Los Angeles Chargers: Is Austin Ekeler a reliable fantasy football option?

There is a pretty good chance that we won’t see much of Melvin Gordon, if at all, on the Los Angeles Chargers, opening the door for Austin Ekeler.

The running back saga continues for the Los Angeles Chargers as the team has still not come to an agreement with Melvin Gordon on a new contract, with Gordon even saying that he is simply “waiting on the call” from the Chargers (h/t ESPN).

This does suck for Charger fans as this season was filled with promise from the get-go. Los Angeles has an extremely talented roster that can compete for a Super Bowl but might be without Melvin Gordon, will be without Derwin James for 3-4 months, will be without Russell Okung and might be without Keenan Allen for a week or two.

Football is a team sport but all four of those players are very impactful. This is not losing a rotational linebacker, this is losing some impact players.

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The one caveat of the Gordon situation is that the Chargers have options at the running back position. Austin Ekeler has been the team’s second back behind Gordon the last two seasons and has been great in his role. Justin Jackson is a second-year back who went unnoticed until his huge game against the Pittsburgh Steelers last season.

If the team were to be without Gordon then Ekeler would likely be the feature back, although the two would likely split time more evenly than Ekeler did with Gordon. Regardless, Ekeler becomes the best fantasy running back option on the Chargers, but how reliable can he be?

Well, for starters, Ekeler has a fantasy-friendly role with the Los Angeles Chargers that sees him as a threat in both the running and the passing game. Ekeler ranked 27th in standard scoring for running backs last season and 25th in PPR.

That might not seem all that impressive but Ekeler was playing behind Gordon for 12 games of the season. While he was not great in every game without Gordon, he did have some standout performances that are promising. He scored more than 15 fantasy points in three different weeks, scoring above 10 in six weeks.

It is reasonable to expect these numbers to go up as well if Gordon does not play. Those 15-point games could become 20-point games, the 10-point games could become 15-point games.

The reason why it is okay to expect this is because of Ekeler’s averages. In the last two seasons, there are only six running backs that have averaged five or more yards per carry and five or more yards per reception with at least 150 rushes.

In order of rushing attempts, the list goes Alvin Kamara, Saquon Barkley, Aaron Jones, Nick Chubb, Phillip Lindsay and Austin Ekeler. Take out the rookies and all you have is Kamara, Jones and Ekeler.

And out of all of those players, the only one that averages over 10 yards per reception is Austin Ekeler, who averages 10.35 yards per reception.

It is reasonable to expect those averages to go down slightly with a bigger sample size, but with that bigger sample size is going to lead to much more receiving and rushing yards, which in turn creates fantasy points.

Next. A season with promise seems to be turning sour. dark

Would I draft Austin Ekeler very early? No. However, right now, he is the 33rd running back in ESPN fantasy with an average draft position of 98.2. If you are in an 8-10 man league and he is still available in the 10th or 11th round, I definitely would roll the dice.

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