Chris Ivory Gets the Green Light
Byron Lambert, Rosterwatch.com

Photo via Chris Ivory Facebook

One of the toughest decisions I face as I finalize my portion of the Rosterwatch.com Composite Week 3 Rankings is Trent Richardson or Chris Ivory.

This tells me two things. One, that Trent Richardson is at best a flex-play this week. Two, and most importantly for the sake of this article, Chris Ivory can finally be started this week. As a flex, of course.

We’ve seen an uptick in Ivory’s touches from Week 1 to Week 2. He’s on track for 12-15 touches this week against a modest Bills run defense. Ivory started to get some traction in the offense last week, showing nice burst and the brute running style that the Jets brought him in for. He turned out five fantasy points, and all indications are that should be close to his baseline this week- and more than likely we will see an increase in his scoring.

The division matchup with Buffalo appears to be a competitive one that will induce quite a bit of running on both sides. Ivory has the talent to get the hot hand, find the endzone, and stay on the field. If it happens, all of the sudden Ivory owners have upside on their hands in their flex position.

Of course, the troubling part for Ivory owners is his snap count percentage. He only played 32% of snaps in Week 1 and that only grew to 34% in Week 2. Not quite the steady path to locking down the job that everyone expected. It’s concerning that the Jets coaching staff doesn’t trust him more. It could be the residual effect of missed time in training camp. It’s not exactly the best news either that Bilal Powell got goal-line duty last week. It’s also important to mention that there is some small outside chance that Powell gets the hot hand. Which, would obviously diminish Ivory’s production.

The play doesn’t come without concern. But honestly, who hasn’t this year- outside of a couple guys?

It’s safe to project Chris Ivory for a scoring range of 4-17 points this week. Single digits being a more probable outcome than double digits- it’s still a range of production that many of us can (or must) live with in our flex positions. Something tells me this is the week we see some type of breakout from Ivory.

As for Trent Richardson or Chris Ivory this week? Well, you’ll just have to wait until our rankings go final on Sunday Morning to see how that shakes out.