The Wolf and CJay have gone back and forth throughout the preseason on Todd Gurley’s fantasy outlook. As you know by now, Wolf was all-in on the Gurley resurgence, while CJay thought his coach and teammates hated him, and his knees were made out of paper mâché. I will concede that Gurley looked healthy in his season debut — totaling 97 yards on the ground on only 14 carries. The issue though, is that he was stuck in the dreaded “in-between the 20s purgatory,” with Malcolm Brown (and not Darrell Henderson) manning the goal-line carries.
Brown finished with 11 carries for 53 yards and two scores. By comparison, Gurley only out-carried Brown by three and watched on the sideline as Brown scored from the one and five yardlines. This should be a cause concern for Gurley owners, as he’s been one of the league’s better goal-line hammers, totaling 30 scores on the ground over the last two seasons.
Out of the Rams 77 offensive snaps, Gurley was on the field for 54 of them (70%). On the other hand, Brown was only on the field for 21 snaps (27%).
This is one of the major storylines to keep tabs on from Week 1, as the Rams’ goal-line back is one of fantasy’s great goldmines.
Still, The Wolf is high on his guy for Week 2, ranking Gurley as his RB6 (+4 vs ECR), while Brown comes in at RB25 (+16 vs ECR).
