The 7 Riskiest Players in Fantasy Football
6. Jeremy Langford, RB, Chicago Bears
Despite finishing last season as a top-10 fantasy running back for the sixth time in the past eight years, the Bears chose to move on from Matt Forte this offseason, which seemed like a great opportunity for Jeremy Langford to become a top fantasy running back.
In the three weeks Forte missed last season, Langford averaged 20.87 fantasy points per game. Twice in those three weeks, he was among the top-five fantasy running backs, and he even led all running backs with his 30.20 points against the Rams in Week 10.
Here at numberFire, we have our own signature metrics, such as Net Expected Points (NEP), which quantifies the value added or lost on each play, and Success Rate, which measures the amount of successful plays based on the total number of plays of that type. They help us further examine a player's performance. You can read more about these and our other metrics in our glossary.
For the season as a whole, Langford's 0.01 Rushing NEP Per carry was 10th among all running backs with 100 or more carries, and his 43.24% Rushing Success Rate ranked 11th in that same subset.
But Mike Clay of ESPN was quick to point out that there is plenty of reasons to be wary of Langford moving forward. For one, we’ve only seen him start three games in his NFL career, and it's no simple task for a running back to hold up over the course of a full 16-game season.
Langford will also have a new offensive coordinator this year, and it seems like there is a new report out every day about the Bears going with a running back-by-committee approach this season. If the Bears were completely sold on him as a workhorse, they might not have drafted Jordan Howard in the fifth round this year, either.
The 57.86 point range in his CI is the difference between a top-12 fantasy running back and a mid-level flex play. Fantasy owners drafting him at his current ADP -- the 19th running back off the board – will be left searching for replacements on the waiver wire if he ends up performing closer to his floor projection.
