Team-by-Team Draft Recap: Atlanta Falcons

mikereardon

freeman Let’s get this right out of the way – Devonta Freeman is the only fantasy-relevant player the Falcons drafted in 2014. The rest are all on the fantasy periphery, even in the deepest of leagues.

Jake Matthews was a great pick, and there’s no question that his addition is good news for anyone who owns fantasy stock in any Falcons, from Matt Ryan on down.

Aside from Matthews and the player the majority of this article will focus on, the Falcons drafted all defensive players, and one of them are big IDP prospects either. Ra’Shede Hageman is not a name you need to know, unless you play in DT-required IDP leagues (and even then, he may not even be rosterable in most formats). Prince Shembo was added in a couple of my IDP leagues after Sean Weatherspoon fell to injury, and has at least a puncher’s chance to win the starting job alongside Paul Worrilow at inside linebacker.

But really, these are all very deep flyers, relevant in only the deepest of leagues. So now that that is out of the way, let’s get to the one significant fantasy prospect in this draft class.

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That is, of course, Davonta Freeman. I’m not a huge college football fan, so I took a fresh look at Freeman’s tape. Due to his relatively small stature, I focused on his ability to run between the tackles, break tackles and how he finished runs. Frankly, I was surprised at how much power and forward momentum the 5’8”, 206 lb Freeman ran with. Anyone who has played football at any level was no doubt taught that the low man usually wins, and Freeman, because of his compact running style and naturally low center of gravity, is consistently able to grind out an extra yard at the end of runs because he’s usually underneath his tackler.

Just to be clear, below are just a couple of examples of what I’m talking about: freeman image Freeman never seems to go down easily and he’s always got his feet moving, even after first contact. I saw one touchdown run from inside the five yard line where he broke three tackles, spinning out of one of them, for the score.

Obviously that’s against college competition, and I’m not saying that Freeman is going to be Brandon Jacobs at the next level, but suffice it to say that I don’t view power to be an area of weakness.

Beyond that, Freeman looks like a complete, all-around running back. In just watching a few games of his, I saw him take the ball in a wide variety of ways. He has excellent vision and showed the ability to quickly identify and attack developing holes when running between the tackles. He showed the speed to get to the outside on toss plays and sweeps, as well the ability to follow pulling linemen and use them effectively.

He also looked extremely comfortable as a receiver out of the backfield. He adjusts to the ball in the air well, and is very effective at running the screen play. A couple times I saw him jump to catch a ball when it wasn’t necessary. I used to do this in backyard football and frankly, it was devastating to my production, so hopefully this is something Freeman can work out of his game.

Of course, there are weaknesses in  his game that Freeman will have to improve on if he’s going to become an all-purpose back. While he certainly appeared to be a willing pass blocker, Freeman didn’t always look terribly effective at it. Despite his low, compact running style, he often appeared to be standing straight up when meeting a pass rusher in the backfield. With his size, if he does that in the NFL, he’ll barely slow anyone down at all. That certainly seems like something that can be taught though as it does look like a technique flaw more than anything else.

It was also very clear on the tape that he had an excellent offensive line to work with. Freeman gets credit for identifying and attacking holes, but it has to be said that he often had very open holes to work with. The Falcons have made some key changes to their offensive line, so it shouldn’t be as woeful as it was in 2013, but still, Freeman will not be playing with the same advantage he had in college.

While Freeman did exhibit excellent vision most of the time, he did occasionally take too much time deciding what to do when faced with a muddy pocket. Sometimes he just needs to take what’s there, even if it’s not a lot. I actually saw a couple of plays where he came to a full stop in the backfield to changed direction, and had a successful run. That’s not likely to fly in the NFL.

Overall, he looks like a well-rounded player who could develop into an all-purpose running back, aka the unicorn of fantasy football. Whether or not he should end up on your dynasty team depends largely on his price. In the Dynasty Football World Championship leagues, Freeman was, on average, the seventeenth overall pick across six rookie drafts. That  was good enough to make him the fifth running back drafted, behind Bishop Sankey, Carlos Hyde, Jeremy Hill, and Tre Mason, but before Ka’Deem Carey and the Cleveland rookie running backs.

Twelve of our resident DLF experts got together for a post-NFL draft mock rookie draft, in which Freeman fell to 3.06 (thirtieth overall). I doubt you’ll be able to get him that late in any draft as the general public is generally quicker to focus on short-term situation and upside than dynasty writers, who take a more balanced approach with a heavier focus on film and pre-draft opinions.

Personally, I am not a huge believer in drafting based on succession planning. What I mean by that is, I’m very wary of drafting a running back because he happens to be behind a veteran who is older, or who has an expiring contract. Planning that far into the future, even one year, is too risky to give anyone a ranking “bonus” because you expect him to just inherit a starting job. Jobs have to be earned in the NFL, they are generally not awarded on draft day or in June, especially to running backs.

Keeping that in mind, I like Freeman enough that I would be happy with him as a mid-second round pick. Once the Benjamin/Robinson/Latimer/Moncrief wide receiver tier is gone, Freeman is a nice upside pick.

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