Fred Jackson, Thomas Rawls' Fantasy Outlook After Marshawn Lynch Injury

Marshawn Lynch was one of the surest running backs in fantasy football over the last three years, and that status may no longer apply for the Seattle Seahawks star.

Lynch's availability for Week 3 was in doubt as he dealt with a calf injury, but Seahawks.com's John Boyle reported shortly before Seattle's game Sunday that Lynch would be active.

His time on the field was short, however, as he carried the ball five times for 14 yards before a hamstring injury knocked him out for the game in the third quarter, per the team's Twitter account.

With Lynch out of the picture, Fred Jackson and Thomas Rawls become much more intriguing fantasy options. Jackson had a much smaller role in the offense, with his final numbers and those of Rawls below:

	Carries	Yards	TD	Rec.	Targets	Rec. Yards
Thomas Rawls	16	104	0	0	1	0
Fred Jackson	2	13	0	2	2	9

Rawls emerged as the feature back in the Seattle offense, and Art Thiel of Sportspress Northwest thought the rookie looked very much like Lynch in the backfield:

Jonas Gray is a great cautionary tale for any fantasy owners rushing to add Rawls to their team. Gray ran for 80 total yards last year following his Week 4 outburst.

As much as it's tempting to get excited about Rawls, his value remains in flux. The extent of Lynch's hamstring injury is unknown, while Rawls had two NFL carries under his belt entering Sunday—a decidedly small sample size even including Sunday's numbers.

Wait at least another week or two before adding the 22-year-old. If you already have Lynch on your roster, on the other hand, Rawls could be a good handcuff to provide cover at running back, which is the extent to his ceiling at the moment.

Jackson's Week 3 workload is further evidence he may not be a fantasy factor at all in 2015. Even in his prime, Jackson barely broke the RB1 threshold with the Buffalo Bills, so it's not as if his track record was outstanding to begin with.

He already had enough red flags—age (34) and his 3.7 yards per carry in 2014—entering this year. Losing carries to Rawls would only further diminish his value.