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Spotlight - RB Steven Jackson, St. Louis Rams

Posted on 8/15, exclusive to Footballguys.com

Jason Wood's Thoughts

Steven Jackson is a confounding player. He's one of those consensus 1st round picks that I wouldn't argue against avoiding. Even though I have Jackson solidly in my overall Top 10, I can appreciate why others might argue against him as too risky. While there are some players I feel strongly about to implore you to break with convention, I really see both sides of the Jackson argument.

The Yin (Pro) & The Yang (Con) of Steven Jackson

When Jackson is on the field, he's among the most productive (YIN)
Since becoming a full-time starter in 2005, Jackson has been a true fantasy stud when he plays. Over that span, he has the 6th best fantasy points per game average among RBs, and Tiki Barber (one of those ahead of him) is retired.

He has difficulty staying on the field (YANG)
Jackson has missed 4 games each of the last two seasons and 11 games in 5 seasons. His list of injuries is longer than most E.R. admission logs: Knee, ribs, chest contusion, ankle, sore hip, sore groin, back, groin, quad, thigh and hamstring. You hate to label anyone 'injury prone' but with Jackson, it's hard to say otherwise.

He is an excellent receiver (YIN)
Jackson's 211 receptions since 2005 is 4th among active backs (Westbrook, Bush and Tomlinson have more), and his 7 TD receptions also ranks 4th (behind the same trio). When you consider how many games he's missed to injury, it's clear that on a per game basis, Jackson is as productive as just about anyone other than Brian Westbrook as a receiver out of the backfield.

He could be a better short yardage back (YANG)
Over the last five years, 69 RBs have had at least 25 carries inside the opponents' 10-yard line. Of those, Jackson ranks only 32nd in TD conversion rate with 26.9%. That's not horrible, but it's hardly indicative of an elite goal-line back.

The Rams have a rebuilt offensive line and new coaches (YIN)
The Rams offensive line has been below average for a number of years, and Orlando Pace's reputation had held up better than his on-field play. This offseason the Rams signed center Jason Brown to big free agent dollars and drafted mammoth Baylor OT Jason Smith to solidify the line. The Rams coaching staff has been completely turned over, with Steve Spagnuolo coming over from the Giants as head coach. Spags is a defensive minded coach, and he'll let OC Pat Shurmur managed the offense. Shurmer has never been an NFL play-caller, but has been Donovan McNabb's QB coach for years in Philadelphia. Shurmur is bringing Reid's traditional WCO to the Rams this year, which makes liberal use of the RB as both a runner and receiver (witness: Brian Westbrook).

The Rams have the same QB and questions in the WR corps (YANG)
Marc Bulger hasn't been an effective QB for a number of years, and even when he was playing well (in Mike Martz' crazy pass-happy system), he was taking a pounding. The Rams are hoping that Bulger will bounce back in the new system but I'm not as optimistic. And backup QB Kyle Boller is hardly an upgrade. Meanwhile the Rams WR corps has questions. Donnie Avery, the new #1, is banged up and no guarantee to be healthy for Week One, and the only thing we can definitively say about Keenan Burton and Laurent Robinson is that they're completely unproven. All that means opposing defenses may very well key on Jackson, the Rams only elite offensive weapon, and try to shut him down by loading the box whenever possible.

Positives

• Jackson is among the best five or six all-around backs in the game when healthy
• The Rams made much needed improvements on the offensive line and brought in a new coaching staff
• Jackson has very little competition for carries, and is sure to be one of the most targeted receivers in pass progressions, too

Negatives

• Jackson has missed four games in each of the last two seasons, and as a result only has one Top 10 fantasy finish to his career
• Marc Bulger and the WR corps may not keep opposing defenses honest
• You're going to have to draft Jackson as though he's going to stay healthy all season, his ADP doesn't leave much room for disappointment

Final Thoughts

Steve Jackson is being drafted RB5 and 5th overall, which makes him a hard fantasy player to defend. When he's played, he's delivered those kinds of fantasy results, but he hasn't played enough to help your team win a fantasy title, either. If you're an optimist, you'll draft him figuring his injury luck has to change one of these years. If you're a pessimist, you'll look at his one Top 10 finish in five years and decide the cost is too high. Jackson isn't someone I see on my teams this year because I view him more as a Top 10-12 option at the position, and clearly at least one owner is going to take him before that point. But he's not someone I would avoid at all costs. He's the ultimate 'eye of the beholder' pick this year.

Quotations from the Message Board Thread

Winning IS Everything:
Jackson has the tremendous size/speed ratio one looks for in a running back. He can also dish out punishment and get the tough yards. He has a knack for missing some games each year though, and it is tough to have that from your first round pick. If Jackson can stay healthy, and if the ram offense shows some signs of life Jackson could be Top 5. I do not like to predict injuries, so I will give his projections a slight uptick from his four year average and say he has possible upside from my projections.

TheDirtyWord:
To me, the Jackson Dilemma comes down to one thing. When he is on the field, how does he produce? And in this respect, Jackson has no peer.

