RADIO
I am going to start this column by introducing the concept of ADP, which I'm pretty sure you know what it is about. Average Draft Position (ADP) indicates the average position where a player is drafted over more than one fantasy football draft. You can consider it as the price you have to pay to draft and get a player on your team. A high ADP (that is actually a low-numbered ADP) means that a player is getting off draft boards early, and thus you'll need to draft him in the first rounds if you truly want him.
Low or high ADP values are not gospel. Each of us fantasy GMs have our strategies and value players differently depending on what we think is the most important for them to have in terms of abilities. No matter what, ADPs are good to know how the "average value" of the "average GM" you'll be drafting against is for each asset (in this case, the players). By now, with free agency and the draft well finalized and just a few players left to be signed, it makes sense to go look at how ADPs are varying during the last month as we get closer to peak draft season.
In this series, I’ll highlight players at each skill position seeing significant fluctuation from mid-June to mid-July using data from FFPC drafts. Today, it's time to look at three running-back risers.
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Fantasy Football Running Backs - ADP Risers
Chris Evans, Cincinnati Bengals
Let me make something clear first: Evans is a backup rusher and there's no changing that. It is what it is. Accept it and move on. Now that you've entered the room, let's talk. Evans is currently the Bengals' third-string rusher below Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine. Mixon is going to rush the rock a ton. Perine can do his thin – -which is debatably worth giving him many chances. Evans, entering his second season as a pro, only got to touch the ball 32 times last year – though he did so out of 34 opportunities for a strong 94% success rate in the plays Cincy tried to use him on offense.
There might be a changing of the guard happening in Cincinnati this season though, as Paul Dehner from The Athletic has reported that Evans is in front of an open door to replace Perine as the third-down back for the Bengals. With Mixon not playing that many thirds, that would make sense as Perine squeezes the last drops of talent still inside of him, and Evans blossoms into a legit NFL rusher.
The upside in Evans' play comes down to his role if Mixon goes down injured and misses time. In that scenario, there is a clear go-to player Cincy will side with and hand the bulk of the workload, and that's Evans. Of course, that's a lot of hypotheticals and in a normal season, Evans is the RB2/RB3 hybrid with Perine around and eating from his pay (same as the other way around, of course).
Don't draft Evans, but surely keep an eye on him as an early-season WW target in case he explodes at some point throughout the year or Mixon gets banged up enough for Evans to snatch the improbable RB1 role.
Mark Ingram II, New Orleans Saints
I'm glad I didn't write this until the news regarding Alvin Kamara's suspension popped up. Kamara should be missing the first six weeks of play, and there is just no other viable option in the Saints' depth chart when it comes to rushers other than NOLA Legend Mark Ingram if that ends being the case – the suspension might be delayed to the 2023 season, mind you.
Mark Ingram will be playing football at age 33 and for the 12th season in a row come September, of course back in New Orleans from the get-go. Ingram had three very tough seasons to kick his career off (fewer than 100 PPR points and no more than 162 touches) but then absolutely exploded into a perennial RB1. Until he was not (2020 and 2021) but... what if he gets there this season aided by that six-week no. 1 rusher boost? (I'm assuming the hammer will drop on Kamara this season and not in 2023, just in case).
Ingram has scored 10 receiving touchdowns from 2016 on and five (!) as recently as 2019 on just 29 targets and 26 receptions. It is taking more than a while for fantasy GMs to catch up and start drafting Ingram confidently. It might actually never fully happen, but for a season-long backup with RB1 upside in the first third of the season you can surely do much worse. There is risk baked into this play as Kamara might end up avoiding being suspended for a while, but even then the price is so low that chasing Ingram feels like a league-winning move at this point given what we know.
Jerick McKinnon Jr., Kansas City Chiefs
McKinnon opted to return to the comfy confines of Kansas City signing a one-year deal on June 13. Of course, you know what's popping in the Chiefs backfield: there is this kid named Clyde Edwards-Helaire, that other guy named Ronald Jones, also that man named Derrick Gore, and even a fourth named Isiah Pacheco!
This is a crowded room, is what I'm saying. Of course, McKinnon jumps straight into the RB3 role among all of those players mentioned above, but is that something worth chasing in fantasy drafts, even more with QB Patrick Mahomestaking most plays for himself and tossing the rock around instead of allowing running backs to log totes? Meh, not liking it.
There is this big-play thing about McKinnon, but that's probably most useful in the real-life postseason and once per season rather than in the fantasy realm on a weekly basis. There are some mad fantasy GMs that play in hyper-deep leagues that might give McKinnon some upside and appeal, but other than that, there is no point in chasing this man.
The backfield in Kansas City is a bit of a mess with reports of late saying that Ronald Jones might actually be the team's RB1 over CHE, which I don't really understand. Sounds more like a dumb report than anything else, but we'll see. Anyway, one thing is clear here and it's that McKinnon is not turning into your bona fide RB1 overnight, so grab him off the WW if you are super needy at some point, but don't waste a draft pick on him.
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