Fed No More: The Ezekiel Elliot Diet

How long does draft value last?

When you draft someone in the top-5 of your fantasy football drafts, you are expecting that player to be a set it and forget it guy on your roster that, unless he is not physically able to play, you are starting without question each week. It’s very common for most fantasy managers, in the early weeks of the season, to even throw shade at trade offers for their prized pick. They might even reply with the common retort, “you want the 5^th overall pick for that?!”. But how long is that type of reaction supposed to that last?

We are at the trade deadline period for most leagues and if you haven’t moved Zeke yet and you are trying to make a playoff run, chances are that this is your final week to make a transaction to get rid of him. At this point in the season, you may get a higher return off of his name value alone, but just remember that where you drafted someone 3 months ago showed you what you thought their value was THEN, which may or may not be what their true value is NOW 11 weeks into the season. As it stands right now on the date of this posting, Zeke is the RB7 in FanDuel 0.5 PPR scoring in total points scored which looks great on paper but can be misleading as we try to project out his rest of his potential.

What it really boils down to, when looking at Zeke’s potential performance going forward, is analyzing his production with Dak Prescott on the field earlier in the season vs. without Dak on the field. In the 5 games that Dak started, Zeke totaled 89 carries for 364 rushing yards, 5 TDs, 3 fumbles, and an additional 173 receiving yards and 1 TD receiving. In the 4 games that Dak has been out, Zeke has accumulated 61 carries for 208 rushing yards, 0 TDs, 2 fumbles, and 65 receiving yards. To put it another way, Zeke averaged 19.9 fantasy points per game in those first 5 games but has only TOTALED 29.3 in the last 4 for an average of 7.3 points per game. In fact, due to the slip in his performance, on the season he is now only averaging 14.3 fantasy points per game which puts him as the RB14 in 0.5 PPR fantasy points per game scored.

In terms of defensive matchups faced, in the last 4 games, Zeke has faced the #13, #12, #6, and #1 overall fantasy defenses against RBs and has struggled. For the rest of the entire football season he faces the #15, #12 (again), #11, #14, #7, #6, and #25 defenses. That #25 defense against RBs from the New York Giants looks great on paper, but it is in Week 17 where a lot of fantasy football playoffs are already over, or even if they aren’t, the two top-10 defenses in Weeks 15 & 16 will make it difficult for Zeke to carry you to a championship this season.

One of the main reasons that it is hard to downgrade Zeke, therefore are reasons to boost his trade value, are that even after his bye week he is still 6^th in rushing attempts, 11^th in rushing yards, 7th in receiving yards by a running back, 7^th in rushing TDs, and 4^th in first downs gained by rushing. Now let’s take a closer look at those rushing TDs. Zeke has 5 rushing TDs, but they have all come in the Redzone, and 4 of them have come within the 5-yard line. If the Cowboys can get into the Redzone and they have the lead or are able to run the ball, which is a rarity these days, Zeke still figures to be the go-to player as far as usage is concerned. The POTENTIAL is there for him to produce.

With their upcoming opponents being better at stopping the run than the pass generally, and from what we have seen from a non-Dak Prescott lead offense, I think you have to downgrade Zeke to flex appeal if anything. If you can swing him to someone else at the trade deadline for an RB2 and a WR2, I think that you should take that deal and let Zeke be their problem.