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Pre-season rankings, along with conventional wisdom, were gone with the wind in the 2008 fantasy football season. Nowhere was this more apparent than at the running back position.
The No. 1 overall back was DeAngelo Williams out of Carolina, a team that just drafted a halfback in the first round of the draft back last April.
A first-year starter was number two.
A starter who made it into the end zone once last season scored 13 touchdowns this year. There were three rookies in the top 10. The perennial No. 1 one ended up with seven.
Nobody has any idea what they're doing with these. It's unpredictable, a crap shoot.
Now let me polish off my rifle...
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13 comments Last one added 5 months ago — Leave a Comment
Evan Kulhawik 6 months ago
You are overrating Jacobs for sure. Yes, Jacobs does a great job with the carries he gets, but he needs another running back to give him breaks during games. The reason why Ward and Jacobs have been so effective this year is that they feed off each other, and if Jacobs was the sole running back for a team, he would probably break down. As a Giants fan, I can say he is definitely not durable enough to handle a year's load of work by himself. His style of running is too physical and he gets banged up a lot. Jacobs is a good running back, a top 10 back, but having no one to take some carries away is actually a bad thing, not a good one.
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Tosten Burks 6 months ago
Maybe so. His injury history does scare me a bit. And it is telling to hear from someone who watches him week in week out that Jacobs doesn't seem durable.
But his upside is just so dang high.
I think this is what they call a mancrush.
/Again, things are so liable to change. Who knows where he goes? Who knows what coaching staff he ends up under? Who knows what weapons he has around him on his 2009 team? There's tons of variables.
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Grant McElroy 6 months ago
Good article. Jacobs is a monster. But what about DeAngelo Williams?
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Tosten Burks 6 months ago
Ehhh ya. DeAngelo Williams was a tough one.
These are extremely preliminary rankings, let me emphasize that, so things are all based on huge amounts of speculation and guessing.
Ya it's a shocker to leave the number one overall guy out of the top 10, but I think it's reasonable with Williams. It's logical to assume that as Jonathan Stewart matures, his workload will increase next season. It's also logical to assume that Jake Delhomme is on the downside of his career and the threat he poses in the passing game will decrease next year and down the road as he ages. Delhomme will be 34 in 2009. Finally, it's more than logical to not expect a running back to average 5.5 yards per carry on 270 rushes two years in a row as Williams did in '08. To put that number in perspective, Williams was the only running back to have at least a 5 yard per carry average of all players with over 270 carries this year. Only 13 people have done it in the previous six years. It's just not likely for Williams to be such a beast again.
He's due for a drop off.
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Day Chau 6 months ago
I agree with Evan there. And I was gonna blow up when all these rookie QB's were ahead of L.T. on the slides. A decent-health L.T is well enough for #2, especially since he also gets the receiving yards most RB's lack.
It's hard to determine if the overachievers will continue putting up huge numbers and if the underachievers would sink further. Some of those guys are due for a sophomore slump.
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Tosten Burks 6 months ago
Well I would agree. I don't foresee Turner keeping up such high production. His huge workload makes him seem a likely candidate to drop off a bit.
I also think Forte slumps some next year, as well as Chris Johnson. Slaton though just seemed to get hotter as the season went on and I think Houston is a rising young offense that has the potential to be one of the highest powered in the league. I believe he just continues to grow.
With LT, you have to understand that I'm a Charger fan. I live in San Diego. I feel that he's probably the most talented and accomplished running back in his generation and still is one of the tops in the league. The thing is, he's aging. And he wants to prolong that. You can see it in the way he runs, the way he goes out of bounds early as opposed to extending a run almost every opportunity he gets, the way he sits out portions of playoff games to keep from worsening existing injuries. I think he continues to do great things with the touches he gets, but I feel his workload is going to continue to decrease in the years to come. Sproles will be re-signed and his role in the offense will grow, Hester will continue to develop, and Tomlinson will continue to not be phased out, but eased to an end.
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William LaFleur 6 months ago
David Garrard a top 10 QB. Are you on drugs?????
