The most underrated fantasy RBs for 2021

okay another day another position group that we're going to be tackling on our undervalued players list can't wait to dive into this one with you uh remember if you want to get access to my full patreon rankings position by position as well as the combined rankings for ppr format which is what's released so far and then i have my standard rankings coming out i believe tomorrow you can go to my patreon linked down below whatever you want to pay is fine even as low as a dollar that's cool too uh money is not my main motivation in terms of making these rankings it's helping you guys to win fantasy leagues because in the end i owe all of you a debt of gratitude for allowing this channel to exist so anything that i can do for you like making cheap but also hopefully reliable fantasy rankings uh just consider that my payback to you so thank you all for being here and also thank you to our new season-long sponsor underdog fantasy if you notice them in the back they've been so gracious in terms of sponsoring this channel for really all season long if you're not familiar with underdog they specialize in best ball fantasy format which is more of a i guess you can call it forgiving fantasy format you don't get penalized for you know taking unfortunate injuries and you know guessing wrong in terms of which patriots running back to start you know you really just get to be rewarded for good off season preparation and good drafting because out of all the players that are on your roster whichever running backs do the best those are the ones you're going to get the points for and whichever receivers do the best that week those are the points you're going to get it just takes whoever your best performers are from week to week and those are the points you get it automatically calculates you know whatever your ideal lineup would be and so again it places a lot of emphasis on good drafting and good preparation which to me is a more favorable format because i really think that i'm better at drafting than you know deciding who to start from week to week like my strength is identifying talent and then acquiring that talent at a value in the draft which of course is what today's episode is all about as well so with that being said i'm going to grab my whiskey this is from drift if you didn't notice you probably don't know who drift are if you do i'd be very surprised they're a very small micro distillery down here in southern california run by a very wonderful family of chiefs fans ironically enough they have a family farm back in kansas outside of kansas city like just to the west of kansas city that they get all their wheat from from their own family farm and then make a really really damn good whiskey out of it in california of all places uh it's a great family i talked to them when i was there and i got a bottle really good stuff i have no idea where they ship to but if you like good wheat whiskeys get drift but with that being said let's get to our first undervalued running back of the day which is trey sermon from the san francisco 49ers now i know that it might be a little bit weird at this point to label sermon as an undervalued running back when at least everybody that i know loves trey sermon and i do as well i have him as probably like a fifth or sixth round value the fifth being on the high end and the sixth being really where the value starts to get great and typically at least on underdog i see him go somewhere around the fifth round as well so it's not like my rankings are that far ahead of his typical adp but i do feel that even though i have him rated as a fifth round pick and a very comfortable fifth round pick that doesn't necessarily mean that he won't still outperform that and be one of the most valuable fantasy assets this year right now he's valued i believe at about a mid-level rb3 but i do think that he will at least be an rb2 and in the best possible circumstances again i'm not saying that this will happen but i do think that he's talented enough to at least be an rb1 eventually in terms of skillset he is a bigger back he played at over 220 pounds at ohio state but still has really really good feet you know that's something that kyle shanahan looks for in a running back is having the size to kind of you know run through tackles or at least get whatever yards you can after contact if something isn't blocked very well obviously he makes these kind of lighter faster slashing running backs work you know the raheem mosterts of the world but really kyle shanahan emphasizes having that size and power so that something doesn't have to be blocked perfectly in order to have it be a good gain for you but on top of having that size and power he still has really good feet as well his cutting ability is fantastic for his size which again is a priority in this zone run system throw in the fact that he's got pretty good hands and he can be a reliable check down option for you and i really do think that he's going to be a three down back and really in every situation kind of back for the 49ers because his skill set is so diverse obviously a lot of the other running backs on this roster you know do certain things better than him but nobody does everything as well as him so i think he's gonna be an incredibly valuable fantasy piece and at least in terms of real-life football i also think that he's going to be an incredibly valuable piece for this 49ers offense as well and that brings us to number four on our countdown which is another rookie running back although with a drastically different situation because unlike the 49ers we really have no idea what's going on with the new york jets right now and i don't mean that in a bad way we just have no idea who the starters are who the second team is who the third team is they're kind of treating it like state secrets now like they stopped allowing the media to even say who's starting in practice anymore because they assert that there are no starters and i kind of believe them because everybody's been rotating like crazy and the only thing we know for sure is that zach wilson is gonna be starting at quarterback but other than that everything is up in the air and so number four here i'm gonna be gambling just on pure talent and taking situation completely out of the equation here by going with michael carter a potentially star rookie running back with the new york jets i fully expect that this jets offense is going to be leaning