David Johnson, Le’Veon Bell and Ezekiel Elliott will not only go 1, 2, 3 among fantasy football running backs in the upcoming 2017 fantasy football draft. They will go within that range among all players.
What if you don’t have a top-three pick, though? Then you’re missing out on three players who are going to be in the conversation as top-five options each week, no matter the matchup.
You’ll also have to make a decision regarding your running back stable. The consensus is to hammer wide receivers after those three are off the board. Antonio Brown, Julio Jones and Odell Beckham are three wide receivers who also are matchup-proof and provide solid weapons at the top of any fantasy roster.
But if you don’t have those big-time running back weapons, where should you turn?
Experts are in line with a second tier, featuring (in order for the most part) LeSean McCoy, Melvin Gordon, Devonta Freeman, Jay Ajayi, Jordan Howard and DeMarco Murray.
Those guys will likely go off the board in the second part of the first round, and the early second round.
I usually don’t like to have no-draft players, but I’m making the exception this year based on what I believe will be a sudden drop in production by two of those players. McCoy and Murray are volume-heavy, but it’s been too much in recent years to trust them going forward.
Among active players, McCoy is sixth in career carries. The only people ahead of him who started more than a handful of games in 2016 were Frank Gore and Matt Forte. The rest were either injured (Adrian Peterson), or sit on the bench (Steven Jackson and Chris Johnson).
In fact, of the top-10 of active players with the most carries, only five were regular starters in 2016 — Gore, Forte, McCoy, Jonathan Stewart and Murray — with injury issues plaguing Stewart and Forte during the year.
In addition, Arian Foster, Murray and McCoy are the only players listed in the top-10 among active players in career carries who started their careers after 2008.
The drop-off happens quickly for running backs. I’m not taking a chance with my RB1 with red flags waving at me in the face.
So that leaves Gordon, Freeman, Ajayi and Howard. Freeman is a semi-risk based on Tevin Coleman’s ability to stretch the defense and take away carries. Gordon, Ajayi and Howard don’t really have another player capable of stealing carries like Freeman has on his team. Freeman go can big, but he also can fall flat on his face in games, as evidenced by his ability to go over 30 in one week, and under 2 in the previous week last year.
The fourth-best option comes down to Gordon and Howard, since Ajayi still has that out-of-nowhere vibe from last year. He got hot, but I’m not sure I can trust that in 2017. He’s not a bad option, I just favor Gordon and Howard more based on their ability to be prototypical three-down backs.
My No. 4 option goes back to average draft position. Both players have the best shots at being in the No. 4 slot, so if you’re drafting in that lower first-round spot, both should be in play. Since Gordon’s ADP will be in the first round, I would draft him first, leaving Howard for my early second-round choice.
Both players are going to play significant roles on their teams, and both should have opportunities at being three-down backs. Go with Gordon first based on the likelihood of him being gone earlier, setting up your roster for the possibility of having both on your team.
