Leonard Fournette's ADP is a Mistake

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The Rodney Dangerfield of Running Backs

“Leonard Fournette is an enigma. He’s fat, unmotivated, lazy, doesn’t love football, falls asleep in meetings, and is an overall lousy player.”

-Countless Fournette detractors (and Tom Coughlin, probably), 2017-2021

A cloud of negativity has continued to swirl around Fournette since he entered the league, yet all he has done is deliver for his NFL teams and fantasy managers.

Let’s recap Fournette’s career to this point:

• After he dominated at LSU, the Jaguars made Fournette the No. 4 overall selection in the 2017 NFL Draft.
• He played three seasons in Jacksonville before his surprising release last August. Fournette’s annual PPR finishes on a per-game basis for the Jaguars -- RB8, RB12, RB9.
• Despite having zero time to acclimate after signing with the Buccaneers, Fournette immediately forced a timeshare with incumbent starter Ronald Jones II. He had his first 100-yard rushing performance for Tampa Bay in his second game with the team.
• Fournette dealt with an ankle injury and subsequently played behind Ronald Jones II for much of the regular season until the latter got sidelined by COVID and a broken hand in Week 14. Jones also missed the Wildcard Round with a quad contusion allowing Fournette to run away with the starting job during the Buccaneers Superbowl push. His offensive snap rate was 68% or greater in each of Tampa Bay’s four playoff games (of which Jones played in three).
• He was excellent in the playoffs, posting averages of 20.5 touches, 112 scrimmage yards, and one touchdown per game. It is easy (and correct) to argue Fournette deserved to win Super Bowl MVP over Tom Brady.

Now let’s look at what we know about Fournette’s 2021 outlook:

• Fournette is still only 26-year-old and won’t turn 27 until after the season. He remains below the age apex for running backs. There is a chance his best season could still be ahead of him.
• He projects as the committee-lead and goal-line back in an offense that scored 30.8 points per game in 2020 and returns all 22 starters from last season.
• Our Matt Bitonti ranks the Bucs’ offensive line inside the Top 5.
• Brady is Tampa Bay’s quarterback, but he also has a say in personnel decisions (see Brown, Antonio). Without Brady’s blessing, Fournette never gets recruited by the Buccaneers in 2020 or re-signs as a free agent in March. After Fournette was instrumental in earning Brady his seventh (and most legacy-defining) championship ring, it seems obvious who “The GOAT” will push for as his top backfield running-mate.

Suppose an alien landed from outer space with no preconceived notions about Fournette, and you presented him with the two bulleted lists above. Where do you think that little green man would guess Fournette is getting drafted by fantasy gamers in 2021?

RB15?

RB20?

It couldn’t possibly be later than RB24, right?

Wrong. Fournette is currently dropping extraterrestrial jaws at the bargain price of RB38 (and dropping) on Underdog Fantasy.

Let your league mates worry about Fournette’s tarnished image and scoop up the RB2 production he’ll provide at a discounted price on draft day.

Enough Work to go Around

Fournette no longer has a stranglehold on his team’s backfield touches as he once did in Jacksonville, but he won’t need to dominate the workload in Tampa Bay to beat his ADP-implied value.

Our consensus projections have the Buccaneers pegged for 372 rush attempts and 251 receptions. Based on those numbers, the range of outcomes for Fournette’s total touches paints an intriguing picture:

Takeaways:

• Top Outcome 1 represents the market share numbers Fournette commanded in the three postseason games he shared the backfield with a banged-up Jones. Considering Alvin Kamara was the only running back to reach a 22% share of his team’s receptions in 2020, Jones is now healthy, and the Bucs added Giovanni Bernard in the offseason. This is an unlikely outcome.
• It’s worth noting that Top Outcome 1 accounts for a near-even split of the team’s rush attempts. It’s conceivable Fournette’s playoff performance will put him on the better side of a committee with Jones. Top Outcome 2 reduces Fournette’s reception share down to the league-median 7.5% for a starting running back and gives him 55% of the team’s rush attempts. The resulting 224 total touches would have ranked 13th among running backs in 2020. Every running back who exceeded 220 total touches last season finished inside the top-15 PPR scorers at the position.
• Fournette had at least four catches in seven out of his sixteen games in 2020 (playoffs included). His reception share is more likely to come closer to the 11% range (Top Outcome 3). An 11% reception share along with 55% of the team’s rush attempts gets him back over 230 touches, not far off his Top Outcome 1 projection, which included an unreachable 22% reception share.
• Let’s suppose Top Outcomes 1-3 are too generous. If we keep Fournette with 49% of Tampa’s rush attempts and dial him back to the median 7.5% reception share, Median Outcome 1 still puts him around 200 total touches, typically a top-20 running back workload.
• Median Outcome 2 makes Jones the committee lead, leaving 45% of the rush attempts and 7.5% of the receptions to Fournette. The resulting 186 touches are historically in line with a top-24 workload.
• Low Outcomes 1-2 assume Giovani Bernard, A) makes the team, and B) takes on a small chunk of the rushing and receiving work for the Bucs. Fournette ends up with 160-170 total touches in these two scenarios, which gives him a similar workload projection to most running backs drafted in the same ADP range.

Not only will it take Fournette hitting the low range of his possible outcomes for total touches to fail at his ADP, but he possesses upside most of his ADP peers can't match due to the offense he plays in.

As noted above, Tampa Bay can safely be projected to score about 30 points per game, and Fournette is positioned as…

The Man at the Goal Line

Fournette (55%) and Jones (50%) converted goal-line touchdowns at similar rates last season while splitting the team’s 19 carries from inside the opponent’s five-yard line more or less down the middle. But the overall numbers are deceiving.

