Steven Jackson's Updated 2014 Fantasy Outlook Heading into Week 3

Fantasy football at its very core is about risk-reward assessment. Peyton Manning is the best week-to-week quarterback because he consistently allows owners to reap rewards without much risk. Same goes for Jimmy Graham, Calvin Johnson and LeSean McCoy.

But leagues are almost never settled by the very best players; they're settled by the teams that are able to hit big in the middle rounds. Smart owners rolled the dice on Josh Gordon late in drafts last season; less smart ones selected the thoroughly middling Dwayne Bowe rounds earlier.

Players like Bowe have a false value based on their past accomplishments and false equivalencies. Owners remember Bowe's 15-touchdown 2010 season like it's their Social Security number; they're weirdly forgetful of the five other seasons the Kansas City Chiefs star had five or fewer scores.

Bad owners think they're getting a star bound for a bounce-back when they're actually buying Brian Quick's production at a star price. 

I bring up Bowe to highlight his running back equivalent, Steven Jackson. The Atlanta Falcons running back, once a surefire first-round pick, is now on the opposite end of the Manning spectrum; he's the very definition of a high-risk, low-reward player.

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Jackson came off draft boards as the 80th pick in average ESPN.com leagues. In 12-team leagues, that's right near the end of the seventh round.

That's right in the same general range as Jeremy Maclin, Marques Colston and Stevan Ridley. It's a round behind Joique Bell but three rounds ahead of Mark Ingram; Matt Ryan went eight picks earlier, though his numbers are artificially inflated by post-Week 1 drafts.

Two weeks into the 2014 campaign, all Jackson owners are asking themselves the same question: Why?

It's not that Jackson has been bad. His 4.3 yards per carry are right in line with his career average, and he's generally looked recovered from a preseason hamstring injury. 

The frustration already setting in for owners is one of self-blame. I knew I was getting myself into this. What was I thinking? Did I draft Jackson before or after the fifth shot of Jager? Is anyone in my league a REALLY big Atlanta Falcons fan? Oh, right, I live in Poughkeepsie, of course not.

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Jackson's lack of fantasy value comes from things we already knew. The Falcons are not running the football. Ryan has dropped back 96 times to pass this season. Atlanta has run the ball 44 times. Only the Chicago Bears, Jacksonville Jaguars and Oakland Raiders have a higher passing rate, the latter two being because they've been pummeled each of the first two weeks. 

Jackson, while the clear No. 1 back, has barely gotten over half his team's carries. His 23 carries have gone for 98 yards, and he's gained a total of seven yards in the passing game. Antone Smith and Devonta Freeman have clearly established themselves as Atlanta's running backs in obvious passing downs, and Jacquizz Rodgers has scooped up 11 carries of his own.

As I sat down to do my early-week rankings for Monday morning, Jackson's name kept being bumped on and off the Top 30 list. He wound up sitting 28th when the piece was sent to the Interwebs ether, mostly because I was a) wrong about Darren Sproles' production and b) scared off by the possibility of a short touchdown.

AJ Mast/Associated Press

For those who read Monday's piece: A) My bad; Sproles is for real, and B) My bad; Jackson's ranking was too high.

The reality is that Jackson is a slightly better running back version of Bowe. Jackson has one season with 10 or more rushing touchdowns, his third in the league. He has five seasons with five or fewer touchdowns.

Meaning: In half of Jackson's decade-long NFL career, fantasy owners were roughly banking on a one-in-three chance he would score in any given week. For his career, Jackson has scored 62 rushing touchdowns in 145 games or 42.8 percent.

His value in St. Louis came due to opportunity. He was a three-down bell cow, good for between 10-12 points every week by proxy of the sheer volume of hit touches. In 2006, which will forever go down as Jackson's equivalent to Bowe's 2010, he had 436 touches. I'd bet the under on him reaching half of that this season.

None of this is to disparage Jackson as a real-life football player. He's been running with purpose, has continued his decade-long streak of being a good locker room presence and serves a vital role in Atlanta's offense. But where he was the offense in St. Louis, the Falcons use their running game at this point merely to keep defenses honest.

Frank Victores/Associated Press

With all players, their fantasy value comes down to one question: Under any given circumstances, would you feel comfortable starting this player? The answer, barring some schematic change, is pretty obviously no with Jackson.

There are 53 wide receivers who have at least 98 yards through the first two weeks; 26 players have higher rushing totals. Only in the deepest leagues can anyone consider putting him in a starting lineup on a week-to-week basis, and no one is going to feel great about the process.

In 12-team leagues, maybe it's worth keeping Jackson around just in case one or two starters go down with injury. But if your roster has holes elsewhere, don't think twice about letting him hit the waiver wire. Matt Asiatas, Terrance Wests and Bobby Raineys crop up every week, and spot-starting those players will likely provide better value than keeping the low-ceiling Jackson around.

None of this is breaking news. But it's something everyone should consider in drafts and auctions next year. Sometimes it's tempting to take the name brand and bank on mid-tier production. In reality, you'll be blaming yourself by the second Sunday in September.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter