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00:00uh how's life at rotowire life's great man again love the squad uh we got going just a bunch of
00:06people who love football man so it's certainly a place where i feel welcome and really excited
00:11about all the content you know we got growing so obviously i know theo's been on the show as well
00:15so just uh you know a bunch of fancy nerds who don't have much else to do in life then
00:20maybe occasionally get 18 in but otherwise man just uh grind these rankings and grind the content
00:25so love having some actual you know football on our television again are people probably reacting
00:31a little bit you know overreacting too much about future first ballot hall of famer design scribbling
00:36probably but at the same time we're excited football's back so let's not be lost you sent
00:41me a list from a tweet you had from tuesday um running backs basically backup running backs by
00:48priority if their team's starter just disappeared and ray davis comes in pretty high on this
00:55list at number four what's your feeling about him as a possible you know handcuffed to james cook
01:02that's what he is at best and just like the strategy with these guys i mean i i feel like
01:07some some advice i got a long time ago i don't want to draft my running backs handcuff i want
01:11to draft
01:12yours so that maybe it'll work out that i have two starters instead of one at best i do think
01:19that
01:19strategy in a bigger tournament where you're needing to be perfect versus you know hundreds of thousands
01:24of people potentially it makes sense but if you're just kind of doing your 10 or 12 team league with
01:28the buddies i get having your james cook in round one and then ray davis in round 15 i don't
01:34think
01:34you're hurting your overall upside that much in that but yes okay this article because handcuffs it's
01:39more of an art than science because we're always grappling with uh well how much standalone value does
01:43this guy have but then how much injury contingent upside does this other guy have so i wanted to
01:47remove kind of that debate from it and just say every starting rb goes on vacation for the entire
01:53season because i don't want to imply anyone getting hurt of course uh well how we'd be ranking the back
01:58of running backs as you said ray davis comes in as the rb4 overall one spot behind tank bigsby but
02:04you
02:04know what if you want to go ahead and swap them i get it i do think there's similar profiles
02:08talented
02:09dudes that we can believe in in tank's case he's got just great numbers over these past two seasons all
02:14the running back measures we like to look at and ray davis's case i mean reigning first team all pro
02:18kick return to ray davis and he seemingly made the most out of his opportunities over these two years
02:23man we've only had week six in uh 2024 i believe it was that monday night game where we got
02:29late
02:30nutters cook was out and then week 18 last year when he was kind of the fact that we back
02:34both
02:34occasions though racked up 23 touches and then really just again well north of 100 yards and look good
02:40doing it so i do think ty johnson once he's healthy with this knee thing will be taking you
02:45know some of the pass down work but really does seem like ray would be the guy pushing for 20
02:50plus
02:50touches and an offense we love and after that point man it's really tough to be overthinking it so
02:55ray davis my money's worth again one of the top pure kind of injury contingent handcuffs in all fancy
03:01football a lot of these guys like like davis are on teams where whoever you might think of as the
03:08number two is really not going to be the replacement if there's an injury you know whether
03:13that's keaton mitchell in la i think might be an example of that i mean some of the rj harvey
03:19i talked
03:19to ben albright from denver yesterday he's like it's coleman if they lose dobbins or when they lose
03:25dobbins it's maybe not rj harvey you have specialists who are valuable in fantasy right i mean they'll catch
03:31the ball you want that but are not necessarily the team's rb1 upon an injury yeah like i wonder if
03:38that could be the case for tajay spears and dylan sampson as well the pass down back who maybe isn't
03:43quite big enough or the coaching staff just doesn't believe in running them you know between the tackles
03:48enough so when that starter goes down their role doesn't even change and we got to try to figure out
03:52who the other guy is going to be conveniently in buffalo though it's only a two-game sample but hey
03:57we see these backfields evolving all the time all the time two-game sample is a lot more than we
04:01have
04:01across other different situations in the league so that is part that makes again ray davis so
04:06appealing out there i will say if you can like it's i'm even looking at other backfields i would say
04:12chicago and then definitely pittsburgh those are the two places where i just think it's pretty awesome
04:18to try to get either running back i know benunga is a little bit banged up now in chicago so
04:21maybe that's
04:22different but for me looking at the steelers jalen warren and rico daddle we believe in both
04:26dudes having that sort of you know three down ability i sound like it's going to be rico being
04:31more the starter but both guys word cross all three downs and with caleb johnson probably being a cut
04:37candidate at this point that's what i'm reading at least yep if either one gets injured we're talking
