Fantasy Football

Just like with receivers, this isn’t necessarily the five worst running backs in the league. But rather, five backs that you want to avoid drafting where everyone says you should. If you can get them later then expected then by all means…but don’t draft someone with question marks all around him just because it is common consensus to do so.

1) Steven Jackson
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. we want no part of this Rams team. He’s still holding out, if he shows up at camp this second it will be too late for him to be prepared for the season, the offensive line is depleted, the quarterback is a mixed bag, and he was pretty unimpressive when healthy last season. Hey, we had him two seasons ago and he paid dividends, so we know what he is capable of at his peak. It’s just, of former Oregon State players, we have a lot more confidence in Chad Johnson than we have in Steven Jackson, and you all know what we think of Chad Johnson.

2) Frank Gore
How does Yahoo still have him ranked as the 8th overall fantasy player? Ask any fantasy player who had him last season if they were satisfied with his performance. He went for just over 1,500 total yards, but only had six touchdowns and was the generally a top five pick. The earliest we can justify taking him is round four, maybe late third if we haven’t taken a running back.

3) Willie Parker
Rushed for over 1,300 yards last season, with a paltry two touchdowns. In other words, he had 2/3 as many touchdowns as he did fumbles. My guess is Willie Parker is the guy who stockpiles women’s phone numbers in bars but never calls any of them. If those stats seem respectable enough to you to warrant a second round pick, remember that they drafter Rashard Mendenhall, so the production should only decline.

4) Larry Johnson
Banged up for a good part of last season, has two ready and willing backups with Kolby Smith and Jamaal Charles, has already gotten his signing bonus and has a ridiculous amount of mileage on him after only five seasons. Needless to say, we’d rather roll the dice with a Denver running back in the seventh round then draft someone we suspect is washed up.

5) Willis McGahee
We’re not supremely confident that he will let you down if you use one of your first two picks on him, but we have virtually no faith Bawlmer’s capacity for moving the ball down field. With him battling nagging injuries and a capable backup and no surefire quarterback, he could end up sitting out a couple more games than you would like out of a first or second rounder.

Five more shaky choices:
6) Jamal Lewis: a return to last season’s performance would be nothing short of a miracle.
7) Edgerrin James: Still no threatening backup, but we his production continues to underwhelm.
Thomas Jones: Having Brett Favre could open up the run game, but he is 30 years old and we’re not sure if he will capitalize.
9) Rudi Johnson: The only reason he is not higher is that we don’t know if anyone is really considering drafting him that high.
10) DeAngelo Williams: Not exactly highly touted, but he isn’t even worth a late rounder.

Back tomorrow with quarterbacks, obviously will be formatted a tad differently than the past two days.