heavily on the outside zone run game especially behind makai bechten and elijah vera tucker who at least in my opinion should be a very very good duo on that left side at running outside zone and then you give kind of a natural zone runner like carter behind that duo like that's gonna be their bread and butter play they're gonna be calling outside zone to the left bechten's gonna be just crushing whatever edge rusher's there elijah vera tucker is going to be working with whoever wins the starting center job and he's going to be able to climb up to the second level and pick off linebackers and there's just going to be massive lanes and with carter's speed he can really pay that off and probably be a very explosive option even as a rookie plus i think he's kind of underrated as a receiving target as well so if you want to get him working on like choice routes underneath you know you want to run that angle route that you know you see alvin camaro run like a million times every game uh you want to get him involved in the screen game you want to split him out wide maybe take a couple shots to him down the boundary even if you want to he can do all of that you know is he kind of to the level of like a christian mccaffrey i don't know if i'd go that far or even like a dalvin cook but he's still a good receiver and again when you throw in that underrated power the dynamic speed all that kind of stuff he's going to be a really good player for this jets offense as for where i think he should be drafted you know right now i kind of have him as a mid-round pick and i'm i'm holding a little bit because there's also been a lot of buzz about tevin coleman in training camp and all that and the jets depth chart is just kind of a mess right now and i don't mean that in a bad way it's more so that the jets coaching staff is just not letting anybody know who the actual starters are right now we're not really gonna get any clarity on this backfield until later in pre-season but i still do have michael carter as a mid-round pick at least at this point just because i trust that in the end his talent is gonna win out and even though the situation is kind of murky i'm just gonna bet on him just being a really good football player and then kind of worry about the rest later now number three on this list is kind of an interesting situation because he's a veteran running back he's not as young as some of the other guys on this countdown but i do really think that gus edwards the backup running back from the ravens is a very under-appreciated player he's a lot better than he's given credit for and regardless of the situation that he's in where he might end up being the third ball carrier in that offense behind of course jk dobbins and maybe even lamar jackson i do think that he's actually a good enough football player just on talent that he's gonna get a lot more touches than people expect i'm not gonna lie if you told me a couple years ago that gus edwards would be one of my favorite running backs in the nfl i would have thought you were crazy but when you look at the gus edwards of today versus the gus edwards of really not that long ago even going back to 2019 they are not the same player just a couple of years ago edward's game was very north-south there was very little wiggle to it it was pretty much i'm gonna run right at you and i'm gonna run you over and if i stay on my feet great if not whatever i'm getting a few yards through contact there wasn't very many missed tackles there again it was a very you know in your face running style but when you look at him last year he looked quicker he looked more fluid his hips looked better his feet were better all of a sudden he had this element of you know wiggle and make you miss ability that just wasn't there earlier in his career and he just looked like a much better running back not that he was bad before or anything like that but he's just so much better now and in my opinion he is so good that even though jk dobbins is the best back in that backfield and even though lamar jackson is a really good threat with the ball in his hands as well and he's gonna get his fair share of carries i would not be surprised if this backfield isn't looking like it's you know 70 30 for dobbins and edwards it's really more like a 55 45 or 60 40. i really do think it's gonna be a much closer split than people are expecting but i do think that edwards is so efficient with the ball in his hands that even if he's only getting you know let's say he gets 13 carries in a game and dobbins gets 18. they're running the ball like 31 times just between those two running backs alone i do think that edwards is going to be so efficient with those carries that he's still not just going to be rosterable in most leagues but i wouldn't be upset if i put him in as a flex because all he needs is those 13 carries and like a couple good red zone touches and maybe he scores and all of a sudden you got yourself 20 points again i understand the situation but just don't be scared off by it stick with my general policy of draft good football players because if you draft a bunch of good football players more often than not your fantasy team will thank you for it moving on to number two on this countdown now and i'm gonna be going back to my really endless well of rookie running backs and i'm gonna be investing very heavily this year in javonte williams from the denver broncos now one of the main reasons why i think javonte williams is gonna get a lot of snaps this year and yes i understand he's listed on the depth chart behind melvin gordon at this point but i kind of don't care about that the reason why i think williams is going to be on the field a lot is because the broncos coaching staff loves him in pass protection the fact that he's versatile like that in the fact that you don't just have to use him as a receiver on third down like you can call a six-man protection with him on the field and actually expect him to block somebody that just opens up the playbook so much and coaches love that so i wouldn't be surprised if at a minimum he's starting the year as their primary third down back and then there's a chance that because he's such a great physical runner as well he's still going to get a lot of early down work too so even though he is listed as the number two running back on that depth chart i fully expect him to get more snaps than any other running back on that roster and you guys know me i love melvin