04:42about like an immediate rb1 and their snap rate going from like 50 to 80 or even 90 so it
04:47reminds me
04:48of kind of like the nick chubb kareem it's like a middle class means version of the nick chubb kareem
04:53hunt cleveland backfields from a few years ago where you feel decent enough about the guys on a
04:57week-to-week basis but you also have that massive upside if god forbid i would do miss a ton
05:02this
05:03helps me feel a little bit better about a trade i accepted yesterday where i got on a team that
05:09needed a starting running back an rb2 i got dowdle and uh jayden reed for none other than stripling
05:18and chris bell and i what i did what i did ian and this is you know he'd had the
05:23one big preseason
05:24game but not the second one yet what i did was look at my i'm sorry this is a very
05:29nerdy fantasy
05:30word but portfolio and out of 12 dynasty teams i drafted him six times stripling like come on he's
05:3733 like people don't like him but san francisco you know and the age they're like maybe and so now
05:45he's such a hot item you know what i needed a running back i'm going to take this one share
05:50of stripling and move him and then you know i woke up to yeah he did it again um how
05:56high is too high
05:56for him right now i'm with you where i think i'm in five dynasty leagues and i want to say
06:02i got him
06:03in at least three just because he was sitting there in round two and i'm watching you know day three
06:08running backs like jonah coleman and maybe jonah coleman's awesome you know but just give me the
06:12guy who was one pick away from going in round one for a tower shanahan offense so it does seem
06:17like
06:17maybe a little bit too big a height i mean i'm old enough to remember when i think tesla couldn't
06:22stop scoring touchdowns last year as well so again respect to stripling obviously got strong hands and
06:27everything and it does seem like he's you know got the confidence of brock purdy trent williams you
06:32know the strip club is provocative i i understand the alert here i do think on a normal week-to
06:38-week
06:38basis in the early season i mean we're not going to feel good about starting this dude the offense
06:42is going to go through mike evans christian mccaffrey and george kittle first and foremost
06:46now i did just list three guys who certainly have an alarming injury history and are on the wrong side
06:51of 30 so i readily admit that stripling isn't one of these cases where again an injury to either of
06:56those guys were ranking you know much higher in a hurry so i have a wide receiver 49 right now
07:01he's
07:02just outside my top 100 so i've simply moved him up over the course of the past month or so
07:06as
07:07we've gotten more good news and as we've seen him make some plays in the preseason and the rookie
07:11parasol injury obviously health matters as well but i don't know man i'm seeing like round six
07:15potential treatment and stuff and that's just pretty steep for someone who again if he if the season just
07:20goes to plan and the injury guys decide to chill out for once he's not going to be someone we
07:25ever feel
07:25great about starting so i think we're getting a little bit too hyped here but you know promising
07:30player and at a minimum it's just good to see him do this after everyone was balking at that pick
07:34and
07:34calling it one the worst one that they've ever seen you know three or four short months ago right
07:38it's another of hundreds of other lessons in we really don't know that much about how this is
07:45going to go for all the for the zillions of hours spent on you know scouting college players so many
07:52times were taken aback by the ultimate uh results with ian harditz of rotowire he went by the way
07:58stribbling in the eighth round of a mid-stakes draft i did last night and that's before the game
08:03happened with san francisco um one more name of this kind of sort here before we get into some
08:10chalkier type topics mike washington the former ub bull is maybe right behind stribbling for
08:15his performances so far in the preseason vegas running back you might move him up that list
08:22of yours right now if you were to do it over i don't know but um he looks like a
08:26pretty interesting
08:27second to ashton genti right now yeah i'm not listening i can just listen off here because he's not
08:32too far down traeveon henderson came out number one for me followed by blake quorum 10 bigsby
08:37ray davis rico daddle common guy rashad white woody marks and then rb9 was mike washington i did write
08:45this before the game i don't know that it changes anything for me though man he's a very explosive
08:50dude obviously tested as one of the better athletes position ever more or less and we got this cool stack
08:56called relative athletic score which takes the guy's height speed and height weight speed and their
09:01agility and their jumps and all that and i think he's 28th out of like over 2 000 dudes since
09:061987
09:07so he's got you know the total package it's been good to see you know the 50 yard run in
09:11week one
09:12and obviously the other nice 30 plus yard john uh last night where he showed a little more patience
09:16a little more of that nuance that we want to see from running backs but it's still an offense that
09:20we're hoping for some improvement but objectively speaking they're going to be ranked a lot closer to 32
09:26than one that's what we're expecting and that's what vegas also expects they haven't ranked 28th
09:30ahead of 2026 i would like to think that clint kubiak can help out that offensive line but
