Player Profile: Carlos Hyde

It's August...therefore Fantasy Football is upon us! I'm continuing to break down some players that may have positive fantasy impacts.

There has not been much excitement about the San Francisco 49'ers in the last couple of seasons, and rightfully so. The phrase "dumpster fire" comes to mind. It would be one thing if the team was merely mired with poor play on one side of the ball. Unfortunately, both offense and defense have been pretty poor. In the 2016 season The 49'ers only converted 78 out of 222 3rd down conversions. That's an abysmal 35.1 percent. Did I mention dumpster fire?

I have pages and pages of notes that preceded last year's fantasy draft. One of them was simple, succinct, and required no further explanation. NO 49'ers!

In my mounds of research for the 2017 season, I dug deep into one player's stats and was a little surprised by what I found. Carlos Hyde is a good running back. Granted, a good player on a bad team is hampered by the bad team.

So let's take a closer look at Hyde's stats.

In 2014 Hyde was at the bottom of a deep, but mostly untalented backfield. After a series of injuries, he was behind only Frank Gore, the ageless wonder himself.  In his first game, Hyde rushed for 50 yards and 1 touchdown on only 7 carries. He was not featured much that season, but did well with what he was given. He finished the season with 333 yards and 4 touchdowns.

In the season opener of 2015 Hyde was an absolute beast. In a game versus the Vikings, Hyde rushed for 168 yards on 26 carries and two touchdowns. It is still the best game on his record. He showed flashes in that game of the kind of runner he can be, elusive and powerful with good separation. Injury sidelined him later in the season and led to surgery for a fracture in his foot. He finished that season with 470 yards and 3 touchdowns.

San Francisco was a different looking team in 2016, and Hyde was one of the few bright spots worth buying a ticket to see. With Chip Kelly taking the helm, Hyde was projected to be in for a heavy workload in a feature back role. In the season opener against the LA Rams, he ran for 88 yards and two touchdowns. The next couple of games were quiet for Hyde and his ailing team. He found his stride and have several games of 70+yards and a touchdown before another quiet spell followed by being out for a couple of games with injury. Hyde finished the season with 988 yards and 6 rushing touchdowns, adding 3 more receiving touchdowns.

Let's take a closer look at his numbers. If Hyde had played a full 16 game season last year, he was on pace for over 1,200 yards and a total of 11 touchdowns. That would have put him at RB 7 in yards and 8th in touchdowns. Very solid numbers.

His yards per carry average for a season has never fell below 4.0. His 4 fumbles in 2016 tied him at 7th highest in the league, and while that's not a stat fantasy owners want, he hasn't shown a proclivity to lose the football.

His receiving numbers went up last season where he hauled in 27 receptions for 163 yards. So, for PPR purposes, he's not one of the better receiving backs out there, but seeing those numbers go up could prove to be a side of his game we see improve.

Is he still the bright spot in a bleak offense? There have been a few changes worth noting. Kyle Shanahan is running the show. Brian Hoyer is stepping as the QB. Say what you will about Hoyer, but his stats speak for themselves, he's been a fairly solid QB option when stepping into the starting role. Tim Hightower has been added to the mix as a change-of-pace, receiving back. Pierre Garcon will likely be the WR1 with Jeremy Kerley, and Marquise Goodwin to round out the main core of wideouts.

This is not a high flying offense, but there's some talent there. As long as the 49ers aren't playing from down-and-out behind, Hyde has yet another opportunity to show that he can be a legitimate top 12-14 running back. That being said, he's had some stinker games. Some of which was Hyde himself, some of which was situational due to poor team play.

His current ADP has him at 4.04 with Christian McCaffery, Doug Martin, and Mike Gillislee all in similar spots.

I'm still not high on drafting 49ers in the midst of their current youth movement, but Hyde -- while he carries some risk -- has a safe floor and an upside as I don't think we've seen his ceiling yet.

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Happy football!