Dr. Morse discusses Jacksonville Jaguars' Leonard Fournette and his troublesome ankle(s). He reviews the injury in detail, providing professional insight, answers some questions, provides a 'Health Outlook' for 2018, assess Fournette's risk of reinjury and offers up his recommendations for drafting Fournette. Is he a safe top 10 RB?
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Injury Review Article: https://www.thefantasydoctors.com/fantasy/2018-nfl-injury-guide-leonard-fournette/
Video: Coming soon to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-fS-iXBjiUl0DP0ZwwSeQ?view_as=subscriber
Podcast Notes:
2017 Stats: 13 games, 268 rushes for 1,040 yards, 9 TD. 36 rec for 302 yds. 2 TD
2018 Projections: 289 rushes, 1166 yds, 9.5 TD. 37 rec for 303 yds, 1 TD.
Projected 2018 Fantasy Rank (FantasyPros): RB8
Injury:
- Fournette has a huge history of ankle issues, including high ankle sprains, traditional (low) ankle sprains and even a bone bruise.
- In his final year of college he missed 6 games with the ankle injury that turned out to be a high-ankle sprain.
- The HISTORY is THERE.
- Some team executives were concerned that Fournette might even need surgry eventually for the ankle because of issues with stability, so far so good. I guess only time will tell with that.
- Not only does Fournette have issues with his left ankle, which is the one that he frequently injured in college, but he also injured his right ankle last year in his NFL rookie season. So both ankles have some serious wear-and-tear on them
- During the preseason of his rookie season, Fournette had his foot was stepped. This caused him to miss the final 3 preseason games, but he managed to play week 1. Not only did he play, he played quite well, managing 100 yards and a TD on 26 rushes. He also chipped in 3 receptions for 24 yards. Very respectable debut.
- Despite being listed as limited throughout week 4’s practices with an ankle injury, Fournette had a monster game versus the Steelers in week 5, rushing 28 times for 181 yards and 2 TDs.
- Fournette was off to a great day in week 6 versus the Rams when, in the 4th quarter, his right ankle gave out in a non-contact fashion. Something that you never want to hear.
- Diagnosed with a sprained ankle, he missed week 7 and then used the team’s bye week to heal.
- Then in Week 9, Fournette was not finally off the injury report, and it appeared that he was over his ankle injury, but then was a HUGE surprise inactive (especially to his fantays owners who had to scramble to replace him last minute), supposedly a healthy scratch due to a violation of team rules. I’m sure some fantasy owners are still bitter about that benching.
- Then after week 11 Forunette said that his ankle “isn’t going to be 100% until after the season”, and he felt as though he was missing power and explosiveness.
- In week 14 Fournette injured his quadriceps muscle which caused him to miss week 15.
- All told, Fournette only played 13 games this regular season, missing 1 game because of his ankle injury, another [game] because of a quad injury, and a 3rd [game] because he violated team rules.
- Fournette had another monster game, this time in the playoffs against the Steelers and reinjured his ankle, but was able to return to the game.
- In his debut season, as the bellcow for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Fournette was averaging 4.58 yards per carry over the first 6 games but that average fell to 3.22 YPC, likely due to his injuries as the season rolled on.
2018 Health Outlook:
- Ankle sprains are the most common injury in sports. Lateral ankle sprains are much more common than medal ankle sprains.
- Ankle sprains can be really serious especially for RBs, and they are notorious to return.
- With an ankle sprain, one of the issues is that the ankle loses proprioception, significantly increasingly the possibility of a reinjury because of the lack of strength and flexibility.
- Fournette’s ankle will never be truly 100% ever again, the ligaments that keep the ankle stable are damaged and the body is unfortuantely not able to heal them back to pre-injury strengths.
- Fournette will always have these ankle injuries in the back of his mind when he’s running, and hopefully these injuries fuel his rehab and prevention training.
- Keeping an eye on him in the preseason when he’s testing out the ankle, cutting hard on his right ankle.
- Fournette has made it a goal of cutting weight this offseason, as he is coming into camp 11 lbs lighter than last year, with the goal of playing at his college weight of about 223 lbs.
- Dropping the weight should definitely help his risk of reinjury This should definitely help his explosiveness, but will not decrease his risk of re-injury in a contact sport like football.
Risk of Re-Injury: High to Very High (75% +)
Recommendations: Fournette has the talent and workload to be a top 10 RB.
- Several big name people have picked him to lead to the league in rushing this upcoming season. This is VERY possible, as long as he stays healthy and his ankles cooperate.
- The problem is that it seemed as if he was on injury report for his ankle more than he was off it – not a good sign for a RB.
- If I’m drafting an RB1, I want a combination of reliability, a solid floor and a high ceiling.
- Unfortunately for Fournette, his relability and durability are in question between his ankle injury and two team violations, Fournette ended up missing a total of 4 weeks in his NFL debut season.
- When its all said and done, he should finish the season in the top 10 for RBs, especially in PPR leagues. He’s one of only a handful of true workhorse backs.
- I personally would draft him in round 2 as I have him in the RB6-7 range, but I will likely be avoiding him this year. If you do draft him, just be prepared for him to miss some games between his chronic ankle injuries and his track record of poor behavior.
- You should always draft lots of RBs, making sure you have a backup plan for Fournette, when (in my mind) he inevitably goes down with an injury. But it is nice to enjoy the 20+ point games when he is tearing things up.
- If you’re a conservative fantasy football manager, and you don’t want to have to worry about if your RB1 is on the injury report again, or if he violated team rules and will be scratched right before gametime, then DON’T DRAFT FOURNETTE.
- My tune has changed over the past few weeks, initially I said I wouldn’t be drafting Fournette at all, now looking back there are really only 5 bell cow RBs: DJ, Zeke, Bell, Gurley, Saquon, & Fournette. So YOU have to at least CONSIDER him, whether it is late 1st round or early 2nd round.
- Check out the Adam Spinks’ Twitter feed about some Fournette data too, his Twitter handle is The RB Scout. The data he presents is quite interesting.
