Speaker 1: Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly
Speaker 2: source for the nation's best fantasy football advice, speculation, and
Speaker 2: whatever stupid stuff they decided to drop into the show.
Speaker 2: Now here's your host, Paul Chargion.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Part two, Rookie running Backs Fantasy Football Weekly
Speaker 1: with Thorneistrom fantasylife dot Com.
Speaker 3: Hey Thor, how are you doing.
Speaker 1: Charge Great to talk to you again. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: get a little deeper dive on the running back draft class.
Speaker 1: Last week you told us there were roughly thirty NFL
Speaker 1: draftable running backs in this class. That is nuts. We
Speaker 1: hit the top six last week. We can't possibly do
Speaker 1: twenty four in one show, but we do want to
Speaker 1: dive into some of the deeper guys. But I want
Speaker 1: to start here and I think the deepest running back
Speaker 1: class that I could find. Doing some just quick work
Speaker 1: on this, and I'm not saying this definitive thirty years ago. God,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's thirty years nineteen ninety four. So
Speaker 1: I'm using five thousand yards as the as a successful
Speaker 1: running back season. That would be five one thousand yard seasons.
Speaker 1: Can we agree that that's a pretty good barometer.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's your nineteen ninety four draft class. And there
Speaker 1: were a bunch of there were several running backs who
Speaker 1: did not pan out at all. But let me give
Speaker 1: you the guys who hit, and this is the order
Speaker 1: in which they were taken. Among guys that hit five
Speaker 1: thousand or very close to five thousand yards, first, Marshall Fulk.
Speaker 1: That turned out. Okay, yep, that's you want to do it.
Speaker 1: By the way, you want to put a guess as
Speaker 1: to how many total yards Marshall Fulk had in his career,
Speaker 1: rounded to the nearest thousand. You got it, nicely done.
Speaker 1: Twenty thousand. That's right, well done. Twenty thousand total yards
Speaker 1: from Marshall Fulk. The next notable running back, and this
Speaker 1: is a name. See this is I don't want to
Speaker 1: know how old you were in nineteen ninety four. Were
Speaker 1: you born?
Speaker 3: You were?
Speaker 1: You were born?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: I mean I was I was ten?
Speaker 1: All right, you're ten? All right?
Speaker 3: Good? Alright?
Speaker 1: Kay? Good? Eric Rhett. Does that name mean anything to you?
Speaker 3: Tampa Bay Bucks, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Dreamsicle uniform era Eric Rhett almost five thousand
Speaker 1: total yards. Charlie Garner do you remember Do you remember him?
Speaker 1: I'll see if you can get the teams these guys
Speaker 1: are on. Do you remember Charlie Garner?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Garner was forty nine ers Eagles.
Speaker 1: Right, that's right, nicely done. You got the second half
Speaker 1: of his career with that, and between those two ten
Speaker 1: thousand totally yards. That was a great career for him. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, this one was harder. A guy that I
Speaker 1: had really completely forgotten about, but had seven thousand total
Speaker 1: yards in his career. Lamar Smith. Does that name, Riabelle?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You remember the team? Uh, maybe later in his career,
Speaker 1: but Seattle was his primary stop.
Speaker 3: I believe I was screwing up with Lamar Miller.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go, Lamar Miller. Way much more recently,
Speaker 1: and somebody that I'm pretty sure Brian Johnson still thinks
Speaker 1: Lamar Miller is going to work out in the NFL.
Speaker 1: Shot shout out, Brien. Okay. Another player with almost five
Speaker 1: thousand yards, Bong Morris as we called him at the time,
Speaker 1: it was Bam Morris was his given name. But oh,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of fun with him and his
Speaker 1: his multiple arrests, marijuana arrests, so we renamed him Bong
Speaker 1: Morris at the time.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, yeah, but Bam Morris he was he was fun,
Speaker 4: bam bam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you remember him? Okay, do you remember the team
Speaker 1: that drafted him and he spent most of his career
Speaker 1: with that team?
Speaker 3: Was it was it? Steelers?
Speaker 1: You got it nice? So far? Perfect? Well what we
Speaker 1: mistl Mars Smith? But I don't blame me? Yeah do
Speaker 1: or see elevens? Oh sure you remember him? I know
Speaker 1: you know a team he was on.
Speaker 3: Packers yep.
Speaker 1: Seven thousand total yards for him.
Speaker 3: He had a good career. He was a good player.
Speaker 1: He was a good player and a good receiving back too.
Speaker 1: And then in nineteen ninety four seventh rounder Jamal Anderson
Speaker 1: to the Dirty Birds.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Another good career. Seven thousand, seven thousand total yards for him.
Speaker 1: So that ninety four draft class was awfully good. That's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight eight players that put together five thousand yard seasons
Speaker 1: or nearly five thousand total yard seasons. That's not bad.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, and this class maybe
Speaker 3: maybe we can get it topped.
Speaker 1: We might just get it topped right here. So we
Speaker 1: did the top we did your top six running backs.
Speaker 1: You get the benefit of the doubt. My big QUI
Speaker 1: I think Devin Neils can be more impactful than the
Speaker 1: than the sixth best running back. We'll find out landing
Speaker 1: spot a lot of things, wild course change all of that.
Speaker 1: I want to go to your number seven running back,
Speaker 1: d J. Giddons from Kansas State, and I've got I
Speaker 1: want to start here. His rass is nine point seven
Speaker 1: to eight, which is remarkable. Tell people your comp for
Speaker 1: DJ Giddons.
Speaker 4: He reminds me a lot of Zach Charbonet from very
Speaker 4: recently that some of the comps we were doing for
Speaker 4: the top six guys. I was going back in the
Speaker 4: time machine. But this one we have a recent one.