09:35you know there's only so much the guy can do and we did see this very same offensive environment do
09:39what we believe to be a very good running back in ashton jenty last year and more than anything man
09:44just the fact that jenty's getting this rest it tells us who the running back y'all is in vegas
09:49and that is ashton jenty so pure handcuffs upside mike washington sign me up that's great he's cheap in
09:56drafts i love to just get stockpile my bench with handcuffed running backs and fantasy football
10:01we do not need to be balanced with running back and wide receiver get your five wide receivers in
10:05the first nine rounds after that give me all the handcuffed running backs we can handle
10:09i just think expecting because of a couple big runs anything close to standalone value or
10:14getting off of ashton jenty because of this now really does seem like an overreaction to me so
10:20promising dude because let's face it with rookies a lot of times even if even if mike washington
10:25always profiled as the most likely rb2 here you know antonio williams and washington we were
10:30wondering if he could be a number two wide receiver i think he was the sixth wide receiver on the
10:34field
10:34in their first preseason game so it just happens to rookies they develop at different you know rates
10:39and different coaching staffs have different levels of trust with getting them out there on the field so
10:42all in all it's a positive development from mike washington but look i think a month ago we thought
10:47he was gonna be the rb2 and we thought he was a big explosive guy we've seen that play out
10:52which is great
10:53but ashton jenty is still that guy man i'm not really overall changing my thoughts about jenty
10:58being a fine pick at the round one round two turn just because of two nice runs from mike washington
11:02fair enough ian harditz of rotowire i'm mike shope bulldog is off today so jenty is in a cluster of
11:10running backs that kind of all go between the middle of the first round and the middle of the second
11:15uh mcafree jonathan taylor james cook jenty kenneth walker hampton chase brown hn that's eight i might even be
11:23missing one barkley barkley is another one um do you have tears within that group like is is there
11:31somebody you want definitely from that group or not at all i'm calling it the great wall of rbs that
11:38we got again stretching out the end of round one into round two chase brown's the guy that i just
11:42feel
11:43like has more answers than questions when i just go through it if we had to sit here and draft
11:47the top
11:4710 real life running backs i don't think chase brown's making the list he's not bad you know you
11:52don't get 1300 plus total yards whoever's had these past two seasons by being a bad real life player but
11:58he's fine enough and man we see this every single year and i think we all readily admit it like
12:02running back is the most dependent position on your offensive environment that's out there
12:07jonathan taylor last year was a world beater in the first half of the season and then i think he
12:11was the
12:11rb 22 in the second half scoring fewer points than tony pollard not because i think he turned to a
12:16bad
12:16football player but because when you swapped out a world beating daniel jones with a literal
12:20grandpa and philip rivers we saw the entire offense go crashing and burning for chase brown
12:25we have 70 catch upside inside a joe burrow bangles that offense that wouldn't surprise us at all
12:30if they lead the league in scoring his only competition is 31 year old samaje pirai and
12:35todd brooks they have not felt comfortable at all putting on the field now i think again when you start
12:40going through the other guys jonathan taylor and ashton jenty could be a situation those offenses are
12:44really struggling similar something with devon h m martin hampton is someone where i look at the
12:49chargers is it going to be just him or a key metro and kamani but i'll also be very involved
12:53saquon barkley james cook i probably put them right behind chase brown but as we know the second those
12:59offense to get down the one yard line is josh allen and jalen hurt scoring the touchdowns more times than
13:03not and not those guys kath walker and derrick henry we just have a little bit more question marks i
13:08would
13:09say about their receiving upside so again for brown it's like the one reddish flag for me is just the
13:15reality that okay he's maybe not the best real life running back on the planet but every other issue
13:21that i could have man he seems to be passing contract here he is my overall rb4 and eighth
13:26ranked player overall fancy one big time very good do you have any more specific thoughts on cook
13:31i mean he i've been kind of a don't better when it comes to him but man he went he
13:38led them and he
13:38led the league in touchdown rushes then he led the league in rushing two years in a row with alan
13:42doing
13:43all those alan things so so far so good and he's been very durable and we've gotten the p carmichael
13:49you
13:50know talks about maybe they're gonna use them more as a receiving back and hey maybe we don't even
13:53listen to the talks maybe it's just ty johnson being banged up and not able to be his usual self
13:58there i will say it's so funny how we talk about running backs coming off these big workload seasons
14:04like cmc is the only guy that we seemingly have any issues with i mean cm could come off of
14:09what
14:10385 touches last season obviously had a pretty big season 2024 i do wonder if there could be a 2025
