As we gear up to the start of the NFL season, Football Absurdity is going to bring you a comprehensive breakdown of every notable player that will be available in fantasy football drafts. When you don’t see us talking about Christine Michael or Mike Davis, don’t get mad at us for neglecting your favorite sleeper. Get mad at yourself for having bad taste in football players. We are only focusing on the top-rated running backs in standard scoring and points per game leagues. If you only draft character guys at running back, then this Kenyan Drake player profile is for you.
With my player profiles, I’ve only decided to go back to look at their fantasy scoring for three years. I could show you lists from earlier, but most of the guys at the top are no longer in the league anymore. I’ve also added a chart for their usage over that time span. We will try to determine, based on those two factors, where the best running back value lies.
Fantasy Football Kenyan Drake
Current ADP (As of 9/3/2018):
Standard: Number 17 among running backs. Number 35 overall.
PPR: Number 16 among running backs. Number 35 overall.
Stats:
FANTASY FOOTBALL KENYAN DRAKE SCORING — STANDARD
| Rank | Total Points | PPG Rank | PPG | |
| 2017 | 34 | 101.3 | 46 | 6.8 |
| 2016 | 72 | 33.5 | 88 | 2.8 |
FANTASY FOOTBALL KENYAN DRAKE SCORING — PPR
| Rank | Total Points | PPG Rank | PPG | |
| 2017 | 33 | 142.3 | 44 | 8.9 |
| 2016 | 73 | 42.5 | 90 | 3.5 |
FANTASY FOOTBALL KENYAN DRAKE USAGE
| Carries | Carries Per Game | Targets | Targets Per Game | |
| 2017 | 133 | 8.3 | 48 | 3.0 |
| 2016 | 33 | 2.4 | 10 | 0.7 |
Overview: Kenyan Drake has seen a dramatic increase in his ADP this year, and I honestly wasn’t sure why before writing this. Drake didn’t particularly stand out to me in 2017, in part because of how bad Miami was overall. I understood that he was the starter, but I wasn’t convinced he was good enough to not get trapped in a timeshare. His fantasy usage numbers for 2017, in a vacuum, looked bad for him. But what we are really looking at are his numbers after October 31, 2017. That is when the Dolphins traded Jay Ajayi to the Philadelphia Eagles. 123 of Drake’s carries and 45 of his touches came after the trade. That means he was actually averaging 14.8 carries a game and 5.0 targets. To compare, Melvin Gordon and Joe Mixon only averaged 15 touches a game last season. Drake was seeing the ball as much as guys like Jordan Howard, Kareem Hunt, and Devonta Freeman. The only thing that gives me pause is that the Dolphins signed the ageless wonder, Frank Gore, at running back this offseason. So we can’t really be sure if his usage last year was due to merit or due to there being nothing better on the roster. The 2018 NFL season will tell us a lot about Kenyan Drake’s prospects as a running back.
Strategy: I will admit to not being sold on Kenyan Drake before writing this article. But I actually think he is a very intriguing value play at his current ADP. He is currently being drafted around Derrius Guice, Derrick Henry, and Rashaad Penny. All of them have their concerns, but Drake has a very clear path to being an uncontested starter. I still prefer Allen Robinson or Josh Gordon, who are also being drafted around this time, to Drake. Simply put, if Drake fell to me in the late-third/early-fourth round and I needed a running back, I think he would merit serious consideration.
Ceiling: I think Kenyan Drake has the potential to be a low-end RB1 if his usage remains consistent with the second half of the 2017 NFL season.
Floor: What will actually happen is Drake owners will kick themselves for drafting a running back on the same team as Frank Gore and Gore will end the season as a low-end RB1, not Drake. What did you think would happen? Did you think that Frank Gore would suddenly show his age? Frank Gore was around long before the first primate stood upright and Frank Gore will be here long after our civilization turns to dust. Frank Gore is eternal.
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