It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We continue with the running backs. Today, we take a look at a running back who we had high hopes for headed into last season, but he tore his Achilles. Cam Akers made a miraculous recovery to return inside the same season as his tear but did not run well when he was given the football, probably because he came back so early with his Achilles tear. What can we expect from Cam Akers in his first full year back from his Achilles tear?
Cam Akers ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: RB18, 34 overall
Average Auction Value: $26.7
Cam Akers Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Rush | Ru Yds | Ru TD | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Touches | Opp | Total Yards |
| 2021 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 13 |
| 2020 | 13 | 5 | 145 | 625 | 2 | 14 | 11 | 123 | 1 | 156 | 159 | 748 |
| Year | YPC | Rush/G | Ru Yd/G | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Catch% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec | Touches/G | Opp/G | Yds/G |
| 2021 | 0.60 | 5.0 | 3.0 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 100.0% | 3.33 | 3.33 | 8.00 | 8.00 | 13.0 |
| 2020 | 4.31 | 11.2 | 48.1 | 1.08 | 0.85 | 78.6% | 8.79 | 11.18 | 12.00 | 12.23 | 57.54 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tch | HPPR Pts/Tch | PPR Pts/Tch |
| 2021 | 1.3 | 2.8 | 4.3 | 1.30 | 2.80 | 4.3 | 0.16 | 0.35 | 0.54 |
| 2020 | 90.8 | 96.3 | 101.8 | 6.98 | 7.41 | 7.8 | 0.58 | 0.62 | 0.65 |
2022 Cam Akers Fantasy Football Overview:
I don’t want you to draft Cam Akers; please don’t draft Cam Akers. Especially not at his ADP, but we will get to that in a second. This is coming down to just playing the odds that Cam Akers isn’t going to be what he once was, and even if he becomes what he once was, that isn’t anything special to write home about.
Now, let’s flashback to 2020. We’re all hot and bothered about Cam Akers having a massive primetime game. But, under the hood, he wasn’t doing much to support any sort of excitement about him. He had a subpar breakaway run rate (3.4%), he had a subpar juke rate (17.3%, 44th in the league), and his yards per touch and true yards per carry (per playerprofiler.com) were 38th and 57th, respectively. He also was 1-for-8 in goal-line touchdown conversions and maxing out at 10 targets in his three most-targeted games combined, while we were apoplectic about Clyde Edwards-Helaire converting only 1-of-9 goal-line touchdown opportunities and J.K. Dobbins getting 11 targets in his three-most targeted games combined. We all wanted him to break out, but there wasn’t much in there to get excited about, except our existing excitement. We wallpapered over every downside with Cam Akers, and then he tore his Achilles.
It’s hard to tell people that I had my questions about Akers prior to him tearing his Achilles, but everything I cited above came prior to that Achilles tear. He just never showed much in the NFL outside of a game here & there to show that any sort of sustained excitement was warranted. Then, the Achilles. The Achilles tear that sapped his explosiveness down the stretch last year, the Achilles tear that left him sort of… listless and rudderless on a football field, the Achilles tear that took D’Onta Foreman multiple years to come back from.
2022 Cam Akers Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Cam Akers Salary Cap Value: $35
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming in early July)
People want to talk about how nobody was a Cam Akers in terms of athleticism and production prior to their Achilles tears, and that he’s a whole different animal. Fine, I won’t argue with you about that. But I’m also not going to turn my redraft roster into a science experiment because it would be a sweet story if Cam Akers defied all expectations and came back and lit the league on fire. I’m especially not doing that with my third-round pick (36, RB18 overall) or $26.4 of my salary cap dollars, not when Ezekiel Elliott is $26.1 and David Montgomery is $25.4
There isn’t much to say here because I have just three words for you about drafting Cam Akers: Don’t Do It.
Best Case Scenario:
Cam Akers gets back to what he once was and gets 250 carries and 30 targets. He parlays this into 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Worst Case Scenario:
Cam Akers gets thrown on the scrap heap of “guys that weren’t that great before their Achilles tear, anyway” when he fails to live up to insanely lofty expectations that the fantasy football community has unfairly thrust upon him.
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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
[Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Cam_Akers_2020.jpg, cropped under CC BY SA 2.0]
