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Heading into Week 8, Cliff Clinton breaks down your options as a Melvin Gordon fantasy football owner, and what to do next
Two things have made Melvin Gordon such a treasured fantasy asset in his career: reliability and workload. Back in the days when fantasy football players were spending assets on guys like Arian Foster and Eddie Lacy, it was more important that the player you had drafted was staying on the field consistently. The 2015-2017 version of Melvin Gordon was a bit of a hallmark for that, and the young back was rewarded with a fairly steady role in the Chargers offense. The rest of the NFL didn't share this sort of steady, on-the-field production, with concussions hitting a sky-high number after six years of gradual increases. Foster and Lacy were not just high-value picks, they represented a fantasy football community where "is he going to get injured again" was a much larger portion of the conversation, one that produced a regrettable focus on statistics over personal health.
Gordon famously stayed on the field during this period, missing only nine games from 2015 to 2018, and regardless of team performance (they went 4-12, 5-11, 9-7, and 12-4 in that same stretch), he was kept as a central cog in the system. After a rookie season that ultimately held Gordon scoreless, he finished the season in PPR as RB7 in 2016, RB5 in 2017, and RB8 in 2018. It cannot be stated enough that Gordon was relied upon as a true constant, maybe more so than any other running back in both real football and fantasy, valued less for his breakout performances and more because of his ability
Now, ghosts haunt the Chargers. Gordon is now openly admitting he won't miss another training camp, with the Chargers or a future team, given how it played out. The standoff between the Chargers and the running back has left no questions answered, and the bedfellows, fans, and fantasy players are left with more questions than answers. How much will this haunt Gordon, both short-term and long-term? Is he in football shape, or is it his focus? How much of a role does coaching play, despite Austin Ekeler looking like the heir apparent through his performances? And most importantly, if you drafted him, where do you go from here?
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Do You... Start Him?
No. Easy enough, right? When we were told Hunter Henry would come back and test his recovery on the open field, he soared and left no doubt he had returned to normal. Even his return sparked some optimism, if not as a full starter at least as a high-powered FLEX worth waiting upon. When Melvin Gordon came back healthy, through three games, we have yet to see much of anything that constitutes lineup placement. Gordon has twelve carries and three receptions on average per game, but the yards per attempt average of 2.25 is absolutely not inspiring. The 0.7 yards before contact is even more worrisome, and the Chicago Bears Defense can still very much stop the run.
The question over these weeks is more about if Gordon is the starter, or the Chargers ride out his tenure with a full RBBC, given how Austin Ekeler has looked.
Do You... Bench Him Indefinitely?
The natural next step; if you can't start him, he does technically need to ride the bench until you can. The "indefinitely" part is the key here, as eight of the ten top running backs have yet to take their BYE week, including teammate Ekeler. By average points alone, he's the 45th ranked RB so far this year. This means that, unless you're in a 14+ team league or have had the worst injury luck this year, Gordon wouldn't even enter the flex conversation for you if he continues at that exact fantasy scoring rate. Even when he has a juicy matchup, such as when the team plays the Raiders twice this season, you can't say today that he's going to maintain the workload share, and that's an uncomfortable reality to deal with when you paid for a guy in early September, let alone on the cusp of November.
If all of these factors line up: A maintained workload over Ekeler, a juicy matchup, and a desperate need to put an RB somewhere in a deeper league, then and only then should you choose to swap in Melvin Gordon. Yet for the guy who used to be a face for fantasy consistency, those are a lot of hurdles to jump over to get to a point of comfortability here.
Do You... Trade Him Away? (Or For Him!)
We've arrived at the lowest of the "buy low" points. If Melvin Gordon is bad now, but we know that the 26-year old running back is bound to rebound eventually, isn't it smart to trade for him if you can afford to? "Hey, I'm on my way to the playoffs! Who cares if I trade away pennies for Melvin Gordon's eventual return?!"
This is the kind of move that might make more sense if it appeared the team would stick with the running back if he wasn't at the end of the contract year, or if he wasn't getting outpaced by a cheaper option who attended training camp. This doesn't even factor in the looming possibility that Anthony Lynn may not make it to the end of the season as head coach, a decision that in the end may only sever the remaining strings that keep Gordon at the front of the running back corps. All of this to say that, if there was an argument that Melvin Gordon has at least one factor going for him in his quest to resume his normal output level and return even some of the value, it's not evident. It likely means that you'll receive that same next-to-nothing value from a trade partner, especially if your league would require you to take on some of Gordon's salary. Thank goodness the Chargers fan base is notoriously large, or it may be impossible to find a trade partner at all.
In dynasty or keeper, especially if the price is right, there's no harm in trying to make a move for him. Alternatively, if you're likely out of the running for this season and wouldn't have to overspend to keep him an additional year, it may be better to sit tight. There's no reason to think that Gordon will stay a Charger in 2020, but we also can't guarantee that he will likely end up in a situation that's any better.
Do You... Drop Him?
Let me clear this up by saying; Melvin Gordon is now off the nearly-undroppable list, but I'm not dropping him today. The amount of touches he's getting through three weeks means he's probably not the weakest link on your bench, and there are still some outside factors at play for a rebounded value for Gordon. An Ekeler injury, Gordon continuing to see more touches than Ekeler, or even just a breakout game, could mean that Gordon is safely on the stash or start list.
You drop a guy because there is a better opportunity for a player of the right value to be retained, and while I wouldn't drop Melvin Gordon for OJ Howard today, I might if Gordon was at the end of a shallow bench and OJ Howard was traded to the New England Patriots.
But make no mistake. Melvin Gordon, a top-10 RB for three years, is now squarely in a territory where dropping him isn't absurd, although most people are still a little nervous about pulling the trigger too early. Without a life raft in the next two weeks, fantasy players will instead choose to jump into the water and hope that Austin Ekeler, Ty Johnson, or the like will replicate the value we once relied upon Melvin Gordon so heavily for.