Speaker 4: It's it's a tall, bigger back. It was two Giddins
Speaker 4: at the combine six foot two twelve. He plays a
Speaker 4: little bit heavier than that, but similar physical package to
Speaker 4: Charboney and similar athleticism, and they run very similar. It's
Speaker 4: it's the upright thing, the sort of the upright runners,
Speaker 4: and they have smooth feet between the tackles. It's it's,
Speaker 4: you know, the light on the feet thing, making people
Speaker 4: miss bouncy and light there in the in the tackle
Speaker 4: box and picking your way out to the second level
Speaker 4: that way. And and Giddins the other thing that reminded
Speaker 4: me of Charboney is so smooth.
Speaker 3: At that size.
Speaker 4: There's just a lot of fluidity there, really good feel
Speaker 4: for the position and for running. You see Giddins out
Speaker 4: in the second and third level. He does some cool
Speaker 4: things with toggling his tempo and setting guys up or
Speaker 4: waiting for a blocker to wipe out, you know, an
Speaker 4: oncoming defender. He's really smart. He doesn't press the issue.
Speaker 4: He has really good awareness and and really good vision.
Speaker 4: I think DJ Giddens is a good back. I'm curious
Speaker 4: in the NFL the the receiving DJ Giins is not
Speaker 4: a He's not a very good pass blocker, we know that,
Speaker 4: but the receiving thing he has shown flashes. There's inconsistencies there,
Speaker 4: so I'm curious to see what we get out of
Speaker 4: him there. I know he's going to be a really
Speaker 4: good peer runner in the NFL. The receiving thing, though,
Speaker 4: like there'd be times where Kansas State would shift him
Speaker 4: out into the slot or boundary. He moves and he
Speaker 4: looks like a big boundary receiver and he moves as
Speaker 4: fluidly as any of those guys, and they would run
Speaker 4: him on like drag routes, you know, just simple stuff
Speaker 4: over the middle, but somewhere he could pin the defender
Speaker 4: to his back and you just sort of lead him
Speaker 4: into space. He showed he could do that stuff, but
Speaker 4: there was also extreme inconsistencies with the hands, with the drops,
Speaker 4: and this past season in twenty twenty three, I think
Speaker 4: he dropped like five balls. And so in the pass
Speaker 4: offseason they signed a receiving back who was originally from
Speaker 4: Kansas but came via Colorado and Dylan Edwards to give
Speaker 4: him some of the receiving down stuff. And Giddins didn't
Speaker 4: drop a ball this year, but it was his work
Speaker 4: with that was way part back. I think, like like
Speaker 4: I said, I think that there is ability there. And
Speaker 4: when he gets a ball in his hands, he has
Speaker 4: a problem. So you see what you can work on there.
Speaker 4: But as a runner, his game speaks for itself.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you one other competent. See if this
Speaker 1: makes any sense you. I'm looking at this taller back.
Speaker 1: It's upright runner with this long, fluid strides. Robert Smith. Okay,
Speaker 1: anything there is there anything there, ye think, So no,
Speaker 1: I like that, Okay, yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Robert Smith coming out of Ohio State, I forget what
Speaker 4: it was sort of before my time, so I don't
Speaker 4: know what he ran, but Giddens obviously had the burning
Speaker 4: forty four to four three, Yeah, was Robert Smith had
Speaker 4: to be right around there, But.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Gidden's it was.
Speaker 4: It was surprising how well, like we knew that he
Speaker 4: was a good athlete and and but the fluidity is
Speaker 4: the thing that catches your eye when you're watching him.
Speaker 4: It's not one of those things where it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: it screams off the athleticism, because he does the things
Speaker 4: like toggling the tempo and it's.
Speaker 3: Just everything is just so smooth.
Speaker 4: But just keep in mind you're you're talking about a
Speaker 4: really premium athlete in a big package.
Speaker 1: I was not familiar with Damian Martinez of Floor of Miami,
Speaker 1: and boy, when I started watching him, I got pretty
Speaker 1: interested in what this kid could do. Your comp is
Speaker 1: Lawrence Moroni. To me, he seems a little more physically
Speaker 1: stout than Maroni. And but you know, you've seen way
Speaker 1: more him that I have talk to me about about
Speaker 1: Damian Martinez, who I when I looked at him, I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: is a tough tackle, always moving forward, always finishing forward,
Speaker 1: bigger physical back with nice feet. I I like that kid.
Speaker 1: And I also like by the way that you comp
Speaker 1: guys who didn't necessarily have great NFL careers, uh, because
Speaker 1: there's a there are a lot of people in your
Speaker 1: position that always comp to guys that had successful NFL careers.
Speaker 1: The Lord Smerni didn't, but he was great in college.
Speaker 3: Yeah he was.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's it's a bigger back and with
Speaker 4: the athleticism, and it's another guy with with good feet.
Speaker 4: I do think Martinez is a little bit more physical
Speaker 4: with than Maroni, but the the athletic package in that
Speaker 4: frame with the feet is what reminded me of of
Speaker 4: Moroni coming out of Minnesota. But with with Martinez, you
Speaker 4: get the dichotomy of a hammer type physical back. He
Speaker 4: has a really uh a physical to his game, but
Speaker 4: you also get the really good footwork and feet and
Speaker 4: so you see the thing with Martinez where oncoming defenders
Speaker 4: like sometimes they'll they'll sort of break down and you know,
Speaker 4: and sort of square up, try to load up to
Speaker 4: tangle with the battering ram and then he can evade
Speaker 4: you with the footwork, and then sometimes when you know
Speaker 4: you're hanging back seeing what he's gonna do, he'll just
Speaker 4: then bear all through you, right like. So it's he
Speaker 4: becomes a little bit of a puzzle because of that,
Speaker 4: he can both make you miss and run you over.
