Melvin Gordon value

[Sterling Archer]

I just don't understand how you're so convinced Gordon is going to lose value, when the majority thinks he will only improve from last year with the moves (or lack thereof) the Chargers have made. I don't think it's that unreasonable to expect Gordon to either keep his top 5 ranking, or even move up a spot. Your whole argument, or at least the majority of it, is that if he gets hurt again he'll be considered injury prone. That could be said about more than half of the RBs in the league, but I'm not going to predict or assume injury to Gordon. Rather, I'm going to assume he continues to develop and improve from last year based on facts and trends...but I feel like I've already said this before and we keep arguing the same points back and forth.

I just don't think he's that good. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up with another 3.X ypc season, or if he gets hurt, or if he only gets 6 TDs. Like if I had him, I'd be trying to seize that value while it is available. Compare his first 2 seasons to Ryan Mathews' first 2 seasons. It's not even close. Mathews was much better (despite Tolbert vulturing), but if you'd sold him for RB5 after those 2 seasons, you'd be pretty happy about it in hindsight. FWIW, I honestly think Mathews was a better player, too (in addition to having the better stats those 2 years). I know he let a lot of owners down due to injuries and situation, but from a pure talent perspective, he was better.

I don't really see any "facts" or "trends" that indicate he's a good buy right now, which is the thread's question.

[Goddard]

I just don't understand how you're so convinced Gordon is going to lose value, when the majority thinks he will only improve from last year with the moves (or lack thereof) the Chargers have made. I don't think it's that unreasonable to expect Gordon to either keep his top 5 ranking, or even move up a spot. Your whole argument, or at least the majority of it, is that if he gets hurt again he'll be considered injury prone. That could be said about more than half of the RBs in the league, but I'm not going to predict or assume injury to Gordon. Rather, I'm going to assume he continues to develop and improve from last year based on facts and trends...but I feel like I've already said this before and we keep arguing the same points back and forth.

I just don't think he's that good. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up with another 3.X ypc season, or if he gets hurt, or if he only gets 6 TDs. Like if I had him, I'd be trying to seize that value while it is available. Compare his first 2 seasons to Ryan Mathews' first 2 seasons. It's not even close. Mathews was much better (despite Tolbert vulturing), but if you'd sold him for RB5 after those 2 seasons, you'd be pretty happy about it in hindsight. FWIW, I honestly think Mathews was a better player, too (in addition to having the better stats those 2 years). I know he let a lot of owners down due to injuries and situation, but from a pure talent perspective, he was better.

I don't really see any "facts" or "trends" that indicate he's a good buy right now, which is the thread's question.

Improvement to the oline, better offense in general, still no competition for touches - those are the facts.
Trends - just look at the improvement throughout the season.

[Sterling Archer]

I just don't understand how you're so convinced Gordon is going to lose value, when the majority thinks he will only improve from last year with the moves (or lack thereof) the Chargers have made. I don't think it's that unreasonable to expect Gordon to either keep his top 5 ranking, or even move up a spot. Your whole argument, or at least the majority of it, is that if he gets hurt again he'll be considered injury prone. That could be said about more than half of the RBs in the league, but I'm not going to predict or assume injury to Gordon. Rather, I'm going to assume he continues to develop and improve from last year based on facts and trends...but I feel like I've already said this before and we keep arguing the same points back and forth.

I just don't think he's that good. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up with another 3.X ypc season, or if he gets hurt, or if he only gets 6 TDs. Like if I had him, I'd be trying to seize that value while it is available. Compare his first 2 seasons to Ryan Mathews' first 2 seasons. It's not even close. Mathews was much better (despite Tolbert vulturing), but if you'd sold him for RB5 after those 2 seasons, you'd be pretty happy about it in hindsight. FWIW, I honestly think Mathews was a better player, too (in addition to having the better stats those 2 years). I know he let a lot of owners down due to injuries and situation, but from a pure talent perspective, he was better.

I don't really see any "facts" or "trends" that indicate he's a good buy right now, which is the thread's question.

Improvement to the oline, better offense in general, still no competition for touches - those are the facts.
Trends - just look at the improvement throughout the season.

