RB: Jerome Ford - CLE

A big issue that I continue to see in fantasy football is when fantasy football owners use misinterpreted or misguided information in order to draw a conclusion and don't change that conclusion even when new information presents itself. I believe that Jerome Ford fell victim to that thought process last season. When Nick Chubb went down about halfway through their week two game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Jerome Ford stepped up and offered back-to-back top 10 performances in week two and week three.

Fantasy owners had two pieces of information that they ran with after that: they saw top 10 performances in week two and week three and said, "Hey, Jerome Ford can do it." Then they took the performances that Nick Chubb had in the past, added those two things together, and felt like, "Hey, Jerome Ford is going to continue to do this every week." That just didn't end up happening. Because people had such an inflated thought about Jerome Ford at the beginning of the season, they continued to stand up on this hill where they thought Jerome Ford had top 10 potential. Instead, they didn't take the newer information presenting itself and realize that Jerome Ford was actually just a really safe RB2.

There is nothing wrong with being a safe RB2, but it is the difference between getting what you think you're going to get and getting what you know you're going to get out of a player. When we draft Jerome Ford this season, we should get what we know we're going to get. After those great performances in week two and week three, Jerome Ford was only a top 10 running back two more times the rest of the season. However, he finished as an RB2, ranked anywhere from RB13 to RB24, seven times the rest of the season. Then you sprinkle in a few performances where Jerome Ford was either an RB3 or wasn't really worthy of a fantasy start at all, and again you get a guy that is a safe RB2.

He is somebody that I think can give me decent numbers every single week, and that's how we should draft Jerome Ford in 2024. We don't know anything about Nick Chubb and what is exactly going to happen as of this recording, but Jerome Ford is going to be a guy that we should definitely be picking up given the fact that his ADP at this point is super, super low.

One thing we want to keep in mind as well is that Jerome Ford was largely propped up in the fantasy scoring department by his touchdowns last season. He had five through the air and another four on the ground for nine total scores. His yardage, though, was not all that great. He only broke 100 total yards on three different occasions.

So for me in 2024, without knowing what Nick Chubb is going to be doing to begin the season, I'll invest in Jerome Ford as a safe low-end RB2 and hope to begin the season that maybe he gives me a few more touches than what I was anticipating. If either Nick Chubb is not fully healthy or ready to go, or the fact that Nick Chubb ends up missing some time or just isn't fully integrated into the offense and just needs to slowly work his way back, then maybe you do lose a few touches throughout the season. But Jerome Ford is still there as a potential flex option because of what he could do in the pass game.

If you draft Jerome Ford, the best-case scenario is that Nick Chubb just ends up missing most of, if not all of, 2024. As a Nick Chubb truther, I would absolutely hate to see that, but I definitely think Jerome Ford, as long as his ADP doesn't get too high, if we can draft him as our RB4 or RB5, we invest at that point, and whatever ends up happening is just icing on the cake.