What is James Robinson’s ADP in 2022 fantasy football drafts as he looks to come back from a season-ending injury late last year? With Travis Etienne also set to return and a new head coach in town, there are a lot of questions about the RB usage in Jacksonville this year. Let’s examine Robinson’s ADP and whether he might be able to return value on his current cost in fantasy drafts.
James Robinson ADP | Is he worth his current price in fantasy drafts?
Robinson’s ADP in redraft leagues has been slightly rising. Entering the offseason, there was uncertainty over whether he would be ready for the start of the 2022 NFL season. However, there is now optimism that Robinson will be ready to take the field in Week 1.
Therefore, we could see Robinson’s ADP continue to tick upwards from its spot just outside the top 100 in all three formats. His ADP across the formats is around 110th as the 40th RB off the board. That also seems largely flat across all the different sites that are incorporated into the Fantasy Pros’ consensus.
That means if you want Robinson, you are going to have to look to draft him late in Round 9 or early in Round 10 of a 12-team league. That is a big difference for a player that was sometimes slipping into the 12th or 13th round in early-year mocks.
In 12-team leagues, Robinson is being drafted as a fringe Flex starter, while in deeper leagues, his current ADP will mean he is being drafted among the starting options.
Robinson’s projected fantasy value in 2022
Robinson had been a feel-good story in the NFL right up until his injury. An undrafted free agent out of Illinois State, he worked his way into a starting role as a rookie and clung on from there. Over the past two years, he has carried the ball 404 times for 1,837 yards with 15 touchdowns. He has also been a threat in the receiving game with 80 receptions for 566 yards and three scores on 106 targets.
Robinson has led the Jaguars in carries in both of the past two seasons. In 2020, he averaged 14.4 fantasy points per game in non-PPR and 17.9 ppg in PPR to finish as a top-10 back in both formats. Last year was more of a struggle, dropping to 10.2 ppg in non-PPR and 12.4 ppg in PPR to finish as a fringe RB2. However, this year he will have his most serious competition for touches to date, with Travis Etienne set to enter the year healthy.
Last year, Etienne suffered a season-ending injury before the year had even begun. That left Robinson as the clear lead back in both the run and pass game. However, Etienne came into the NFL with a fantastic pedigree and played with Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence at Clemson.
Etienne had 48 receptions in 12 games during his senior season and 102 in his career. He also had 4,952 rushing yards on 686 rushing attempts, with 70 touchdowns. However, Etienne struggled for efficiency when rushing the ball in his senior season. That, combined with some training camp reports, means we could see Robinson as the lead back when it comes to run plays, with Etienne being more heavily involved in the passing game.
Doug Pederson’s history of RB usage
Doug Pederson comes to Jacksonville to add some stability after a tricky year with Urban Meyer as head coach. Pederson was fired by the Philadelphia Eagles after the 2020 season and took a year out of the game. However, we have five years of him as a head coach with which to get an idea of what we might see in terms of Robinson’s usage.
The picture it paints is not all that pretty. No back had 200+ carries in a single season during Pederson’s time as head coach. The most rushing attempts came from Miles Sanders when he averaged 13.7 across 12 games in 2020. He was the only back during Pederson’s tenure to even be on pace for 200 rushing attempts in a single season.
To make it even worse, Pederson did not lean on just two backs. In 2018, Josh Adams, Wendell Smallwood, and Corey Clement all played more than 10 games and averaged over five rushing attempts per game. That may have been Pederson responding to the situation of not having a clear lead back, but they are concerning signs all the same.
During Pederson’s time in Philadelphia, he gave one back around four targets per game on average (Darren Sproles or Sanders). However, the second back in the offense never saw more than 2.5 targets per game. That usage raises more red flags regarding getting consistent fantasy value out of both Robinson and Etienne.
Should you draft Robinson in 2022?
The Jaguars’ depth chart coming out of the preseason has Robinson listed as the No. 1 back. If that is a true reflection, we can project Robinson for around 12-13 rushing attempts per game, with somewhere between two and four targets. The most likely outcome would be around 15 opportunities per game for Robinson. If we assume he has 1.5 receptions per game on average, then we can project his touches to be around the 13-14 per-game mark in 2022.
That would be a very similar number to his 13.9 that saw him finish as a fringe RB2 last season. That would be a solid return on his current ADP as the 40th RB off the board. However, you could make the case that 13-14 touches are Robinson’s ceiling. If he takes a secondary role to Etienne, we could be looking at 5-7 touches per game, in which case RB40 might even look too high.
That uncertainty is why Robinson currently sits just a fraction inside the top 40 at his position in PFN’s consensus RB fantasy rankings. We have him in the top 100 overall, largely because we view the RB position as a priority this year. However, we very much view Robinson as a player selected in the right region as the RB40 and right around the top 100.
If RBs start to go early and you reach the RB35-40 region of the rankings, then taking Robinson in the late eighth or early ninth round is a solid play. However, reaching for him ahead of that region of the positional rankings puts you in a risky position. If he hits what we project as a realistic ceiling, you are perhaps only getting slight value on your cost. Meanwhile, if the floor we have outlined is the right outcome, you are stuck with a player of extremely limited value that you overpaid for.