Buy or Sell: Rashad Jennings

After serving several seasons as the caddy to Maurice Jones Drew, Rashad Jennings moved on to Oakland last season where he started the season … caddying for Darren McFadden. Luckily for Jennings, McFadden followed his typical form and got hurt, allowing Jennings to step into a starting role for the second half of the season.

Jennings took advantage, starting seven of the final eight and putting up solid numbers. The stretch earned him a contract from the New York Giants, where he enters training camp as the top dog. Can he handle the role and expand on his success from last season? Or will he be exposed as someone who is more appropriately suited to the role of complementary back?

Rashad Jennings
ADP: 65.3
RB: 25

Buy: Anthony

The Oakland Raiders were epically bad at the end of last season. They were outscored by nearly 70 points in December and finished the season on a 1-8 free-fall. That “1” was courtesy of a game against the Texans. All Rashad Jennings did during the tumult was (depending on scoring system) produce top four fantasy running back numbers during the second half of the season.

So complain about his age or situation all you want, but all I see is a back with plenty of tread on his tires moving to a better (but still probably bad) offensive line who has a clear path to more than 300 touches in 2014.

The 25th running back off the board behind the likes of Steven Jackson, Ray Rice, and Trent Richardson? Shame on the fantasy gamers contributing to that ranking. I’ve got Jennings at 20, and frankly have considered moving him higher. David Wilson is arguably more talented. But he’s also built up quite the rep with his head coach when it comes to fumbles, and is coming off a career-threatening neck injury. Wilson might be good in spurts, but he’s not getting a huge chunk of work. Jennings can catch the rock, he can pass block, and he can pick up yards after contact. He’s the all-purpose back Tom Coughlin wants on the field, and you should want Jennings as your RB2 this season.

Sell: Andy

Ahh, Rashad Jennings, the latest RB to take advantage of a few good games to ink a starting role. Fantasy experts point to Jennings as one of the handful of backs with an opportunity to become “bell cow” backs in a league of timeshares. Don’t believe it.

There’s nothing wrong with Jennings as a part-time player. He averaged better than five yards per carry as Jones-Drew’s sidekick in Jacksonville. And sure, he had a good stretch of games in Oakland. But are you comfortable spending a seventh round pick or higher on a guy who has never had more than 163 carries and 199 touches in a season?

Are you comfortable doing so on a team with a guy in David Wilson who, while disappointing last year, remains a bigger homerun threat? Yes, Wilson was cleared for practice after missing most of last season with a neck injury.

Are you comfortable taking a chance on Jennings when the Giants spent a fourth-round pick on Andre Williams, a similarly built RB joining the squad after a Heisman-finalist season last year at Boston College? Are you comfortable taking Jennings from a team that had offensive line woes even before its veteran anchor announced this week that he was retiring due to injury problems? Off a team with a QB that has been brutal the last two seasons?

Not to mention, Rashad Jennings has not exactly been a model of durability himself during the five years he’s been in the league. Now there are people predicting no fewer than 300 touches and 50 catches? Even if he does start the season as a one-man show as the Giants RB, I’m not convinced that he retains that role throughout the season. I’ll let someone else take that risk.

Rashad Jennings currently sits at ADP 65.3 and RB25. What do you think?

Sign me up - he's should be going much higher. (70%, 7 Votes)
That sounds like about the right spot for Jennings. (20%, 2 Votes)
Really? Rashad Jennings? In the first half of a fantasy draft? I'll pass. (10%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 10