T.J. Yeldon is still fantasy running back to own in Jacksonville

When word broke late Tuesday night that running back Chris Ivory was jetting New York for the up and coming Jacksonville Jaguars, you could hear a collective groan of disapproval from the many dynasty fantasy football players that currently have incumbent Jaguars’ ball carrier T.J. Yeldon on their roster. But breathe easy dynasty owners, despite the Jaguars paying their new running back an average of more than $6 million per year for the next five years, T.J. Yeldon is still the Jacksonville running back to own on your fantasy team in 2016 and beyond.

While the two backfield mates will likely start the season in a 50/50 split or at best a 60/40 in Yeldon’s favor, the young running back should prevail as Jacksonville’s top running back by season’s end as he clearly is the better of the two running backs. The fact is that Yeldon, who piled up 1,019 yards in his rookie campaign, is no slouch. In fact in the 12 games that he played as a rookie, he finished with the 11^th most fantasy points at the running back position. And the really impressive part of that is it was all accomplished behind a below average run-blocking offensive line and with the Jaguars often trailing on the scoreboard which caused them to throw the ball 606 times last season, sixth most in the league.

So if Yeldon is so great why bring in another back? The truth is he does have some durability issues, as he missed four games this past season and there is little doubt that the league has turned into a two running back league. And also Ivory is not a bad ball carrier. He did average 4.3 yards per carry last season and scored eight touchdowns so this move, while it hurts fantasy values, does make the Jaguars a better team.

But despite rushing for more yards per carry and clearly having more touchdowns than Yeldon in 2015, the new Jaguars’ running back is not the better back and according to Football Outsiders’ evaluation it is not even close. Two of their top tools used to rank skill players, Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR) and Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA), leave no room for confusion about which ball carrier did more with his opportunity last season.

And the evidence in Yeldon’s favor doesn’t end there. Yeldon averaged 4.3 yards per carry against base defenses while Ivory ran for just 3.7 yards in that situation. That is a big deal because Ivory is leaving the Jets’ spread offense for a more traditional offensive style in Jacksonville so he should face a base defense at a much higher rate in 2016.

Well maybe Ivory can help out more in the passing game than Yeldon will? No not really. In 2015 Yeldon caught more passes than Ivory with Yeldon hauling in 36 passes and Ivory finishing with 30 catches. And the guys over at Football Outsiders think much more of Yeldon than Ivory when it comes to catching the ball out of the backfield. In the passing game, Yeldon’s 2015 season was ranked 23^rd in DYAR and 20^th in DVOA among running backs, while Ivory’s year came in at a much lower placed 30^th in DYAR and 32^nd in DVOA.

The real kicker of this whole argument is that the Jets’ offensive line outperformed the Jaguars’ in the running game last season, yet Yeldon continues to come out a head in all the measures when compared to Chris Ivory.

So while Ivory got the cash this offseason, T.J. Yeldon is the one that should be getting your attention on draft day for your fantasy football leagues. By most accounts and measures he simply is the better running back compared to newly acquired Chris Ivory. If you can take advantage of the hysteria created by the Ivory signing while you can and buy low on Yeldon entering the 2016 NFL season knowing that the cream of the crop always rises to the top.

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