Speaker 4: The receiving element of his game. That's where I dinged
Speaker 4: them on and that's why he's number eight. I think
Speaker 4: as a peer runner, he's he's better than that and
Speaker 4: a nine to three two ras at two hundred and
Speaker 4: seventeen pounds. He played most of his career between two
Speaker 4: twenty and two thirty. He was listed higher than that,
Speaker 4: And it was funny at Oregon say he's listed at
Speaker 4: two forty one. I think of Miami as two thirty six.
Speaker 4: And so I had asked him at the Senior ball,
Speaker 4: did you lose weight because you're going to be playing
Speaker 4: in the air raid system. And I told him what
Speaker 4: his listings were at the two schools, and he looked
Speaker 4: at me and he laughed. He goes, bro, I've never
Speaker 4: played a game above two thirty, And I said, you were.
Speaker 3: Never listed below two thirty, right, he just.
Speaker 4: Started smirked at me, but like nobody questioned when he
Speaker 4: was listed at two forty by Oregon, say it because
Speaker 4: of how physical he is.
Speaker 3: So that's the stuff that you like about about his game.
Speaker 4: But yeah, the receiving end, the pass pro work did
Speaker 4: take a step forward in twenty twenty four. Can he
Speaker 4: keep improving that? As a receiver mediocre at best. So
Speaker 4: it's a guy where you want a receiving back with him,
Speaker 4: But as far as an early down guy and a
Speaker 4: short yardage guy, you could certainly be worse than Damian Martinez.
Speaker 1: Let's go to another player with really good footwork, r J.
Speaker 1: Harvey from UCF. Now your comp here is Taj Spears.
Speaker 1: I feel like he had a little better power than
Speaker 1: Taj Spears, but again I defer to you on a
Speaker 1: lot of these things. But it's the footwork that really
Speaker 1: jumped off the screen to me when I looked at RJ. Harvey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has really good full work, particularly for a
Speaker 4: guy that runs as fast as he does. You know,
Speaker 4: he has legitimate by for four threes or low four
Speaker 4: fourth speed. At the combine he was let me pull it.
Speaker 4: It was a four to fourth flat. Yeah, four four flat.
Speaker 4: Nice at the combine. But he you know, a burner,
Speaker 4: but you know, like you said, with good feet and
Speaker 4: in the sort of classic bowling ball type frame five
Speaker 4: to eight flat two hundred and five pounds, and he
Speaker 4: can get up a little bit bigger than that, you know,
Speaker 4: closer to that two twelve threshold that we were talking about.
Speaker 4: He cut a little bit of weight in order to
Speaker 4: do the testing. But I like his work between the tackles,
Speaker 4: especially for a smaller back. He runs low at the ground, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and he's really bouncy and darty between the tackles, and
Speaker 4: and sometimes like he can do the thing. He denotes
Speaker 4: danger really quickly, and so in college he could get
Speaker 4: flat down the line, he has a really violent cut
Speaker 4: and then he can just shoot out the other way
Speaker 4: out the back door. He got a lot of explosive
Speaker 4: runs at UCF that way. He's not going to be
Speaker 4: able to do that same thing to that degree. But
Speaker 4: what I like is the vision that denoting the danger.
Speaker 4: And I also embollish on a modulation of his running style,
Speaker 4: And it doesn't need to be major. It's not like
Speaker 4: he was doing that every single time, but a modulation
Speaker 4: of it to more often take what you're getting between
Speaker 4: the tackles, because I think he is good at that,
Speaker 4: like the work that he has done between the tackles.
Speaker 3: You're mentioning.
Speaker 4: He runs with a little bit more power than you
Speaker 4: would think because he is always going to win the
Speaker 4: leverage game. And then you have the speed to power
Speaker 4: element with him as well. He's going to run through
Speaker 4: the arm tackles and he can make people mess with
Speaker 4: that really quick, sort of Darty type side to side agility.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I really like his game.
Speaker 4: You get the explosive plays, you get some of the
Speaker 4: between the tackle stuff. He is also a really strong
Speaker 4: receiver who brings the same home run ability when he's
Speaker 4: catching the ball. I talked to him down at the
Speaker 4: senior ball and I was asking him about, you know,
Speaker 4: what do you want to prove to the NFL here,
Speaker 4: and he was saying as a receiver, and he started
Speaker 4: to go into this thing of you know, he was
Speaker 4: being nice about it. He sort of tiptoe on around it,
Speaker 4: but you know, he was sort of insinuating. UCF didn't
Speaker 4: use me. I think like they could have as a receiver.
Speaker 4: And I said, RJ. That being said, I said, are
Speaker 4: you aware that you are one of two backs? In
Speaker 4: this class who had one point twenty five yards per
Speaker 4: route run or more each of the last two years.
Speaker 4: And he goes, really, and I said, you sure were,
Speaker 4: but I agreed with him that they did not use
Speaker 4: him in a diverse enough way. He piled up those yards.
Speaker 4: That was RJ. Harvey's doing, right. It was like a
Speaker 4: lot of this stuff of running after the catch, Whereas
Speaker 4: I think RJ. Harvey is going to be a really
Speaker 4: good receiver in the NFL down the field right where
Speaker 4: you can do different stuff and have him shaking the
Speaker 4: linebacker or the strong safety out of his boots and
Speaker 4: then he'll find himself. They'll create the space and you know,
Speaker 4: get him the ball and then he can run with
Speaker 4: it afterwards. But it's a good receiver who I think
Speaker 4: has the ability to show even more in the NFL.
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan RJ. Harvey.
