Buy or Sell: Toby Gerhart

Running backs have become a commodity in recent years, falling out of the first round of college drafts and struggling to get the big money contracts many believe they deserve. Few veteran free agent runners fell into better positions this off-season than Toby Gerhart, however. After four years of putting up solid numbers while backing up Adrian Peterson, he landed in Jacksonville with a chance to be the main ball carrier. Can he show he’s got what it takes to be the bellcow? Or will the Jaguars be looking for another starting RB in a year?

Toby Gerhart
ADP: 74.1
RB: 28

Buy: Anthony

The Jaguars’ offensive line was putrid in 2013. So the good news is, there’s really nowhere to go but up. I really don’t think they’ll go up very far, but still, things should be better with four new bodies up front. As for Gerhart, he certainly won’t have the room he did in his four seasons with Minnesota that saw him average 4.7 yards per carry, but what we’re going for here is volume.

Gerhart’s already been deemed the workhorse, and he showed with 77 career receptions in limited work that he can be used both as a runner and receiver out of the backfield. Due to a limited passing game and the aforementioned line there’s not going to be a lot of room on most occasions, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find Gerhart among the top five players in touches this season.

That alone is enough to get Gerhart into the top 25 among running backs, and right now he’s the 28th back off the board and going in the eighth round of 10-team leagues. I wouldn’t put him MUCH higher, but there’s definitely profit potential here when you combine workload with the talent Gerhart’s shown in limited duty, so I’m buying.

Sell: Tony

Logic says Toby Gerhart should be a buy. A presumable starting RB who shouldn’t face much pressure for carries from Jordan Todman, on a team with not a lot of talent at QB and will be forced to try to run the ball, going 77th overall? Normally, I’d say sign me up. Well, as a famous local sports radio host says—well, maybe not famous, but famous sounds better than blowhard—I’m going more esoteric on this one.

As a Vikings fan, I’ve watched Gerhart the last four years. I’ve watched him gain 1,305 yards on 276 carries, for a 4.7 yard average. And I’ve listened to the hype that if he just had more carries, and that he needs more carries to really get into a rhythm and wear down the defense. And after all that, for some reason, I just don’t buy it.

At the end of the day, he won’t have Adrian Peterson wearing down the defenses for him—and shockingly enough, he may not even have a Viking level quarterback opening lanes for him via the passing game. It will be more like the end of the 2011 season, when Gerhart started four of the final six games due to Peterson’s injuries. In those four starts, Gerhart churned out 292 yards on 72 carries, a 4.1 yard per carry average. He added 109 yards on 11 carries against the Washington … whatevers after Peterson left the game with his catastrophic knee injury—but 67 of those yards came on one carry. So in those final six games, he averaged a not so awe-inspiring 4.12 yards per carry.

In the end, while I’d like to see Gerhart succeed (he seems like a nice enough guy, worked hard, kept his mouth shut), I worry that Gerhart will average about four yards a carry, maybe score five or six times, and potentially miss time due to injury. Numbers that are ok in my book for a RB4 or RB5 on my roster—but not someone I’m going to take in the first half of a draft.

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For Anthony Maggio’s fantasy rankings, click here.
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