Kenyan Drake: Don't Believe the Hype
In the second half of 2017, Kenyan Drake exploded onto the fantasy football scene, accumulating fantasy points largely due to his 4.8 yards per carry. If his 5 game stretch as the full-time RB for the Dolphins was extrapolated to a full season, he would have ran for 1,421 rushing yards and 6 TDs to go with 480 receiving yards, good for a RB6 overall finish. So why would we possibly suggest he is going to be a bust? Statistics can be deceiving, especially with a sample size as small as the one Drake had last season.
One of the first concerns is Drake's ability to handle a larger workload. Drake has always shared his backfield since back at his days at Alabama, and he's never really been thrown into a long term “bell-cow” role. Because of this, the Dolphins brought in veteran Frank Gore and rookie Kalen Ballage this offseason. While Gore is obviously nearing the end of his career and should no longer be expected to have a lead role, he will still have a role within the offense given his reliability and consistency (and worth a late round pick!). They also drafted Ballage for a reason, as he's viewed a bigger, more athletic version of Drake, who, like Drake, didn't produce in college due to a limited role.
In addition to a lack of complete opportunity, Drake was very reliant on big plays last season. If you remove his longest run from each of his ten starts in 2017, his YPC would drop from 4.8 down to a meager 2.9. In comparison, Joe Mixon was criticized last year for his 3.5 YPC, but Mixon's YPC only drops to 2.9 if each of his longest runs were removed from calculation. This shows that Mixon would be a good candidate to be consistent in 2018, while the opposite is true for the Miami RB. Drake also only averaged 3.4 YPC during the 4th quarter of games last season and after 20 carries in a game, his YPC dropped down to 2.5. This could be a sign that he is not ready for the workload that fantasy owners are expecting him to take on this season.
Drake’s fantasy value continues to climb this offseason due to hype from HC Adam Gase and the potential to take over the lead back role. After diving deeper into his durability and YPC from last season, it is clear that he is a prime candidate to fail to live up to the hype. Drake is currently the 15th RB in our RB Rankings, at the same tier as Jerick McKinnon, Joe Mixon and Jordan Howard. These other options are not only safer than Drake but also provide more upside, so you can clearly afford to avoid drafting Kenyan Drake this year.