Speaker 1: So to give people a reference point, r J. Harvey
Speaker 1: is your ninth overall running back. Are we in about
Speaker 1: the fourth round right now? In terms of where you
Speaker 1: think the ninth running back is gonna go?
Speaker 3: Late third, early fourth? Yes? Okay?
Speaker 4: In there, okay, all right, all right, probably probably the third,
Speaker 4: probably the latter half of the third.
Speaker 1: I okay, right now, all right, which you know, nine
Speaker 1: backs in the first three rounds is still remarkable. A
Speaker 1: lot of people familiar with Cam Scatabo, and he's going
Speaker 1: to be, I think, a very polarizing player his When
Speaker 1: you see the highlights, you can't not love Cam Scatabo,
Speaker 1: But when you watch the totality of a game of his,
Speaker 1: there's some there's some work in there that just doesn't
Speaker 1: really pop for me. So, you know, he's the most
Speaker 1: he's one of the most physical and I think contact
Speaker 1: seeking running backs that we've seen in years, and a
Speaker 1: fascinating study. You and I talked about him two weeks
Speaker 1: ago and we didn't end up getting all the testing
Speaker 1: we were hoping to get out of out of the
Speaker 1: combine with him, unfortunately. But let's talk Cam scatable Arizona State.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the ones we he did do were the jumps
Speaker 4: and and he jumped well. But yeah, they we're wondering
Speaker 4: about the forty time and he's gonna make us weight
Speaker 4: on that. You know, I hope he runs it at
Speaker 4: the Proga. Yeah, I hope so, But speed's.
Speaker 3: Not his game.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know, like in his defense, it's the thing
Speaker 4: you're talking about the physicality. He has some agility as well,
Speaker 4: and it's he while he does not have that elite
Speaker 4: top end speed, the elite trade, or maybe not elite trade,
Speaker 4: but the really good trade as far as that goes,
Speaker 4: he accelerates to his top speed almost immediately and you
Speaker 4: see that that sort of suddenness in the jumps that
Speaker 4: he did in Indianapolis. But yeah, he is a pure
Speaker 4: tackle breaker. He we were talking about bulling ball frames before.
Speaker 4: You're not going to see a more bowling ball frame
Speaker 4: than this. He measured in a five foot nine at
Speaker 4: the NFL Combine, but two hundred and nineteen pounds, and
Speaker 4: that's a guy who plays more like two twenty five
Speaker 4: to two thirty yea in a five foot nine frame.
Speaker 4: So I mean he runs solo to the ground and
Speaker 4: he's a berserker. It's a street fighter thing where he's
Speaker 4: just fighting people off of him. And again he can
Speaker 4: get through closing holes, closing gaps really really quickly because
Speaker 4: of that acceleration. He ain't running away from any one
Speaker 4: in the NFL, and he didn't really at college either.
Speaker 4: But this is an efficiency back. He's a good receiver
Speaker 4: as well. He's not going to drop the ball and
Speaker 4: it's the same thing where it is extremely difficult in
Speaker 4: space to tackle that guy. So Arizona State, I mean,
Speaker 4: he finished number two on the team last year in receptions,
Speaker 4: even though they gave him a billion carries. He was
Speaker 4: like the entire offense, you know, and like it was
Speaker 4: really impressive.
Speaker 3: The end of the season.
Speaker 4: Jordan Tyson, who he was the guy who led their
Speaker 4: team in receptions by far, Arizona State really didn't have
Speaker 4: other receiving weapons that scared people with Tyson, and then
Speaker 4: it was Scattaboy. But Tyson got injured at the end
Speaker 4: of the year. So then in the college Football playoff,
Speaker 4: Scatabu was a marked man and he was still, you know,
Speaker 4: admiral getting his as much as he could. I think
Speaker 4: this is a good player. I comp him to David Montgomery.
Speaker 4: He has a very similar frame to David Montgomery. He's
Speaker 4: an in shorter, but it's basically the same build with
Speaker 4: the same weight. And keep in mind David Montgomery, He's
Speaker 4: had a good career. He was really good at Iowa State.
Speaker 4: He didn't test well at all. In fact, I think
Speaker 4: cam Scatable was going to test better than David Montgomery.
Speaker 4: David Montgomery had one of the worst verticals you will
Speaker 4: ever see in that position. It was like twenty seven
Speaker 4: and a half inches or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so scatable. You could argue he is a.
Speaker 4: Better athlete than than David Montgomery, and I think he's
Speaker 4: gonna have a solid career.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to get you to my comp Mike Alstott.
Speaker 1: It's you know, all Stott. It was as contact seeking
Speaker 1: as any running back in memory. He never put up.
Speaker 1: He was never like workhorse back. He was never three
Speaker 1: hundred carries and it was usually in like the one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty to twenty five carries and he'd finish
Speaker 1: out at like seven hundred yards. But he could also catch,
Speaker 1: you know, and he would chip in, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: forty receptions. He was. I just feel like those two
Speaker 1: just remind me of each other so much that you know,
Speaker 1: the build is a little different because also that I
Speaker 1: was a lot taller. He was six foot one and
Speaker 1: it was two hundred, like forty pounds, so I mean
Speaker 1: the build was different, but just the style stylistically, that's
Speaker 1: that's the guy that that Cam Scatabo reminds me of.
Speaker 1: And I hope, you know a little bit like work
Speaker 1: done and and Mike Alstott, I hope Scatibo finds himself
Speaker 1: into a one two punch where he can be goal
Speaker 1: line guy. He can be third down tough yards, you know,
Speaker 1: third and one, you know, third and short. He can
Speaker 1: he can fill that role. And I'm excited to see
Speaker 1: where lands, and I hope he can be part of it.
