JK Dobbins Path To Touches & 2020 Fantasy Outlook
“The path of destiny is not always paved smooth with gold.”
Unless you’re Clyde Edwards-Helaire and you have Damien Williams clearing the road for you. But for other rookie running backs, their path to touches in year one is not always a smooth one. I looked at the situation facing some of the rookie backs and asked “What is their path to destiny…well, touches at least?”
My Yardsper colleague Nate Dreslinski recently kicked this off with D’Andre Swift and his path to taking over the Detroit backfield.
Now I’m going to take a look at future fantasy stud JK Dobbins of the Baltimore Ravens, picked 55th overall in round two of the 2020 draft out of Ohio State.
The Pedigree
Dobbins is yet another highly touted back drafted by a run-first team. However, unlike Edwards-Helaire and Swift, Dobbins has a proven and trusted veteran in front of him on the depth chart.
Dobbins comes out of Ohio State with the second-most total yards in their history, almost 600 yards more than Ezekiel Elliott. He also boasts the second-most rushing yards, the second-most receiving yards amongst their top-20 backs, an average yards/touch that’s only beaten by Elliott, and the fourth-most total touchdowns. And in 2019, he broke the Ohio State single-season rushing record with 2,003 yards.
He’s a little smaller than Elliott and he chose not to participate in the combine but he holds an unofficial 4.45 40-yard dash (Elliott ran 4.47) and his athleticism is undoubted. I’m not saying he’s Zeke, but I am saying that he has the three-down ability and athleticism to match him. The only concern with Dobbins is his pass-blocking, but in the Ravens scheme with the personnel around him, that shouldn’t be enough to keep him off the field.
The Competition
Ok, so he’s athletic, was great in college and the Ravens invested draft capital in him—but remember I told you about that pesky veteran ahead of him? Mark Ingram has proven to be the main man in Baltimore. He dominated the running back touches and even made plays through the air in 2019. He is 30 years old, though. Sure, he could still continue to produce (ask Frank Gore about aging running backs) and he’s still playing at a high-level, but the decline will come soon enough.
In Weeks 1-16 of 2019 (Baltimore sat a lot of their starters in week 17), Ingram had 37-percent of the rushing workload. Lamar Jackson had 34-percent, Gus Edwards had 20-percent and Justice Hill saw 9-percent. Where does Dobbins fit in? Firstly, sorry Justice Hill but you’ve just dropped down the depth chart my friend, and I’m giving your touches to Dobbins.
I’m also assuming that Lamar continues to take his slice of the pie because why wouldn’t he? But I’m going to tick him down a touch to 30-percent. Defensive coordinators have had a whole off-season sitting in their basements trying to work out how to stop him, so it’s hard to imagine the Ravens running Lamar in exactly the same manner, no matter how much they try.
See Where JK Dobbins Lands In Our 2020 Fantasy Football Rankings!
What about Gus the bus? He’s a jackhammer and the Ravens love him. He’s not going away. He doesn’t get a large chunk of the workload but he mixes in to give Ingram a rest and he gets some of that work around the goal-line. The Ravens will still use him, particularly in those short-yardage situations, but there’s no reason that Dobbins doesn’t take some of those ‘giving Ingram a breather’ touches. So I’m going to knock Gus down to 15-percent.
Now Ingram. His workload was 13.7 rushes per game, and he’s still the main man for 2020 so I’m not going to advocate for him losing significant workload. But with father time starting to loom over his shoulder, it’s not unreasonable to take two or three touches per game away from him. That would take that market share from 37-percent to 32-percent.
Keeping up?
If you’re taking notes, you’ll already be ahead of me and have worked out that that leaves 23-percent of the carries for Dobbins. I have the Ravens passing a little more in 2020 with a carry total of 550 so that’s 126 carries for the rookie. Ingram ran for 5.0 yards-per-carry in 2019 but we’ll give Dobbins a bit of rookie grace and give him 4.7. That’s 592 yards on the ground.
JK Dobbins 2020 Rookie Profile & Outlook For Dynasty Fantasy Football: See It Here!
Through the Air
From Weeks 10-15 (with a full compliment of their pass-catchers on the field), Ingram saw an 8-percent target share and Hill saw 1-percent. Ingram will still get targets but again, let’s assume he’ll get rested a bit more and the rookie gets a chance to utilize his pass-catching prowess that he showed in college. I’m giving Ingram and Dobbins 5-percent each. I said before I’m giving the Ravens a few more passes this year (470) so that gives Dobbins 24 targets.
Ingram got 9.5 yards-per-reception last year so for the sake of this exercise, let’s give Dobbins 9. And let’s give him Elliott’s catch rate from his rookie season (82-percent). After-all, that college production puts them in a somewhat similar Buckeye mold. That gives him 177 yards through the air.
Touchdowns
There’s regression coming in Baltimore, didn’t you hear?
Last year’s TD rate is unsustainable and there’s an inevitable drop in touchdowns coming in 2020. On the ground, I have 15 team TDs, down from 21 in 2019. In the air I have 30, down from 37 in 2019. That’s still 45 total touchdowns and that’s still very good.
On the ground, Jackson will still get his, and Gus is still going to pound in a couple at the goal-line. Ingram won’t be able to repeat his 10 but even if we halved that, it only leaves two or three for Dobbins.
In the air, this is where I expect Dobbins to take some of Ingram’s touchdowns. Ingram got five receiving touchdowns in 2019 when he went six out of his eight previous seasons without any. It would be harsh to take them all away from Ingram so I’m leaving one there for him and giving the other four to Dobbins.
That’s six total touchdowns for the rookie.
Let’s Bring It Together
592 rushing yards, 177 receiving yards, 20 catches, 6 touchdowns. That’s 133 PPR points.
In 2019 that would have been good enough for RB40. Not great, and not a big haul. But remember that the path to touches is not always paved smooth with gold. There’s a depth chart in front of him and there’s an MVP quarterback who runs like a man possessed.
But what I’ve just laid out here is a situation where everyone stays on the field and where Ingram only displays a slight dip in his workload. It’s JK’s floor.
His ceiling on the other hand…Imagine that age has caught up with Ingram. Imagine that the Ravens get ahead early in games and Ingram comes off the field more. Or Imagine that defensive coordinators have managed to keep a lid on Lamar’s rushing and he needs to hand it off more, or look for those short passes out of the backfield.
All of these situations are very easy to imagine. And in all of them, Dobbins is the benefactor. Each one raises his floor, each one lifts his stock, and each one brings him closer to that league-winning upside. Start putting together a combination of those things and JK wins leagues in 2020.
