Elijah Mitchell, recently donned the nickname ‘Elijah Missile” via The Fantasy Footballers, he has quickly become the dynasty communities new bae. According to the KeepTradeCut website, Mitchell is currently ranked running back 16 seeing and saw a boost of 330 ‘value’ points the last month. This website, it is a fantastic snap shot into the communities valuation. Prior to breaking into my theory on Mitchell and forty niner running backs in general, let’s briefly overview his profile.
Elijah Mitchell’s Background
Elijah Mitchell is a 23 years old rookie drafted in the sixth round in the 2021 rookie class. Mitchell had a decent production profile at college and tested well at his pro day. For most dynasty owners he was a taxi candidate most overlooked in aspirations of finding a better diamond in the rough.
In Elijah Mitchell’s 2021 rookie season he played 11 games, where he received 226 touches, producing 1,100 total yards, 6 touchdowns and 15 fantasy points per game. For many, Mitchell was a key component to getting their team into the playoffs. As noted above, Mitchell has skyrocketed in most dynasty rankings.
Looking back at some of the most recent trades Elijah Mitchell has been apart
These are Superflex and PPR league; thanks to playerprofilers dynasty deluxe here are the results.
This definitely illustrates Mitchell’s value. The kicker for me here is, I think Mitchell is currently over valued by the community. So, let me explain why.
Why You Are Too High On Elijah Mitchell
Right away there are some important knocks against Elijah Mitchell and his heightened dynasty value. The first of which is his age, he will be 24 years old heading into the 2022 football season, which will have him passing through the running back apex that season. That apex which dictates the peak athletic abilities of a running back. The second reason is his efficiency numbers, he ranked No. 41 in yards created per touch, No. 33 in production premium, and No. 28 in yards per touch according to Playerprofiler.com. Mitchell did all of that while being No. 3 in opportunity share and No. 13 in carries. Volume may dictate single season performances, but efficiency dictates long term success, Mitchell ranked No.17 out of all running backs in yards per attempt with 1.09. Here are some players who performed better with similar touches; Melvin Gordon (1.13) and Aaron Jones (1.15). While Jones and Gordon are good players don’t let that dissuade you from realizing those players are past their apex for peak athleticism and are ‘trending down’ in their careers.
Furthermore, Mitchell only averaged 1.8 targets per game, he had only three games with more than 3 targets. Jimmy Garoppolo is likely moving on next year and that isn’t expected to improve with Lance, who will likely opt to run the ball instead of checking it down. The two games where Lance started he targeted his backfield 17.30-percent of the time, Kyle Juszczyk dominated those targets getting 11.53-percent of them. If anyone may have forgotten or not known, targets are more valuable than rushes for the running back position, mostly due to the production potential a target affords that a carry does not.
The edge of rostering Mitchell has been negated since you can no longer acquire him as a handcuff rookie stash like he was last off season. I wanted to take a birds-eye view of how the 49ers running backs hold up in comparison to the league average. I took the Top-34 running backs from the 2021 season and averaged out their games played over their last five seasons, or however long they have played. That average was 13.72 games played among that sample size. I took out the rookies to offer a more accurate representation, that average dropped to 13.32 games. I then took the 49ers starting running backs and averaged out their games started for the five years Kyle Shanahan has been the head coach. Not shockingly I found that the average games started for that player was 11.8 games. In fact only once has a player been over the league average of games played which was Carlos Hyde (16 games) in 2017. Matt Breida is the only other starter to start the league average of games with 13.
Which rounds out my central tenant, chasing a running back who will be 24 in 2022, who didn’t have high efficiency metrics and is running a system shown to increase fragility is a choice I strongly recommend against. The good news is that those that roster Mitchell likely got him at a reasonable acquisition value. If you want to go find a young running back to acquire that will likely be a value, Josh Jacobs is my premier target.
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