Transcription
[Music] Caleb Johnson for Zack Charbanet. I have Walker Smitty. What do I do? Here's another episode of answering random comments on my YouTube videos show from the fantasy football show.com studios. It's the fantasy football show Monday through Friday 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Smitty is also live whenever news breaks.
All right. I like to comb through the comment section on my YouTube channel and find sometimes content because if I see a repetitive question or if I see something that triggers a a feeling that I need to explain something or maybe, you know, hey, I I might not have been clear on this or I need to hammer home this point more. I like creating a video around it. So, we're going to have more of these probably weekly where I dig into the comments and I might answer this comment anyway, you know, in the in the comment section, but then I want to do a video on it.
So, Caleb Johnson for Charbanet. Um, on the surface level, I could see where this could be confusing for people because Caleb gets a lot of hype. Everybody's on the Caleb train right now because I don't know, people that own him are excited. And anybody that owns a player is loud. You know, they chirp pretty loud. And the bottom line is that he's in a committee, Caleb Johnson in a committee where he had not been super impressive at times in camp, uh, but looks good now at times. And I get that it's a an appealing situation on the surface level because you have really Jaylen Warren who they drafted a running back cuz they obviously aren't that impressed with him overall or they they don't think he can stay healthy, whatever the case may be. But keep in mind that Aaron Rodgers kind of neutered the value of Bree Hall. And you could blame that on the Jets and say it wasn't Aaron Rogers's fault. We'll find out. But I think that Aaron Rogers can kind of slow an offense down. And Pittsburgh in general is very vanilla. And I believe that Arthur Smith with his running back by committee tendencies and his vanilla system mixed with just Pittsburgh in general. I don't know that I'm feeling the Caleb Johnson is going to win leagues vibes like everybody else. I just don't think I have the ability to see this through the way that a lot of you do. And I think that most everybody that's really loud on the topic is they have shares of Caleb. So they have invested interest. And you got to you got to understand that a lot of times that's where people are coming from almost on any level.
And some people think that I bring my content in that same fashion with bias. Like, hey, you've talked a lot about Zack Charbanet, for example. So, it's in your interest to talk about Charbanet in ways that that make people think you're, you know, behind this no matter what. You have no doubts. But, I've been doing this 20 years. I can chew gum and walk at the same time. I'm not saying everybody else can't do that, but for a living, I have to try my best more than anybody to not inject bias in because my end result, my end goal is not to be right on one call. My end goal is to have you win leagues. And if I am not honest with myself, if I can't change directions, then I can't help you. So, you have to trust me that I'm not digging my heels in to dig my heels in. I'm not trying to protect a a call I made. I've been very very quick to turn in a different direction. And while some might call that flip-flopping and they yell that at me in the comments or in a live stream, oh you flip-flopping or now you're changing. I will adjust and adapt. That's called adjusting and adapting. That's called understanding the situation may have changed. The winds may have shifted. If you're sailing across the ocean and the waves start hitting the side of your boat and you're trying to head in this direction, you've got to adjust your course to make sure even if it's in a different direction than you intended to go and maybe you're intending to go, you still got to course correct or you end up getting turned over and in and your boat sinks. We're not going to do that. I'm never going to do that.
And it's ironic that this situation Charbanet is relating to one of probably the most famous flip-flop situations that your boy Smitty encountered is when I pumped up Walker two years ago. I said, "Go get Walker. He's a Mars man. He's going to be amazing. Walker was amazing. Walker was a top five running back and I think he was number one in the league through the first four weeks of football in touchdowns, rushing touchdowns. He was scoring hand over fist. He kept just punching it in, but he was not getting a lot of work. He was ultra efficient. And I I walked into week five and I said, "Trade him." I said, "Trade him." And everybody flipped a gasket. They said, "Smitty, you've been tucking Walker up all off season." And a couple guys that were in leagues where they couldn't trade. That's not my fault. They're like, "Smidy, I can't believe you. I'm so mad you were you were backing Walker all off season and now you're backing away from it." that I don't understand why anyone would want me to stay on a course that I don't feel is going to lead you to victory.
So anyway, back to what I'm saying. Caleb Johnson's not somebody I'm doubting because I'm digging my heels in because I didn't love him as a rookie. Look, I didn't like Quinn uh Quinn Sean Judkins. And I'm not saying I predicted the legal troubles he had, but I viewed Dylan Samson as a much safer cost of entry, zerorisk proposition. and I didn't like Judkins and I'm just saying that Caleb Johnson and Judkins are the two running backs I stayed away from so far we were pretty smart in staying away from Caleb or uh Quinshan Judkins and and while people might think that the tides will turn on that situation and maybe they do as of right now on August 20 we're back in a waiting pattern a holding pattern for the Browns to even sign him so we don't know what's going to happen with that situation the NFL is now doing their own investigation or wrapping wrapping up their own investigation and we're sitting here waiting for Judkins to even get signed and he's not going to be ready to to ball out in week one. So, at the end of the day, we're ultimately right on the Judkins front except for he will probably be back sooner than later and the question will be, will he get his job back?
