Running Backs I Am Avoiding

John DiBari

I’m nothing if not a pessimist. While the internet is full of people telling you who to target and what sleepers to keep an eye on, I like to look at the players to avoid. In this three-part series, I’ll look at running backs, wide receivers, then quarterbacks and tight ends. I’ll be targeting players with a startup ADP within the top ten rounds because everything after that comes with some risk, and a case can be made to avoid nearly everyone at that.

Now, let’s take a look at the running backs.

Ezekiel Elliott, DAL

This is a two-part problem for me. The first part being is Elliott really can’t get much higher in terms of ADP. At fifth overall, he’s being drafted at his ceiling. Over the previous four years, he’s finished fifth the last two seasons, 14th in 2017, and second as a rookie in 2016. In 2017, Elliott only played in nine contests, dragging his finish down. On a per-game average, he was RB3 on the season.

I like a safe pick, especially early in drafts, and Elliot has proven to be nothing but consistent and reliable throughout his four-year career. However, between his usage in college and the NFL, Zeke has had over 2,000 touches since 2013 – including 736 touches over the last two seasons. At some point, he’s got to slow down a little bit, right?

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The second – and much more significant part – is Elliott’s new coach. The Cowboys hired former Packers coach Mike McCarthy in the off-season. McCarthy has a 13-year history as we can look back on to see what his tendencies are. Using the DLF coaching history app, you can dig through the data yourself. Dating back to 2006, only five times over McCarthy’s career as a head coach has he given his lead back more than 200 carries (see below), and only five times did his lead back top 1,000 yards. Ask anyone who dealt with the Eddie Lacy/James Starks or Aaron Jones/Jamaal Williams revolving doors, and they’ll tell you, owning a McCarthy running back can be frustrating.

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Leonard Fournette, RB JAX

I love me some Leonard Fournette, so it brings me great pain placing him on this list. I like old school, downhill bruising backs, and Fournette brings a little bit of that to the field whenever he himself isn’t, well, bruised. Aside from the injury issues that have plagued him since college, the scary thing about Fournette’s 2019 breakout was his new-found usage in the passing game. Over his first two years in the league, Fournette had a total of 74 targets. Last year, he had 76 receptions. Looking at DLF’s percentage of fantasy points tool, nearly a third of Fournette’s points came from receptions. Between staying healthy and such a big part of his fantasy game suddenly coming through the air, I’m a little scared off by him this season.

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Raheem Mostert, RB SF

Mostert is a great story, and his performance in the postseason won me a decent bit of money. However, I’m not about to let recent history sway me too much for 2020. A career journeyman, a soon-to-be 28-year-old Mostert will have a role for this 49ers team going forward, but looking at an ADP of RB40? No thank you, especially with players like Tarik Cohen, Alexander Mattison, and Tony Pollard going behind him. Looking at his yearly finishes, it’s hard to imagine Mostert doing better than he did last year.

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He still has competition in the Niners’ backfield too, as the team just resigned Matt Breida to a one-year, $3.25 million deal. In addition to Breida, as of this writing, Tevin Coleman is still there for only $4.9 million, but has zero dead cap, and would be an easy cut. Similarly, Jerick McKinnon has a $4 million dead cap number and an $8.5 million cap hit. Cutting both Coleman and McKinnon could save the 49ers nearly $10 million, and for a team that is currently 29th out of 32 teams in cap space, they may be inclined to do just that. If that’s the case, I’d expect them to bring in someone via free agency or the draft to compete for touches with Mostert.

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What to do

If you’re looking for sleepers or buy-low types of players, there is a never-ending supply of people poised to tell you who they love. Those predictions have an important place in the fantasy landscape; however, I hope to help you look at players more critically and assist you in avoiding potential landmines in 2020. Good luck in your drafts this season, if drafts are behind you, hopefully, you can be proactive in trading away the above players.

If anyone of the above players falls in drafts and becomes a reasonable value, I’ll be happy to acquire them at those reduced costs. As it stands, at their current ADP, I’m not interested. Additionally, all three of them are likely sitting at their all-time high in price. They are prime trade away targets as the return for them will probably never be higher. On paper, the next two drafts have lots of top talent at the running back position, and if you could flip Elliott or Fournette.

john dibari