches, 947 yards and five scores. He's just a bowling ball. He's a bumper car. It goes into everything that you said. Now, you would think maybe with that style he would pull away and like totally break tackles more often. He was down at right around league average at 0.15 in terms of his missed tackles forced rate. Yeah. But it kind of goes to he's falling forward on final contact to pick up those two or three yards and not fully breaking it and like playing on the edges of these defenders and they're like grabbing his jersey or grabbing at his ankles and then he reels off another seven or eight. Um, but once again, what a seventh round pick he was and what extreme confidence Ben Johnson must have in him heading into year two where someone with the Lions, how they invested so much in the running back position is just running it back with DeAndre Swift and Kungai and Manungai is just so much of a superior player than Roshan Johnson who was selected in the fourth round just a few years earlier.

"Yeah, Mona just doesn't have the athletic traits to like really overwhelm. So, he's about as good as he possibly can be. Um, and I think that's a really fun player because the Bears offense should be inside the top 10. There was I I had to call it two quick plays on Manungai. One happened in the second game of the season. The Lions were smoking the Bears. They were up 31. There was 40 seconds left. They give the ball to Kyle Manungai with obviously nothing to play for and just like truckicks two Lions defenders like in the last minute. And then another play where uh Kyle Manungai was supposed to be like chip blocking uh next to Coloulston Lovelin. Coloulston Lovelin completely bodied one-on-one pass protection, but Nung guy slips out uh just using his head, catches a pass, breaks some tackles for a very very clutch uh first down uh in that game as well. So there's just like really fun moments with Kyle Mungai. I can tell that Ben Johnson really trusts him. So him and Blake Cororm like these are the type of guys that I gravitate towards. Like I would much rather take a chance that I have like a bi-week fill in with a chance to really matter rather than like some of these guys like you know uh maybe Jaylen Warren, RJ Harvey, these guys where I I just don't see quite the same level ceiling like I do with Mungai or Cora."

"Is the potential outcome and highend outcome for Kyle Manungai uh that he is the new version of Jamal Williams for this team? Now,"

"If you just look at the Chicago Bears last year, we know that they were ninth in terms of scoring on offense, but I wonder just based on body type and how Kongai maxes everything that he does and now he's, you know, not a seventh round rookie. He's now a secondyear player in this offense."

"If he can kind of at least flip-flop with DeAndre Swift in terms of attempts inside of the 10 yard line. So last season Swift had 24 of those carries. Manungai had 19. So it was somewhat close. But like what if this year Manungai is the one that gets 25 and DeAndre Swift's the one that goes down to about 19 or 18. That might be too like typ casting them a bit of their archetypes. But if"

"Again, I think there's such a big difference of hey, we spent a final round pick on this guy. We'll see how he turns into camp and oh, he's earning a bit more as the season goes along versus oh, now we are implementing him and planning on him being a solidified part of this offense from week one."

"Yeah, I would expect it's just going to be the driveby drive rotation. I don't see any reason to to lose sight of that. Uh, DeAndre Swift, this is his last year on the Bears, but he's also making uh $9 million coming off a pretty good season there. So, um, I wouldn't expect too much to change like in terms of like baseline outcomes for for Kong. By the way, you you mentioned Jamal Williams. Uh, somebody came up to me at Matsu who's over in Huntington Beach, one of my favorite like teon uh tables. Said he recognized me from from the show. He said, "Thank you for uh telling me to draft Jamal Williams a couple years ago. I won a championship." So, shout out to you."

"Love that. I've had that with Tyrone Tracy uh Enrico D as well. So, yeah, people really pay attention to our hits, which I"

"Okay, good."

"Which I appreciate. We have one more name at least, actually two. Let's talk about Bill. All right. Things got a bit out of hand last preseason with the seventh round rookie of the Washington Commanders. Uh, and now he's going backtoback with his running mate in Washington. Rashad White is running back 39 at the end of the 10th round. And Bell, one pick later, is running back 40, the first pick of the 11th round. So, he had 184 touches last year for 873 yards and eight touchdowns. So, is this another backfield that we just have to get right? I would say less so because I'm not convinced anyone in this backfield is all that great. Uh, and then you got the Jaden Daniels of it. You got a new offense here. I'll talk about the positives with with Bill here. I thought his vision and patience for how complicated the Cliff Kingsbury offense was was pretty outrageous. There's like a lot of times where tight ends are flashing across and like you got to be really patient as a running back and I thought he was able to do that. I thought his straight line speed was pretty good. Nothing too crazy. It's definitely faster than Rashad White and definitely definitely faster than Kron Allen. So, I I would label him as the most explosive back on the uh in the back field. Uh, there's absolutely no proof of concept in the receiving game and we have all the proof of concept that you would possibly need from Rashad White. So, I'm kind of trending towards this going to be a committee backfield. Who's going to be the goal lineback? I think that is a very fair question that is pretty impossible to answer right now. I'm going to really base uh training camp reports out of anything because Rashad White's uh a little bit bigger than Jaori Krosky Merritt, but he's not not like a power back. And then Katron Allen I think is really physical, but we're talking about a six round rookie here. So, it's one of these things where like Jaka Krosky Merritt's better than where he was drafted. He's not like the next Devon Chan or anything like that. And I'm expecting this to be a committee backfield. So, this is like typically one of the profiles that I'm not going to draft a whole lot, but I think this is like about where he should be going in baseball."

