The same player that has undoubtedly the best nickname in football could also very well be the most overrated player headed into the 2013 NFL season.
Doug Martin a.k.a. “Muscle Hamster,” really came on in his rookie year, carrying the ball 319 times for 1,454 yards and 11 touchdowns. That led to a ton of hype around Martin heading into this season, and he has shot up the average draft position rankings in the past month. Both Fantasy Football Toolbox and Fantasy Football Calculator have Martin has the No. 2 overall running back, tied with Arian Foster and just ahead of Jamaal Charles and Marshawn Lynch.
But further evaluation of Martin and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ numbers should cause fantasy owners to pump the brakes on Martin and take a closer look at taking the other backs behind Martin.
Proponents of Martin would point to the very impressive numbers he put up in 2012. In his first every regular season NFL game, the Boise State alum took 24 carries and turned it into 95 yards on four yards per carry, a pretty impressive start. Five games later, Martin ripped off possibly the two best back-to-back fantasy performances of any running back. During a Thursday night game against the Minnesota Vikings on Oct. 25, Martin ran for 135 yards and a touchdown and tacked on 79 receiving yards and another touchdown. During Tampa’s next game against the Oakland Raiders, “Muscle Hamster” put up 251 yards and four rushing touchdowns.
The very next game after the display in Oakland, Martin only ran for 68 yards against the San Diego Chargers. Although the Bucs lost five of their last six games and Martin only ran for more than 100 yards in two of those games, everyone still seems to stick to those two big games. If you kept the Minnesota game but gave Martin 100 yards and one touchdown rather than 251 and four, he would still be over 1,300 yards on the season but his touchdown total would be at just eight. At the No. 2 or 3 overall pick in the draft, shouldn’t owners be looking for more than just a player that you hope has a plus-200 rushing yard game just once out of 16 games?
Standing at just 5’9,” Martin is a bruising back and a workhorse, but he’s not used to the volume of carries Tampa Bay fed him in 2012. In his final three years in college with Boise State, Martin never eclipsed 263 carries, and just got over the 200-attempt mark with 201 in his junior year. The history just isn’t there for Martin fans to say his health won’t be negatively affected with 56 more carries than his previous high mark.
There’s no doubt Martin will be the main back in Tampa, but it doesn’t look like the Buccaneers are planning to spell Martin that often, leading to more concerns about his health this season. Martin was at least able to take some breaks with LeGarrette Blount on the field, with Blount taking 41 carries, but now he only has Mike James to look to, a rookie out of Miami. The Bucs did sign former 1,000-yard rusher Peyton Hillis but if you want to make the argument that Hillis could help Martin rest, that could lead to Hillis stealing some goalline touchdowns from Martin given Hillis's large stature and bruising nature.
Looking past Martin’s individual case, potential Martin owners should look at the history of rushers in the NFL to see that banking on one strong year can be a mistake in selecting a No. 1 fantasy back. Of the top 10 rushers in the league last season (excluding Martin and Alfred Morris who were rookies), three of the remaining eight were top 10 rushers in 2011, and only one guy (Foster) broke the top 10 again in 2010.
Martin is no doubt a very talented back, but he is going too high at this point to guarantee No. 2 overall value by the end of the season. Foster has the history to make a case for him to go higher than Martin, as does Lynch. There’s definitely the possibility for Martin to find himself above 1,000 yards and five touchdowns this season, but he will be considered a dud by the time the playoffs roll around if he keeps going at No. 2 overall.