which running back to choose

Charles
Martin
Rice
Lynch

how much you spending on ray ray tom. night?

not to mention that the Ravens D has lost a ton. They will likely be involved in less grind it out type games. I do think Rice is significantly more valuable in ppr as they should use pierce for more of the pounding.

Flash back to 2009. 35 year old Derrick Mason is BAL best WR. Rice catches 5 more balls than him. Rice catches 25 more balls than a shitty Todd Heap. Rice scored 325 fantasy points as the focus of an offense devoid of weapons.

Enter Boldin: he had 64 catches to Rice's 63 his first year in BAL. Pitta was a rookie. Todd Heap gobbles up 40 balls. We see a trend; Boldin has a "decent" year, Rice goes for 276 fantasy points, good for 5th. Is rice a better fantasy option when BAL has better pass catchers?

2011 Rice had 20 more catches than Boldin and 35 more than Pitta. Boldin sucks this year, Pitta is nonexistent and Rice goes off for 375 fantasy points, the #1 RB.

Last year Pitta and Boldin had their best years with Rice. Boldin had 4 more catches and Pitta tied Rice. Their "emergence" resulted in Rice having a "down" year in which he scored 283 PPR points, good for 4th amongst RBs.

So my question is, does Rice thrive when there are less talented options in the passing game? Torrey Smith is hardly a volume pass catcher and Ed Dickson should play the role of mediocre TE very well. There are already talks of lining up Rice at WR in certain sets this season. He could easily catch 80 balls and will most certainly lead the team in receptions AGAIN. What's not to like in PPR?

People were drafting Ben Tate in the 4th and 5th round last year saying the same thing people are saying about Bernard Pierce this year. Lol.

Can't really argue that point.

The difference I see in the Tate/Pierce thing is Tate will only see significant playing time due to a Foster injury, but I think Pierce may see more even with Rice healthy. But, as you pointed out, Rice may split out, which could lead to a package with Pierce at RB.

This conversation has actually helped me feel better about him. So thank you for that. I'm picking 6-8 in just about all of my leagues I'm in, so I will probably grab Rice in one of them, with him being the safest out Charles, Spiller, and maybe even Martin.