During the last 3 years, Jackson has averaged 125.7 YFS/game along with .75 TD's/game. If you subtract the games he was either being worked back into the line-up gradually or clearly should not have been playing, that YFS # rises to 130.6.

I will admit, his injuries are troublesome insofar as they are soft tissue injuries. I've always been able to rationalize breaks and separations as a consequence of playing a rough game. But soft tissue injuries like pulls and tears somehow have a way of creeping to far into a players medical dossier. Almost as if they are prone to being a multiple offender. Jackson has had a groin injury and a quad injury the last two seasons. So there is a significant degree of risk I will admit.

But on these boards last year, I remember a piece of advice I read that essentially stated that "don't worry about injuries if you've got good depth because you'll have time/leeway to make line-up decisions". Even game day line-up decisions are much easier nowadays with the advent of internet enabled mobile devices (BB, iPhone, etc...). If we consider ourselves to be sharks, then we should easily be able to snare a worthy RB3 and most sharks feel that they can snatch a great RB4 thus protecting themselves against Jackson going down for a period of 2-4 weeks. Remember, Jackson is only 26 and he's been able to put up incredibly impressive stats on teams that went 13-35 the last 3 seasons (including 5-27 the last 2 years). Couple that with the fact that the Rams WR's are extremely unproven and Marc Bulger hasn't looked like a viable NFL QB since 2006 (or since he signed his mega-deal) and you know that whatever offense St. Louis is able to muster will go through Jackson.

For me, I think he'll last at least 14 games and will predict to that pace. But I am not fearful of Jackson at all and would consider him with a Top 3 pick based on his upside.

Lott's Fingertip:
The Rams were horrid on offense last year. The main cause was their terrible offensive line play, which was due in no small part to starter games missed. Overall, the Rams were in the bottom tier of total starter games missed.... one cannot predict injuries, but regression to the mean would indicate a return to the league average. The Rams are losing Orlando Pace, who played well last year, but not nearly as well as when he was in his prime. They drafted Jason Smith to replace him. They also signed Jason Brown from Baltimore, who is a significant upgrade. Incognito is a capable young guard with upside, and Jacob Bell is a capable guard as well. Alex Barron is a capable RT who is in a contract year.

This unit will be, at worst, as good as last year, and really should be better.

The Rams still look like a bad offensive team, but Jackson put up TOP 3 fantasy numbers in the games he played last year. TOP. THREE.

Throw in the fact that the Rams have a pretty solid looking schedule, and I am optimistic that Jackson can have another very good season.

David Yudkin, FBG Staff:
I have been saying for several years now that the guys that are healthy are the ones that will finish in the top 10 and guys that are not healthy are the ones that will fall out of the top 10. It actually took me quite a bit of research over the years to figure out that it basically boils down to that. People of course will say, "Well duh, ya genius." Opportunity and talent obviously makes the difference beyond that, but if a guy isn't playing he isn't producing.

So the question on Jackson is whether he is more of an injury risk than anyone else. I don't know enough about his injuries over the years to have an opinion if they are anything chronic, serious, or otherwise fluke instances. For example, Faulk and TDavis had degenerative or chronic knee injuries. Those obviously weren't going to go away. I don't recall seeing Jackson tabbed with anything career threatening, but I can't say that I've kept on top of his health regularly either.

As I argued in other threads, it's not like your fantasy team gets a zero should Jackson not play, and 12 weeks of Jackson and 4 weeks of SUBSTITUTE RB would still get you Top 10 RB production from that spot. So IMO, Jackson is probably worth what it will take to draft him provided people don't personally see him as an undue injury risk. I myself don't like his chances of getting many TD, and that to me would be a bigger issue to me than his health.

Another consideration is when Jackson might be out, as not having him for the fantasy playoffs would be a lot more disconcerting as a fantasy owner . . .

FreeBaGel:
Last year's St Louis Rams team was one of the worst situations for the RB position imaginable. The offensive line was pulling guys off the practice squad to fill holes, the passing game moved the ball backwards more often than forwards, the team never got into the redzone, and the defense was so bad that the team typically had to abandon the run by halftime.

Last year, Jackson had fewer redzone rushing attempts than THREE PLAYERS on the New England Patriots team alone. He had fewer rushing attempts than backups and brief injury fill-in guys like Mewelde Moore.

Yet still, in spite of all that, he finished top 5 in PPG among RBs. Still, in spite of all of that, he was on pace to finish with over 2000 yards and double digit TDs.

Steven Jackson's floor when he plays is higher than anyone I've ever seen before in fantasy football. In the last decade, no offense has been a worse situation for production out of the RB position than the last two years of St Louis Rams football. Yet still, he was top 5 ppg in that situation.

In a worst case scenario, if the Rams were playing high school players at every position, Jackson would still be top 10 ppg. If the Rams become even MEDIOCRE, or even just BAD instead of dreadful, we've seen what Jackson can do (2006). Things change fast, and often for no visible reason in the NFL from one season to the next, so this is not unlikely. People talk about regression to the mean with players all the time, but why only with players? No team has maintained being as dreadful a fantasy situation as StL has the last two years for any long period of time.

Steven Jackson Projections