Speaker 1: Like I said, a great one two punch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's that's what it is.
Speaker 4: And he's kind of a throwback player, you know, like
Speaker 4: you're mentioning with that sort of you know, it's like
Speaker 4: woke up and shows violence. Yeah, yeah, right, And that's
Speaker 4: that that's a similarity with him at all Stott. They
Speaker 4: every morning they woke up and they chose violence. And
Speaker 4: one interesting sort of thought experiment with Skataboo, a throwback
Speaker 4: player into this this modern era is now you know
Speaker 4: all Stott and then you know, you go back further
Speaker 4: than that in the three yards in a clouded dust
Speaker 4: type era. That that era you had the slobber knocker linebackers,
Speaker 4: you know, the two hundred and fifty pound guys with
Speaker 4: the enormous shoulder pads and everyone's coming downhill. You had
Speaker 4: more of the boxes were packed and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: This era you have, this field is more spread and
Speaker 4: the defenses are getting smaller to get more speed on
Speaker 4: the field.
Speaker 3: Is Cam Scattabu's game? Could it? Could it be a
Speaker 3: really good fit here?
Speaker 4: Like could they get him into an offense where you
Speaker 4: are you're always spreading the field with at least three
Speaker 4: receivers forcing thin boxes because the you know, again the
Speaker 4: super duper difficult thing.
Speaker 3: It's to tackle Skataboo with one dude.
Speaker 4: You need a bunch, Like sometimes you need four guys, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, because he'll just keep carrying people like he
Speaker 4: just has such strong legs. So in those thinner boxes,
Speaker 4: I think that could project pretty well for Cam. You're
Speaker 4: not gonna get explosive plays out of him, but you're
Speaker 4: gonna get all kinds of efficiency with him, both as
Speaker 4: a runner and as a receiver.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: I want to zip through and you know, like two
Speaker 1: minutes or less, let's zip through another like five or
Speaker 1: six guys, and don't just get it. Get a little
Speaker 1: bit smarter. And I'm gonna be honest, most these guys
Speaker 1: I haven't seen yet. And the guy I'm really well,
Speaker 1: I don't, I won't. I won't preview it yet, but uh,
Speaker 1: there's one guy that has taken a precipitous fall from
Speaker 1: where he was generally ranked even a few months ago.
Speaker 1: We'll talk. We'll talk that guy through in just a moment,
Speaker 1: a segment too. Fantasy Football Weekly coming up in just
Speaker 1: a moment. All right, welcome back Fantasy Football Weekly. Paul
Speaker 1: charchiing thorn Eistrom with you. We've already knocked down five
Speaker 1: six I don't know, five six players. Let's let's jump
Speaker 1: into some uh, some guys that are going to be
Speaker 1: Day three running backs, including a guy that I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about until honestly a few days ago. Help me,
Speaker 1: and if I if I get this pronunciation wrong, please
Speaker 1: just go easy on me. Bacial Tutin. That's pretty good, Mike,
Speaker 1: am I in the ballpark here, Basal Teuton.
Speaker 3: That's no, that's that's good. After the NFL combine, I
Speaker 3: just call him King Tutin.
Speaker 1: I like it, tingk King Tutin. That's great, that's great.
Speaker 1: The Virginia Tech running back who ran a four three
Speaker 1: two forty Holy cow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that that guy can burn.
Speaker 4: It's it's a high school track star and and the
Speaker 4: athleticism you see it in spades out there on the field.
Speaker 4: He certainly showed that in Indianapolis that forty time match
Speaker 4: Devin Autchane. Only Tuton was eighteen pounds heavier than when
Speaker 4: au Chane ran his coming out of Texas A and
Speaker 4: m that that four three two. The jumps were also
Speaker 4: crazy with him, they both both of them vertical and
Speaker 4: bro jumps. We're both ninety six percent. So you're talking
Speaker 4: about a truly elite athlete here five nine, two hundred
Speaker 4: and six pounds nine point twenty nine raz. He reminds
Speaker 4: me of Ijaa Pacheco. It's the same thing of the
Speaker 4: it's not only breakneck speed, it is a breakneck style
Speaker 4: and it is extremely unorthodox. Like I mean, you remember
Speaker 4: Pachecko coming out and like sometimes for the NFL defenders,
Speaker 4: like initially seeing him, it's unpredictable heat. He descends on
Speaker 4: you really quickly. That the movements. You know, it's like
Speaker 4: this kinetic, unpredictable, unorthodox type running style. That's what you
Speaker 4: get from Tuton as well. And when you're moving at
Speaker 4: such high speeds, any indecision that you can put in
Speaker 4: a defender's head. Yeah, it makes you even faster, right,
Speaker 4: Like you're slowing them down even more and you're already
Speaker 4: faster than they are. So that stuff is really cool.
Speaker 4: You get the explosive plays from Tuton, he racks those up.
Speaker 4: He's a solid receiver as well. Although the one thing
Speaker 4: with him that they got to work on is the
Speaker 4: hands with him. Last year Virginia Tech, they started to
Speaker 4: cut his receiving work down because he had dropped some balls.
Speaker 4: But like you do get the explosive elopment with him
Speaker 4: as a receiver when he is catching it. So I'll
Speaker 4: be curious to see the development with him there. Hands
Speaker 4: though is the question with him both as a receiver
Speaker 4: and then as a runner. He fumbled the ball nine
Speaker 4: times the last two years. So it's a guy where
Speaker 4: on the field last couple of years. Because he came
Speaker 4: up from North Carolina, A and t it was at
Speaker 4: Virginia Tech for two years.
Speaker 3: You got the.