"Interesting. I really like this price tag for Bill and I really like this price tag for Rashad White. Uh, I'm just optimistic and I really like the price tag for Terry McLaren. Maybe I'm just anticipating like a big step up here with the Washington Commanders, but I think they have all the pieces. you know, when we talk about the quarterback and the wide receiver and what I think the play caller is going to bring to the table and accentuate this offensive line a little bit that maybe we've lost sight of kind of the upside case I think for the commander offense and again I think we're getting a discount with a lot of these pieces and I think it's really defined between these two like"

"Rashad White is one of the best pass protecting third fourth down players in the league and so the question is does he come in here and does Bill falter And so in that case, does Rashad White, who struggles in pure running situation, who struggles on first and second down, just kind of get you by in those cases? Do they just turn to that? Watching all the Bill stuff, like I think it's good. You know, he's, as you said, much better than a seventh round rookie. He kind of plays super wide. Like his strides are incredibly long. His jump cuts are incredibly long. And it's fascinating when you look at the running back stances before the ball is snapped. You see guys like Jir Gibbs who is very narrow. A bunch of other running backs is narrow. Bills is like the widest in the league and it's also his same running style. So that can kind of make it so he doesn't have these sudden steps to elude defenders as much. But then in everything that's in phase and as you said when he's kind of riding this wave >> it is like super fluid and he's kind of cutting between the lines with that stuff and then his strides really do chew up a bunch of ground. So like the stretch style can be a good thing but it can also be a negative because when a you know a DB or a safety or a linebacker squares him up and he's almost certainly going down. So yeah, I like both these price tags. I'm willing to draft both of these backs because we know Bill's not cracking into what Rashad White's doing. I mean, he fumbled four times last year and only caught nine passes all of last season."

"Yeah, I I said it the same way. I don't think he's very agile for somebody that's not like the biggest back out there, and I think that's just going to cap his ceiling, but he he does surf like you're talking about in that really wide stance. I tweeted out that Bill should be drafted higher this year than his ADP last year. That was both. He's a little bit priced too low right now and last year we some of you guys got pretty pretty aggressive out there. He did close the season strong. His last four games he was the RB16 on RB28 usage. That's a four game sample size, so don't get too carried away there, but he had a couple a couple of explosives there. Um, I think he's going to like they're going to be able to hold the line. And Rashad White is on a one-year $2 million contract, nothing. Bill is a seventhrounder and their running their third running back is a sixthrounder. So, this is as little investment as you will ever ever ever ever see in a position. I'm sure they were trying to get Jeremiah Love or whatever the case may be. Uh, or they're just trying to, you know, NBA this and do all analytics. Um, it's a it's a true like let the best man win and I don't think that Bill Crosky Merritt is like behind Rashad White. I think that's a true tossup. I also need to have uh Kron Allen show me a little something in preseason before I even like take him seriously and turn this into a three-headed backfield versus a two. Like he needs to bill it or monungy it a little bit for me to take him seriously if if that's okay with you."

"Yes, but Kron Allen is like Mr. Dirty Work and if if you want to burn an 18th round pick on Kron Allen like by all means I think you can do it. Just on Bill, as you said, he was drafted and closed drafts last year as the running back 34 and now he's being drafted as a running back 40 when we have more information."

"On him."

"Yeah. Yeah. He's he's a fine player."

Let's close with Woody Marks. 12th pick of the 12th round, running back 45. This team did make a huge move uh in terms of adding quote unquote competition for him. And maybe it's no longer a competition because Dave Montgomery was traded and now again is being selected as running back 21 and compare that to the running back 45 here for Woody Mark. So does this allow Woody just to go back to role player status?

"I think he should be a role player. I think he's a pass guy. This that's not uh anything outrageous here. If you guys studied his uh USC tape and Mississippi State tape, he's like air raid pass down back. He's just not that great of an athlete. He's one of these guys that plays kind of in the same speed no matter where he is in the rep. Uh, and I don't really mean that as as a compliment. I think there's some times where I saw a crease available to him and he just like did not have enough to kind of burst through. And I think that's going to lower his ceiling, especially when you're talking about one of the five worst offensive lines annually. And I I think maybe there's a chance the Texans get a little bit more bully ball this year just looking at some of their investments that they're what they're trying to do. I'm not sold that it's going to absolutely click this year. Not completely sold on the offensive coordinator either right now. So, I think Woody Marks versus David Montgomery, like this version of David Montgomery, it's not that dissimilar in terms of of player. I think that David Montgomery just has a lot more pop on his pads uh than Woody Marks. But I don't think that David Montgomery is so much better than Woody Marks at this point of his career. That's not saying that Woody Marks is like a great player um by any stretch, but I think that he could get drafted if you're like in a 12 person league and just looking for handcuffs. I think that Woody Marks like passes at least that threshold."

"Question. Do you think the Houston Texans believe that Dave Montgomery is way better than Woody Marks?"

