Running backs are hard to draft, so we’re here to help. Do you take Devonta Freeman or Eddie Lacy with your pick? It’s Fantasy Football 2016.
Dan Salem and Todd Salem debate in today’s NFL Sports Debate. Two brothers from New York yell, scream, and debate sports.
TODD:
It is fantasy football drafting season! The NFL season begins in less than a month, which means these weeks are the time to draft in fantasy football leagues. Though there is quite a debate at the top of draft boards this year, there are also a ton of intriguing options throughout the middle rounds as well. A number of these decisions will come down to roster alignment and how you choose to build your team. However, the most pressing questions come down to options between players at the same position with similar skill sets, who may even find themselves on the same NFL team. It is hard to split hairs, which brings us to a game of “who’d you rather?”
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Wide receiver isn’t the only position with tons of possibilities in drafts this year. At running back, there is a healthy mix of everydown backs with health concerns, everydown backs with talent concerns and non-everydown backs. Running back is really as questionable as it has ever been.
Two of the top 10 backs this season are Atlanta’s Devonta Freeman and Green Bay’s Eddie Lacy. Consensus average draft positions (tabulated by Fantasy Pros) have Freeman as the seventh-ranked RB and Lacy the 10th. They are both second-round draft picks or just outside in Lacy’s case depending on the source.
I have major issues with each player, but I find the comparison interesting for 2016. Freeman is a guy who came out of essentially nowhere last season. At the start, he was behind Tevin Coleman on the Falcons’ own depth chart. From there, he had the best fantasy season of any running back in the league. However, injuries remain a concern with Freeman, as does consistency. His season was buoyed by a number of insane weeks but really trailed off as the year wound down. That decline didn’t make him a bad fantasy option; he was simply nothing special.
So which is the real Freeman: the guy who was the best in the league for like a six-week stretch in 2015 or the guy he has been the other year and a half of his NFL career?
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On the opposite side of this discussion sits Lacy, arguably the biggest fantasy disappointment in the league last year. He was healthy yet bad; AKA the worst thing one can be for fantasy purposes. And yet, Lacy has a much longer track record of competence than Freeman, and he has that same upside that Freeman displayed. After all, Lacy was number one overall on tons of draft boards for 2015. Now he’s number one in the third round.
With my pick in the second round, I would feel more comfortable taking Lacy over Freeman. I just have a higher level of trust, even though Lacy betrayed that trust last season.
DAN:
This is a truly difficult decision to make. Both players are on teams with star quarterbacks and top-tier offenses. Aaron Rodgers versus Matt Ryan may not be a discussion, but both can hand off the ball with ease. Both Freeman and Lacy should also see a ton of looks in the passing game to accompany their rushing impact. The Falcons have a bigger hole to dig themselves out of as a team, yet that doesn’t necessarily have an impact on Freeman’s fantasy value. Same goes for Lacy, who’s Packers team should improve upon a pretty darn good season from a year ago.
There are two things to seriously consider when making this assessment. The first is how each player performed in their best season. Lacy put up over 1500 total yards in 2014 with 13 total touchdowns. By contract, Freeman put up over 1500 total yards in 2015 with 14 total touchdowns. The best seasons of each player are nearly identical. Remove that from the equation.
What have you done for me lately? This is the second point to consider with running backs. The ebb and flow of a back’s career is so drastic that its very difficult to know if they can or will repeat their performance from a season ago. Lacy had two monster seasons followed by a precipitous drop off last year. But most glaring to me are his touchdown numbers. In a year where Green Bay lost its top receiver, it was not Lacy who picked up the slack by getting into the endzone. Quite the opposite. He scored only five total touchdowns in 2015, as compared to his high of 13 the year prior.
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Freeman was great last season overall. He shined bright in his first opportunity getting starter reps in games. I’m not concerned about injury for him any more than I am with Lacy, so ultimately it comes down to which player was more recently relied upon to score touchdowns for his team. That player is Freeman, who notched 14 scores for Atlanta last season. The Falcon’s offense currently relies on him to score points. Green Bay’s does not need Lacy to get in the endzone. That is the deciding factor when making this fantasy football decision.