1. Doug Martin – Click Here
2. Adrian Peterson – he could
EASILY be the first overall pick. He probably will be the first overall pick.
The man is not really a man, but some type of can’t-be-tackled cyborg from some
planet a billion-kazillion light years away.
Only thing that concerns me with AD is Christian Ponder sucks eggs, and it's not like AD is a real factor in the passing game. I can see the Vikings playing from behind a lot, but Adrian Peterson is the best running back in the league, so draft him #1 if you desire.
3. Lesean Mccoy - another card carrying member of the Long Touchdown Club, Mccoy is as shifty a runner as they come in the NFL. Mccoy owners the past 3 years complained about his lack of rushes, and for good reason, as Andy Reid never let Mccoy carry the ball more than 273 times. While many fantasy managers are planning on taking a wait-and-see approach before investing in Chip Kelly and his system, I will be grabbing Mccoy where I can. While I have no idea whether Kelly's system will work in the NFL, I expect the Eagles to run a high-tempo, no huddle offense focused on keeping defenses off balanced, and if you're off-balance, ain't no way you're tackling Shady Mccoy. Since these offenses involve running a lot of plays very quickly, I expect Mccoy to record career highs in carries and touches, even with Bryce Brown lingering. Mccoy caught 78!!! passes in 2010, and had 102 receptions in 27 games the past two years, so he is extra great in ppr. I'm loving Mccoy this year!
Update: WOW! Have you seen the Eagles offense and Shady this preseason? here look at this Wow Mccoy is a beast, and he'll certainly get a large volume of carries in Chip Kelly's fast paced offense. I'm tempted to take him as early as 1st in a ppr.
4. CJ Spiller - I'm on the CJ Spiller bandwagon and I would definitely consider drafting him above Foster. He averaged a ridiculous 6 yards per carry on 207 carries and an awesome 10.7 yards per catch over 43 catches. I expect both the amount of carries and catches to increase under new coach Doug Marrone, who plans to run a lot, with Spiller as the featured back. Spiller had the least amount of carries by the top 18 rushers last year, yet finished 8th in yards, so with more carries this year I fully expect his yardage totals to increase drastically as he pushes towards the top tier of running backs. When you consider he only tallied 8 total touchdowns last year, the stat that fluctuates the most from year to year, there's great potential for an increase in his total number of TDs, especially since he is a card carrying member of the Long Touchdown Club. With the expected increase in touches, CJ Spiller will attempt to run his way into a top 5 finish at running back this year.
5. Trent Richardson - Trent would be close to a lock to finish as a top 5 running back if he could stay 100% for the year, so owners taking him this late could very well profit from his "low" ranking. He runs behind an above average offensive line, and is probably the best running back since Adrian Peterson. Norv Turner is the new offensive coordinator a.k.a. the offensive guru behind the Ladanian Tomlinson glory years in San Diego. I wouldn't expect more than 70 receptions though, as Brandon Weeden is no Philip Rivers/Drew Brees. Trent Richardson is a powerful, tough-to-bring-down runner, who doubles as a great receiver. He is one of the few three down backs remaining in the NFL with the opportunity and the skills, and his ranking would be much, much higher if there weren't injury concerns, but it should be noted that Trent is one tough dude who played hurt most of last season and only missed one game, but he is already hurt. I'll have to monitor his injuries over the rest of the summer and determine if I'm going to draft him earlier, but this feels like a pretty good spot for him at the moment.
Update: Foot injury scares me. Down from 3.
7. Steven Jackson - why people are so quick to forget the rushing success Michael Turner had in Atlanta before 2012, I do not understand. Turner had his best year in 2008 when he finished as the second best running back, and he finished in the top 6 in both 2009 and 2011. Even in his "lousy" year last year, he finished as the 17th best running back. Let me make sure you understand this, the Atlanta Falcons are a top 3 offense and you want the running back for top 3 offenses, because top 3 offense score A LOT of points. Well Michael Turner is now old and burnt out, and the Falcons brass determined they couldn't win the Super Bowl without a fresh rusher, so they went out and got the best rusher available, a 29-year-old (this surprised me, it feels like he's been around for a long time) 18 wheel truck named Steven Jackson. Jackson's situation in St. Louis since he was drafted in 2004 can be best described by the word "poop", but he ran for over 1000 yards every year since 2005 while only eclipsing 10 touchdowns one time. He is one of the best running backs, but his greatness was wasted on the shitty Rams for 8 years. Well now Jackson is on a top 3 offense, with Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Roddy White, and Tony Gonzalez instead of Sam Bradford and his merry crew of bums, so he should rack up double digit touchdowns (Turner did all 5 years he was with the Falcons). Jackson is also a great receiving back, which will pad his stats! Steven Jackson has only missed 2 games in the past 4 seasons, and 13 in his 9 year career, so he is extremely durable. Add together the durability, the yardage consistency, the almost definite double digit touchdowns, and the receiving ability of Steven Jackson, and you get a top running back for this year.
