Where have I seen this name before? *Riffles thru notes* Ah here it is! Hrm, that’s nice and all but I seem to remember seeing it somewhere else… *Riffles thru more notes* Ah yes here, I knew the title of this post sounded familiar. BTW, do you know the difference between ‘riffle’ and ‘rifle’? I didn’t until today and now I have something to talk about at the next fantasy football expert cocktail party:
Sky: Hey Scott Pianowski, do you know the difference between ‘riffle’ and ‘rifle’?
Pianowski: Yes, everyone knows that…
Sky: Oh…this imitation crab meat is delicious though!
Pianowski: That’s caviar.
Sky: When did Donald Trump become a fantasy football expert?
Pianowski: When he paid us to call him one.
Sky: So why is Gary Busey here? And why is he wearing a Native American headdress and snorting lines of kosher salt?
Pianowski: We’re babysitting and purposefully doing a bad job of it.
Fun times…but in all seriousness, I’ve been a fan of Chris Ivory ever since he took center stage as the primary running back for the Saints back in 2010 when he rushed for 716 yards on 137 carries for a 5.2 YPC average after Pierre Thomas went down. So if he took over in 2010, why haven’t we heard much about him since for fantasy purposes, you ask to lead me into the next paragraph? Well thank you for doing that so let’s go on and see why Ivory is a 2013 fantasy football sleeper…
Chris has had a bit of a rocky career to date in terms of injury. The reason we didn’t hear much about Ivory from 2011 on was he went down with a Lisfranc injury to his left foot in the final regular season game of 2010. You might know of this Lisfranc business a bit more due to Maurice Jones-Drew’s lost 2012 season but it is a beast when it comes to recovery time. Ivory wasn’t fully healed nor playing for the Saints until the end of October in 2011 and by that time, a lot had changed for the Saints. Though the Saints had let Reggie Bush go on to the Dolphins in that span, they signed a running back who fit Bush’s role in the offense by going after former Charger Darren Sproles. To make matters worse, the Saints drafted a former Heisman winner in Mark Ingram in the first round of the 2011 draft. By the time Ivory took the field again, he had 3 other backs to compete with for touches. Given that Ingram was a first round pick, Ivory’s prospects of getting playing time in 2012 didn’t get much better…that is until Sproles went down with a broken arm. For a brief moment in time, we got to see what Chris Ivory could do with a few carries in 2012 and he didn’t disappoint. Wanna see what I mean? Well look no further than this highlight reel. I started it at the 30 second mark so you don’t have to waste a moment going there. See, that’s what you call a mix of vision, power and speed and it happened all in one run. Yeah but that was in New Orleans and they have Drew Brees and a great offensive line!  Hey, do you mind I’m typing here! And stop shouting, will ya? Actually, based on offensive line grading the Jets O-line was better than the Saints, albeit not by a large margin. Though it’s true Ivory won’t have Drew Brees to put the fear into the opposing defense, keep in mind Shonn Greene put up RB2 numbers last year and we all know how aggravatingly untalented that plodder is. Considering Ivory is getting treated like an RB3 or worse in current rankings – besides mine, of course – there’s massive value in picking up this talented yet forgotten back in drafts this year. Now play us out Paul and Stevie. My fantasy team and Ivory live together in perfect harmony.
Projections: 1,222 rushing yards, 15 receptions, 105 rushing yards and 9 total touchdowns
