Dynasty Spotlight: Eddie Lacy

Jacob Feldman

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Editor’s note: This article is one in a series of articles geared towards the Dynasty Football World Championship contest sponsored by our friends at FFtoolbox.com. This is the world’s first dynasty fantasy football contest designed to reward the long term, successful dynasty coach, and crown a Dynasty King!  Find out more about the Dynasty World Championship at DynastyKing.comand be sure to check FFtoolbox.com’s articles, tools and rankings for sports beyond fantasy football, including Baseball, NASCAR, Golf and more!

If you’re new to the world of dynasty football, let me welcome you to the ultimate fantasy football experience! Be warned it is an entirely new journey and one that requires year round commitment to do well. In essence, it is the difference between buying a car and renting one for the weekend. Anyone can rent a red Ferrari, but it takes a special individual to be able to own one and take care of it. The same is true when you compare redraft fantasy leagues to dynasty leagues. Anyone can get lucky over a brief period of time and win in a redraft league, but it takes someone special to put together and maintain a roster that can win year after year.

Since you keep the same roster each year in a dynasty league, there is a special focus on young players and rookies who are coming into the league. Unfortunately, many owners who are new to dynasty leagues tend to make two fatal errors in reasoning:

1) They tend to overvalue rookies and their potential when compared to more established players. It is very easy to get swept up by “rookie fever” when the media focus of the majority of the off-season is on the NFL combine, college pro days and the NFL Draft. It is also easy to remember the rookies who made major impacts in past years like Andrew Luck and Doug Martin. The important item that seasoned dynasty owners know and that new ones need to learn is that most rookies do NOT become fantasy relevant. In fact, many of them don’t even become NFL relevant. Putting too much weight on unproven players can destroy a roster.

2) They fail to realize that not all rookie classes are created equally. The 2012 rookie class was exceptional in a number of ways giving us the extraordinary talents of not just Luck and Martin but also Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson, Trent Richardson, Justin Blackmon and others. The 2011 rookie class gave us AJ Green and Julio Jones, both of whom exploded as rookies. This is simply not normal. In fact, it is extremely rare that you get multiple top ten talents in a draft. This year’s group, while it has some nice players, doesn’t have any who are at the same level as those players listed above. It lacks that special player, or in the case of the past few years, those special players, plural. Simply put, not all groups of rookies are the same.

With that in mind, I’m going to share some thoughts on a few of the biggest rookies at the skill positions this year. My goal is to help you figure out how they compare to past rookie classes so you value them properly when drafting your first dynasty team.

I am going to start out with the running back who almost everyone has as the top back on their board and in most cases the top fantasy rookie, Eddie Lacy.

Lacy is a big name and a big back who checks in at 5’11” and just over 230 pounds. He was in the media spotlight since he led the powerful running game of the national champion Alabama Crimson Tide. All the media attention and the nationally televised games not only increase his name recognition, but also increase the chances someone will end up reaching a bit and taking him earlier than they should. Before we get into that, let’s first take a look at what he brings to the table.

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Lacy brings good size and a fairly complete (though not special) skill set to the NFL. He has above average hands, but could use a little refining when it comes to his pass protection, though he is further along than a lot of college backs are in that area. The fact he played in a pro-style offense definitely helps him out in the passing game. His power is one of his strongest points and the fact he combines that power with great balance and being light on his feet will definitely help him at the next level. He also has a little bit of wiggle to him, which is great for someone of his size. He is able to either make defenders in the open field miss or at least run through them to pick up a few extra yards.

I question his vision a little bit as he tended to miss some of the smaller holes and windows that were opened for him. I also wonder about his top end speed. He has good acceleration, but I think his top end speed is closer to the likes of Montee Ball’s combine performance (4.66 seconds in the 40 yard dash) than people want to realize. Lacy didn’t run at the combine due to an injury and it remains to be seen if he’ll run at his pro day. If he really is a 4.55 second type of guy in the 40 yard dash, he might choose not to run because that kind of time might hurt him a little bit in the draft even though that isn’t terrible for someone of his size – it just means he isn’t going to be a huge home run threat against the faster defensive players in the NFL.

