Could Todd Gurley return to top-five Fantasy RB status as a member of the Atlanta Falcons?

During the 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons, no running back was more dominant in real life or Fantasy than Todd Gurley. He led the league in rushing touchdowns during both seasons, and his 3,924 scrimmage yards over that span was by far the most in the NFL.

Fast forward to March 19, 2020, when news broke that the Rams were releasing Todd Gurley. In the words of Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." In 2018, Gurley was the NFL's top back at the ripe age of 23. Just one season later, and he is left looking for employment.

Fortunately, finding employment isn't difficult when you're as talented of a player as Gurley is. Just one day after his release, Gurley landed a one-year deal with the Atlanta Falcons. Will Gurley's role in Atlanta's high-powered offense be enough to allow him to regain his place as one of Fantasy's premier running backs?

Early Fantasy drafters don't seem to think so. The average draft position data available at this point in the offseason has Gurley going off the board at the back end of the third-round, as the RB13 on average.

I thought Gurley was drastically overvalued as the RB9 in ADP last year, but there may be some value to be had in 2020 Fantasy drafts.

Who got worse -- Gurley or the offense as a whole?

Gurley went from averaging 4.7 and 4.9 yards per carry in 2017 and 18 to just 3.8 in 2019. After averaging 684 yards and five  touchdowns through the air in 2017 and 18, Gurley finished 2019 with just 207 yards and two scores as a receiver. His 12 rushing touchdowns salvaged his Fantasy season, but Gurley just did not seem like the explosive back we saw in years prior.

Given his struggles with knee issues, the natural assumption is that Gurley was the problem. But a deeper look might suggest that L.A.'s offensive dysfunction was just as much to blame.

Offensive Line Woes

Gurley's talent was able to shine so brightly in 2017 and 18 thanks in large part to his placement behind the NFL's best offensive line. The Rams took PFF's top run blocking grade in 2018, and they were fifth in 2017.

The same could not be said for L.A. in 2019, as PFF had them graded as the seventh-worst run blocking unit in the NFL. The Falcons, who had one of the worst offensive lines in football in 2017 and 18, ranked 11th in run blocking grade in 2019 after investing heavily in their line the previous offseason.

L.A.'s offensive line woes were evidenced in the team's yards before contact average, which dropped from 2.6 in 2018 to 2.2 in 2019. Only ten teams gave their backs less room before first contact.

Stacked Boxes

Gurley wasn't the only Ram who endured one of the worst seasons of his career in 2019. Jared Goff was the worst we've seen him since his atrocious rookie campaign. He ranked 20th in PFF passer grade, 23rd in 'on target' rate, and 27th in adjusted completion percentage. Brandin Cooks completely disappeared, and Cooper Kupp struggled with health for much of the second-half of the season.

As a result, opposing defenses were able to focus on the run more than in 2017 and 18, when they had to respect the passing game. In 2017, Gurley faced eight or more defenders in the box on just 16.9 percent of his rushes. In 2018, somehow Gurley only saw a stacked box on 7.8 percent of his rushes. Only Tarik Cohen and Wendell Smallwood posted a lower rate. But last year, Gurley ran against a stacked box on 24.2 percent of his attempts.

Still Got It

PFF's "elusive rating" distills the success and impact of a runner with the ball independently of the blocking in front of him by looking at how hard he was to bring down. Gurley's elusive rating in 2019 was 51.4 -- the highest mark since his rookie season. He posted a 42.8 rating in 2018, a 46.6 in 2017, and just a 27.8 mark in 2016.

His elusive rating is backed up by an average yards after contact mark of 2.8, which was slightly above his career average. Gurley averaged 3.2 yards per contact in 2018, 2.8 in 2017, and 2.2 in 2016. Gurley's 2019 rushing PFF rushing grade of 79.1 was the second-highest mark of his career.

Nothing from Gurley's advanced statistical profile suggests a decline in rushing ability. The same can't be said for his contributions as a receiver, though.

Receiving Contributions

After posting a stellar PFF receiving grade of 87.8 in 2017, Gurley's grade fell to 62 in 2018 and all the way to 34.8 in 2019. He posted an NFL-worst (among RB) drop rate, letting 16.2 percent of passes fall through his hands. After ranking fifth in the NFL with a 2.14 yards per route run mark in 2017, Gurley ranked dead last with just 0.53 yards per route run last year.

An 82 percent catchable target rate (10th-worst among 44 qualified RB) from Jared Goff probably didn't help matters. The drop from back-to-back seasons with 80-plus targets to just 49 in 2019 exacerbated the issue. The combination of lower volume and efficiency resulted in Gurley effectively losing his one of the most valuable sources of his Fantasy production. Is it possible that Atlanta's RB-friendly passing scheme can help salvage Gurley's lost PPR value?

The Falcons led the NFL in pass-to-rush ratio last year, which might be looked at as a negative for Gurley's rushing volume. It's worth noting that Atlanta's game-script neutral (one-score games) pass-to-rush ratio of 63 percent was barely above L.A.'s 61 percent mark. So, if the Falcons find themselves in fewer big holes than last year, expect their rush rate to rise.

While the Falcons and Rams had a similar script neutral pass-to-rush ratio, there was one major difference between the two teams -- the percentage of targets that went to the RB position. Atlanta's RB group accounted for 110 targets in 2019, while L.A. ranked second-to-last with just 58 RB targets. In the three years with Sean McVay as head coach, the Rams have averaged 81.3 RB targets. In five years with Dan Quinn as Atlanta's head coach, the Falcons have averaged 102.2 RB targets.

Takeaways

Some questions that will impact Gurley's 2020 Fantasy season simply don't have answers at this point in the offseason. What is the status of his arthritic knee? Will Atlanta bring in another running back to compete with Gurley, or will he see the bulk of the work?

What we can feel confident in is that the RB position in Atlanta is valuable role for Fantasy purposes. Devonta Freeman was the RB1 and RB6 in Fantasy during the 2015 and 16 seasons, and both he and Tevin Coleman finished inside the top-24 in 2017. Freeman was injured in 2018, which allowed Coleman to finish as the RB18.

Freeman had clearly lost a step in 2019. His PFF rushing grade of 57 was the lowest since his rookie year and ranked 59th among 61 qualified backs. Despite the massive drop-off, Freeman still finished as a top-20 Fantasy back last year because of Atlanta's RB-friendly scheme.

Gurley isn't going to have everything handed to him on a platter like he did in 2017 and 18, when he ran behind the league's best offensive line and had the NFL's top red zone usage by a wide margin. We might not see a "perfect storm" situation for a Fantasy RB like that again for a long time. But, could Gurley's situation in Atlanta be more Fantasy-friendly than the one he saw in L.A. during the 2019 season? Absolutely.

And given the fact that nothing from Gurley's advanced statistical profile suggests a decline in his ability as a rusher, he could capitalize on the situation in Atlanta and have a big-time Fantasy bounce-back in 2020.