Kenneth Gainwell opted out of the 2020 season, but he’s still a potential Day 2 selection after a monstrous 2,000-yard season as a sophomore at Memphis. He furthered his case with a 4.42 pro day forty after bulking up to 201 pounds. Is that enough to push him up a tier and make him a priority selection in startups?
Make the Scouting Process Easy with RV’s All the Metrics Series
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The RotoViz platform provides a variety of tools to help you track a prospect’s transition to the NFL. The Box Score Scout breaks down a prospect’s raw and advanced stats and offers player comps. The Workout Explorer allows you to peruse the athletic measurements, offering percentile context as well as the most similar physical specimens. The RB Prospect Lab allows you to play with the interaction of different metrics, build your own model for RB fantasy scoring, and project both real and hypothetical players to the league.
It’s important not to have a one-size-fits-all approach to prospect evaluation. That’s why I like to look at each prospect through multiple lenses. The RotoViz Rookie Guide gives us more ammunition with analytics pieces that help us understand which advanced metrics are most important. The Backfield Dominator Rating and Breakaway Rush Score are just a few of the additional tools you’ll find there.
But it can also be a lot to digest. That’s why in this series I’ll be providing snapshots of the most important metrics, player comps, and dynasty outlooks for the top players in the 2021 draft class. We’ll also look at their current values in startup drafts and how that interacts with my rankings. I’ll tell you who to target and who to avoid as we eagerly anticipate the NFL draft.
Kenneth Gainwell, Small Backs, and Explosive Fantasy Upside
I’ve always been a sucker for “small” backs, winning many of my biggest leagues with players like Chris Johnson, Jamaal Charles, Ray Rice, and Christian McCaffrey. Fantasy owners are finally catching up as reality teams start to make bigger investments in the passing game and run-to-daylight backs who thrive in space.
Thankfully, enough of an advantage remains that we can still get discounts on runners who better fit the RB1 profile. The question for Gainwell owners: Is he really that big a talent? Can he translate the explosive plays and prodigious receiving numbers to the NFL?
