Bargain Shopping: Jerick McKinnon

As a fantasy community, we know there are going to be running backs who vastly outperform expectations this upcoming season, and those players can be had for extremely cheap right now or picked up off the waiver wire early in the year. For someone like myself, who prefers not to invest much capital in the running back position, it’s crucial to try to stay ahead of the curve, pouncing on undervalued assets and finding cheap production.

A year ago, any of us could have acquired Doug Martin, Devonta Freeman, Dion Lewis and Thomas Rawls for a lot less than what it’ll take to get them right now. Arguably, all four are currently top ten running backs, and none of them had a July 2015 ADP inside the top 100 (Martin was 104th).

That speaks to the insane yearly volatility at the position as much as anything, which is why I find it so hard to significantly invest in running backs, but it also tells us there are backs out there right now who cost a fraction of what they’ll be worth in the spring of 2017. Admittedly, it’s very hard — sometimes darn near impossible — to pinpoint who those breakout players will be. With that said, Martin was a part of this series last summer, and Rawls was a player I pegged as a guy to watch in our Summer Sleeper series. (Sorry for the horn tooting.)

Of course, there was luck involved with hitting on Martin’s resurgence and Rawls’ emergence, but if you can acquire a bunch of undervalued running backs like they’re lottery tickets, you may strike it rich with a couple. Already this off-season, I’ve given you two backs, Justin Forsett and C.J. Anderson, who I feel you can get your mitts on at a discounted price. Today, we’ll look at Jerick McKinnon, another undervalued back.

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Athletic Specimen

Is this guy an athlete?

Gee whiz.

According to his PlayerProfiler.com numbers, McKinnon ranks in at least the 89th percentile in all five of his workout metrics, including rating in the 100th percentile in the bench press. So what we have here is a running back who is as strong as any back in the league while also being among the fastest, most agile and most explosive players at his position — which is a position full of fast, agile and explosive athletes.

He’d have to have the vision of Helen Keller not to be a decent running back.

McKinnon went to Georgia Southern right as the Eagles, who ran the option, were transitioning to a Division-I program. He played mostly quarterback until his senior year, when he spent a majority of his time at running back.

He ended his career with two straight 1,000-yard seasons, and McKinnon helped the Eagles knock off Florida at The Swamp in 2013, scoring the game-winning touchdown as part of a 125-yard, nine-carry day. It was Georgia Southern’s first ever win over a Division-I team.

McKinnon was eventually drafted in the third round (96th overall) by the Minnesota Vikings.

Glimpses of Greatness

McKinnon has shown extremely well in his limited opportunities through two seasons. With 165 carries to his name, he’s averaging a superb 4.9 yards per attempt and has totaled 809 yards and two scores. As a receiver, McKinnon has made 48 catches on 70 targets, racking up 308 yards and one touchdown.

McKinnon saw most of his action in 2014, his rookie year, as Adrian Peterson was suspended. That season, he rushed 113 times for 538 yards, adding 27 receptions for 135 yards.

Over the last two years, among backs to see at least 140 carries, here are the top ten in terms of yards per carry.

Player	Attempts	Yards	YPC	TD
Thomas Rawls	147	830	5.65	4
Jamaal Charles	277	1397	5.04	13
Justin Forsett	386	1908	4.94	10
Jerick McKinnon	165	809	4.9	2
Todd Gurley	229	1106	4.83	10
Lamar Miller	410	1971	4.81	16
Ryan Mathews	182	869	4.77	9
Le’Veon Bell	403	1917	4.76	11
C.J. Anderson	331	1569	4.74	13
Darren Sproles	140	646	4.61	9

 

There’s our boy, sitting pretty in fourth. It’s a small sample size, to be sure, and yards per carry is by no means a catch-all statistic for running backs. However, it tells us McKinnon has been able to produce when he’s gotten the ball.

He really ended the year well with big performances in two of his last three games. Against the Chicago Bears in week 15, he totaled 86 yards and a touchdown, with the score and 76 of the yards coming as a pass catcher. The following week, he torched the New York Giants for 89 yards and two touchdowns on just seven carries.

Yo, Adrian

Of course, McKinnon doesn’t get the ball much because he’s playing behind Peterson, one of the best backs of all time.

We tend to throw the word freak around a little too much, but Peterson is absolutely a freak. This is a back who rushed for 2,097 yards in 2012 after tearing his ACL eight months earlier at the end of the 2011 season. If anyone can be a perennial 1,000-yard rusher into their late 30s, it would be a dude with the nickname Purple Jesus. Peterson didn’t show much age in 2015, totaling an NFL-best 1,485 yards and 11 scores while averaging 4.5 yards per attempt.

With that said, Peterson has logged 2,381 carries in his career, including a league-high 327 last year. He’s entering his age-31 season this fall. Common sense tells us the wall will come sooner rather than later, and as Marshawn Lynch owners found out in 2015, when older backs hit said wall, they hit it hard.

Even with Peterson in the fold, the Vikings have said they will make more of an effort to expand McKinnon’s role in 2016. They recognize his talent and want to find ways to get him involved, in addition to lessening the load on Peterson. This bodes well for McKinnon, even if it’s unlikely he sees enough touches to be a weekly flex player this season. However, the only thing standing between McKinnon and weekly high-end RB2 status is the health of a 31-year-old running back.

Summary

The gist of this series is finding value. Like I have said in previous installments, even if you don’t like the player, if he is going to raise his value at some point in the future, he should be valuable to you as an asset you can flip for a profit.

With an April ADP as the 34th running back (113th pick overall), McKinnon is going to be relatively cheap to acquire, and I believe he will excel when given 15-plus touches per game. The hangup is, no one knows when that will happen. It could be in week two of this season, or it may not happen for a year or two. As a low-cost, low-risk acquisition, I’m willing to exercise patience and hold onto this lottery ticket. He has the athletic ability, pass-catching skills and efficiency to be a fantasy difference maker.

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