Speaker 4: Extremely high peaks and then you had to put up
Speaker 4: with some of those valleys. Can the NFL can they
Speaker 4: can you teach him a little bit of better ball
Speaker 4: scales as the receiver and as the runner. Can we
Speaker 4: help him with ball security? Can you do the thing
Speaker 4: they did in the program? Remember the running back in
Speaker 4: the movie the Program? They made him walk around campus
Speaker 4: with the football. Someone else brought it back to the
Speaker 4: coach y. You know, they got a rewards. Everyone's trying
Speaker 4: to slap it out of his hands in the hallways.
Speaker 4: Baseiel Tooton needs to walk around with the football for
Speaker 4: months and with the same sort of bounty on it.
Speaker 4: But this is a really, really interesting prospect. I think
Speaker 4: probably headed for day three after his testing, and he's
Speaker 4: gonna bring whatever offense picks him a home run threat.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll have to be a little bit quicker
Speaker 1: on Dylan Sampson from Tennessee. Your comp here was James Cook.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a delicious comp. Tell me about Dylan Samson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I ended up switching it to a mod Bradshaw.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, Yeah, Like I was going back and forth
Speaker 4: with a couple of guys. But he's a little bit
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, five ft eight, two hundred pounds coming
Speaker 4: into the combine. So it's a it's a back who
Speaker 4: was on the smaller side and he just had the
Speaker 4: one year starting at Tennessee, but he showed all kinds
Speaker 4: of different stuff last year, both as a receiver and
Speaker 4: as a runner. He has good feel, he has good agility,
Speaker 4: and he has strong speed, although that is one thing
Speaker 4: we're kind of questioning right now because it was kind
Speaker 4: of weird that Dylan Samson did not run a forty
Speaker 4: at the combine. His the sportsbooks put out I think
Speaker 4: he was four three nine or four three eight something
Speaker 4: like that. They copped his number, and then as the
Speaker 4: week went on you get closer to Saturday, his number
Speaker 4: had come all the way up to like it was either.
Speaker 3: Four three four or four four four in the sports.
Speaker 4: Books, and then he elects not to run me watching
Speaker 4: his team, So you have a discrepancy here where he
Speaker 4: has had some explosive runs, and there was reports when
Speaker 4: he was coming out, like in high school, stuff like
Speaker 4: that of him running in the high four to three.
Speaker 4: So that's that's where some of that speculation that he's
Speaker 4: a burner is. But some of the on field metrics
Speaker 4: and then just the eye test, he did not consistently
Speaker 4: look like a four to three speed guy, and that
Speaker 4: matters in his evaluation because you're only at the two
Speaker 4: hundred flat size and so that's where you know, you
Speaker 4: bring up a guy like Cook, or you bring up
Speaker 4: a guy like like Bradshaw, guys that were able to
Speaker 4: sort of overcome the smaller frames because you're you're skilled
Speaker 4: all the way around. You know, you offer your offense
Speaker 4: a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Speaker 4: I think that's the thing with Dylan Samson. You put
Speaker 4: him up standing next to some of those other guys.
Speaker 4: He's not as impressive, he might not end up running
Speaker 4: as fast as some of those different guys, but it's
Speaker 4: one of those guys you put everything together and he's
Speaker 4: a bit more than his amalgamation to trades.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to your number thirteen ranked running
Speaker 1: back Ali Gordon from Oklahoma State. Now, I saw I
Speaker 1: started when I started looking at running backs during the
Speaker 1: NFL season. I'm all NFL all the time. And then
Speaker 1: in January I started looking at some of the running
Speaker 1: back rankings. I was seeing Ali Gordon being ranked like
Speaker 1: number five, number six among running backs in this draft class.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking up film and I don't know much
Speaker 1: about him, and I'm like, what am I missing here?
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a guy who had no special traits that
Speaker 1: I could see. Ali Gordon didn't get. He got little
Speaker 1: more than what his offensive line gave him. You know,
Speaker 1: he would he would get, he would take what he
Speaker 1: wasn't going negative. He wasn't making bad plays. But I
Speaker 1: didn't see him making any special plays. I didn't see
Speaker 1: a player that looked to have much of any elusiveness.
Speaker 1: I didn't see a player that was breaking a lot
Speaker 1: of tackles. I didn't see explosion. I just maybe I'm
Speaker 1: missing it, but I just didn't see any the special
Speaker 1: traits I want to see from Olie Gordon. So that's
Speaker 1: my that's where I am on him. But again, as always,
Speaker 1: you you know, you know a lot more about him
Speaker 1: than I do. Am I seeing it wrong?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, and no. Like the overall, I agree
Speaker 4: with what you're saying. As far as the trades, by
Speaker 4: and large, it was interesting. This guy spent three years
Speaker 4: in Oklahoma State, got on the field right away, and
Speaker 4: his second year, starting twenty twenty three, he won the
Speaker 4: Doe Walker.
Speaker 3: He yeah, that was that was the year where he
Speaker 3: looked really, really good.
Speaker 4: And then last year in twenty twenty four, his counting
Speaker 4: even though he wasn't nicked up his counting SATs, they
Speaker 4: basically all got cleaved in half literally in half. And
Speaker 4: so it's like a tale of two seats, like which
Speaker 4: one do you trust? And you see people evaluating him
Speaker 4: choosing sort of one or the other, like I'm gonna
Speaker 4: forget the twenty twenty four tape because twenty three was better,
Speaker 4: or you know, twenty twenty three was a mirage. I
Speaker 4: trust the twenty twenty four. I'm in the middle of
Speaker 4: those two things. I think what you saw over those
Speaker 4: two seasons, it's so what changed Alie Gordon didn't change
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four. It was his supporting cast. The
Speaker 4: offensive line got worse, the receiver play got worse, and
Speaker 4: then they brought back this like eighth year quarterbacks who
Speaker 4: can't throw downfield at all. And so there's their system.