Caleb Johnson walks into a situation where again you got a running back by committee mentality in there. You got a a vanilla offense and a quarterback that kind of slows an offense down to a crawl. And what what happens and this happened with Bree Hall and people blame Bree Hall. I think Bree Hall is a good bounceback candidate this year, but in the case of Aaron Rogers and the Jets and Bree Hall's value, they just ran out of plays. I remember watching the games and I'm just like, how many opportunities is Bree Hall going to get in the third quarter? The entire third quarter, it's like it's not his fault. He just didn't get the ball and the Jets are just not draining the clock. And if they do drain the clock, it's it's, you know, just a slow crawl to the end zone or not even punching it in. I mean, that's the way it feels with Aaron Rogers. It's like pulling teeth to watch him play football right now. And I just, you know, maybe he's does well. I just think it's going to be real slow. Real slowed down.
Now, Caleb Johnson's a talent. I I do think he he, you know, he's got some talent, but is he elite? No. So, this comes down to one thing for me. Zack Charbanet looks elite. Zack Charbanet plays in an offense that I think is the offensive line's much improved and they're going to run the hell out of the ball. And the fact that Zack Charbanet scored a touchdown, showed good vision on his touchdown run, good cutback ability, read the hole perfectly, did everything that he did all last year when he was asked to to step in for uh Kenneth Walker. And let me put up these stats right here. Let me just first start off by saying Walker was amazing when he played and when he was healthy. He was number one in the league in in missed tackles force uh per per attempt. And same thing with yards after contact, he was number five. So, he was a fantastic player. He was a top five running back if you couple the five starts that Charbanet had, add them to the Walker starts, and you only use 17 played games, not not adding them together just when they didn't play. Uh, and you've got running back five and 286 fantasy points weeks one through 17. That's with both of them. But if you take Charbanet's five games, and I know this is not a lot of data, but you extrapolate the five games across 17 games, you get 360 points instead of 286, and you get running back number two. Running back number two. I I'm not saying it's good math. I'm not saying that it's something you should take to the bank. I'm just merely telling you that when this guy was out there and he he dropped this 134 and two touchdowns. He dropped his touchdown after that. Um just had a remarkable, you know, stretch of games up here. You can see he had 91 and two touchdowns, uh one touchdown the game before that. He's just a touchdown machine and he's got such a nose for the end zone. He's got such a nose for open space. Not saying Walker doesn't, but Walker can't stay healthy. And Walker is kind of a trade candidate, I think, at some point this year because what are they going to do? Extend him and go through more of the same of will he be healthy? Will he stay healthy? Who's going to trade for him? Probably the Chicago Bears or the Houston Texans? I think Bill Jakory Crosky Merritt over in Washington kind of put to bed any idea or concept of of trading for a running back over in Washington, but you never know if some injury happened. I don't think Walker gets traded anytime uh real soon.
So, at the end of the day, you know, I believe that Charban is starting multiple games this year. I don't know if he kicks off the year as a starter. Some people want it, some people suggest it. Walker is going to have something to say about that. And honestly, I don't think they're just going to put Walker on the bench, but the the moment Sharps gets in there one more time, and like Timmy T said, one more try, if he gets in there, I don't think he's coming out. And if he gets in there and does well, I think Walker there's going to be a game where Walker doesn't dress and then he's going to be shipped off and and I think they're going to ship him off very cheaply. If if they can't get a lot for him, they'll just do it or you know, maybe a team overpays. But I think Walker probably does get traded.
So the the thing I would say though on this front is that you don't have to really buy Charbanet at a value that makes you feel like By the way, make sure you go watch this video if you you missed it last night. We broke this. No one's talking about this. We go live with News Breakaks. I went live at freaking midnight to talk about this. No 10game suspension for Rice was ever suggested by the NFL. We called it right again. We told everyone, don't take this Halisero report from ESPN, uh, take it with a grain of salt because the the report ended up being actually eight games. The NFL was suggesting eight games and the the NFL uh, players association said hell no to that. There's no precedent for that. The CBA actually calls for six games or less, but only six games. So the NFL PA said, "We'll see you at the hearing." Because the NFL PA is going to try to go for one to three most likely. The NFL is going to say, "Well, we wanted eight. If you can't do eight, cuz the CBA says that it's six, then let's meet in the middle." And so maybe it's somewhere between four and five. So four and five might be the landing spot. But uh yeah, go watch that video if if you missed it.