Those things seem to be already baked into his price. RB5 is a steep price to pay for a semi-injury prone guy who has looked relatively good in only 13 out of a possible 32 games. If it was me, I'd be looking to cash in on that RB5 ranking by trading him for someone like Crowell + picks. Same age, more durable, and his OL just leap frogged about 20-25 spots.

[Goddard]

I thought his price is what it is because he actually produced top 5 numbers last year. The other stuff just supports that his team also believes that and that he should only improve from a year ago. But I'm clearly not going to convince you of anything because you already said you don't think he's talented. So let's just agree to disagree.

[Reljac]

I'm not high on him at all... I think he has talent, but I also think he has hesitation. If he can't fix hesitation then no O-line improvement is going to make a substantial difference. For me I want to see more before I buy even close to his current value. Last year was the year to buy him if you perceived value, this is the year he either establishes it or it all goes away.

Reasons to be concerned are easy to find with him:
In the modern era from 1970-present, Melvin Gordon has the 11th worst YPC of any RB who has had 400+ carries in their first 2 seasons. Players that are worse are also big name college players who went on to be garbage. The hope is that he's not like them, but instead like a handful of the players that had YPC in the 3.85-4.00 range that went on to later have success, however he also falls behind the players who established success in both TDs, YPC, & YPG, will he be the wors tof the YPC starts to eventually have Success in NFL history?:

1 Trent Richardson 3.33
2 Curtis Enis 3.36
3 Karim Abdul-Jabbar 3.40
4 Sammie Smith 3.50
5 Ron Dayne 3.58
6 Rashaan Salaam 3.58
7 Errict Rhett 3.60
8 Ronald Moore 3.63
9 Johnny Johnson 3.70
10 John Stephens 3.70
11 Melvin Gordon 3.74


Last year he scored well due to TDs. But why would I put faith in that. In the modern era, since 1970... only 30 times has a RB had a season with 150+ rushing attempts and no TDs...Melvin Gordon did that too. He was in fact the 11th most attempts in a season without scoring a TD.

Rk Player Year Att
1 Joe Washington 1978 240
2 Marcel Shipp 2003 228
3 Garrison Hearst 1996 225
4 Harold Green 1993 215
5 Boyce Green 1984 202
6 Jess Phillips 1973 198
7 Warrick Dunn 1999 195
8 Adrian Murrell 1999 193
9 Michael Pittman 2003 187
10 Clark Gaines 1979 186
11 Melvin Gordon 2015 184

So rather than rely on a perceived O-line improvement to justify that he must improve as a RB, I'd rather see him put it on the field. Okung was the big O-line signing... he has been horrible in Pass Pro since 2012 and is aging, should be ok at Run Block, could easily deteriorate as quickly as his pass pro did. It was Graded as an F signing by PFF. The two O-line they got in the draft are 2nd & 3rd rounders that look to have the talent. However, this was a very weak O-line class and the 2nd rounder was only a small school prospect (Western Kentucky) with just the Alabama game to his resume. He performed great in that game, but the NFL is a different level. He's already going to get kicked inside since he's not the right size to play his college position at the pro level. So you are relying on a aging vet that can't pass block and a Rookie Small School prospect to catapult this run game...

[maxhyde]

Again this bogus ypc narrative. It seems that is all anyone can find as 'proof' he isn't good.
Scoring 0 TD's as a rookie is why you could land him for very little last year so that narrative should have probably ended when he rose in the rankings a ton because he was a difference maker in fantasy.
Ignoring the 2016 season or calling it fluke or whatever the reason is is a bit of denial....say you don't own Bell/DJ/Elliott...can you seriously name 9 RB's you want as your RB1 over Gordon in 2017? Not I will buy 4 RB2's because that is a spray and pray 0RB technique (which I approve of BTW). I just don't see why Ajayi/Howard/Gurley/Freeman/McCoy should be all valued much higher than Gordon if any. You can have preferences but we value players based on age/production essentially with a part of it being job security. Gordon looks to be on the plus side of all those factors

He doesn't have to be Bell/DJ/Elliott good...he needs to keep your team competitive at a decent value relative to his peers at his position. The ypc crowd doesn't like him and that is fine...I mean we are all worried about 'volume' players because it infers a lack of talent...I get that and am onboard with it. QB/WR/TE/RB I prefer efficient players as a general rule but context is everything and I think ignoring it can be dangerous in projecting fantasy contributors. If I think a QB is in for a ton of garbage time I don't mind a 'volume' passer as my QB1...he doesn't need to be 'good' just score me points and not get replaced mid-season.