This guy sucks.....
Deangelo Williams not in the top 10.
Are you telling me he won't get 12 TD's next year?
Because a RB that gets 12 td's in a season is a top 10 back in my books.
How many RB's get 10+? NOt many.
Yeah, his production will drop, Let's say by 33%. That gives him 13-15 Td's and 1000 yards, Not bad.
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Ray Herod III 6 months ago
I believe not mentioning Frank Gore in the top 10 is a mistake, and omitting DeAngelo Williams is right on target because I fully believe he will not put up numbers anywhere close to his 2008 numbers. Where is Ryan Grant and Marion Barber by the way?
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Bryan Goldberg 6 months ago
Turner seems awfully low. If he were the 7th running back taken in my draft, that would surprise me. Especially with those TD totals.
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Tosten Burks 6 months ago
If Turner was only the 7th running back taken in my draft, that would surprise me too. But I personally probably wouldn't take him before that at this point.
Basically what I'm saying is that he's overrated.
I don't make these rankings to project the first round or express the common opinion of players at this point in time. These display my own convictions. Usually those convictions are different from the common opinion.
I see Turner disappointing and not keeping up his level from this year. Ryan and the passing game will just get better and more involved. His workload was too big for a first year starter.
DeAngelo Williams will fall off the map, or at least the top 10, as Jonathan Stewart continues to develop and Jake Delhomme ages and breaks down giving Carolina less of a passing threat.
Frank Gore? He's inconsistent and injury prone. And who does he have to help him out on offense?
Marion Barber? He's just outside the top 10, but Felix Jones was a stud before he got hurt and Tashard Choice was a stud after Jones -- and Barber -- got hurt. Why did Barber get hurt? Because he couldn't handle a feature back load. Jones and Choice will cut into his touches as much if not more than Julius Jones used to (which was around 10 or 11 carries a game).
Ryan Grant? He hasn't proven to me at all that he's a perennial top 10'er. You're the first person to even suggest that he's up there.
Thanks for the comments and reads guys.
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Paul Tralano 6 months ago
First you say a Running Back will suffer because he has no QB (I agree) but then go on to say that Matt Ryan will get better so Michael Turner will suffer??
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Tosten Burks 6 months ago
That's exactly what I'm saying. They're different scenarios.
One of the minor things I noted about DeAngelo Williams is that his quarterback turns 34 on Saturday and underwent major shoulder surgery in his throwing arm just one year ago. You can't take that information and then look at his 3288, 15, 12 stat line from this year (with a great wide receivers corps even) and imagine him leading a passing game that will continue to pose a threat or even maintain pressure on defenses in the coming years.
Here, I view it as a negative that he doesn't have a quarterback.
One of the more major things I said about Michael Turner is that he's in an offense with a young developing quarterback who was just a rookie this year -- a quarterback who is bound to be relied upon more next year and in years to come. Ryan will be more involved, and thus there will be more passing, leading to Turner being less involved (but still the feature back obviously, just not 370-carry involved). Now that I analyze that more, I kind of see that there is some hypocrisy in that statement -- that I say his high workload from 2008 hurts him, but that a predicted lower workload in 2009 will hurt him. But both points remain. I would say that the better scenario is for the passing game to develop more and for Turner to get less touches rather than Ryan's involvement staying stagnant and Turner keeping up his huge workload. But what remains to be seen is if with fewer touches, Turner will still put up great numbers.
Good points, you changed my opinion a bit. Thanks for the read and comment.
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Joe Willett 5 months ago
DeAngelo Williams went all sorts of Barry Sanders on everybody over the last few weeks of the NFL season and kept it going in his playoff game, although he couldn't carry his team to a victory he still had a good game including that 50-something yard run on the first drive, I would take him in the Top 10, I think that having a running back like Jonathan Stewart behind him will only help him to stay healthy and fresh throughout the season, which, again, showed to be true. Also, I think that how Forte does next season depends solely on what the Bears do during the off-season.
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