Fantasy Spotlight: Is Todd Gurley Underrated or Fool's Gold?

Todd Gurley is currently the No. 16 ranked running back in fantasy football, which seemed unthinkable not long ago. Fears about degenerative knee conditions will do that to a running back. Gurley posted career-lows in carries (223), yards (857), yards from scrimmage (1,064) and was four off his career-low for touches which was established in his rookie season. He’s also no longer the RB for the Rams, who released him this offseason. So will the Falcons be where Gurley re-establishes himself as a premier fantasy RB?

Obviously, his success or failure will largely be determined by how much work he gets, and on his health. His health is murky though, apparently even to the Falcons. So I’m not going to speculate much on Gurley’s health other than to assume he will play somewhere between 14-16 games this season, as he has every season since he was a rookie. Last season was weird, and the gap between his effectiveness for the Rams, and for fantasy owners, was fairly wide. He averaged only 3.8 yards per carry, and was targeted just 49 times in the passing game after exceeding 80 targets in each of the previous two seasons. He rushed for fewer than 50 yards seven times, and managed only 51 yards on the ground in an eighth game. More damning, he carried the ball 15 times or fewer nine times.

But there was also some good! Gurley did score 14 total touchdowns in 2019, and in the six games in which he did see significant work he averaged 78 yards per game and scored in five of them. Gurley graded out well per PFF.com while running behind an offensive line that ranked 18th in RB yards, 18th in adjusted line yards and 26th in the NFL in stuffs.

These numbers are also aided by a late season switch in philosophy by Sean McVay, who audibled to using more two-TE sets and moving away from the zone running of 2018. So Gurley is not shot as a player. He still scores as well as any RB in football, and he showed he can still score even behind a weak run-blocking offensive line.

He’ll need to, as Atlanta’s offensive line was worse than the Rams in every metric last year. The Falcons O-line produced 3.98 adjusted line yards, 3.73 RB yards (admittedly, with WAY worse RBs than Gurley), and were one spot worse in stuffs. The Falcons are betting that Gurley’s talent can make those numbers sparkle; Atlanta was working with the league’s worst RB corps. Devonta Freeman, injured throughout most of the year, led the way with 184 carries and the crew of Ito Smith, Brian Hill and Qadree Ollison added 122 more rushes. There weren’t any significant additions to the offensive line this summer, so they’re banking on internal improvement. I can’t point to any move on that front that will help Gurley.

So, what’s this all mean for his fantasy prospects? Look, maybe Dirk Koetter’s not as in the loop as he should be, but it’s hard to imagine Atlanta signed Gurley without a deep dive into his medicals. With injuries as publicized as his are, they have to have confidence that he can handle a three-down role, especially with the mediocrity just oozing out of everyone else in their RB room. We saw last season that Gurley can put up strong numbers with enough volume, and that he remains an elite source of TDs. It’s unlikely we ever see Gurley dominating to the level of No. 1 overall player in fantasy again, but he is only 25 years old. I predict Atlanta feeds him around 15-18 times a game, and involves him heavily in the passing game to avoid the pounding of crashing into linemen and linebackers. He has high second-rounder ceiling in this offense.