Cam Akers Fantasy Outlook Cloudy in Rams' Committee Backfield

The Los Angeles Rams backfield is shaping up to be a headache for fantasy football managers. Rookie Cam Akers appears to have the highest upside of the group, but even his fantasy outlook is shaky in 2020.

He's reportedly been getting some reps with the starters at training camp, but a deeper look at that report doesn't actually appear to be too optimistic.

Akers got reps with the starters, but he did that while rotating into the lineup behind Malcolm Brown and Darrell Henderson. It's good that the Rams wanted to see how Akers looked with the first team offense, but it's certainly not a good sign for his early-season fantasy value that he was doing it as the No. 3 RB.

Todd Gurley racked up 223 carries and 49 targets in 2019, and having that kind of volume available would usually make the L.A. backfield an exciting one to target in fantasy. At this point, however, it really looks like this will be at least a three-headed monster. Between Akers, Henderson and Brown, there may not even be a clear real-life starting RB in the committee.

As the only one who has yet to post underwhelming numbers at the NFL level, Akers very well may have the highest upside thanks to his potential to take over lead back duties down the stretch, but that doesn't make him worth spending a fantasy football pick on. Even that optimistic scenario could easily include him starting the season as a backup, and holding him on your bench in hopes that he may crack the starting lineup isn't the most exciting play.

Akers is being drafted as the RB29 in 2020, according to FantasyPros' average draft position (ADP) data, but he checks in at just RB39 in our 2020 fantasy football rankings.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.