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We have reached the depths of the tub of ice cream. The “I was just leveling off the top” excuse is no longer legitimate (like it ever was). What remains is merely a mélange of candied toppings and molten cream. Take a deep breath, we are about to finish this off, the work we do may be messy, but it will be rewarding. I present to you, the final 40 Running Backs, ranked 81-120.

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Deep in the nacho cheese-smelling depths of NFL Headquarters somewhere under the Mojave Desert, one of the expert schedulers thought, “Russell Wilson vs Ryan Fitzpatrick…the Chef versus the Magician in Prime Time!” And then 2 months later Fitzmagic is benched for an undrafted QB who wasn’t in the league for two years…that’s Taylor Heinicke bee-tee-dubya. OK, the Magic Man is dealing with a messed-up hip, but it’s tough to argue that his NFL career isn’t over. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson broke a finger and the resulting surgery took him out of commission for a month. When he returned to action, Gordon Ramsey would have kicked him out of the kitchen immediately. In the two games since returning to the field, Wilson had completed a combined 51% of his passes with no TDs and 2 INT. With so many fantasy teams staring down the playoffs and one of the top quarterbacks failing, did we see a resurgence of Russ’ skills? Let’s check in to see how Monday Night Football went. 

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Welcome to Week 10, ladies and gentlemen. 

We’ve reached a real impasse here over the halfway mark of the NFL season. Major stars are down, breakout players are rolling, and Mike White is a starting quarterback in the NFL. The draft wouldn’t be further behind us and our expectations have been subverted every step of the way. This is where winners are made and losers are born. 

Tuesday’s gone with the wind. And we’re coming up hard on Sunday morning. 

Anyway! The teams on bye this week are the Bears, Giants, Bengals, and Texans. See ya next week!

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I was working in the lab, late one night. When my eyes beheld an eerie sight. For my monster on his slab began to rise and suddenly to my surprise… He did the Mash. The Monster Mash

Just take these wise words in for a moment. Breathe them in. The monster… he did the mash. And don’t we all do the mash sometimes, much to the chagrin and sometimes excitement to our contemporaries? Yes, even sometimes it will truly be a “graveyard smash”. 

What was this section about? Oh uh Halloween injury report. Right. There was a thread here but I got carried away in the poetry of Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt Kickers (Side note: Here’s a great TV performance of Bobby Pickett doing the Monster Mash, a real masterclass in making really weird faces and being a weirdo).

The teams who will have some extra trick-or-treating time on bye this week are the Ravens and the Raiders. See ya next week! 

Let’s get into this week’s horror show!

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What’s up Fantasy Football fans! Are you ready for the NBA season? Ha! Switched topics on you. Now all my ADHD brethren have lost focus and are passing ideas like you’re Ricky Rubio. Wait, did I say passing? Quarterbacks pass! Hey, now we’re back on topic. I’d do anything for you dear readers, but I won’t do that [Grey says I need to make at least one Meatloaf reference per year or else he’s cutting by benefits]. ENYWHEY. Let’s get you prepped for the 40% mark of the fantasy football season. That’s right — it’s 40 week! Besides, it’s a bones day. Go get your favorite beverage and drink it — you deserve it! 

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Is it me or are a lot of guys injured? Normally, I’d have some little cutsie intro to get into the carnage but sheesh, man! I don’t know about you but I’m getting killed out here! I actually sprained my right knee on a fishing boat last weekend and was listed as limited but here I am, dammit.

When I see the players I roster in person someday, I’m gonna tell them: If I can man up and type up a bunch of nonsense about fake football with a ligament injury, well then YOU GOTTA PLAY TOO, YOU BIG BABY!

As you can tell, this has been a tough week. Between my injury, all the injuries on my fantasy teams, and what’s happening to my Raiders… Well, we’ll get into that last part later.

And to add to the prevailing roster chaos we have our first bye week of the year! See you next week Jets, Falcons, 49ers, and Saints!

Let’s segue right into Sunday morning with an Intra-Florida showdown in London.

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So, they think they found the Zodiac Killer huh? I had this case solved in 2007 after seven marathon viewings of David Fincher’s Zodiac. The eighteen-hour film festival of sorts guided me to another cinematic treasure and the true greatest San Francisco based film of all-time, Homeward Bound II: Lost In San Francisco. Every clue to every cipher can be found there. All those exhausted detectives. All those man hours. One viewing of HB: Dos with Sassy, Chance, and Shadow would’ve solved all your problems. You know what else is exhausting? Trying to find the right person on your waiver wire. Lucky for you, I patterned my work ethic this week after Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal in Zodiac (Seriously the best San Francisco based film or maybe it is Vertigo. Yeah, it’s Vertigo), pounded the coffee to find some of this week’s best options on the waiver wire.

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You could tell the Halloween spirit was in the air in our first Thursday Night Football game in October. We saw the Seattle Seahawks come out in their neon green uniforms, looking like a bunch of aliens to set the tone. Then, right on the opening kickoff, Tutu Atwell took the kick and made it about 10 yards before the ghost of Cortez Kennedy blindsided him causing him to hit the ground and fumble out of bounds with no other players around him. Before the game was over, both quarterbacks had bandages on their hands after having to mummy wrap their respective finger injuries. You knew something spooky was going on when we saw Geno Smith out there with his first real game action since 2017. We are definitely in the Halloween season!

