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If you paid any attention to fantasy football last season you've heard the name Bishop Sankey. Sankey was a rookie running back drafted out of the University of Washington by the Tennessee Titans. The hype around Sankey as a potential fantasy starter grew to enormous heights, so much so that he was going as early as the middle of the second round. That's a crazy amount of buzz for a guy who hadn't stepped onto an NFL field before and sure enough, Sankey disappointed his fantasy owners. The presence of a new rookie, University of Minnesota product David Cobb, makes for an intriguing position battle to analyze heading into 2015.
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Cobb was selected in the fifth round of this year's NFL draft, so he's by no means expected to be an automatic superstar. The argument for Cobb essentially starts with examining Sankey's lack of production in 2014. Sankey's only competition at the position last year was Shonn Greene (yes, that Shonn Greene). The Titans broke up the carries in favor of Sankey by giving him 152 compared to Greene's 94. That's a 58 carry difference, so mathematically speaking it's no surprise than Sankey also had 177 more rushing yards than Greene. The more telling takeaway from Tennessee's rushing attack last year is the fact that Greene was able to keep up with Sankey's production even with less carries. They both had the same number of rushing touchdowns (two), and Greene had the higher average yards-per-carry at 4.2 compared to Sankey's 3.7. Greene also had the longest run between them at 52 yards versus Sankey's measly 22.
That's a long way of saying that Bishop Sankey was one of the biggest let-downs of the 2014 season, especially considering how high some drafters ended up taking him. If the Titans hadn't brought in another running back I'd be more inclined to suggest ignoring this situation altogether from a fantasy perspective, but the presence of David Cobb adds some intrigue. Based off of the aforementioned numbers you can see that Cobb doesn't exactly have a huge hurdle to overcome in regard to playing time. Sure he has to deal with Dexter McCluster, but McCluster isn't a typical running back and tends to get shifted around the field. At worst, Cobb is a more talented version of Shonn Greene who should see a similar number of carries. That alone is enough to turn this into a true running-back-by-committee, and should give Cobb the opportunity to overtake Sankey entirely.
A committee would mute the fantasy values of both players. Very few teams are able to produce a fantasy starter via a committee, let alone two. What we're really hoping for is that David Cobb outplays Bishop Sankey even with fewer touches. Then the Titans would have no choice but to increase his workload and potentially move away from the committee approach. All Cobb has to do is beat out the guy who couldn't beat out Shonn Greene in 2014.
I would advocate passing on Sankey entirely when your fantasy draft rolls around. Between his lack of production as a rookie and the addition of David Cobb, the deck is severely stacked against him. I would, however, snag Cobb late in my draft as my last running back. Sure it might be a committee, but at least you'd have the player with less risk attached given how late you're taking him. A common train of thought in examining fantasy is the idea of "what's most likely to happen," and in this particular scenario, I believe it is far more likely that David Cobb can beat out a disappointing Bishop Sankey.
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