Heading into the upcoming fantasy football season, incoming rooking running back Christian McCaffrey will take the NFL by storm.
3,922 rushing yards, 1,206 receiving yards and 31 offensive touchdowns combined through the ground and air. 1,859 combined yards from special teams as a kickoff and punt returner. These are the collegiate statistics of running back Christian McCaffrey out of Stanford. For those that love fantasy football, we can only imagine the kind of damage McCaffrey will cause once he enters the NFL.
Of course, it all depends on the kind of system that McCaffrey is a part of. He’s a versatile kind of offensive player that can effectively run, receive, and even do his part in racking up a plethora of yards from special teams. Hopefully, the team that selects him in the 2017 NFL Draft knows his potential to really be an X-factor every single time he’s on the football field.
For fantasy owners that can’t wait until the regular season is finally upon us, McCaffrey will easily rise up on draft boards once it’s time to select your main players. Even in real life, McCaffrey is projected to be a first- or early second-round selection thanks to everything he brings to the table.
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It’s hard to tell what McCaffrey’s new team will do since most of the time, they’ll have a rookie stick to one particular role. If that is the case, owners might want to wait before drafting him. If McCaffrey is able to land on a team in dire need of offensive talent, expect to see his fantasy production be through the roof.
If he is truly unleashed and gets an offensive coordinator that will have him in the backfield on some plays, line up as a receiving option on others, and bring his speed to special teams, he will undoubtedly lead the fantasy charts.
Overall, keep an eye on McCaffrey this offseason and especially with the team he ultimately ends up on. Don’t hesitate to use a second- or third-round pick on him if he lands on a team that is excited to let him do what he did best and use him in various ways. If he ends up with a franchise that will have him strictly be a running back or wide receiver, his fantasy value will be decent, but nowhere near what it could be. If he’s able to continue doing what he did in college but at the pro level, expect to see McCaffrey be a force to reckon with this upcoming fantasy season.