14:17-esque
14:18saquon season coming for cook because let's face a lot of his touchdowns last year i think he had
14:24four 40 plus yarders that was one of the top highest marks in the league we've seen him flash
14:29to receive an ability but they haven't exactly leaned into it since 2023 and then it's just a
14:34matter of what if the bills offense did take a little bit of a step back could it be a
14:38situation
14:39like saquon last year where he just doesn't have the same amount of opportunities to punch in those
14:42touchdowns now the bills and the lions at the end of the day have been really the class of the
14:47nfl and
14:47just consistently scoring so many points year after year for the better part of the last five six years so
14:53all in all i think i have cook rb6 overall i'm not too worried about it him and saquon for
14:59me
14:59very similar profiles but i do think man if we're sitting here in week 14 week 15
15:06bill's offense is more good than great and it's like oh man cook only scored six seven touchdowns
15:11this year and he's still not getting the receiving work i can see how it goes a little bit south
15:14you
15:15know yeah that's all fair in my mind with ian harditz for a couple more minutes here got to ask
15:20you
15:20about dj moore the big get by the bills in the offseason he's a player that to my ears i
15:27mean
15:27the fantasy community is not ever that excited about maybe that was different five years ago but
15:32now it's like people are always kind of uh just maybe they're bored with him or what i mean not
15:38like he last year was a down year his numbers were not great but with justin fields two years before
15:44that they were incredible um what do you think like i see value in late four early five or what
15:50yeah and some of these home leagues man i was looking at the adp earlier sleeper yahoo espon you
15:55can even get them in round six so i came out with a fade list in earlier august let me
16:01think i had
16:02bucky irving on there i had rashid rice i had a couple other guys and dj moore was on there
16:08and i kept
16:09trying to go through it and i would get pushed back and my reasoning is kind of what you talked
16:13about like two straight years declining stats he got going with fields in 2023 okay fine but
16:20we all believe ben johnson is a wizard on offense like why couldn't he figure it out with dj moore
16:25even in a year where roma dunze is playing through injury and luther burden was you know colston
16:29loveland weren't even really full-time players for the back half that's one side of the equation but
16:34more and more man i'm not leaving every draft with him but i have officially been going on like a
16:38dj
16:38more apology tour and i am taking away like my fade sort of idea with it because i love jalen
16:44waddle i'm buying into mike evans and just thinking about the situations i was like are they
16:47really that big of a different you know changing offenses looking like the number one there what's
16:53so different about their situation dj moore and i didn't have a good answer for myself so again you
16:58know trying to learn here we go you know each and every weekend out there i just think that with
17:01dj
17:02going round five rounds especially in the home league prices man because round four okay i'll find
17:07someone else i probably want to draft more but round six wide receiver 26 27 price back to dj
17:12moore really can't be bickering too much about it because man him and terry mclaurin have really
17:17been this generation's like andre johnson not in terms of being as great as andre like that's again
17:22an incredible receiver and everything but dj and terry you just look at their career quarterbacks
17:27and there's been one disaster after another so it is funny to me though because i'm long story
17:31short i'm kind of i think more is priced right if you want to draft him go right ahead i
17:35kind of
17:36prefer christian watson and mike evans but if you disagree i totally get your reasoning i just
17:40think mike it's so funny because the people that are really firmly on one side or the other it's
17:45going to be a hilarious crash out of you the way it goes because on the one hand you can
17:48say well
17:49this dude was declining he's 29 years old like what you thought he was going to do anything in the
17:53buffalo offense that let's face it every wide receiver they drafted traded for or signed from
17:58step on digg really hasn't worked out but the other side of the coin is just simply oh you faded
18:02josh allen's clear number one wide receiver he thought that was a good idea so notice i never
18:07brought up the uncovered 30 yard crosser in the preseason because that doesn't matter for me
18:12and everything but i thought it was funny how he kind of waved on the defender good to see that
18:17sort
18:17of uh you know chaotic mindset in the preseason but yeah man dj more the bills needed to add a
18:23wide
18:23receiver one someone that's not brandon cooks that we can throw the ball to with the season on the
18:27line and they got dj more so hope it works out love it the next point in that back and
18:31forth is
18:32do you ever remember the name gabe davis when he was you know all that and that really didn't pay
18:38off the draft capital that year ian last i was yeah real quick like that was kind of like the
18:43one thing where i was because i'm just you know i have so much going on in my life i
18:46finished writing
18:47about fantasy football all day i just started watching football highlights and i was sitting
