Ezekiel Elliott Suspension: Fantasy Football fallout for 2017

Ezekiel Elliott is facing suspension, but the length and timing are up in the air. What is the immediate fantasy football fallout?

Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott has been suspended six games by the NFL for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. Prior to the announcement, Elliott was a universal top-three selection in fantasy football drafts this season. After the suspension (albeit with an appeal pending), his stock is very much in limbo.

What is the immediate fantasy football fallout of Elliott’s suspension? Does his value take a major hit, or does the risk of drafting him early pale in comparison to the reward of having him on your team? A Fantasy Football debate.

Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate Ezekiel Elliott in today’s NFL Sports Debate.

Todd Salem:

The top three for fantasy football, in some order, was supposed to be David Johnson, Le’Veon Bell and Elliott. That was the unimpeachable trio. It was followed by a universal wide receiver trio of Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham Jr. and Julio Jones. After that, the draft got cloudy. Now, thanks to Elliott, even the top is cloudy. How far should Elliott fall?

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Obviously, this question has some necessary clarifications. If you play in a weak eight-team league or one with shallow rosters, for example, you should still pounce on Elliott early. There will be enough quality players later to fill in for six weeks. His star power is too valuable in that instance. But in normal leagues, the question is more difficult.

Missing six weeks of action is nearly half the fantasy regular season. Most leagues play 14 regular-season weeks. Some even play 12 regular-season weeks with two two-week playoff matchups. In those cases, his suspension is literally half the regular season. He will be back for the fantasy playoffs, but you have to get there first!

It is hard to make the playoffs getting zero points out of your first round pick for half the year. Of course, you will know ahead of time to adjust for Elliott’s absence, but you can’t stash him in an IR slot or anything. He is just wasting away on your bench for half the year.

The one positive here is that he will be back before most bye weeks come up. The hardest scheduling to meander around is bye weeks that sap your best players’ availability. Elliott will be back by Week 8 though.

For me, Elliott drops out of the first round now. That feels obvious. The running back position gets questionable pretty early this year, but not that early. Elliott makes sense to select right when RBs get shaky as guaranteed, every week starters. Would you rather have eight regular season weeks of Elliott or 14 of Leonard Fournette or Lamar Miller? I’d rather have the latter. That is about the end batch of every-week backs though. From there, we run into the likes of Isaiah Crowell, Carlos Hyde, and guys with part-time jobs. Elliott is a better selection than those fellows.

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Thus, Elliott falls out of the top 25 players, but begins to be a consideration in the middle of the third round, depending on how your draft shakes out of course. Once those final “sure-thing” backs come off the board, Elliott is an immediate consideration from there on out. Eight weeks of him and six of a fill-in is better than 14 of questionable production anyway.

Dan Salem:

You have grossly undervalued Elliott’s dominance, because there is no way he drops out of the top 25 players and into the second round. He was the second best player entering the 2017 Fantasy Football season in my opinion, behind David Johnson and ahead of Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell. I personally value the best wide receiver slightly ahead of the third best running back. Regardless, Elliott now drops from second to sixth in my book. He has fallen behind both Beckham and Jones, but remains ahead of everyone else in the league.

An appeal of Elliott’s six game suspension has already been filed. This means one of two things. His suspension will either get quickly reduced by a few games, or the appeals process will be lengthy a la Tom Brady two years prior. My money is ultimately on a four game suspension for Elliott, exactly what Brady got stuck with to begin last season. If you recall, Brady’s appeal pushed a decision until after the entire 2015 season. His suspension was for the first month of 2016. Why would Elliott’s situation be any different?

Elliott plays for an equally popular franchise and has also violated the personal conduct policy. The likelihood of him serving his suspension to start this season is 50-50 in my opinion. The NFL may want to avoid a Tom Brady style media crap fest and decide quickly, if allowed to by the NFLPA. Elliott’s suspension will get reduced either way. If he misses a month, he is a bonafide top ten pick. If he misses all six games, he is still a stud. Fantasy Football is risk versus reward and the risk of suspension is nothing compared to the risk of passing on Elliott and missing out on his rewarding performance this season.

Next: NFL 2017: One unpopular take about each team

A decision on Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension likely comes after your fantasy football draft, unless you are drafting on Labor Day like us! Missing Elliott for a month is nothing compared to not having him at all. I’m not counting on a six game suspension to start this season, and you shouldn’t either.

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