Fantasy football RB: 13 Rookies ready for impact

Todd Gurley-St. Louis Rams

Gurley was the first RB taken in last year’s draft going at #10 overall to the Rams. It’s easy to see why the Rams took him so early since he has the most career upside of any rookie RB.  However, Gurley also comes with a huge amount of risk which is only heightened by his injury history.

Gurley is coming off of ACL surgery, and the Rams can afford to wait on him to make a full recovery since they do have Tre Mason as an incumbent option. There is a good chance that Gurley won’t be fully in place starting in week 1 and that he could miss the first few weeks entirely.

Hopefully, he’ll recover quickly and be ready to take the league by storm, but make sure you consider the possibility you’ll need other options early in the season.

The last two years the Rams have changed their primary back midseason giving rookies Zac Stacy and Tre Mason big second halves of the year.  There are lots of signs to Gurley following the same path making figuring out his draft stock even trickier than normal.

Right now, Gurley is going as the 22nd running back overall according to the data on FantasyPros.com. I wouldn’t take him quite that high knowing what we know right now. However, as training camp goes on and he continues to recover the situation is incredibly fluid.

Gurley is a high-risk, high-reward pick whenever you take him at this point, and the most important thing about drafting him is making sure the rest of your fantasy football RB corps is up to the challenge of covering for Gurley if needed especially early in the season.  If you can pair him with the right other players, he definitely makes an intriguing RB3 with enough upside in what should be a decent offense to make him worth the investment.  If you decide to roll the dice on Gurley, make sure to get some relatively stable options for the rest of your running backs.

Next: Melvin Gordon-San Diego Chargers