Injury Breakdown: Dalvin Cook - MIN

Now, Dalvin Cook may be on the wrong side of his career apex, but it didn't stop him from putting up a top 10 season at the running back position last year. The problem was that he fell off a cliff come the fantasy playoffs with dud performances in back-to-back weeks in Week 16 and 17. Now, I wouldn't fault anyone that saw that and was unhappy with the inconsistent week-to-week production from Dalvin Cook for not wanting to come back to him this year in fantasy.

From an injury perspective, Cook should be the healthiest that he's been since he's been in the NFL. He has dealt with recurrent shoulder dislocations caused by a torn labrum in his shoulder. Now, when the labrum's torn, it's kind of like a suction cup being torn. You lose all of the effect of holding that shoulder in place, and so it's more common for the shoulder to dislocate when you have a torn labrum. Now, that torn labrum actually dates all the way back to a weightlifting injury he had in college, and he didn't tear it by actually lifting weights; he tore it because he fell in the weight room.

Now, he had surgery to repair his labrum this offseason and should be back to 100% by Week 1. But the question is, who is he going to be playing for when he comes back? From a fantasy perspective, there are still questions that we have to get answers to before I'm confident in drafting him. Now, the surgery should have fixed the issues that he had with the recurrent dislocations, and his current ADP is still outside of the top 20 running backs, which to me feels like his floor. I'm actually going to put him on my draft list this year. It will change depending on where he goes, but I think that he's going to end up in a one- or two-year deal with somebody that really needs him to be a bell cow still, and I'm going to bet on that in drafts. With his ADP falling and the shoulder likely not being an issue going forward.