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Frank Reich is a fine man. A good man, even. Sometimes, I sit around daydreaming, wondering what it would be like if he were my father. He would no-doubt instill many wholesome values in me, his son, and be a great fishing partner. He simply has that look about him — the one that comes with a Geppetto-eque twinkle in one’s eye — that exudes wisdom and level-headedness. Personally, I believe he’s a tremendous football coach, perhaps one of the most underrated in the entire league. The Indianapolis Colts are incredibly fortunate that Josh McDaniels spurned their head coaching offer back in the February of 2018 to remain with New England, leading to Reich landing the job as a sort of second choice candidate at the time. Since then, he’s done wonders with the team and carries many strengths as the man in charge, but he’s largely been a fantasy enemy to this point — especially as it relates to the running back position. That’s because he treats his backfield like a true father figure would: he believes in all of his backs, especially the young Jonathan Taylor, and is always willing to give dish out a second chance. The issue is… it’s hard to predict when those second chances are going to come. Heading into the week, Nyheim Hines was one of the highest risers up most rest-of-season rankings after receiving 12 carries in Week 10, rushing for 70 yards and one touchdown in addition to his typical receiving workload: five receptions for 45 yards and another touchdown. Jonathan Taylor saw just seven carries in that game, to which he translated to a mere 12 yards, which came on the heels of a Week 9 game in which Reich gave Taylor a measly six carries. Fast-forward to Week 11: Taylor rushed 22 times for 90 yards, also catching four passes (on four targets) for 24 yards. Those 22 carries equated to 68.8% of running back carries (22/32), as his 26 total touches were by far the highest amongst the Indy trio. Jordan Wilkins (four carries, 21 yards; one reception on one target, 15 yards) touched the ball just five times, while Hines (six carries, two yards; three receptions on four targets, 31 yards) registered nine touches. It’s certainly encouraging to see Taylor so involved in a crucial, competitive game that the Colts ultimately won in exciting fashion — but what can we expect from him moving into the home stretch of the 2020 fantasy football season?

After sinking to RB30 overall in my rankings last week, Taylor is back up into RB2 territory thanks in large part to an incredibly easy schedule from here on out. The only truly difficult matchup remaining for Taylor will come in Week 16 against the Steelers, which isn’t ideal as it’s when most fantasy championships will occur, but until then he’ll go up against the Titans, Texans, Raiders and Texans, again. There are certainly RB2 options with safer floors, but Taylor is once again trending up and represents a much more attractive Flex play than he did one week ago.

There’s a lot more to dive into this week, so before getting to the rankings, let’s take a quick trip around the league.

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Another week, another grind! We’re really getting to the important weeks of the season. We have three more W’s to get to either make the playoffs or get the best seeding we can. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.gif. I know making decisions on who to start and sit isn’t as tough as it usually is this year because of the injury cesspool, but I’m here to help. Let’s get to the players that I really like for week 11. 

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THUMP. That was Week 10 crushing us in the face. It was unpredictable, I know, but let’s begin the conversation about the running back position this past week with a look at some of the names that finished inside RB1 territory, with their overall rank listed: RB3 Nyheim Hines, RB4 Ronald Jones, RB5, D’Andre Swift, RB6 Devontae Booker, RB7 Rex Burkhead, RB8 Antonio Gibson, RB10 Wayne Gallman, RB11 Malcolm Brown and RB12 Salvon Ahmed. That’s three-fourths of the past week’s RB1 finishers going to running backs that were likely all drafted outside of the first five rounds in your fantasy draft and at least three, maybe four players who may not have even been rostered in your league as of Sunday night. Next, let’s move over to RB2 territory: RB14 J.D. McKissic, RB15 Boston Scott, RB17 Kalen Ballage and RB23 Alex Collins. Overall, that’s 12, or half, of Week 10’s RB1-2 crop going to names that likely required very little draft capital to make your roster. Some of those names are less surprising, like Swift and Gibson, but for the sake of argument, both running backs finished outside the top-28 running backs drafted in 2020. It’s already been a miraculous year at the position — for some, perhaps heart-breaking is a more fitting adjective — and the madness ensued in Week 10, to put it lightly. Fortunately, we can at least say we did not see the same absurd number of running back injuries as we’ve grown accustomed to.

Even so, it was a truly unpredictable week. Before you begin beating your forehead against the keyboard and your boss yells at you (or partner/child/parents/etc. for those still stuck at home) for disrupting the workplace over fantasy football for the umpteenth time since the onset of September, remember this: we’re all in it together. We’re all playing the same game, with the same weekly uncertainty factored in and with the same information at our fingertips. That’s reason for composure. That’s reason to keep fighting the good fight because, as you may have heard me say many times before, the grinders beat the whiners. I’ve actually never said that before, but you get the point.

It’s time to get to the rankings, but before we do, let’s take a quick trip around the league.

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A friend and I were recently texting during a mock draft and he kept finding pockets of players with similar ADP and seemingly similar upside. We would go back and forth making points and counterpoints, but in the end it was just a gut call. I realized that may not be the optimal way to make that choice on the fly and ventured to create a “checklist” of sorts to compare similar players alongside each other.

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