Al Gore has never received the respect he deserves. He was the 45th Vice President of the United States, the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 2000, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2007, on the Board of Directors of Apple, and senior advisor to Google. Yet, he’s known as the guy that “invented the internet.” The only problem with that, though, is he didn’t actually say that. What he did say was, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Change a few words, take things out of context then…POOF. A narrative is born. Enough outlets pick up the headline and it becomes a national story.
Frank Gore is no longer receiving the respect that he deserves in fantasy football. According to FantasyPros ADP data, Gore is being selected as the 32nd running back and 75th player overall.
He is one of 29 players to have rushed for over 10,000 yards and, prior to last season, he was only the third player in history to have nine consecutive seasons with 200 or more carries with a 4.0 YPC or higher. The other two were Jim Brown and Barry Sanders, both in the Hall of Fame.
So, why the disrespect? I’m guessing it’s due to his age and the less-than-stellar 2015 campaign.
I get the age thing, as there have only been 47 running backs to eclipse the 1,000 yard rushing mark at age 30 or older. You know who has two of them? Your buddy Frank Gore. AND he missed a third by 33 yards last season.
Speaking of last season, the Colts offense combusted, primarily due to the Andrew Luck injury. Luck only started seven games, while Matt Hasselbeck started eight games and Charlie Whitehurst played in four. Gore’s preseason ADP was the 10th RB. He finished as the #11 RB in standard leagues and #14 in PPR leagues. Think about that for a minute. He almost brought back value with Hasselbeck and Whitehurst quarterbacking the Colts for more than half of the games!
All indications are that Luck is healthy this season. The Colts still have an explosive wide receiving core in T.Y. Hilton, Donte Moncrief, and Phillip Dorsett. Joe Philbin was hired as offensive line coach. As much as you want to crap on Philbin as a head coach, he was the OC for some potent Green Bay Packers offenses. The Colts used their first round pick on center Ryan Kelly from Alabama and selected three other linemen later in the draft, so there should be improvement in the trenches.
All of this is going to benefit Gore. Opposing defenses won’t be able to stack the box and there should be plenty of running lanes. But what about rookie Josh Ferguson? He’s a young, exciting player for sure, but he is not going to supplant Gore. He will get plays here and there, but this is Gore’s job unless he gets injured. Gore has missed 12 games in his 176 game career and has not missed a start in the past five seasons.The beauty of this situation is that you can draft both backs late and lock up this backfield very cheaply. Considering the millions of square footage that Costco inhabits in this country, I’d say that we all love bargains and buying things in bulk.
Thank you for reading. You can reach me @Stan_Son.
