Kenyan Drake Fantasy Value Falling With Mark Walton Leading Dolphins' Backfield

After starting the season as Miami's lead back and top fantasy option, Kenyan Drake now finds himself relegated to playing in a three-headed backfield on one of the worst teams in the NFL.

In Week 7's game against the Buffalo Bills, Drake saw just six carries and four targets, which he converted into 58 total yards. Meanwhile, second-year back Mark Walton led the way with more than double the carries, gaining 66 yards on 14 rushes. To make matters even worse, another Dolphins running back, Kalen Ballage, was given the goal-line touches for Miami, scoring once on three carries.

Clearly, this is a bad development for Drake, but the running back's talent might be hiding just how bad this can get.

First things first, any Miami running back should be downgraded because they are unlikely to be playing with a lead, and thus are less likely to see heavy usage on the ground. Heading into Sunday's game, the Dolphins had led for a total of less than 10 minutes on the season.

Beyond that, however, Drake's usage in particular is concerning. In the three games before Week 7, Drake had averaged double-digit carries to go with just under seven targets per game. On Sunday he saw those numbers cut in half.

Walton had 16 carries coming into Sunday, but left the game with almost double that number. Plus, as stated above, Ballage scored Miami's lone backfield touchdown for the second straight week.

Drake's value is severely limited by playing in one of the league's worst offense, and especially by the increase in usage for Walton and Ballage. For those hoping for fantasy production from Drake, your best bet is rooting that the Dolphins trade him to a team that will get him more heavily involved and present some scoring opportunities.

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Stuart Easton is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Stuart Easton also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username stueast13. 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 their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.