Reader Warning
If you want any shred of hope to win your league this year, follow my advice and stay away from these running backs. Don't trade for them, don't add them off your waiver wire, and if you drafted them due to a temporary loss of sanity, under no circumstances should you insert them into your starting lineup. If you don't heed this warning, you could suffer the worst fate that any fantasy owner can experience: claims that you don't understand football.
It's enough to make your man card shrivel up and disappear. People of all ages will snicker when you pass by. NFL Network will use your likeness in public service announcements about the social dangers of football ignorance. And if you should try to attend a pro football game, Roger Goodell will fine and suspend you.
I hear it's that bad.
Consider this week's Gut Check as a public service. I know what's best for you. Only I can save your fantasy season.
Matt Forte
Compare Forte with Bilal Powell and it should become obvious that you want to avoid the former Bear. Watch Powell find wide-open green grass on the first run. His legs are springier and his mind is obviously sharper because he never encounters a defender until the end of the run.
Not so for Forte. His must be failing him because he misses the green grass and he's immediately dealing with a Browns defender. Moreover, he has to run into the line of scrimmage. It's a clear sign that his faculties have left him.
(Ignore the voiceovers in these Instagrams, they are the ravings of an old man who hasn't received his daily ration of Ensure for the past eight weeks.)
It's tough to watch, but I need to show you these things because you're all in denial about his declining skills. Look at how slow he is deciding where to go when handed the ball below.
I know, it's almost cruel to see Forte unable to generate highlights worthy of FOX, CBS, ESPN, and NFLN on every play like all the running backs in the prime of their careers still do with every carry. All good things go to crap when they get older. That wisdom thing is a wives' tale.
Here's another play where Forte has lost his ability to make at least six defenders miss before he reaches the line of scrimmage—a minimum requirement for all running backs whose careers haven't fallen off the age cliff into the realm of dragons and sea monsters.
Ignore the fact that Forte gained positive yards here, the Browns defense is bad on every single play without exception according to the stats. When he gets a first down against Cleveland, it's only because these defenders are spending more time dodging a minefield of 31s—its league rank against the run—littering the field and impeding them from touching the old man.
Every stats geek in existence knows it's easier to avoid single-digit numbers that lay on the field of highly ranked units. This is first-grade stuff, people, and we all know that the most important lessons are learned before the age of eight. The further one is from that age, the more they forget.
Case in point, this narrator talking about Forte's run below.
It shouldn't take a young smart guy to see that Forte lacks the speed to break away on this run. He's old. Bilal Powell is young. He instantly finds open grass then the Jets find him the ball. He doesn't have to work for it.
Work? C'mon that's old man talk. It's what happens after 29. I'm telling you for your own good, stay away from Forte. The No.6 ranking among backs after 8 weeks is an illusion because he's going to slow down or fall apart any week now.
Plus, he had two really bad weeks against Seattle and Arizona in Weeks 4 and 6. It must have been due to the 52 carries he had during the first two weeks.
I don't care if he gets the middling-to-bad defenses like the Colts, 49ers, Dolphins (twice), and Patriots (twice). He's old, old, old, old, old, old, old.
If that's not a compelling argument for you, then you must be over 30 and there's no reasoning with you.
Frank Gore
Talk about decrepit, the Colts' starter is the model fart for the word. Sorry about the unfamiliar word in the last sentence, it means really old and falling apart. I'm ancient, after all, and I experience these spells that disorient me.
Someone please call my daughter and tell her that I also need her to re-up my supply of Geritol.
Under no circumstances should you acquire or use Gore. He's 33 for cripes sake! How can you even look your competition in the eye and tell them that you thought it was a good idea to start a running back who is this long gone?
After those two ACL tears he had at the University of Miami, he was a premature geezer before he even entered the league. Look at how slow he is...
"D Johnson is no joke?" Hilarious...the guy is a straight-up invalid in his own right. This is no evidence that Gore has juice in his legs. Well, unless it's prune juice.
This clip below is supposed to be evidence that Gore is good. Look how he has to slow down and climb over this fallen defender in the hole like a geriatric searching his room for his arthritis medication. Besides, he's hunched over the entire run and has to lean on the safety for support to stay upright.
Pathetic. Someone get him a prescription for Vitamin D.
This caption should read "Frank Gore, Finished." His schedule is tough and if it weren't for him getting his AARP allotment of five touchdowns early in the season, he wouldn't be the No.11 RB in fantasy leagues at this point. He's more hazardous than the rotting stairs in your grandma's musty cellar.
I bet Frank Gore's jersey smells like mothballs.
Darren Sproles
Not only is he a senior citizen, but he's also short. Worse yet, he's small. I can't believe that the Eagles are even considering the idea that this shriveled raisin of a back is its best option.
With plays like this, the Eagles are opening the path for a civil suit on the grounds of age abuse.
He can't take this kind of punishment. Why do you think he has been a punt returner and third-down back for 12 years? We know the good punt returners never get hit.
He also has those same bouts of dementia as Forte where he gets disoriented at the line of scrimmage and slows down. Like Gore, he also has that hunchback that old folks develop. It must be painful to run like this.
If you thought that as bad, look at him get hit in the side by this defensive end. He can only manage to fall forward for 3-4 extra yards. Gravity is a killer in old age.
I have no idea why the Eagles didn't sign Bishop Sankey or Knile Davis if they weren't happy with the late-middle-age of Ryan Mathews, those guys are young and they're smart enough avoid all that mess between the tackles in the first place.
I'm surprised Sproles didn't have WWII flashbacks after the forced march of 20 touches it gave Sproles against the Cowboys. It's only been 15 years since we saved Europe and Japan from Korea, right?
I don't remember any more. I have dementia. It's the only reasonable explanation for this week's Gut Check. How else could I even broach the idea of running backs beyond the age threshold of reason?
I have to call Bloom. I think he accidentally took my bottle of gout medication during last week's coffee klatch.