Your season long fantasy draft keeps getting closer. You can tell by the amount of noise being talked by your buddies with nothing better to do than send you screenshots of their wins over you from 2015.
Somehow they see your decision to start DeMarco Murray all year long as the biggest football folly in history.
Leaning on a running back with no hope for big numbers with Chip Kelly running the offense was pretty stupid. Still, you have a chance for redemption, starting in about ten days with a fresh NFL season.
You can erase the misery of last year when even your children were embarrassed by some of your fantasy choices. You can make little Johnny and Sally proud of you in 2016 by making smart fantasy choices, instead of making the same mistakes as all the other mediocre fantasy players.
So we covered the quarterbacks you should avoid, like Rodney Harrison and phrases such as, “I didn’t even know he was mixed.”
Now it’s time to look at running backs you should not rely on to help you win whatever ridiculous fantasy trophy you and your crew have designed for 2016.
Running back is a tough spot to fill since these guys take the worst pounding of any fantasy position. You need two great choices and a couple decent backups just in case one of your starters has his ACL turned into an insurance deductible in week two.
Here are five running backs to stay away from, even though it would be tempting to draft any one of these guys pretty high.
– Eddie Lacy. Sure he has dropped some lbs. this year. You would show the same dedication if your job depended on it. However, we all know how easy it is to slip back into bad eating habits. If Lacy starts out slowly, I look for him to fade back to fatboy status as soon as things get rough.
– Alfred Morris. OK, Morris may have never been the sexy draft choice in fantasy land. But somehow the guy always seemed to be on the team that ended up on top at the end of your fantasy season right? He was just steady and productive without ending up on a Gatorade commercial or TMZ. Last year his fantasy stock fell to the 47th best running back after all the stats were in. Pretty big fall from a top 15 position the previous two years. Don’t look for a miracle turnaround in 2016 with Dallas, especially with everyone singing the praises of rookie Ezekiel Elliott. Morris will only see action when Elliott needs a breather or gets suspended for weed purchased from either legal or illegal marijuana providers.
– Chris Ivory. Big bruising backs will move the chains for you. They will also get you beat regularly in fantasy play. Runners like Ivory are fun to watch from an old school perspective, but they are easily out pointed by backs that can catch the ball. To score fantasy points, you need to actually be on the field. Ivory played in just 50.9 percent of his team’s offensive snaps. The reason is they can’t rely on him in passing situations. Rookie Todd Gurley, the 5th best fantasy back in 2015, was on the field about 17 percent more than Ivory.
– Danny Woodhead. Yes, Danny Woodhead finished 2015 as the 11th ranked fantasy running back. But he is an up and down player. He had nine games in which he tallied single-digit fantasy points. Compare that to the top fantasy back of 2015, Devonta Freeman, who had just three games in single digits.
– Arian Foster. Big fan of Foster. The dude is the philosopher of the NFL. With age, he will become an even better zen master, but age doesn’t help with running ability I’m afraid. He may show some glimpses of his former fantasy glory this season. But that won’t be enough to have him locked in as a starter for your season long league. A guy like Foster is a better choice for daily fantasy in the right matchups.
Now you can cross these guys off your draft board. Or at the very least, push them down to the late rounds for bench players.
These backs have had fantasy success in the past, but just like the stock market….you can’t base predictions totally on past performance.