Friday, September 5, 2014

The Question of Ellington

With the reports of Ellington's foot injury today (and the resulting migraines suffered by Ellington/Lacy owners), all anyone's been talking about is what to do. Is Dwyer worth a pickup? What's the most recent news? HELP ME WHAT DO I DO I'VE LOST THE SEASON ALREADY

Okay, calm down. There are two related questions to answer. 1. What's the best way to proceed from here, and 2. Is Dwyer good enough to justify a pickup?

HELP ME WHAT DO I DO?
Let's start with the bad news. The Cardinals play the very last game of Week 1, kicking off at 10:20PM Eastern time. You can't wait until game time to get the most updated information and make a choice then. You're going to have to make some decisions in advance.
If you're looking at waiver/free agent pickups, you can't wait until the last second to pick up a player, especially if it 's someone that another owner could have eyes on (for example, you probably aren't the only one in your league looking at Ellington's backup, Dwyer...though whether that's a good decision or not is up for debate, and we'll analyze it below). There's not much benefit to waiting for information anyway unless you are seriously considering starting Ellington if he's healthy enough to start.

Let's say Ellington somehow ends up playing. Can I safely start him?
Safely? No. If I have a decent flex option, I'd absolutely start him over Ellington this week unless the news is suddenly incredibly good (which is unlikely at this point). Even if he plays, his downs will probably be limited which massively lowers his ceiling. I'd rather start any flex option over that spinning roulette wheel.


Is Ellington's backup, Dwyer, worth a pickup?
If Ellington is out, Dwyer will receive the bulk of carries. While I've said before that relying on preseason data is fairly unreliable, it's about the best data we have for this situation, so let's take a look:

Texans v. Cardinals (0-32). Dwyer: 4 carries, 7 yards (1.8 ypc, longest carry 4 yards), 0 receptions.
Cardinals v. Vikings (28-30). Dwyer: 5 carries, 10 yards (2.0 ypc, longest 4 yards, 1 TD), 0 receptions.
Bengals v. Cardinals (19-13). Dwyer: 5 carries, 7 yards (1.4 ypc, longest 7 yards), 0 receptions.
(Dwyer didn't play the last preseason game)

Dwyer's best performance was against the Vikings; let's take a closer look. His TD play was a goal line carry of 1 yard early in the 1st, and a few carries early in the 2nd. His carry in the Cardinals side of the field (on the Arizona 5) went for a loss of a yard, while his best two carries were back to back in the midfield.

This is a really small sample size - 14 carries over three games. However, in those 14 carries, he's amassed a gigantic...24 yards, averaging 1.7 yards per carry. He is certainly no Ellington.

Of course, Dwyer is likely to do better when he has a full game in front of him. That said, the immediate panic should not be "I have to go pick up Dwyer." I would rather start a semimarginal flex option than Dwyer, who is likely to share at least a few carries with Stepfan Taylor anyway.

Of course, if you have no other options and the waiver wire doesn't have any good options - sure, go ahead and pick him up. Then you can at least wait until gametime to see who to start.

IN SUM: 
1. If you have a flex option on your bench, put him in your starting lineup instead of Ellington and forget about this mess until next week.
2. If you need a replacement from the waiver wire to fill that gap, just pick up the player now.
3. Pick up Dwyer as a last resort only.

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