Speaker 4: It was a sideline. They spread the field and then
Speaker 4: it was sidelined to sideline passing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: Defenses realized pretty quick they can't throw down field in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four. So all of a sudden, whereas the
Speaker 4: offensive system, you know, we were talking about this was scataboo.
Speaker 4: I like, it'd be interesting to get them in a
Speaker 4: system you thin off the box a little bit for him.
Speaker 4: But with Oklahoma State last year, defense were like we know,
Speaker 4: Alan Bowman, you ain't throwing twenty five plus yards downfield,
Speaker 4: so go, we are gonna take We're only going to
Speaker 4: play single high safety because we don't. We don't think
Speaker 4: you're gonna throw downfield and beat us. And that's what happened.
Speaker 4: So they would load the box and Oklahoma State only
Speaker 4: had the five or the six blocking back there. So
Speaker 4: you that's what ended up happening. That's why his his
Speaker 4: dat's got cleve down. I think what it showed you
Speaker 4: with Ali Gordon, it's a context specific guy you know
Speaker 4: in college, and then it's usage specific when you go
Speaker 4: to the NFL. I think he's a guy who's going
Speaker 4: to give you. You know, it's sort of like we were
Speaker 4: talking about with Scatboo. It's just a lower where you're
Speaker 4: gonna get efficiency as the runner. He's going to get
Speaker 4: what's blocked for him. You know, it's a Lee Roy
Speaker 4: Horden maybe kind of a thing. Yeah, a bigger one,
Speaker 4: you know that. You know, Brian Robinson is my comp
Speaker 4: or you could do poor Man's naj Harris because it's
Speaker 4: sort of a similar frame, you know, a knockoff version
Speaker 4: of Naje Harris, but you get the efficiency as a runner,
Speaker 4: at least it is blocked for him.
Speaker 3: You also get efficiency as a receiver.
Speaker 4: He has good hands and he'll turn up field and
Speaker 4: he'll get what he can, but you don't get the explosion,
Speaker 4: the four to six speed that is what he is.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty three, he was able to get pile
Speaker 4: up all these explosive runs because of those thin boxes,
Speaker 4: because you know, defenses have more guys out there, so
Speaker 4: he was able to get runways more often and then
Speaker 4: would do the run. Though that's what went away last year.
Speaker 4: He ain't getting any explosive runs in the NFL.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to hit two more guys. Rishard Smith
Speaker 1: from SMU. His rass is only a seven point zero seven,
Speaker 1: which I doesn't disqualify you from success, but that feels
Speaker 1: like a red flag for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, but the one thing that's good with his athletic profile,
Speaker 4: he ran I think the four three nine forty and
Speaker 4: to me that that was sufficient because in the NFL,
Speaker 4: I think what you're looking at, it's a really really,
Speaker 4: really good receiving back. There's some mix and match stuff
Speaker 4: I think where you can keep him in the rotation
Speaker 4: as a pure runner, but I think the majority of
Speaker 4: his usage is going to be as the receiving back.
Speaker 4: He was a guy who was a ballyhooed slot receiver
Speaker 4: recruit for Miami earlier in his career, had a hard
Speaker 4: time breaking through anyone's SMU and I didn't even realize
Speaker 4: that they had shifted him like he wasn't Like at
Speaker 4: the beginning of the year, SMU, they had all these
Speaker 4: former top recruits that were running backs, you know, former
Speaker 4: four or five star guys. They like three of them,
Speaker 4: Richard Smith. They end up quietly converting him to running back.
Speaker 4: Last year in camp he bypassed all of them.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden he found himself at
Speaker 4: the top of the depth chart for this team that
Speaker 4: turned out was good. You know, SMU was really good
Speaker 4: last year and Berchard Smith was a huge part of
Speaker 4: their offense. He is a awesome receiver. I mean again,
Speaker 4: this is a slot receiver that is playing running back.
Speaker 4: You get receiver routes for him. It was not fair
Speaker 4: in Mobile for some of these linebackers or safeties to
Speaker 4: have to cover him in.
Speaker 3: The one on one drills.
Speaker 4: It was a gulf of separation every single time because
Speaker 4: he runs his again, like a receiver. You see like
Speaker 4: stuff you don't see what the running backs at, toggling
Speaker 4: of tempo, setting guys up with shoulder deeks and stuff
Speaker 4: like this. Like he sells it really well where he'll
Speaker 4: break a guy's ankle because like I'm going left and
Speaker 4: you know, it's like a hard deak and then he'll
Speaker 4: go the other way and it's just you know, you
Speaker 4: have a six yard halo around him. So that's what
Speaker 4: he's going to provide for his NFL offense, and he's
Speaker 4: going to be a valued receiving back at the next level.
Speaker 1: Your comp on Burchard Smith is.
Speaker 3: My cump on Burchard Smith is Nahim Heines.
Speaker 4: It's a similar frame similar similar Yeah, like uh, you
Speaker 4: know with with that sort of stuff, and I think
Speaker 4: he could be perhaps a little bit better than than
Speaker 4: heines in the NFL. But heines, as you recall, you
Speaker 4: know that he got a ton of receptions there for
Speaker 4: for a stretch, So he did.
Speaker 3: That's what I think you're getting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're gonna pair him with like the meat and
Speaker 4: potatoes back and then Burchard's you're just gonna allow him
Speaker 4: to do his thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're number fifteen overall running back in this draft class,
Speaker 1: la Quint Allen from Sarahcuse, Uh, your comp here is
Speaker 1: at one point and it was for Shod White. Is
Speaker 1: it Stillshot White?