[Rampage965]

Sold Gordon for Deandre Hopkins and a 3rd

[Reljac]

Again this bogus ypc narrative. It seems that is all anyone can find as 'proof' he isn't good.

the ypc struggle is very real. In dynasty, it does matter if you are INVESTING in a player that is not performing in the real life NFL above replacement level.

Football Outsider ranked him below average in Defensive-Adjusted Yards Above Replacement (31st among RBs). His O-line ranked a bit better than him in advanced statistics and his Yards Per Carry in 2016 adjusted for his O-line performance was 3.68 compared to the NFL average of 4.16.

I would totally draft him in seasonal leagues... like you said, who would I want more? As far as Dynasty, he's not establishing himself as a long term solution. He's categorically in too many worst RBs in the last 47 years stat categories some of which I've indicated in my prior post. He's been banged up.

[Goddard]

The season can't start soon enough so we can actually see how he'll do rather than arguing the same points over and over again.

[StableOfRBs]

Again this bogus ypc narrative. It seems that is all anyone can find as 'proof' he isn't good.

the ypc struggle is very real. In dynasty, it does matter if you are INVESTING in a player that is not performing in the real life NFL above replacement level.

Football Outsider ranked him below average in Defensive-Adjusted Yards Above Replacement (31st among RBs). His O-line ranked a bit better than him in advanced statistics and his Yards Per Carry in 2016 adjusted for his O-line performance was 3.68 compared to the NFL average of 4.16.

I would totally draft him in seasonal leagues... like you said, who would I want more? As far as Dynasty, he's not establishing himself as a long term solution. He's categorically in too many worst RBs in the last 47 years stat categories some of which I've indicated in my prior post. He's been banged up.

This is a bit misleading.

The adjusted line yards is for the entire backfield, not just Gordon, which is what the 3.68 ALY is based on, yards that the OL will create for the RB on average based on the team's rushing averages for plays on the season (and the actual average for ALY is 3.85, so not too far ahead of the 3.68 for the Chargers last year) and the 4.16 average you mentioned is the average yards per carry across all rushing attacks across all teams in the NFL, and yes the Chargers were below that at 3.90 YPC but so were 16 other teams, some of which had better OL than SD did (NE and IND to name two, #9 and #3 on the list respectively)

As for the ALY calculation itself, it can be a bit skewed as it only takes into account raw rushing numbers and doesn't delineate between what yards were OL based and what yards were RB based, which is what the Power/Stuffed/2nd Level/Open Field ranks are for and to me Open Field is most important, it's the stat that's most based on the RB's ability to create yards and, as the article points out, teams with a low ALY but a high Open Field rank are one's where the RB is doing most of the work and the OL has little to do with the teams rushing success

Now we can take a look at the teams who are in the bottom half of the ALY rankings but have a good (top 12) Open Field ranking: GB, SD, MIA, CLE (9th, 12th, 4th, 1st OF rank, respectively)

Now GB, MIA and CLE can be argued as outliers, Ty Montgomery had 160+ yards on 16 carries against the Bears in one game, Jay Ajayi had 3 200-yard games, Crowell put up almost 10% of his rushing yard total on one play against BAL in week 2 but as for SD, Gordon is the only back who didn't have a run over 50 yards which means there's no extra long rushing play to skew his results (only 6 of his 254 carries went for 20+ yards), and since the Chargers ALY is 23rd and their Open Field ranking is 12th it means Gordon is actually making their OL look better than they were by creating his own yardage in spite of them

His ability to make yardage despite a bad OL and the fact that that offensive line has been improved (even if only a little) in the offseason tells me that he should have no problem increasing his efficiency going forward, not to mention a healthy/improved WR corps to keep defenses honest

[maxhyde]

As far as Dynasty, he's not establishing himself as a long term solution. He's categorically in too many worst RBs in the last 47 years stat categories some of which I've indicated in my prior post. He's been banged up.

