Ke'Shawn Vaughn Fantasy Outlook Includes Huge Upside With Terrible Floor in 2020

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense is shaping up to be one of the best in the NFL. With Tom Brady joining a unit that finished tied for the third-most points per game (28.6) in the NFL last year, this should be a group that produces plenty of fantasy football goodness.

That makes the starting running back spot a very valuable one, though there's not much clarity in a unit that includes Ronald Jones, LeSean McCoy, Dare Ogunbowale and rookie Ke'Shawn Vaughn.

The crowded backfield means Vaughn has a huge range of outcomes for the season. His floor is terrible, but his upside still makes him worth a look in 2020 fantasy football drafts.

Ke'Shawn Vaughn Fantasy Outlook

The potential downside in Vaughn's situation is obvious. Between Jones and McCoy on early downs and Ogunbowale on passing downs, Vaughn may just have too much competition to play any significant role as a rookie. We saw this in Tampa in 2018 when hyped up second-round pick Ronald Jones had just 23 carries on the year. There's a real chance you draft Vaughn and he never once cracks your starting lineup.

However, the potential upside is high enough to make that a risk worth taking.

Vaughn averaged 2.3 receptions per game in his 2019 season, and that's more than Jones has ever averaged in a season at either the NCAA or NFL level. The 32-year-old McCoy didn't show much as a receiver last year either, averaging just 5.3 yards per target in the explosive Kansas City Chiefs' offense.

This means that Vaughn's top competition for receiving work is Ogunbowale, who only just started seeing playing time in his third NFL season in 2019, turning 46 targets into an underwhelming 35 receptions and 286 yards. He earned a middling 62.6 receiving grade from Pro Football Focus.

We can expect Tampa's RBs to get involved in the Brady-led passing attack, and Vaughn has a pretty easy path to becoming Brady's top receiving back.

That could already give him some interesting fantasy value (especially in PPR leagues), while the possibility that he also earns some early-down work makes his upside that much higher.

Vaughn has an average draft position (ADP) of RB45, according to FantasyPros. That's not high enough to capture his upside, and he checks in at RB38 in our 2020 fantasy football rankings.

This boom-or-bust outlook for the season also makes Vaughn a particularly interesting player in best ball drafts.

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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.