Fantasy Football: RB Timeshare With Ray Rice and Bernard Pierce in Baltimore?
Alex Dunlap, Rosterwatch.com

Photo Via Ray Rice Twitter

Ray Rice is a young, durable running back. He is the elite feature-back of a championship offense. Heading into training camp, Rice remains an extremely safe RB1 play in 2013 fantasy football drafts despite reports from the team website that claim second-year RB Bernard Pierce will be rotated in more often.

Ozzie Newsome told RosterWatch at the 2012 combine that Anthony Allen was a player the team really liked as a Ray Rice backup/complement. We saw how that worked out, you’re probably thinking “Who the fuck is Anthony Allen?”

Byron Lambert of RW even managed to make Pro Football Talk with his questions geared toward fantasy insight when asking Newsome if he was looking to acquire or draft a downfield threat. Newsome laughed and asked him if he’d watched the Ravens play in 2011. (At least Newsome didn’t make fun of Byron’s tie like Scott Pioli did.)

And of course, in this case, Ozzie Newsome and the Ravens took Tommy Streeter, a big, vertical downfield threat.

Let’s just say that Rosterwatch, at this point, has a hard time believing information from Ravens “team sources” about their personnel and general football strategy. Newsome captains a tight ship.

What we do know is that Pierce is a terrific player, and real favorite of ours through the 2012 draft process and during his relative ascension as an NFL rookie. As the team website reports:

Bernard Pierce (6-0, 218, second season): The third-round pick out of Temple showed plenty of potential his rookie season. He came on strong in the second half of the year and finished with 532 rushing yards and a touchdown. The hard-nosed running back provided a boost to the offense in the playoffs, and he helped jump-start the offense in the second half of the Super Bowl. He’s shown the ability to be a playmaker when he gets his hands on the football, and he’s looking to build off the impressive rookie campaign.

That’s a great way to put it. “Jump-Start.” Pierce is a dynamic player who will certainly be featured more often, but what the Ravens do offensively is tailored to Rice’s skill set. That is what is installed and relied upon in game plans. Ray Rice. His pad-level and his vision. The Ravens are not re-building offensively, but they have lost a key cog in WR Anquan Boldin. They will be depending on a relatively unproven tight end in Dennis Pitta to pick up quite a bit of slack. A No. 2 WR must emerge.

With this many question marks, the last thing on the mind of the Baltimore Ravens is the state of the run game, and messing with what works. This is lip service.

One look back through the free, weekly RW Snap Counts, Touches and Targets tools through the second half of the 2012 season will show a distinct pattern. There was an uptick in snaps for Pierce, but this uptick did not take away from Rice’s snaps, and went from around 13-17 percent involvement to more in the 23-28 percent range by the end of the regular season. It seems like a great formula judging on the end result.

When drafting Rice, you must sacrifice some value in taking Pierce as a must-own handcuff. In the event Rice is injured, Pierce is a back with one of the highest handcuff efficiencies in fantasy football. With a current 11th round ADP, I would not be comfortable letting Pierce drop past my ninth-round pick if drafting Rice in round one.

That’s the problem with drafting Rice. This area of the draft is riddled with value and potential in players like Rams RB Zac Stacy, TB WR Mike Williams, Packers RB Johnathan Franklin, Eagles WR Jeremy Maclin, etc.

It hurts extremely badly to take a handcuff with players such as this still on the board.