They didn't draft a RB last year or this year so while he isn't meeting your criteria the organization doesn't see a need to replace him or his backups even.
Are the 2 things related? Maybe historically bad and the injuries are not mutually exclusive? Stranger things have happened than injured and recovering players operate at a decreased efficiency...maybe, maybe not.

Anyway if you are drafting him in the 1st or 2nd round of redraft leagues but don't think he is worth the cost in dynasty that is up to you. I just usually try to buy RB's year-to-year anyway so if he is a good redraft buy I expect his dynasty value to hold for the most part as well and get a solid season. Like every season I will worry about next season next year because there is always stuff happening I dont count on

[jmsieglaff]

I tried to buy Gordon. I was told I'd have to be the one adding on to my Antonio Brown. That conversation ended quickly.

[maxhyde]

I tried to buy Gordon. I was told I'd have to be the one adding on to my Antonio Brown. That conversation ended quickly.

Yep. I was getting Gordon and a 2018 2nd for my Evans. It happens but I guess our partners aren't the guys that think Gordon is a hard sell

[Reljac]

Are the 2 things related? Maybe historically bad and the injuries are not mutually exclusive? Stranger things have happened than injured and recovering players operate at a decreased efficiency...maybe, maybe not.

Anyway if you are drafting him in the 1st or 2nd round of redraft leagues but don't think he is worth the cost in dynasty that is up to you. I just usually try to buy RB's year-to-year anyway so if he is a good redraft buy I expect his dynasty value to hold for the most part as well and get a solid season. Like every season I will worry about next season next year because there is always stuff happening I dont count on

This time, stranger things have not happened, as those lists I provided indicate no player has performed worse than him and gone on to have a successful career! at least in those 4 or 5 categories.

As far as the adding RBs, chargers have added every RB on their roster not named Brandon Oliver over the last two years. 2016 they signed Kenneth Farrow as UDFA, 2016 they drafted Derek Watt as Fullback, 2016 they signed Andre Williams (who pff graded out better than Gordon last year), in 2017 they added Austin Ekeler as UDFA, in 2017 they added Kenjon Barner as Free Agent.

So not sure what you mean regarding not adding RBs. They've added a ton, but used their draft capital on their biggest needs.... 3 offensive lineman and 2 safeties. Only other picks were 1.7 and their 7th rounder.

[Goddard]

Are the 2 things related? Maybe historically bad and the injuries are not mutually exclusive? Stranger things have happened than injured and recovering players operate at a decreased efficiency...maybe, maybe not.

Anyway if you are drafting him in the 1st or 2nd round of redraft leagues but don't think he is worth the cost in dynasty that is up to you. I just usually try to buy RB's year-to-year anyway so if he is a good redraft buy I expect his dynasty value to hold for the most part as well and get a solid season. Like every season I will worry about next season next year because there is always stuff happening I dont count on

This time, stranger things have not happened, as those lists I provided indicate no player has performed worse than him and gone on to have a successful career! at least in those 4 or 5 categories.

As far as the adding RBs, chargers have added every RB on their roster not named Brandon Oliver over the last two years. 2016 they signed Kenneth Farrow as UDFA, 2016 they drafted Derek Watt as Fullback, 2016 they signed Andre Williams (who pff graded out better than Gordon last year), in 2017 they added Austin Ekeler as UDFA, in 2017 they added Kenjon Barner as Free Agent.

So not sure what you mean regarding not adding RBs. They've added a ton, but used their draft capital on their biggest needs.... 3 offensive lineman and 2 safeties. Only other picks were 1.7 and their 7th rounder.

Every team adds RBs and pretty much every single position. The point was, they didn't add any RBs that would compete or be a threat to compete with Gordon. The Watt pick was actually done to benefit Gordon, so if anything, they're adding pieces to help him succeed more and aren't showing any signs of long-term concern on their end. As for Williams grading better than Gordon, were they basing that off his 18 carries for the entire season? Are we really trying to insinuate that Williams is a better RB than Gordon?