As we gear up to the start of the NFL season, Football Absurdity is going to bring you a comprehensive breakdown of every notable player that will be available in fantasy football drafts. We only look at the past three seasons for a player. Leonard Fournette added a completely new dimension to his game last season and was all-time unlucky. Is he going to finally be the good Florida Man story in 2020? Or will he just be your standard-issue Florida Man, doing the football equivalent of leading police on a golf course chase because you think that people were eating his brains?
Leonard Fournette ADP and AAV:
Standard Scoring ADP: RB15, 30 overall
PPR Scoring ADP: RB14, 26 overall
Average Auction Value: $19
Leonard Fournette Statistics:
| Year | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| G | 15 | 8 | 13 |
| GS | 15 | 8 | 13 |
| Ru Att | 265 | 133 | 268 |
| Ru Yds | 1152 | 439 | 1040 |
| Ru TD | 3 | 5 | 9 |
| Tgt | 100 | 26 | 48 |
| Rec | 76 | 22 | 36 |
| Yards | 522 | 185 | 302 |
| TD | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Touches | 341 | 155 | 304 |
| Opp | 365 | 159 | 316 |
| Total Yards | 1674 | 624 | 1342 |
| Year | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| YPC | 4.35 | 3.3 | 3.88 |
| Ru Att/G | 17.7 | 16.6 | 20.6 |
| Ru Yd/G | 76.8 | 54.9 | 80.0 |
| Tgt/G | 6.67 | 3.25 | 3.69 |
| Rec/G | 5.07 | 2.75 | 2.77 |
| Catch% | 76.0% | 84.6% | 75.0% |
| Yds/Tgt | 5.22 | 7.12 | 6.29 |
| Yds/Rec | 6.87 | 8.41 | 8.39 |
| Touches/G | 22.73 | 19.38 | 23.38 |
| Opp/G | 24.33 | 19.88 | 24.31 |
| Yds/G | 111.60 | 78.00 | 103.23 |
| Year | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| Std Pts | 183.4 | 98.4 | 194.2 |
| HPPR Pts | 221.4 | 109.4 | 212.2 |
| PPR Pts | 259.4 | 120.4 | 230.2 |
| Pts/G | 12.23 | 12.30 | 14.94 |
| HPPR Pts/G | 14.76 | 13.68 | 16.32 |
| PPR Pts/G | 17.29 | 15.05 | 17.71 |
| Pts/Touch | 0.54 | 0.63 | 0.64 |
| Pts/Touch (HPPR) | 0.65 | 0.71 | 0.70 |
| Pts/Touch (PPR) | 0.76 | 0.78 | 0.76 |
Leonard Fournette Overview:
By all measures, Leonard Fournette had the best season of his career. Fournette added receiving to his game, getting 100 targets after getting 76 in his first two seasons combined. His yards per carry, rushing yards, and touches were also all career highs. Unfortunately, he was one of the unluckiest running backs of all time. All running backs since 2010 score a touchdown about every 32 touches and Fournette’s average is one touchdown about every 29 touches. In 2019, he had 341 touches and three touchdowns, which is one touchdown every 114 touches, or nearly four times worse than his career average.
People want to push Leonard Fournette down for this season because of Ryquell Armstead and Chris Thompson, which apparently sound the death knell for Fournette in 2020. To that I say: Ryquell Armstead went for zero or fewer yards in one-third of his carries last year, and Chris Thompson has missed one-third of the games in the last three seasons. I am not worried about Armstead of Thompson for Leonard Fournette’s 2020 value. Even if he takes a step back in targets, just his career average in touchdown rate should have seen him score nine times last year from rushes alone.
Leonard Fournette Draft Strategy:
Leonard Fournette Auction Value: $31
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming late June)
Leonard Fournette is the perfect guy to take in the third round if you think that you need to get a wide receiver in rounds one or two. While we recommend getting a couple of running backs in the first couple of rounds, there are some guys that are well worth the pick and deferring your running back picks to rounds two and three. Fournette has top-ten upside, which is difficult to find outside of the first two rounds of the draft. If you decide you need Michael Thomas or Davante Adams in round one, then Fournette is your guy in round three.
Best Case Scenario:
Ryquell Armstead and Chris Thompson become the pure distillation of themselves: Armstead never makes it past the line of scrimmage and Thompson misses the season. The Jaguars ride Leonard Fournette into the ground; he ends the season as a top-five running back.
Worst Case Scenario:
The ghost of Tom Coughlin rears his ugly head over the Jaguars coaching staff, and Leonard Fournette gets benched for not having a tight enough handshake in pregame warmups. He then gets cut for saying “I don’t know if that was the right decision coach, can we please have a meaningful discussion about this?”
[Header Image Source: Leonard Fournette on Twitter]
[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com and airyards.com]
