Dynasty Rookie Spotlight: Wendell Smallwood, RB Philadelphia Eagles

Wendell Smallwood, RB Philadelphia Eagles

Height– 5’10”
Weight– 208 pounds
Hand Size – 9 1/4″
Vertical Jump– 33.5″
Broad Jump– 120″
3 Cone– 6.83 seconds
40-Time– 4.47

Dynasty Rookie Draft ADP– 2.12 (RB9)

NFL Comparisons: Jahvid Best, Duke Johnson, Mark Ingram, Ryan Mathews, Melvin Gordon

The 2016 Philadelphia Eagles backfield is shaping up as a potential diamond in the rough for fantasy purposes. Fifth-round rookie draft pick Wendell Smallwood is squarely on both of our dynasty and 2016 re-Draft radars. He’s a north-south slasher who runs tough for his size and has experience catching the ball out of the backfield. In many ways, his style reminds us of the current starter Ryan Mathews. The other comps we’ve generated require that we take notice.

Philly is thin at the running back position and the observations coming out of minicamps and OTAs from the Eagles reporter who’s scouting acumen we trust most, Turron Davenport, have been glowing. The Eagles have not drafted a running back since Bryce Brown, so clearly the staff saw something in Smallwood that projects solidly into Pederson’s system to invest draft capital. Smallwood projects as the immediate handcuff for those who choose to own the fragile Mathews, and a key cog in the future of the Eagles running back position. Smallwood will be a sneaky late-round flyer in deep redraft leagues, or an immediate waiver-wire watch list guy in shorter formats. He projects as an upside RB3 (possibly RB2) if Mathews goes down, and may be even a flex option as a rookie in tandem with Mathews.

Our only concern is the offensive guard situation in Philadelphia. But, with a current fifth-round ADP for Ryan Mathews — and Smallwood currently going extremely late and sometimes undrafted in 2016 redraft formats — this is a combo RosterWatch Nation is going to be watching very closely in August.

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2 Comments

  1. ↓ Post By robertfavre@rocketmail.com

    I hope I’m in the right spot to ask questions regarding my league, I’m a 2-3 year listener first time on the site, but I was hoping to get some advice on my dynasty keepers. I’m in a 14 team league with each team keeping 4 players, so a lot of players are off the board come draft time. I’m gonna list the 4 players I’m leaning toward keeping first, than a few other choices. Thanks guys!

    Jonathan Stewart in the 7th round
    Dion Lewis in the 16th round
    Michael Floyd in the 15th round
    Alston Jeffery in the 2nd round

    Others:
    Chris Ivory in the 6th round
    Kamar Aiken in the 16th round
    Desean Jackson in the 6th round
    Marcus Mariota in the 16th round
    Travis Benjamin in the 16th round

    I can keep more than 1 in the 16th, they just move up a round if the 16th is already used by a keeper. Again if I’m asking in the wrong area I apologize, just heard you guys on the radio say to ask in the comment sections

    1. ↓ Post By Byron Lambert

      Hi Rob,

      Thanks for the question, it’s a good one. We think your 4 represent solid value. We’d keep Alshon and Dion Lewis for sure.

      After that here are our thoughts-

      -Depending on how you think QBs will shake out in your draft- we are tempted to consider Mariota over Floyd- we’d be curious to know where you think you could draft Mariota this year if you throw him back in the pool? We like Mariota as a sneaky late rd QB option this yr.

      -If you think you can still get QB value in your draft- then we like 2 of the following 3 to round out your keepers: DeSean, JStew, Ivory

      – JStew / Ivory both look solid on paper, but something tells us it’s about picking the right one of those two- push come to shove we agree w/ Stew one round later

      – Floyd doesn’t move our needle much- but RD15 obv solid value if you’re feeling it.

      – This all really depends on who / what caliber player you think will be avail in RD6 of your draft- if you expect it to be better than Ivory / DeSean- then you should keep Floyd or Mariota- we might value Mariota most of those two-
      if you expect the value in RD6 to be lower quality than DeSean / Ivory then we’d keep one of those guys instead of Floyd / Mariota.

      Good Luck,

      Byron

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