2017 Fantasy Football: First RB Rankings

On to RB, where I’m very confident about my top 3, but not the order or who comes next.

Note: Same breakdown as the QBs: Players | Team | My Rank | Positional ADP | Difference

Elite Tier	Big Ol’ Tier of Starters
Le’Veon Bell | PIT | 1 | 3 | -2	Lamar Miller | HOU | 4 | 11 | -7
David Johnson | ARI | 2 | 1 | +1	LeSean McCoy | BUF | 5 | 4 | +1
Ezekial Elliott | DAL | 3 | 2 |+1	Melvin Gordon | LAC | 6 | 5 | +1
	Todd Gurley | LAR | 7 | 10 | -3
	Jordan Howard | CHI | 8 | 7 | +1
	DeMarco Murray | TEN | 9 | 8 | +1
	Jay Ajayi | MIA | 10 | 9 | +1
	Isaiah Crowell | CLE | 11 | 14 | -3
	Devonta Foreman | ATL | 12 | 6 | +6
	Leonard Fornette | JAX | 13 | 12 | +1

So, there isn’t much drama in my top two tiers outside of Miller and Foreman, who I just have in the wrong half of the RB 1 discussion according to ADP. I think we see a closer to 50/50 split for Foreman and Coleman and Miller has been really good, but has had incredibly shitty TD luck the last couple of seasons. 

Starters with ?s Tier	Ya’ll Really Gonna Hate This Tier
Tevin Coleman | ATL | 14 | 19 | -5	Bilal Powell | NYJ | 21 | 26 | -5
Carlos Hyde | SF | 15 | 15 | 0	Paul Perkins | NYG | 21 | 30 | -5
Mark Ingram | NO | 16 | 18 | -2	Jeremy Hill | CIN | 23 | 45 | -17
Frank Gore | IND | 17 | 31 | -14	Matt Forte | NYJ |24 | 37 | -11
Ameer Abdullah | DET | 18 | 25 | -7	Jonathan Stewart | CAR | 25 | 42 | -13
LeGarrette Blount | PHI | 19 | 33 | -14	Marshawn Lynch | OAK | 26 | 13 | +12
Dough Martin | TB | 20 | 29 | -9	Spencer Ware | KC | 27 | 17 | +12
	C.J. Anderson | DEN | 28 | 20 | +8
	Derrick Henry | TEN | 29 | 32 | -10
	Rob Kelley | WAS | 30 | 36 | -7
	Terrance West | BAL | 31 | 48 | -17

I have Gore and Blount 14 spots ahead of where they’re going and we know why Gore is that much lower (age), but Blount is a bit of a mystery. He’s clearly the best back in Philly and I think they’re going to want to keep things easy for Wentz in year two. As for tier four, well the title tells all. I’m not convinced yet that Mixon is going to be the best RB this year, and it makes sense logically to get all they can before letting Hill walk next year and getting Mixon comfortable on and off the field. I think we see a Powell/Forte split pretty close to 50/50 and that makes Forte a fringe RB 2. I know we all love McCaffrey, but I’m not sure that Stewart is going to be of so little use in fantasy that he’s a mid-tier RB 4. As for Lynch & Ware I’m not sold for difference reasons. For Lynch that reason is age, and the fact that he’s been out of football for a year and wasn’t great when we last saw him. With Ware, it’s been his inability to beat out West, as well as, the draft capital and my affection for Kareem Hunt. The last of these two tiers Terrance West. West is the lead back in Baltimore, he’s going to have four weeks where he’s the main back, and Kenneth Dixon will still have to prove he’s what we hoped he’d be coming out of the draft last season. West isn’t going to disappear when Dixon comes back, but 4 weeks of a definite starter is worth more than RB48 for me.

Starter Stragglers and Receiving Backs Tier

Thomas Rawls | SEA | 32 | 49 | -17

Ty Montgomery |GB | 33 | 22 | +11

Theo Riddick | DET | 34 | 35 | -1

Dion Lewis | NE | 35 | 51 | -16

Christian McCaffrey | CAR | 36 | 16 | +20

Duke Johnson | CLE | 37 | 44 | -7

Darren Sproles | PHI | 38 | 50 | -12

Charles Sims | TB | 39 | 54 | -15

Joe Mixon | CIN | 40 | 21 | +19

Latavius Murray | OAK | 41 | 38 | +3

Alvin Kamara | NO | 42 | 52 | -10

Danny Woodhead | BAL | 43 | 34 | +9

Chris Thompson | WAS | 44 | 64 | -20

In this last tier, let’s start out with the question, “What’s the deal with the Seahawks running backs?”. My money’s on Rawls right now, but Lacy’s going to play a role, and Prosise is going to be a factor in the pass game, but Rawls is the incumbent and that’s where I’m sitting right now. Take what I said about Rawls and that’s my argument for Lewis. I may change my mind, the reports out of camp may sway me a bit, but Lewis is the talent I want out of New England. For McCaffrey, well RB16 was Spencer Ware last season who had 922 yards rushing and 447 receiving with 5 TDs, and RB36 was James White with 166 yards rushing and 551 yards receiving with 5 TDs. Maybe I’m a touch low at the moment, but I think we see closer to 800 yards than 1300 for McCaffrey this season. Sproles had 865 total yards and 4 TDs last season, he’s not flashy but he’s well worth a stash and spot start as a RB 4. Sims, if healthy, gets four starts all to himself to start the season. Will change if it doesn’t look like he’s going to be healthy. I mean don’t give me too much grief I have him as a RB 4 and 2 years ago when healthy he was a RB 2 on just 177 rushes+targets. I explained this Mixon rank when I talked about Hill above, but if you didn’t read that (I don’t know why you’d have read down here then) then it boils down to them getting Mixon acclimated to his surroundings and using up the last of Hill’s value in a walk year. Lastly, we have Chris Thompson in Washington who had 700 yards and 5 TDs total last year and I don’t think Perine affects his value as much as it affects the upside for Kelley.

So, there we are done with the RBs. Getting a little deeper at the top with some young talent poised for big workloads, but overall, it’s a muddled mess in the middle. Should shake out pretty quickly as camps begin.