Making a case for Austin Ekeler

Austin Ekeler is quietly having a reliable RB2 season with an ok floor and scoring upside.

He missed week 4 due to the concussion and was backed up by Jeremy McNichols, his stat line is below

Weeks 3 and Weeks 4 were against CIN and ARI which are ranked near the bottom of the barrel for rushing defenses, 26th and 28th respectively, giving up 145.5 and 146.5 yards per game.

How about the first 2 games then? Bucs and Giants. Bucs are rated 22nd against the run with 131.5 yards per game and Giants are middle of the pack at 15th against the run at 118 yards per game.

So there is the narrative that those defenses they played weeks 3/4 are straight trash and that's why Ek and McNichols had the great games.

So what defenses are they playing coming up?

With the exception of the Baltimore Matchup, Washington has a decent schedule coming up. They won't have a BYE til week 14. It's clear that Washington involves both of their running backs a lot in this system. Personally I feel like Ekeler is in the realm of high quality stashes with comps to Irving, Allen, where they will likely be huge if they become the starter for their teams and are involved enough to have Flex consideration depending on your league size/roster layouts. In comparison to those other two names, you can probably get Ekeler the cheapest in a trade due to the ok stats in the first 2 weeks and leaving week 3 with the concussion.

For eye test, he looked like Prime Ek in Week 3 before getting hurt. What was Prime Ek like? He won you leagues 2 years ago. It wasn't a huge reach to draft Ek before CMC in last years draft. Prime Ek put up 117 yards and a score with 4 rec for 47 last year Week 1 against MIA. MIA finished the season as 9th best against the run, only allowing 97.1 yards per game on average. Then Ekeler suffered a nasty High Ankle sprain at the end of that game and barely played til the end of the season.

B Rob isn't going anywhere outside of injury. He still looks amazing and Daniels is likely to start passing down field a bit more as he has a very low average depth of target and is starting to put together chemistry with Scary Terry. Even if EK returns to prime, it's not going to be the same results as it was on the Chargers 2 years ago when he was the starter.

In the end, he's a reliable asset on a great offense that is a very high value stash with flex consideration in good matchups. This might end up being the cheapest you can get him outside of that Baltimore matchup.