5 Players Whose Fantasy Football Stock Took a Hit Since Free Agency Started

Kenneth Dixon, RB, Baltimore Ravens

Kenneth Dixon went from being a potential middle-round breakout fantasy running back to a late-round cross-your-fingers pick with the combination of his four-game suspension for PED use and the Ravens' signing of Danny Woodhead.

Woodhead will undoubtedly gobble up targets out of the backfield. Though he's missed almost all of two of the last three seasons, his single healthy campaign (2015) saw 106 targets through the air in the San Diego offense. And that'll work in the Baltimore offense, as our own Brandon Gdula noted earlier this month:

In 2016, the Ravens ranked 27th offensively in Adjusted NEP per play. They were 27th in passing efficiency and 20th in rushing efficiency.

Of their 711 drop backs, 20.0% were targets to running backs, the ninth-highest rate in the league. Part of that stemmed from the system that Marc Trestman had put into place, but Trestman was fired after five games.

From Week 6 on, however, the Ravens targeted running backs on a higher rate of drop backs (23.2%) than any team other than the New Orleans Saints on the full year.

Part of Dixon's upside was that he could potentially be the Ravens' three-down back -- in 12 games last year, he saw 41 targets. And in games where he saw at least 30% of the team's snaps, he averaged 4.85 targets per game. Across an entire season, that prorates to nearly 78 targets, which would've ranked in the top-five among backs last year.

Though Kyle Juszczyk and his 49 targets are gone, Woodhead should dig into Dixon's overall receiving workload -- it's almost impossible for him not to. And you have to wonder if the Ravens would've signed the veteran pass-catching back had Dixon not been suspended for four games. It's unfortunate all around for Dixon hopefuls.