Interested in some opinions here…drew the #1 pick in a 12-team, 6-pt TD, PPR cutline tournament. Based on a few years’ experience with this particular set of tournaments, I believe there is an advantage to going hero-RB from the 1 & 2 spots. Stating them out for the format, with no injury assumptions, Taylor and McCaffrey show up top in points (along with Cooper Kupp, but I’m already going hero-RB) at nearly the same values (slight edge to Taylor).
Now here’s the twist: The way the scoring works, McCaffrey’s bye in week 13 falls in a week with a score weighted at 33% in the final scoring (averaged in with weeks 11 & 12). Taylor’s bye in week 14 is a standalone week weighted at 100% in the final scoring. With certainty, I lose 33% of a McCaffrey week and 100% of a Taylor week. Advantage McCaffrey.
But…McCaffrey is getting old in RB years. He hasn’t been able to stay on the field for two years and although his injuries have been standalone bad luck instead of things that are likely to reoccur on their own, his years playing and workload are reoccurring injuries in and of themselves. And he plays on a bottom-10 team. Taylor has none of those problems at this point. Advantage Taylor…
As soon as you said “Taylor vs McCaffrey”, I knew my answer. It’s Taylor.
CMC doesn’t get you any points on IR, which is where he spent most of the last 2 seasons. He can be wildly productive in the few games he plays, but that doesn’t help you when he doesn’t play. Even his handcuffs don’t replace his production. Walk away, and don’t look back.
If I may suggest, Najee Harris has his bye week at week 9? And I prefer him to both of them.
I lean the way you do on this…I have a very hard time seeing CMC staying healthy, unless the Panthers make a real effort to cut his workload and use Foreman in a 70/30 split or something. But that would defeat the whole purpose of drafting CMC in the first two picks.
In this format I have Najee at RB5 with more attempts than everybody but Taylor and Henry, and more catches than both of them, but not more yards or TDs. I’d take Najee over Henry and probably Ekeler in this format. Taylor is a struggle for me though.
Part of it is that I think Trubisky is actually a serviceable low-middle tier QB (sort of Tannehill-ish) and a clear upgrade on latter day Ben. But that might mean less work for Najee and better production from the WRs. I’d be more into Najee if they shoved Pickett in there, but I don’t think that happens unless Trubisky outright fails.
Or maybe this is just Mitch-bias because I won a championship two years ago streaming Trubisky in week 16 after my opponent thought he had swooped in and played keep-away with all my QB options. Silly him…
I’m not nearly as negative on CMC this year as @edmcgon is. But even for me, JT and Najee are no-brainers over CMC.
I agree.
In terms of team fantasy production - not necessarily. As terrible as Ben looked, he generated a ton of targets. #1 in league passing attempts on 2020, #4 in 2021. He also did not take any volume away from the RB position, rushing for a whooping 5 yards in 2021. No, not per game. Season total.
With Trubisky, there will be less passes, and more rushing yards claimed by the RB. But the total team production isn’t likely to increase for the Steelers in 2022.
Najee shouldn’t be affected, though. He’s in the overall fantasy RB1 race, and definitely a safer option in that race than CMC.
I’m sold on the idea that my real choice here is JT vs Najee, not CMC. If not for the scoring system, I’d just go JT and let the chips fall where they may.
I’ve been mocking this a fair amount under different ADP assumptions and such, and I think the deciding factor in the end is going to be whether I think I can take JT, go 5 rounds or so, and then come back with at least a couple RBs I could see starting in week 14. We’ll see.