Speaker 3: It is?
Speaker 4: It is still Rashad White. Okay, they're they're taller backs.
Speaker 4: Uh six. I think Rashad White's six foot as well,
Speaker 4: but la Quinn Allen's six foot, two hundred four pounds.
Speaker 4: Rashad White at least he tested as a better athlete
Speaker 4: than I would anticipate lea Quinn testing. We didn't get
Speaker 4: to see much of that at the combine. But it's
Speaker 4: a smooth back who is a tremendous receiver and you
Speaker 4: watch heraccuse last year and their offense got more fun.
Speaker 4: They had Kyle mccortz. They were throwing the ball around more.
Speaker 4: They did such interesting stuff with Leaquinn Allen as a receiver,
Speaker 4: both out of the backfield, but they frequently would shift him,
Speaker 4: whether it's to the you know, and sometimes they'd have
Speaker 4: the four receivers out. He would do the left slot,
Speaker 4: the right slot. There'd be other times he would go
Speaker 4: out to the boundary, so they would shift them out
Speaker 4: and then you're you're getting tells from the defense when
Speaker 4: he is shifting out and then sometimes you can isolate
Speaker 4: him in a in a matchup that is extremely advantageous
Speaker 4: for you. And every time they did, when they had
Speaker 4: him isolated on some slow footed linebacker, some slow, slow
Speaker 4: footed strong safety, lea quinn Allen would would eat their lunch.
Speaker 4: So this is it's a really really talented receiver. That's
Speaker 4: what I see that with with him and Rashad White,
Speaker 4: similar frames and just really really good receivers.
Speaker 1: All right, llquinn Allen I said, we were just going
Speaker 1: to do those two guys, but I think if only
Speaker 1: for name recognition, we should hit on Trevor Etn because
Speaker 1: people obviously know his brother, and so I think there's
Speaker 1: going to be automatically some attention paid to him. But
Speaker 1: maybe people aren't as familiar with this game, although he
Speaker 1: played at Georgia's, so I think a lot of people are.
Speaker 1: But what are your thoughts on him? You've got him
Speaker 1: as your number eighteen overall running back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a Trevor Etn. He's undersized, you know, not
Speaker 4: as big as his brother. He came in to the
Speaker 4: combine and measured in at five foot just a little
Speaker 4: bit less than five foot nine hundred and ninety eight
Speaker 4: pounds ran a four to four two that was better
Speaker 4: than some people were expecting. He's a decent athlete, you know,
Speaker 4: no better than that. But it's a guy that I
Speaker 4: think is going to be a committee back at the
Speaker 4: next level that will factor in there. I combed him
Speaker 4: to Miles gask and I do think that there is
Speaker 4: a cap ceiling there. But he's sort of a grinder guy.
Speaker 4: He gives you a little bit of speed, he has
Speaker 4: solid agility, he can he can catch, you know, he
Speaker 4: do a little bit of the running. You're not gonna
Speaker 4: want him to handle a lot of the inside the
Speaker 4: tackles type concepts at the next level. But he can
Speaker 4: certainly be a guy in a committee at the NFL level.
Speaker 1: All right, And I gotta give you a tip of
Speaker 1: the hat for having a comp on our list for
Speaker 1: a player we didn't end up getting to of Trunk Candidate.
Speaker 1: I completely forgotten that he was a guy. Like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that is a deep call right there to go to with.
Speaker 4: Mar Marcus Yarns and Trunk Candidate, they're the pointing spider man.
Speaker 4: I love Marcus Yarns this game. And by the way,
Speaker 4: Trunk Canady. We can get into a Trunk candidate thing.
Speaker 4: If Trunk candidate he missed his era. Don't you agree
Speaker 4: with this charge? If Trunk Canada come out now, I
Speaker 4: think you would have seen a better player in the
Speaker 4: NFL then we ended up getting.
Speaker 3: But you know, as we get smaller, as the game.
Speaker 4: Goes more towards speedy players like this, they become more valuable.
Speaker 4: And Marcus Yarns is a guy where it's the speed
Speaker 4: kills that he's small, but it's.
Speaker 3: The speed kills.
Speaker 4: And I think you're going to get two developmental bullets
Speaker 4: with him because if he doesn't, if you don't like
Speaker 4: him as the receiving back, once you get him in
Speaker 4: the building, I think you can try him as a
Speaker 4: two to two at well type, take the top off
Speaker 4: the defense, whether it be in the slotter or even
Speaker 4: on the boundary. They played him at Delaware all the time,
Speaker 4: in the slot or in the ery, Okay, and he
Speaker 4: looks like a receiver.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: They He had some of the funnest usage usage that
Speaker 4: you'll see, but his receiving skull it is like a receiver.
Speaker 4: He was one of the few players that the NFL
Speaker 4: requested at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, specifically that they
Speaker 4: work out at a different position. The NFL ask Marcus
Speaker 4: Yearns to work out at receiver, so you might get
Speaker 4: a guy where you get some of the usage with it.
Speaker 4: It's all receiving with him, but some of it out
Speaker 4: of the backfield, some of it with the slot. I
Speaker 4: think you're going to see really cool things with him
Speaker 4: at the next level.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we've worked in a couple extra guys.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we got to all twelve that
Speaker 1: we had talked about potentially getting to in this one,
Speaker 1: but this was still a ton of fun. My man,
Speaker 1: you are so good with the incoming rookie class, and
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk to you more.
Speaker 3: Can't wait.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Thor, you are the best. You can see
Speaker 1: all of Thor's ongoing work fantasylife dot com and it
Speaker 1: definitely encourage you to check that out as well. Bye bye.
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