gordon i've always been a melvin gordon truther throughout his entire career but you know he is kind of an older running back at this point javanta's young he's explosive again he's another one of these big 220 plus pound backs that has great feet great receiving ability throw in the fact that i think he's an even better pass protector he's just gonna get a lot of work and in this kind of offense which i think is probably gonna run the ball a lot or at least try to run the ball a lot having a young explosive running back that's getting the majority of snaps that is a very valuable fantasy asset now will he get as many touches as say trey sermon or maybe even michael carter honestly i'm not sure again the situation here is kind of murky there's a bunch of talented players but i do think that at least early on he will be getting enough touches to justify starting him as a flex and then as the season goes on kind of similar to jk dobbins last year he's going to kind of work himself more and more into being that dominant workload kind of guy and hopefully at least the plan here is that by fantasy playoffs he's going to be getting 20 plus touches per game while melvin gordon kind of fades into being that you know veteran change up that just comes in for a few series per game you know that's kind of the ideal scenario here so i'm kind of treating him the same way that i treated dobbins last year we'll see if it works out you know obviously baltimore's offense and their quarterback situation is a lot different but all things being equal i do think that javonte williams has equivalent talent to j.k dobbins and i've said it before i'll say it again in the end just draft talent and let situation kind of figure itself out and that ladies and gentlemen brings us to number one on our countdown for undervalued running backs and my top guy here i mean i guess you can call him a veteran he hasn't been around for that long but he's still older than most of the guys on this countdown so i'll count him as a veteran by comparison and that is miles gaskin from the miami dolphins when i watch miles gaskin play i see kind of a diet version of austin eckler i do think that eckler has a little bit better contact balance in the sense that he's somebody where i don't really understand how he stays on his feet sometimes because he's he's really not that big of a dude but eckler is just weirdly very strong through contact it's kind of like a physics-defying running style to me i've never really understood how he does it but he's really damn good at just running through contact but also eckler brings with him a dynamic receiving ability he's one of the better receiving backs in the entire league and i think that gaskin has a little bit of that to him as well again he's not quite the same in terms of contact balance as ekler and he's not quite the same in terms of receiving talent as ekler but that's why gaskin's not a first round pick and eckler is and you're getting you know maybe 80 percent of what eckler gives you in the fourth round with gaskin which in ppr and half ppr formats i think that's a really good value in my opinion he is the best running back on that dolphins roster and because the versatility he brings you as a receiver i think he's gonna get a lot of catches which is going to give him more touches than people expect on third downs in particular when the ball's not going to waddle and it's not going to gaseki i think it's going to go to miles gaskin tua seems to trust him a lot they have a great connection he's got really nice ability to just kind of find holes in zones and just present an easy target for tua as a checkdown option and i think if nothing else again that volume as a receiver is really gonna add up i would not be shocked if he pushes 70 and maybe damn near 80 catches this year as a running back which is a lot and by the time we get to week 17 i really do think that we're gonna look at him and see one of the most heavily targeted running backs in the entire league i understand that his value is going to fluctuate a lot if you're just playing in standard scoring leagues that kind of emphasize raw yardage and of course scoring opportunities i don't necessarily think he's going to get a whole lot of touchdowns but again in ppr and to a degree half ppr where you're getting credit for all of these checkdowns and receptions that he's getting game after game he's going to be a very very solid rb2 for you so if you only take one running back in the first few rounds and you're kind of sprinkling in receivers or maybe quarterback or kelsey and you're really hunting for that second reliable dare i say stable running back just to kind of carry you from week to week look for miles gaskin because i do think that he is going to be one of the most stable options that you can get and there you have it folks those are my top five undervalued running backs for the 2021 fantasy football season if you're interested in getting my full rankings position by position or total combined you can again go to that patreon link down in the description below you can get them for as low as a dollar and they come in excel format but if you want them in a different format just send me a dm and i'll figure it out i'll send you whatever you need i'll be accommodating again you guys are supporting me and allowing me to do this for a living so however you want me to give them to you i'll give them to you and then of course again if you want to play best ball fantasy and just you know kind of have a more enjoyable fantasy experience where you're not getting over by injuries or really unfortunate mistakes in start sit all of the annoying part about fantasy football if you just want to get rid of that and go play best ball you can again use my promo code bret down in the description below that'll get you 25 free to use on the platform and with those 25 you can even enter their three and a half million dollar best ball media contest because the entry fee of that is 25 so you basically get a free entry to that and first prize is a million dollars so you know it's a pretty good deal either way i'll be back here tomorrow with my undervalued tight ends same time same place you guys get the deal by now i'll see you back here tomorrow cheers [Music] uh [Music]

Channel: Brett Kollmann

Views: 65,051

Rating: 4.9608698 out of 5

Keywords: fantasy football, sleeper

Id: qiGsbeVP8oQ

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 13 2021