Why Bucky Irving’s fantasy outlook is ‘murky’
Yahoo Fantasy's Matt Harmon and Justin Boone debate the potential value of the Buccaneers running back as they dissect the first few rounds in a staff mock draft. Check out the full conversation on the "Yahoo Fantasy Forecast" podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
I, I would actually, I would nominate Bucky Irving.
He's another guy.
Scott took Bucky Irving with the final pick in the fourth round.
if he can regain the, the trust of the coaching staff and just stay, on passing downs in particular, and be closer to full health, I think he's gonna be an outright steal at running back 19.
But I do think there's a lot of variance in his outlook after year, after year two.
Interesting.
I thought you were gonna say it was a notable pick because you thought the opposite, that you thought it was maybe a bad value here in round four.
That's how I view it.
I'm very scared- Really?
of Bucky Irving.
I think I've said my piece on this one before, but the- Mm-hmm excitement in the beginning of the off-season for him was that Rashad White was gonna leave, Sean Tucker might leave.
Okay, now maybe Bucky Irving gets a bigger share of that backfield.
But now we replace Rashad White with Kenny Gainwell, who might even be a better player, like is certainly an overqualified backup, can step right into that receiving role.
And then Sean Tucker ends up signing his tender and coming back.
So it's kind of the same thing all over again here, and I think that's a problem for Bucky.
O- on top of the fact that, yes, we saw some concerns in terms of, you know, injuries and some weirdness there and him coming back last year.
I'm not super worried about that, but I think when you look at him potentially getting more of the pie, being able to expand that way, it's not gonna happen with this group that they've brought back.
It's sort of just a one-for-one for what we saw last season, what we've seen in recent years.
So I'm very worried about Bucky, and I see him more as a low-end RB2 for fantasy, with not a very clear path, barring some injuries to those other guys, for him to get up into that, you know, top 12, top 15 range.
So because of that, I shy away from him.
I haven't really ended up with him- on many teams at all this year.
Yeah, I, I, I guess I probably like just the range of like running back 19, and running backs went off the board like crazy here, so I don't mind Scott grabbing him at the end of the fourth round.
plus again, you just look relative to some of the other picks.
Like it, it's, it's pretty murky once we get into this fifth round range.
But, I do think there's some, there's some good, there's some good outcomes for Bucky where last year was a fluke for Kenneth Gainwell.
That was just an overinflated passing game total because that's all Aaron Rodgers wanted to do was check it down.
Sean Tucker, like yeah, they used him around the goal line.
Were you all that impressed by the Sean Tucker stuff?
Like they ba- they kind of barely brought him back this year.
I think there are some outs for Bucky Irving to outkick running back 19, but there's no question that I think there are risks.
I just, to me personally, I think a lot of the risks are priced in at running back 19.
