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. The Jacksonville Jaguars had their jimmies jangled for the last time, and jubilantly jettisoned their jilted running back, Leonard Fournette. Now, they turn to Ryquell Armstead, Devine Ozigbo and Chris Thompson as their running backs. Should you turn to Ryquell Armstead in your fantasy football drafts?
Ryquell Armstead ADP & AAV:
Standard Scoring ADP: RB63, #221 overall
PPR Scoring ADP: RB49, #136 overall
Average Auction Value: $2
Ryquell Armstead Statistics:
Ryquell Armstead Overview:
Armstead is set to get the bulk of the first-and-second down work. Who is Ryquell Armstead? He’s a second-year rookie who Leonard Fournette buried on the depth chart last year. Prior to that, he was a fifth-round rookie with a strong speed score but nothing much else SPARQ-wise to speak of. He’s not all that great and his usage is likely to be a mess.
Let’s start with how many rushing attempts “first and second down” means for Jacksonville, and just exactly how many touches Ozigbo and Armstead will split. Let’s be generous to Armstead and stay he gets two-thirds of these carries. In 36 career games, Leonard Fournette had 620 first-and-second down carries, which comes out to 17.2 carries per game, overall. Two-thirds of that is about 11 carries a game.
Then, let’s get to the targets. Chris Thompson has the third-down role locked up, and I don’t’ expect Armstead to eat into that at all. He had 24 targets last season and caught 14 of them, and he’s credited with three drops. Three drops! On 24 targets! That’s one-eighth of his targets that clanked off his hands and hit the grass.
Ryquell Armstead Draft Strategy:
Ryquell Armstead Auction Value: $1
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming late June)
Please don’t draft Ryquell Armstead. You are going to be nothing but annoyed all season long owning him. First and foremost, the situation is a complete mess. Ryquell Armstead and Devine Ozigbo are going to vie for first-and-second down touches in a terrible offense, with Chris Thompson almost assured to have the third-down role locked up (until he gets hurt). So, you’re looking at slicing up rushing attempts between Armstead and Ozigbo, with almost no receiving work going Armstead’s way.
Let someone else stick their hand in that hornets’ nest. Just because a situation opens, it doesn’t mean that you need to get a part of it “just in case.” We are under a week away from the season, you can chill out with more settled situations and take fliers on better upside players. Let Armstead be someone else’s trouble. Sure, he averaged over 10 yards per catch, but that’s buoyed by a 31-yard catch and a 24- yard catch. I don’t want to poo-poo these catches, they are part of his history. I just don’t know if they’re a part of his future. Both were dump offs with nothing but green space around him (and one was on third down). I am more concerned about the three drops (one was a literal wide-open touchdown) than what he can do with nothing but grass within eight yards of him.
Best Case Scenario:
Ryquell Armstead gets two-thirds of Fournette’s first and second down touches and ends up being two-thirds of Leonard Fournette, so barely a top-24 RB.
Worst Case Scenario:
This is a dime-store version of the Indianapolis Colts situation, with Devine Ozigbo playing the Jonathan Taylor role.
[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com and airyards.com]
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