Making The Case Against Todd Gurley

          Is anyone else getting major Steven Jackson-to-Atlanta vibes from Todd Gurley this year??

Or is it just me?

*HYPE through the roof

*Comes to ATL w/ mileage

*Downward trending

*Injuries

*WR's & TE's to limit receiving work

*Reality ≠ HYPE

          Jackson was a soon-to be 30-year old former STUD RB coming off a year in which he rushed for 258/1045/4 & caught 38/321 for the Rams.

He landed in a high-scoring ATL offense & we drooled over the workhorse POTENTIAL.

The hope was - with little competition on the ATL depth chart, Jackson might be able to recreate the 3-down production that we'd seen in previous years with receiving lines like:

43/320/2

90/806/3

or 51/322

There was reason to believe he'd see enough VOLUME to do it.

So we overlooked his mileage, a downward trend, injuries, and the WR's & TE's (Roddy White, Young Julio, Old Tony G) limiting his potential receiving upside...

All because we looked at the ATL RB depth chart, saw nobody behind Jackson, & thought to ourselves:

"WORKHORSE"

This led to a lot of us sinking 2nd & 3rd RD picks into Jackson.

I can't find the ADP data, but in my 12-team home redraft league, he went at 2.11

He played 12 games with ATL that year, finishing with:

157/543/6

33/191/1

He was RB22 in PPG

A low-end RB2 who missed time.

          Now, Todd Gurley is going into his age-26 season & not his age 30-season, but part of me has got to worry about whether he's got a 30 year old's knees.

Because literally every other factor we ignored with Jackson is present:

*Mileage

Not quite the same mileage as a 30-year old Jackson, but Gurley comes to ATL with 1,265 NFL carries on his tires & 5 straight years of 223+ carries...

*Downward trending

Gurley started off 2018 with a fantasy-MVP level bang & that's what we all like to remember, but he had a noticeable drop-off the second half of the year, missed the final 2 regular season game with knee "soreness," and had a Super Bowl line of 10/35.

It was reported after the Super Bowl that Gurley was dealing with "an arthritic component" in his knee... and in 2019, he did nothing to quell those concerns.

His YPC dropped from 4.9 in 2018 to 3.8 last year.

For those who don't give a damn about YPC, his yards after-contact dropped from 2.4 YAC in 2018 to 1.7 YAC last year.

& his coach actively refused to utilize him in receiving situations, which maybe indicates his coach didn't view him as the same threat he once was?

Gurley's yards per-catch dropping from 9.8 YPC in 2018 to 6.7 YPC last year & his catch percentage (of targets) dropping from 72.8% to 63.3% would indicate his coach might have been onto something.

His 34.8 PFF grade confirms it, & doesn't even compare to Devonta Freeman's 2019 receiving grade (69.5)

*Injuries

Jackson didn't come to ATL with any major injury concerns, but he had missed time in 4 of the last 6 seasons prior with the Rams.

Gurley comes to ATL with a known arthritic knee that – from all indications – played a role in his slow finish to 2018 & even poorer 2019.

So, just like Jackson, Gurley has the potential of missing time with Atlanta.

*WR’s & TE's Limiting Receiving Work

We thought S-Jax would get a lot of receiving work because there were no other RB's in ATL, but he caught just 33/191 in 12 games because Matt Ryan had Roddy, Julio (who only played 5 games that year), and Old man Tony G to throw to.

Now, we assume Gurley is gonna get a lot of receiving work because of a lack of another 3rd down back on the roster, but Matt Ryan has Julio, Calvin Ridley, and a young Hayden Hurst to throw to, not to mention, I've heard Russell Gage isn't terrible.

It feels like we’re talking ourselves into Gurley having a lot of receiving upside this year based on his previous receiving lines of:

64/788/6

& 59/580/4

While ignoring the more recent lack of usage in that department – exactly the mistake we made with Jackson…

          Look, I get it. It’s easy to fall in love with Gurley’s 2020 upside. He’s in probably the best position he could be in to somehow re-capture his early-2018 magic...

But, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the potential for him to:

-Be inefficient with limited rushing volume (ATL led the league in passing attempts per-game last year)

-Be relatively uninvolved as a receiver

- & possibly miss games...

is probably just as likely, if not more so than him becoming a STUD RB again.