MAKING MOVES
Trades, injuries shake up RB fantasy values
In the last of a six-part fantasy draft preview series leading up to the NFL season, Fantasy Insanity discusses which running backs to draft when. Next week: Fantasy football coverage moves to Saturday.
AH, BUT for the good old days. Remember when Darrell Henderson was going to take over the Rams’ backfield? Or heck, even before him, when Cam Akers was going to have a breakout season? When there was much hype surrounding the Ravens’ J.K. Dobbins? When Taysom Hill was going to be the Saints quarterback?
Welcome to, like, a month or so ago.
Yeah, a lot can change on the football landscape in a short period of time. This is why you should hold off drafting your fantasy football league as long as you can before the NFL season starts, because the preseason happens.
Take the Dobbins injury. We weren’t as high on him as some — worried about Lamar Jackson being a touchdown vulture and worried about Gus Edwards stealing carries. Those fears are now passed on to Edwards. Jackson is still the QB, and Edwards is in his fourth season and the Ravens have never intentionally leaned on him as a primary RB. Whether it is Ty’Son Williams or Justice Hill or both, Edwards going in the fifth round is too high.
We would rather have the Falcons’ Mike Davis two rounds later. Yes, even after the addition of Wayne Gallman. Atlanta sought Davis this offseason, gave him a nice contract. Freeman feels like a depth add, the kind done late in camp when you realize the backups stink. Not the kind you expect to steal from a big offseason signing.
But we would take Edwards ahead of Damien Harris, the primary Patriots benefactor of the Sony Michel trade. Michel will clutter up the Rams’ backfield, making it a weekly guessing game between him and Henderson — much in the same way he likely would have done for Harris in New England. Now, Harris’ top competition is likely rookie Rhamondre Stevenson. Look, normally this would catapult Harris up our draft boards, but we are wary of Patriots RBs for fantasy purposes. Why? Because we have been alive for the past 20-plus years. Since Corey Dillon we’ve gotten what? One good LeGarrette Blount season? Surrounded by a bunch of Laurence Maroney and Jonas Gray and BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Along with some Blount and Michel and Harris himself.
But when you compare Harris’ upside to others in his Round 5-6 range — Myles Gaskin, Javonte Williams, Kareem Hunt — Harris starts to not look so bad. But if he goes kaput, remember, we warned you.
By and large, this is the area of the draft, around Round 6, at which we start to frown on our RB options (not you Trey Sermon, still love you).
Yet there is one late option we have warmed up to recently: Phillip Lindsay. Now look, we know the Texans are going to be terrible and want as little to do with them for fantasy purposes as possible. But Lindsay will likely have the highest snap count among RBs in Houston, and he’ll play on passing downs — and we expect a lot of passing downs, because they’ll be trailing a lot.
Last pick before a kicker, you get a pretty solid bet to be a garbage-time monster? We’ll take that bargain.