Fournette’s nine goal-line touches in the regular season came on 97 rush attempts, meaning he received a short scoring opportunity on 9.3% of his rushes. Jones’ 10 goal-line touches came on 192 carries (5.2%). If we assume Fournette’s postseason heroics earned him a more even split of the overall workload moving forward, it’s a safe bet he’ll continue to be prioritized at the goal-line.

Jones has stone hands. He has fumbled five times on 453 career touches compared to only three fumbles on 933 touches for Fournette. Jones’ dismal ball skills all but rule out red-zone targets as well. He has posted ugly drop rates of 22.2% and 14.3% in two out of his three NFL seasons.

The potency of Tampa Bay's offense gives Fournette legitimate double-digit touchdown potential while playing alongside Jones.

What About his Competition?

Jones has obvious flaws to his game, but he’ll remain a big part of Tampa Bay’s plans on early downs and between the 20s. He saw his number called on 59% of the Buccaneers’ rush attempts last season -- a top-11 rate -- despite missing two games. It would also be unfair to criticize his career-best production on the ground in 2020, including 978 rushing yards, seven touchdowns, and 5.1 yards per attempt (compared to 3.8 for Fournette).

There is no question, however, that Fournette closed the gap on Jones in the playoffs. And don’t forget the range of Fournette’s possible workload outcomes above each account for heavy involvement from Jones.

The case for Jones as the better ADP value in Tampa’s backfield doesn’t hold water. He’s going to cede more carries this year, Fournette is better-suited as the goal-line back, and Jones is guaranteed zilch in the passing game.

Speaking of the passing game, the newly acquired Bernard is a more significant threat to Fournette’s 2021 fantasy value. 48% of Fournette’s PPR fantasy production from last year’s playoffs came from receiving. Bernard has five 40-catch seasons on his resume. Many are penciling him in for “the James White role” in Brady’s offense, citing Jones’ lack of pass-catching chops and Fournette’s 10.6% drop rate from a year ago. Here is why that’s rubbish (at least until we see some actual proof):

• The Buccaneers were never going into the season with just two running backs on their roster. With LeSean McCoy contemplating retirement after winning back-to-back championships and KeShawn Vaughn making news for the wrong reasons, Tampa Bay needed depth at the position. The veteran Bernard came cheap (less than $1 million in guaranteed salary) and fit the team’s win-now window.
• Bernard will be 30 years old in November and hasn’t cracked four yards-per-carry since 2017. Even if he makes the team out of training camp, he’s no threat to Fournette and Jones on early downs. Bernard’s role is limited to obvious passing downs, which won’t put him on the field enough to put more than a small dent in Fournette’s receiving production.
• Even if Bernard takes half of the team’s third-down receiving work, there will be enough room for Fournette to be productive as a receiver. Tampa Bay running backs had a 20% target rate on first-and second downs in 2020. Overall, the Bucs targeted running backs at the eighth-highest rate in the league (20%) in their first year with Brady running the offense.
• Fournette is an underrated pass-catcher. He has a 100-target season on his resume and has never finished with fewer than 2.75 catches per game in a season.

Stats and Projections

Final Thoughts

Jason Wood recently argued for David Montgomery as the best value in 2021 fantasy drafts. The esteemed Mr. Wood is overlooking Fournette, who has a more impressive track record, plays in a better offense, has less competition for targets, and typically comes off the board five rounds after Montgomery.

Take a look at the running backs coming off the board in the same range as Fournette:

• Ronald Jones II - Can’t catch and is unlikely to match last year’s workload
• James Conner - Ran like a slug last year, and Chase Edmonds is the favorite for feature-back duties
• Zack Moss - Worth considering in this range, but upside capped by Josh Allen at the goal-line, even if he pulls away from Devin Singletary
• Tony Pollard - Electric player but won’t see the field for as long as Ezekiel Elliott remains upright
• Melvin Gordon - 28-years-old and his team just prioritized drafting his replacement

If you’ve already drafted your starting running backs and want to take a swing on upside at this point in your draft, taking Pollard or Moss ahead of Fournette is defensible. But outside the Top 20 running backs (by ADP), you won’t find another player who has as much in his favor as Fournette:

• A goal-line role in an elite scoring offense
• Better pass-catching skills than his early-down platoon-mate
• Top-end draft pedigree with the career production to back it up
• Youth is still on his side
• Runs behind a top-5 offensive line
• Earned the trust of the most successful quarterback of all time

Give Fournette's ADP the boost it deserves.

Other Thoughts From Around The Web

Predictably, much of the Internet does not share the same enthusiasm for Fournette.

Davis Mattek from SportsGrid, for example, was not impressed by my case for Fournette on Twitter.

— Davis Mattek (@DavisMattek) July 10, 2021

But Jason Katz at Rotoballer is also looking for answers on Fournette's way-too-low ADP.

"Fournette took over as the lead back in the playoffs due to a Ronald Jones II injury and never relinquished his role. In the postseason, Fournette averaged a 73% snap share, which led to fantasy point totals of 23.2, 21.7, 18.4, and 23.5 Using recent historical numbers, a running back needs to hit about 15 ppg to be an RB1. Fournette hit that number over the final two games of the 2020 fantasy season and all four of his playoff games. He also caught four or five passes in each playoff game. I am not at all considered about 29-year-old Giovani Bernard or definitive bust, KeShawn Vaughn."

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