But back to reality here. Um, Charbanet just just a league winner. Amazing uh vision and contact balance and ability to cut back. Not that Walker doesn't have that, but once he gets in there and starts thriving, they're just going to be like, "This guy keeps stepping up and he looks phenomenal." And and as I was saying, it's not like the cost of entry is a round five pick or a round seven pick even. He's going so much later than that. You can get him a lot deeper in a in a draft. Let me see if I can go into a a draft real quick and tell you exactly where I drafted Zack Charbanet. The last time I drafted him, let me see if I can pull up a a draft that's even remotely complete. And this is underdog. It's going to be a little different. The ADPs are a little different, but Zack Charbanet is going around. Let's see here. You got Quinshan Judkins still going in the in the 11th round, which is crazy to me. Um Kenneth Walker going around five sometimes around four the four five turn but a lot of times late four or early five it's just way too high way too high and Charban 9 10 11 it looks like it it's kind of all over but nine let's just call nine the the worst case scenario that wins a league and it packages in all the risk if he doesn't get into the lineup until the last like six games of the season you don't lose anything you just have a league winner per start. But if he gets in there before that time frame, like let's say he starts week two or four or three or one, it's possible. Probably not likely, but possible that he just takes the job, but who knows, some surprising announcement. Maybe Walker does get traded early. I doubt he does. You're actually prepared for zero games if you're drafting at nine. You lose a little value as a ninth round pick. You're a little disappointed, but that could be your waiverwire pick, your fodder. you just drop them and but you're kind of baking in if you got four elite games out of Charbanet similar to Garando or Mason, you could win a league still on this kind of help, especially later in the year when it was probably more likely if things didn't evolve for a while. It would be more likely that you'd see the league winning value later in the year. This would be league winning. And this is probably the lowest expectation you could have. If Charbanet starts any sort of like double-digit amount of weeks, you are lambasting your league into a million little pieces. Charbanet.
So to answer this question mark, Caleb Johnson for Charbanet, you have Walker. You need Charbanet no matter what. Answering this question, Walker and Shar belong together. But even if you didn't have Walker, I would tell you go get the league winner, Zack Charbanet, even over a guy that might be starting. And and I understand that this might be controversial to some people that think, "Oh, you're giving up a starter right now." But I don't know that I'm starting Caleb Johnson. I don't know that my team is going to be in such a a weird state early on that I'm starting him. So, I'd rather I'd rather bank the value for a little while, let it grow, and then once this guy gets in the lineup, you've got a higher producing, higher scoring player and a bigger league winner. But you got to take your own risk and make the decision for yourself. I know there are a lot of Caleb Johnson believers out there. But Charbanet has been a leader of the mid-season monsters for a reason. He's right smack in the middle of the board. He's always been in the middle of the board. Jakori, Krosky, Merritt, and Sharps are kind of the leaders of this board. And we're right on this one so far. And we're looking good on all these other fronts. Bigsby Tooten Grenle's back in practicing. Benson's still a league winner, but and Bashard Smith, do not sleep on him. Mason's fantastic as well. But we're right on this guy, Kroski Merritt. So, trust me on Zack Charbanet. He's got league winning potential with literally zero risk. If you're getting in the game now and drafting him in round nine and in this situation, in this kind of trade, maybe you can get more. That's the last thing I'll leave with you is is if Caleb Johnson's ADP, and I'll look for Caleb real quick. Caleb Johnson's ADP is a lot higher. So, at the end of the day, in a vacuum, I'm going to answer the way I did, but I'm also going to advise you to potentially go look at at getting and acquiring more. Okay, so he's looking like he's a seventh rounder versus Charbanet round nine. you could get a little value out of that if you wanted to. So, I would say explore it. See what you can get. Maybe you can upgrade a wide receiver you don't quietly like as much as maybe uh Travis Hunter and you upgrade to that because there's some doubt about Hunter. Maybe you got an RB you can quietly upgrade into RJ Harvey because people are doubting Harvey right now. Those are the kind of amazing moves that you can package into this deal. And maybe they even think you're giving them an additional better player. you're just quietly liking the player you're attacking. That's my answer here, and I appreciate you asking the question.
We'll do more of these throughout the uh year, each week. Don't forget to get on over to my the fantasy football show.com rankings, bold predictions, trade calculators, and then of course my Patreon, which is a 247 365 live chat group where we're just chatting live 365 247. And then uh that link is in the description. So is the the link to the fantasy football show.com. And then of course we draft at midnight every single night practically every single night. $10 minimum. They'll match your first deposit 50% all the way up to a,000 bucks. So get on over to uh the link that's in the description that is for underdog. All the links are in the description of all of my videos. So if you're looking for these links later, you know where to find them. See you guys at 8:00 p.m. Eastern every single Monday through Friday. I'm also additionally live whenever big news breaks and I'm live almost every single midnight Eastern to draft with you live on Underdog with promo code submitt link in description. Deuce.