"It does sound like it. Uh, we'll see. I mean, David Montgomery, that's a lot of touches and talk about his third third team. Uh, you know, maybe I I've always loved David Montgomery. I think like this is about the time of career where you start to like second guessess things a little bit. I think they're really going to try to make David Montgomery a work. So, um, I I think I have their ADPs maybe a little bit more squished together than what it is on Underdog where they're like completely separated. Uh, and that's not even me liking Woody Marx's tape very much."

"I'm going to give you some Woody Mark stats that actually turn into David Montgomery stats. Okay."

"Okay."

"Uh,"

"We know that last year this team, the Texans were one of the worst in terms of red zone touchdown success rate. I think like bottom two or three in the league. A big part of that is Woody Marks and just the overall team rushing standpoint. Again, another team that has gone through massive offensive line overhauls and changes. Hopefully that helps for the second straight off seasonason. Uh, but then it's also what he marks 32 carries inside of the 20 yardd line equal two touchdowns for him. Those 32 carries were the same number that Bejan Robinson had in the red zone. Uh, one less than Dave Montgomery had in the red zone, two less than Chase Brown, three le four four less than uh, Saquon Barkley. So like Woody Marks had a lot of opportunities in that area. Now a lot of it might not be his fault because again they just could not block up front, but um, Dave Montgomery, we're gonna talk about him all summer. If you just zoom out, this is the dead zone profile of just imparting a hell of a lot of opportunity and red zone work on a player who is declining, right? So, if it hits, obviously, it's all baked in. It works out, you score touchdowns. But we've seen in many other cases, it just doesn't work out. But I I just don't know of how much faith I have in Woody. But at least he's shown that uh he has held down that role in the past, albeit with hit or miss success."

"Woody Marks is really good in pass protection. So like if there was like one thing, it's just he's he's a reliable player. He's seen everything in terms of blitzes and stuff just based off the college offenses that he was in and that's how that he was uh drafted. That if you listen to the comments from the team right after they drafted him, that's what they were hoping for. before they got maybe a little bit more on early downs because Nick Chub wasn't cutting it. Uh, I think yeah, ultimately I I think it's just kind of a systemic, you know, Texans offensive line issue here that's going to hold all of them back. So I I appreciate Woody Marks for what he is. Like he's kind of like almost like a coach's pet. He's B minus Rashad White. Is this getting you fired up? No. Okay, I've got one more question for you. We're, you know, only an hour and 16 minutes into this episode. Which of these running backs when you reviewed all of them surprised you the most for good or bad?"

"Um, I remember watching Quinc Jenkins and I mean like this guy's really impressive. When you kind of just like watch all these guys one after another what he's doing just terms of the vision stuff was just like really standing out like there was elements of like other physical traits or effort or receiving stuff that stood out. He was kind of like the only one that was like man he just like reads everything out really well and that's a very tough trait to to have as a rookie. Um, but I think the big takeaway second to that is so many of these guys were playing through injuries or had a devastating injury and that's just going to make it's already a tough thing to go through all these"

"Played behind a devastating offensive line."

"Yes. And like it's already hard enough trying to like judge these guys off of one year when we have like these huge factors that are like not necessarily in our control after tape studies like makes this thing even harder to kind of work through. you know, we just claim that, you know, Ashen Genty's offensive line and Martin Hampton's offensive line and Cam Scataboos and Trevian Henderson's and Quinchan that they're all just gonna improve. >> And sometimes that is not how it works."

"But that's not how it's going to work. No."

"So, uh, hopefully it does. That that would be really great. I totally agree with what you said about Quinn Sean. Just one final thought on Omari and Hampton. >> There's going to be a lot of jokes this offseason of, oh, he's going to be a great handcuff for Katon Mitchell this season. Um, that is an outcome here that the flaws and everything that we said and spotted in Amar Hampton's game, even dating back to his time at UNCC, uh, could keep him from being a workhorse in the league. At the same time, I think it's more likely that the running system that he is in just masks his flaws and accentuates his strengths. And so this is one of the players where I have obvious flaws in my head that it can lead to negative outcomes, but I almost want to minimize those and focus in on the positives just because of the environment that he's in."

"Yep. That's why coaching matters, offensive line matters, and I think those two things in particular, whoever the play callers, the offensive line, I think those are like some of the last things that give you like a true edge in fantasy football. Uh, and I think it's more important than ever now that the running backs are priced where they should be, which is really high up."

"Yeah. I also really enjoyed Basel Tutton's 93 touches at times."

"They were fun. They were fun. Like it was it was uh I'm sure Liam Con was having less fun than we were. Uh, like I I kept rooting for him."

"Yeah, we might get to do a lot of that this season. All right, that does it. We have wide receivers tomorrow. Uh, this is a lot of preparation goes into these episodes, so hopefully you watch it. Hopefully you share it with a friend. Uh, and hopefully you tune in to these shows that we put out all summer long. They are evergreen and they are going to help you win your fantasy league of this season. So, shout out to Weeaves and Mosho. Shout out to all of you for watching and hitting that subscribe button up the villa. We'll talk to you guys soon."