8. Marshawn Lynch - Lynch is an extremely safe pick, with a top-5 finish among running backs in back-to-back years and firmly entrenched as the starter, which no backup endangering his touch count, for an offense on the rise. Remember in the Steven Jackson blurb when I just said about you wanting to draft the running back for top 3 offenses? Well the Seahawks have a good shot to finish as a top 3 offense, so Lynch is a great pick. Russell Wilson is a stellar quarterback and with the addition of Percy Harvin to a receiving core featuring Sidney Rice and Golden Tate, as well as the running ability of Wilson, the running lanes will be open for Lynch. I feel like I don't need to write too much about Lynch, due to his success the past two seasons, the improvement of the Seahawks offense due to Russell Wilson, and well, this:
9. Ray Rice - you're probably saying "wow, for a Rutgers fan you have the lowest ranking of Ray Rice that I've seen this year." I'm not sure what it is, but I'm just reallllllly not feeling Rice this year, like at all. I think the Ravens are going to stink, I think Joe Flacco blows, they have Torrey Smith and .......... to draw defensive attention away from Rice, and their defense just lost the best linebacker and safety of the past 10 years. I do think Rice is a great running back, but he also always benefited from being on one of the best teams in the NFL, and I don't have any faith in the Ravens this year, I just don't. I am low on Rice this year because I think the Ravens will be worse than the Browns this year. Sorry Steph Flacco, who I had class with!
10. Arian Foster - it's not that I don't like Foster this year, but I just have a bad feeling about Foster this year. Based on the past two year's results, you could pick him number 1 overall and face less scoffs and snickers than if you had drafted Doug Martin. I'm just not going to draft him #1 overall, or second, or third for that matter. In fact, I'm actually inclined to rank Foster 6th, but can't get myself to do it. Come draft day, if I have the 4th overall pick and Martin, Peterson, and Charles have all been taken, well, I'm not quite sure what I'd do. Foster has seen his yards per carry decrease from 4.9 to 4.4 and to a career low 4.1 last year. Now I'm not going to sit here and say "zomg, that means his yards per carry will most certainly be 3.7 or 3.8 next year" because I don't believe that at all, but still there is reason to worry that he had 30 more carries this year than in 2011 but 200 less yards. He also caught 40 passes, but only for 217 yards, good for 5.4 yards per catch, 2 yards less than the NFL average. The main two contributions to Foster's successful fantasy season were his 17 total touchdowns and his sheer volume of touches. The former can never be counted on, as some years, the touchdowns are there in abundance, while they may not be there others, especially when you consider Foster led the league with 29 goal line rushes. For the latter, Foster received 73% of last year's carries by Texans running backs and I would expect that number to stay around the same, with a healthy Ben Tate taking carries away from Justin Forsett and not Foster. The Texans do have a pretttty, prettttttay easy second half schedule so that is definitely something good for Foster. Listen, I'm not saying Foster isn't a top 5 running back for fantasy because he certainly is. I'm just saying, if one guy were to fall out of the top running back tier this year, I'd be least surprised if were Foster.
Update: Something's up, as he hasn't practice or played this preseason. Time to move him down from 4.
11. Calvin Johnson - I don't have to tell you to take Calvin Johnson, everyone knows he's in a tier by himself and there is noone in the next 3 tiers, he's that good. I'm not taking him before those 10 running backs this year though, I don't think there are enough ELITE running backs to justify taking a wide receiver early-mid first round, especially when the 3rd and 4th round are littered with lots of talented receivers. I think around the 10th or 11th pick you're late enough to grab Calvin then take a pretty good rusher on the wraparound.
