Redskins burning fantasy question:Is it time to worry about Clinton Portis?
Redskins top-5 fantasy players
Clinton Portis has been without question one of the best running backs in fantasy football during the past decade.
The veteran has rushed for 1,200-plus yards in all but one of his seven seasons at the NFL level. He's also scored 76 total touchdowns in his career, an average of close to 11 scores per season. But if the second half of 2008 was an indication, Portis could be a risk this season.
After putting up tremendous numbers and ruling the fantasy football roost in the first eight weeks, Portis sustained what would become a multitude of injuries that limited his effectiveness down the stretch. He would rush for 100-plus yards once and find the end zone just twice in his final eight games.
One of those scores came in Week 17, when most fantasy championships had already been decided.
Despite his multiple ailments, Portis didn't miss a start and finished the 2008 campaign with an impressive 1,487 rushing yards and nine touchdowns. He also recorded 342 carries, the third-highest single-season total of his career. The last time he had that many carries was in 2005, when he carried the rock 352 times.
He missed half of the next season due to injuries.
While still young in age (he'll be 28 to start the 2009 season), Portis is far more weathered than most running backs. He's carried the football 325 or more times in four of the last five seasons and has averaged 321 carries in his six full NFL seasons. That's a boatload of work for a 5-foot-11, 221-pound runner who has already taken a career's worth of physical punishment.
The Redskins will no doubt continue to lean on Portis as their featured back this season. In a time when backfield committees have become more popular around the league, that role alone is enough to make him a first-round selection in fantasy drafts.
But this season, maybe more than ever, it's important for owners who land Portis to have a plethora of runners to lean on as insurance.
One of those runners is the Redskins' Ladell Betts.
A versatile veteran out of Iowa, Betts could turn out to be a valuable asset if last season's signs of a future Portis breakdown come to fruition. The last time Portis missed significant time due to injuries (2006), Betts rushed for 1,154 yards and scored five total touchdowns.
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