His talent is immense, and his production is huge when he's healthy. Of course, that has been a problem over the past two seasons, leaving more than a few fantasy owners with a bigger headache than a grandmother at a death metal concert.
So should you even bother taking the risk this season? And if you do, will you get a good value for your return given his average draft position?
Let's take a closer look at Run DMC.
Fantasy Strengths
When Darren McFadden is healthy, he is one of the truly elite backs in fantasy. Check out how he shapes up amongst the elite at running back when it comes to fantasy points per game played over the past two seasons:
Player Points/Game Played Arian Foster 19.87 LeSean McCoy 16.65 Darren McFadden 16.27 Ray Rice 16.14 Adrian Peterson 15.88 Maurice Jones-Drew 15.47
There are two things to be taken from this: Arian Foster should be the first player off the board (he's only missed three games in the past two years, so he doesn't carry huge risks), and McFadden is pretty awesome when he actually plays.
And with Michael Bush now a Chicago Bear, there is far less a chance McFadden will lose touches to another running back. And head coach Dennis Allen's comments of McFadden (via Brian McIntyre of NFL.com) are very promising:
"He's 100 percent," Allen said of McFadden. "He's been extremely explosive throughout camp and in the preseason. He's very vital to our offense and giving our offense a chance to be explosive and keeping defenses honest. So we're going to have to be able to keep him healthy and use him throughout the year.
"I think the thing that you look at is as a running back, I mean, it's a tough position. They take some shots and that's part of football. We can...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Oakland Raiders