18:50there watching this youtube video of the biggest kind of playoff comebacks of course not comebacks just
18:55the best kind of back and forth game so of course the gabe davis bill's cheese game came on
18:59and i'm watching this game just thinking to myself watching gabe davis do this and i'm like you can't
19:06spend a round six on d pick on dj more man we saw gabe davis do this even be you
19:11know a wide receiver
19:11three in fantasy land one year with stephan diggs you can't go out there for dj more so that that
19:16was
19:16the last straw for me remembering you know the cult hero that was gabe davis oh man that game we'll
19:22never
19:22forget it here the bills have to win a championship before we do eight for 201 and four by the
19:28way for
19:28davis in the 13 seconds game ian last thing i think it was your first ever show i listened to
19:34when you you replaced um jeff ratcliffe was it at pff yeah and i was outside and had you on
19:41and i don't
19:42know if it was that day but i was there for your debut and one of the things i think
19:47of when i think
19:47of you i think about your um crusade is too strong maybe against kickers and fantasy right and so today
19:55here i am speaking with you today twitter now gives you two or three topics that you know
19:59supposedly people are talking about and one of them is fantasy players debate the merits of kickers in
20:06leagues you know something right almost like they were speaking to me knowing that you which is
20:10possibly true that it might be that good now um i i like kickers it's is it too random it's
20:17all
20:17pretty random but um are you still kind of militant on this one look and if they don't play high
20:26school
20:26football you know what kickers are there's soccer players that would show up for 15 minutes a week to
20:31practice and when you're running conditioning they're out you know effing around with their
20:34friends doing god knows what so i've always considered them half breeds when it comes to
20:39actual actually being football players are they important in real life absolutely they need to go make
20:44those field goals but you know they take three steps they kick a ball and to pretend like they're
20:48heroes after a game getting carried off the field has never quite rubbed me the right way if you want
20:53to you know have them understand your league it's a free country the one thing i would say though
20:57let's fix this scoring because mike you know 20 years ago we used to give regularly standard scoring
21:02for passing touchdowns it'd be six points maybe five points what happened though the payton manning to
21:07tom braise of the world everyone started throwing for 40 50 touchdowns we adjusted to the times and
21:12four point passing touchdowns became the norm 50 yard field goals are simultaneously being
21:19attempted more often than ever and they're being made at a higher rate than ever and i think it's
21:23time to do the same thing for kickers i do not think they should get more than three points for
21:26any field goal under 60 yards there's a phenomenon going on a lot of those high stakes leagues that you
21:31play in mike where a 41 yard field goal is worth 4.1 fancy points a passing touchdown six points
21:39in
21:39real life we're only getting four points for i know we get the extra yards but that's my biggest
21:43issue it's a borderline chip shot being now calculated as more than what we're actually giving
21:49guys for a passing touchdown so i have issues with kickers personally professionally and in
21:55fantasy wise but more than anything guys it's just the reality that let's adjust the scoring
22:00because again i've run these numbers out of spite and we are seeing more 50 yarders attempted and
22:05made than ever let's lower those point totals and also mike i think real life people would agree
22:11a missed field goal is basically a turnover so if you miss a field goal in fantasy take away a
22:17point
22:17how's that not fair good argument i hope i didn't pick a scab i was talking i was talking with
22:23my son
22:23this morning as the fall sports schedule at his high school is coming up and we were sort of listing
22:28sports who's already sort of there and practicing and working out and he some of the football soccer
22:34and somehow that came to the point where he said football and soccer never play on the same day
22:39and i said why is that he said well the football team might need a soccer player to kick
22:45and isn't that kind of ridiculous that brandon aubry like the best kicker in the nfl is just a dude
22:50who
22:50unfortunately you know couldn't even make it in the mls that's his origin story he was he was going
22:55back to be a i think a consultant or something like that or working for some financial firm his wife
23:00was
23:00watching a football game saw someone miss a field goal and she was like you know you could do that
23:05and he was like you know what i think i could got private lessons and the rest is history so
23:09shout
23:09out to brandon aubry and man more of those kickers in the mls go take these other dudes jobs all
23:14right
23:15apparently that easy i'm glad i'm glad we had the conversation at least once uh in future in future
23:21visits i won't um take you there thanks for today enjoy your weekend ian appreciate you man you too
23:27all right ian hart it's rotowire on the western hotline time for the update and uh commercial
23:32break 803 05 50 we're on fantasy maybe you got something to bring up that's great i'm always up
23:38for that lines are open this is mike shope on wgr
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