How high is Sony Michel’s fantasy ceiling this year?

Signs are pointing to a broader role, so how high is Sony Michel’s fantasy ceiling this year?

With multiple options in place, trips to Bill Belichick’s doghouse and clearly defined roles to an extreme degree at times, the New England Patriots’ running back situation is a bane of fantasy football owners’ existence on an annual basis. So it was surprising when they used a first-round pick on Sony Michel last year.

In 13 games as a rookie last season, Michel had 209 carries for 931 yards and six touchdowns. He followed that with six more rushing touchdowns during New England’s run to a Super Bowl win. But the division of snaps in the backfield based on the situation was clear, with just seven catches for 50 yards while James White had a team-high 87 receptions on a team-high 123 targets.

If it’s one thing no NFL wants, it’s to be predictable. Michel’s presence on the field generally meant a run was coming last season, but as Week 1 approaches he appears to be progressing as a pass catcher.

Early in training camp, Michel was drawing reports of routinely beating man coverage as his route running has improved. Patriots running backs coach Ivan Fears has more recently lauded Michel’s chops in the passing game.

"The whole key to make it so we’re interchangeable, everybody looks at us saying they can do both. We like to be in that kind of mode, they got to worry about Sony catching the ball as well as running the ball,” Fears said, via Mac Cerullo of the Newburyport Daily News."

Michel had 42 red zone carries last year, with 27 inside the 10-yard line and 14 inside the 5-yard line. The Patriots have skewed toward the run in goal-to-go situations going back many years, and Michel got nearly 48 percent of the team’s red zone rushes in 2018 despite missing three games.

After early trepidation coming off knee surgery in June, the Michel fantasy bandwagon is growing. Andy Holloway of The Fantasy Footballers has offered a bold prediction that Michel will lead the AFC in rushing this year, and ESPN’s Matthew Berry said Michel has a “legit chance” to lead the NFL in rushing touchdowns. As points of reference, those marks were 1,168 yards (Joe Mixon) and 17 rushing scores (Todd Gurley) in 2018. In 2016 as the Patriots’ short yardage and goal line back, LeGarrette Blount led the NFL with 18 rushing touchdowns.

Michel finished as RB25 in standard scoring leagues last year, with a low number of touchdowns relative to his scoring area workload and essentially nothing added as a pass catcher. If he had gotten to 11 touchdowns on the ground last year, spurred by a combination of playing more games and better efficiency, he would have been RB18.

White will surely remain New England’s primary pass-catching back, but any increase from Michel in that area is a positive. Even 20 catches for 142 yards (based on his 7.1 yards per catch average as a rookie), would have taken him from RB35 to RB26 in full-point PPR scoring last year.

Double-digit rushing touchdowns is far more likely than say, 35-40 receptions for Michel this year. But a realistic projection of 10-12 rushing scores, with 25-30 catches, puts Michel in line to finish as a top-15 running back in fantasy this year regardless of scoring format.

Michel’s ADP is on the upswing late in draft season, to pick 3.11 and RB20 in 12-team standard leagues (via Fantasy Football Calculator) as of Thursday. There’s risk attached, due to his past knee issues and the pure nature of Patriots’ running back usage, but drafting a mid-to-low end RB2 with a legit RB1 ceiling is a solid calculated bet.

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