FanPost

Fantasy Football: Running Backs vs. ACL Injuries

I am struggling with a serious conundrum so I am turning to my fellow Rams fans for insight.

I am in a high stakes, 1-Player Keeper league in which draft order is determined by the quality of your keeper, as determined by ESPN Fantasy Rankings one week prior to the season. For example, a team that chooses to keep Ray Rice will pick after a team that chooses to keep Matt Ryan. Through scheming and trading, I currently have an onslaught of running back talent on my team and I have to choose between Chris Johnson, Matt Forte, Adrian Peterson, and Jamaal Charles as my keeper.

Although I am reluctant, I am pretty much forced to select Chris Johnson on the grounds that Forte is planning on holding out through training camp, not allowing him to learn the and practice the new system in Chicago. Peterson and Charles have tumbled down draft boards because of their ACL injuries last year. Peterson is fresh off of major reconstructive knee surgery but he is said to be progressing ahead of schedule. Jamaal Charles will be 11 months removed from his ACL injury come the start of training camp.

My question: How do you value a perennial fantasy football stud, such as Peterson and Charles when they are coming off of a serious injury? Conventional wisdom is that it typically takes a running back 18 months to get back to full strength after an ACL injury. However, these statistics are skewed based on the fact that many of the injuries included in this study occurred in the 1980s and 1990s when modern medicine was less advanced.

Any insight you can offer would be much appreciated...