Christian McCaffrey Limited Plays & Dolphins RB Timeshare
Welcome to August, ladies and gents. This is officially the month of Fantasy Football. All those articles you've been reading for months now? Well hopefully you've learned something along the way because it's time to start making decisions and soon, having our drafts & auctions! You can follow me on Twitter @mattkdelima
Panthers HC plans to limit McCaffrey's plays, not his touches
NEWS: Ron Rivera, head coach of the Carolina Panthers said, "We don’t want to take away the touches," he continued. "What we want to do is take away the excess plays that he doesn’t have to be out there."
ANALYSIS: Look, Christian McCaffrey had 326 touches last year.
Wanna know how many guys had 300+ touches in both 2017 & 2018? Todd Gurley. How's he doing?
300+ touches in both 2016 & 2017? Le'Veon Bell. How's he doing? What do we think that contract holdout was for? Maybe he knew he needed to cash in before he broke down.
300+ touches in both 2015 & 2016? No one.
2014 & 2015? No one.
Consistency is hard to find because as we already know, these guys take a beating. And keep in mind, a guy or two would go for 400+ touches every year back in the day. Now it's only happened twice since 2010 (449 by DeMarco Murray in 2014 & 406 by Le'Veon bell in 2017).
The point here boils down to this: McCaffrey is a supreme talent. If he's healthy all 16 games this year, he's going to kill it, no question about it. But my concern is what is this offense looking like and how hard will they have to ride him to move the chains? I think being aware of McCaffrey's usage is a good sign but he only missed 22 snaps all season in 2018. Hopefully Carolina is more comfortable in their backup backs to give CMC some relief.
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Jones (hamstring) did not practice Thursday
NEWS: Green Bay Packers RB Aaron Jones missed his second practice in as many days on Thursday due to a hamstring injury.
ANALYSIS: Soft tissue injuries always need to perk our ears up in the Fantasy Football community. Granted, we're still over a month out from the season so Jones should have adequate time to rest and recover between now and Week 1.
For now, we can't and shouldn't downgrade Jones in our rankings but if I do draft Jones during this period of uncertainty, I might want to consider a small reach to handcuff him with Jamaal Williams. But then again, Williams is also battling a hamstring injury so maybe you look a little further down the depth chart with rookie RB Dexter Williams. Over the last 10 high-stakes drafts at FullTime Fantasy, Jones has been drafted between the 29th and 48th picks and his Advanced ADP is 34.3. Jamaal's ADP is 168.2 and Dexter's ADP is 219.8.
Before you hit accept or reject on that trade offer, why not plug it into the Trade Analyzer tool to see its recommendation? Maybe you can add a little more to the deal to sweeten your end!
Beat writer predicts even timeshare between Drake & Ballage
NEWS: An ESPN beat writer for the Miami Dolphins believes there will be a nearly-even timeshare between RBs Kenyan Drake & Kalen Ballage.
ANALYSIS: I would be more apt to believe this if the new Miami coaching staff drafted Ballage. But they may also see what's in front of them and believe Ballage is a better fit for their scheme. Drake has had his moments, but he's certainly done nothing to command a lion's share of the touches.
Ballage notably had a TD run last season where he reached 21.87 MPH, the fourth-fastest TD of the year. So there's talent here when he hits the open field. I think there's enough room in this offense for both of them and perhaps this would be ideal for Drake, who spent his years at Alabama in a RB committee. Drake is being drafted, on average at RB24 in high-stakes drafts over at FullTime Fantasy. Meanwhile, Ballage is much more appetizing at RB50 although his Advanced ADP appears to be on a swift upward trend.