There are also a few concerns when it comes to Lacy.

My other concern, and possibly my biggest one, stems from the team he played on. While Alabama runs a pro system that helps to prepare its players for the NFL, it is also the home to what is always one of the best offensive lines in all of college football. In fact, just about every starter on their offensive line ends up being an early NFL Draft pick. That means players like Lacy are running behind an offensive line filled with first and second round NFL talent going up against must less talented defensive lines. The result is often a hole I’m pretty sure I could run through for a first down. We need to realize the Alabama line just might be one of the best lines that Lacy will ever run behind. That’s a pretty big advantage for him (and all Alabama running backs for that matter) that you need to keep in mind when projecting him to the next level.

Fortunately, Lacy was very productive in his time leading the Tide. Over his three seasons, he had 355 carries for 2,402 yards (a very impressive 6.77 yards per carry) to go with his 30 touchdowns on the ground. Even more impressive might be the consistency he showed. During the 2012 season when he was the starter, he had only a single game in which he didn’t average at least 3.9 yards per carry. He topped all that production off with a very nice 20 carry game for 140 yards and a score in the National Championship game against what had been (up until that point) a very dominant Notre Dame defense.

To sum up the strengths and weaknesses of Lacy, we have a strong, agile and productive back who can catch passes out of the backfield. While he lacks straight line speed and needs to refine his blocking ability, he is the top running back prospect in this year’s class – that doesn’t mean the same thing this year as it did last year, though. He isn’t on the level of Richardson or Martin. He probably isn’t even on par with David Wilson when it comes to overall talent.

You might be wondering where exactly that leaves him if you’re about to do a startup draft. After all, you don’t want to reach, but you also don’t want to miss out on him if he is your guy. Unlike last year, where Richardson was going in the first 20 picks of most startup drafts, Lacy is going a few rounds later. According to the dynasty startup Average Draft Position (ADP) that is available at dlfstg02.dynastyleaguefootball.com or by clicking here, you can see Lacy is currently going in the middle of the fourth round in twelve team PPR leagues as the 19th running back off the board and as the 43rd player overall. This puts him just behind Stevan Ridley, Maurice Jones-Drew and Lamar Miller, but just before Ryan Mathews and Darren Sproles.

Long term, I expect Lacy will have a productive, though unspectacular career as a starting running back in the NFL. He is much closer to former teammate Mark Ingram than he is to Trent Richardson. I expect his production over the next few years to be on par with what we saw last year out of guys like Shonn Greene, Mikel Leshoure, and Ridley. The bottom line is that while he is the best running back in this class at this point in time, he likely lacks that special quality that is required to make someone a top ten running back in the NFL.

Other running backs who should be on your radar that you should be researching:

Giovani Bernard (North Carolina) – He is a smaller back who bases his game around speed and agility. He does lack a bit of power, which means he is most likely destined to be the speed part of a committee while being paired up with a short yardage/goal-line back at the next level.

Johnathan Franklin (UCLA) – He has very good vision, speed and agility. He also runs very well with the ball in his hands. If he can bulk up a little bit, he has the skill set to be a three down back in the NFL.

Montee Ball (Wisconsin) – The NCAA all-time touchdown leader obviously has the skills to get the job done. The problem is he is good at everything, but doesn’t excel at anything. He is a chain mover, but he isn’t going to wow anyone.

Marcus Lattimore (South Carolina) – He was the top running back on almost everyone’s list before injuries struck. Two seasons ago, it was his ACL. Last year it was a complete knee dislocation (all ligaments torn). If he can come back, he could be a real steal. There are major medical concerns, though.

Christine Michael (Texas A&M) – He just might be the most talented running back in this class. However, his character issues are right on par with Titus Young. Big risk, big reward.

Le’Veon Bell (Michigan State) – A big back who runs with great power and balance. He lacks some speed, though. He could surprise at the next level with a little bit of a Brandon Jacobs style of play, but he is better in the passing game than Jacobs ever was.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @feldmanjacob

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