One Running Back to Target in Each Round of Your Fantasy Football Draft
Round 9: Jacquizz Rodgers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Average Draft Position: 9.03 (RB40)
For now, we'll stop short of knocking on your door and handing you fliers telling you to draft Jacquizz Rodgers, but we've been on the Quiz train all offseason.
Doug Martin's season-opening three-game suspension is part of the reason to like Rodgers, but that's just a piece of the puzzle. The big thing here is Rodgers' chances of keeping the starting job for the long haul.
According to our numbers, the odds of that happening are a lot better than you might think. Rodgers was miles better than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' other running backs -- including Martin -- in 2016.
| Bucs 2016 RBs | Rushes | Rushing NEP/Carry | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacquizz Rodgers | 129 | 0.04 | 46.51% |
| Doug Martin | 144 | -0.20 | 34.72% |
| Peyton Barber | 55 | -0.05 | 34.55% |
| Charles Sims | 51 | -0.19 | 27.45% |
As a reminder, Success Rate is the percentage of carries which positively impacted NEP, and the league averages for Success Rate and Rushing NEP per carry were 40.28% and -0.02, respectively.
So Rodgers was pretty dang good last year, clearly better than Martin, and Tampa Bay wasn't afraid to use him, giving Rodgers at least 15 carries five times in 10 games, including a two-game span of 56 carries in October.
Every running back available this late has warts, and most of them need to catch at least one -- maybe multiple -- significant breaks to garner anything close to a workhorse role. That's not the case with Rodgers, who should see solid volume in the first three weeks of the season with a real chance to keep the starting job the rest of the way.
