It's hard work for a little man to play running back in the NFL. A query of ESPN Stats & Information's database finds that in the past 13 seasons, a running back who's 208 pounds or lighter and 5-foot-8 or shorter has finished with more than 100 fantasy points just nine times. The men on that "short" list are Darren Sproles, Danny Woodhead, Kevin Faulk, Amos Zereoue, Leon Washington and Justin Forsett. And only once in that span -- Sproles in 2011 -- has a mighty mite finished inside the top 20 in RB fantasy points.
Why did I pick the strange number of 208 pounds?
Forsett
Because that's how much Branden Oliver weighs. For all the pundits and tweeters convinced that Oliver's 182-total-yard effort in Week 5 makes him a future star, I say: not so fast. He looks like a nice player who absolutely can carve out a productive NFL career, but history tells us he's probably too small to be a star. We've been through this conversation a lot lately with players such as Bobby Rainey, Jacquizz Rodgers and LaRod Stephens-Howling laying momentary claim to starting NFL jobs, only to fall into ancillary roles over the longer term. There are exceptions to this rule: Maurice Jones-Drew and Ray Rice nearly fall into this size category. But the rarity of players the size of MJD and Rice becoming fantasy studs points to just how unlikely it is that smaller men will do so moving forward.
I bring all this up not to drag down Oliver (or 5-foot-10, 195-pounder Ronnie Hillman), but rather to point to another guy roughly their size who's having success right now, and who feels to me as though he's falling through the cracks: Justin Forsett.
Forsett has been awfully good in '14, and the Baltimore Ravens seem to know it. Here's how they've distributed RB snaps through five games:
Forsett and Bernard Pierce began Week 1 in an even rotation, but Pierce lost a fumble early and never saw the field again. Week 2 seemed like a return to the expected workload, as Pierce played the "grinder" role while Forsett played in a variety of formations, caught passes and got carries, though 42 of his 56 rushing yards came on a single long (very nice) run when the game had been decided. After that, Pierce injured a quad and hasn't played much since.
It should be noted that Forsett has played in plenty of red zone and short-yardage circumstances and has acquitted himself well, and it's actually been the 230-pound Pierce who has struggled near the goal line. As for Lorenzo Taliaferro, he looks a lot like Pierce: a north-souther with nice size who could be a pretty good player but doesn't yet seem to do much more than weigh 226 pounds. In fact, it looked to me like he might've been benched last week after a super-soft run near the Indianapolis Colts' goal line.
Now, past snap counts don't ensure future snap counts. As my ESPN buddy Keith Lipscomb likes to say, "I'm not the coach." We don't know how much Pierce's quad may still have been bugging him last week, and whether perhaps the Ravens' ideal circumstance would be a recapitulation of that Week 2 split. But in a close game in Indy, Forsett was the man. He may have seen only six carries, but he caught seven passes, and even played two snaps inside the Colts' 10 (the same number as Taliaferro, while Pierce had none). We want our RBs out there in TD-rich environs, and Forsett is playing just as much as his bigger mates when the Ravens get close.
I reviewed every Ravens offensive snap for this story, and I'm not proclaiming that Forsett is the second coming of MJD, Rice or any other Pro Bowl RB. What he is is solid, and solidity is something the Ravens prize right now. I acknowledge that it would be unlikely he'd hold up to every-down pounding for an entire year, and also that he's probably not the team's best short-yardage option or their RB of the future. However, I'd say the same things about Oliver and Hillman, and Forsett has the advantage of not requiring speculation. His 14.6 touches per game are 12th among all RBs who've had at least 12 touches in each of their games. Maybe that doesn't read like a super-elite workload, but it passes for "pretty good" in today's NFL.
Significantly, he's also been rock-solid in pass protection. You remember this play from Week 4 as the kooky one where Owen Daniels tipped up an overthrown ball, and Steve Smith caught the deflection and ran for a TD. What you may not have noticed is Charles Godfrey coming on a nickel blitz and getting ready to blast Flacco. But Forsett stands up Godfrey with a bracing shot, allowing the game's first score:
It should be noted that Torrey Smith's TD in that same game also was made possible by a solid Forsett blitz pickup. I scoured the tape and didn't find any particularly bad instances of pass blocking by Pierce or Taliaferro, but nothing that stood out as excellent. Forsett must be the man the Ravens trust most, despite his size.
Forsett isn't some kid who's an unknown quantity. He'll be 29 next week and the Ravens are his fifth franchise. He's no longer the sudden player he was coming out of Cal, but once he's on the move, he's got above-average lateral quickness that compares favorably with most receiving backs. Perhaps most important, he spent a year with the Houston Texans, whose head coach was Gary Kubiak, and of course Kubiak now calls plays for the Ravens. The comfort level is obvious.
In my weekly RB ranks, I put Forsett No. 23, well behind Oliver (who carries some risk considering he's never started an NFL game, but who has a sweet matchup against the Oakland Raiders) and one notch ahead of Hillman. But if I'm gauging these players' values for the rest of the season, Forsett is my favorite, and he's inside my top 25 RBs overall. Ryan Mathews and Montee Ball will be back in a matter of weeks, whereas Forsett could maintain his workload advantage all year. He's the little guy you'll be tempted to use at your flex deep into your fantasy playoffs.