12. Matt Forte / Stevan Ridley - Forte in a ppr, Ridley in a non ppr
13. Matt Forte / Stevan Ridley -
Forte - should be a ppr monster with the arrival of offensive mastermind Marc Trestman, a guy who Jim Harbaugh claims taught him everything he knows and still models his play calling after Trestman. While I doubt Trestman potty trained little Jimmy or taught him how to ride a bike, I do believe in the Bears offense this year. If you actually go back to the Raiders teams of yore, with Trestman as his offensive coordinator, running back Charlie Garner caught 91 passes, so yea there's that. My sources (Michael Wilbon) cried that Mike Tice was a lousy playcaller so I'm expecting the Bears to have a much more explosive and consistent offense this year.
Ridley - Brady has probably never had worse pass catching weapons than he has now, so I expect the Pats to rely heavily on the run this year. The Patriots used the high-tempo offense extremely effectively last season, and while Hernandez, Lloyd, and Gronk for at least some time won't be catching passes for Brady, I expect the Pats to still run the high-tempo offense, so Ridley should still get plenty of carries. I'm thinking that a great strategy would be to draft both Ridley and Vereen this year and roll with them as your running backs, I think they should both rack up plenty of points each week.
14. Alfred Morris - finished last season with 1613 yards and 13 tds, but I find Morris hard to predict for this year. Reason #1 - RGIII, while Morris played well with Kirk Cousins in the backfield, the holes really open up when the defense has to watch out for the running threat. But will RGIII be healthy this year, or healthy enough to run. Then again, people were saying the same thing regarding Adrian Peterson last offseason and he turned in a deeeeeeecent season. Reason #2 - Mike Shanahan has a notorious history of being inconsistent with which running backs he uses from year-to-year. Roy Helu, Evan Royster and *cough cough* Jawan Jamison will all be looking to usurp carries from Morris, and with Shanahan's history, one of them may just succeed. I think Morris's line from last year is his absolute ceiling, which of course would be another great year, but I don't see him reaching the ceiling.
15. Jimmy Graham - best tight end this year by lengths and bounds, I'd take him before the next two receivers only because wr extremely deep while tight end, is well, shallow, even though he will probably end up with less production than them.
16. Brandon Marshall - this guy just loves playing with Jay Cutler, with 100 catch seasons in each season Cutler has been his qb. He almost topped 200!!!! targets last year, a RIDICULOUS number, and almost 150 more targets than anyone else on the Bears last year. With Trestman in Chicago now (see Forte, Matt), the Bears should have a much improved offense this year, there's no reason to think the production for Marshall won't continue.
17. AJ Green - he's a stud, the running backs on the roster are meh, and the Bengals some weapons like Eifert and Bernard through the draft that should draw at least some coverage from Green. Green was a taaaaaaaaad too dependent on TDs last year though, with TDs in 9 straight weeks at one point, but touchdowns are inconsistent from year to year. Still, 97 catches for 1350 yards (good for 13.9 yards per catch), is nothing to scoff at.
18. Dez Bryant - the former first round pick with huge potential whom the Dallas Cowboys traded up for finally became an elite option at wideout last year. Bryant was the #1 receiver in all of football in the final eight games of 2012, tallying 50 catches for 879 yards and 10 tds over that span. If you prorate that over a full 16 game season, that's 100 catches, 1758 yards, and 20 tds, which is fantastic. While I don't expect him to put up those ridiculous numbers, he is the number 1 option on a pretty good Dallas offense, and if he continues on the right track, he will be a great #1 receiver for someone's fantasy team. He does have off the field concerns however, which led to Dallas assigning him a full time babysitter last year, so hopefully he doesn't shoot someone or drive drunk or do anything that will cause him to miss time in 2013.
19. Julio Jones - entering his third season in the NFL, Jones should absorb more role in the high-powered offense from older players Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez. The Falcons did trade 5 draft picks in order to move up and take Jones. He's a physical freak and should easily be a top 10 receiver with a good chance of cracking the top 5.
20. Frank Gore - well he's oldish, but he's running behind the best offensive line in football, and he's started all 16 games the past two year, effectively removing the "injury prone" label he had acquired. I think having Kaepernick starting at QB helps open holes for Gore, but Kaep is also a red zone threat, which isn't good for Gore's td numbers. I wouldn't take Gore in the early 2nd round, but I think he's a great pick in the middle to late second round, and a phenomenal pick in the 3rd round.
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