After his impressive senior season at Stanford, Tyler Gaffney was drafted by the Panthers in the 6th round of the 2014 draft. Just days into training camp, Gaffney suffered a torn meniscus and was lost for the season. The Panthers waived Gaffney, as they hoped that he would clear waivers and they could place him on IR. The Patriots claimed him and stole him away from the Panthers. He is an above-average athlete who has a chance to be the Patriots feature back next season.
Big Opportunity
At the end of the 2014 season, Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley will be unrestricted free agents. Jonas Gray and Brandon Bolden will be restricted free agents. The only running backs remaining on the Patriots roster will be Tyler Gaffney, LeGarrette Blount, and James White. White has only played in one game since Ridley shredded his knee in Week 6, a blowout victory against the Bears in which he only played 13 snaps. Considering the Patriots let Blount walk in the offseason and was just released by the Steelers, he doesn’t pose much of a threat to Gaffney. As it stands right now, Gaffney looks primed to be a major contributor in the Patriots backfield next season.
Production
Gaffney played four seasons at the University of Stanford. He also was a star baseball player in college. In 2012, he decided to pursue his baseball career after being drafted in the 24th round of the MLB draft. After playing one season of Class-A ball, Gaffney chose to return to Stanford to play football. In his senior season, Gaffney rushed for 1709 yards and 21 touchdowns on 330 carries and helped lead Stanford to a Pac-12 Championship. Although he only had one season of major production, Gaffney showed that he could hold up to a big workload and be extremely productive. Gaffney’s most impressive game of the season came against Oregon. He put the Cardinal on his back and had 45 carries for 157 and a touchdown. Although Gaffney had a low yards-per-carry in this game, he was able to help Stanford control the ball and gained positive yards on all but one of his carries. He was also able to convert nine third downs and one fourth down for the Cardinal in this game. He shows a nice combination of power and speed on this run against USC:
Athleticism
Gaffney had an amazing combine. He ran the fastest time out of all running backs in the 60 yard shuttle, and also had the second fastest three cone time. These numbers were good for the fifth and sixth fastest times among running backs in the past three seasons. Gaffney ran a solid time of a 4.49 in the 40 yard dash, the same time as Bishop Sankey, the first running back drafted. Gaffney garnered praise from Senior Bowl director Phil Savage after the combine:
Gaffney received an agility score (the sum of a player’s three cone and 20 yard short shuttle time. Attempts to measure short area quickness and balance) of 10.96 , and a speed score (factor’s a player’s weight into his 40 yard dash time [formula: (weight*200)/(40 time^4)]) of 108.3. Both scores are in the upper echelon of scores that 2014 running backs achieved. As referenced above, Gaffney is an all-around athlete as he also played minor league baseball for a year. He batted .297 and stole 11 bases for the State College Spikes in 2012. That translates into roughly 47 stolen bases in a full major league season, which would have been the fifth best in the MLB in 2014. Gaffney is an all around athlete with good top end speed and excellent agility.
Final Thoughts
Tyler Gaffney should be owned in all dynasty leagues, especially if there is an IR spot. According to Ryan McDowell, Gaffney currently has an average draft position of 212, but he could easily warrant a selection inside the top 170 of startups. Think of Gaffney as a faster version of Mikel Leshoure. Leshoure may be the stronger back, but both Leshoure and Gaffney have excellent agility, are productive short yardage backs, and have enough speed to get to the second level. Dynasty owners should be attempting to flip a late round rookie pick for Gaffney, or acquire Gaffney as a throw in to a trade. If Jonas Gray can rush for 200 yards, Gaffney’s potential role next year should certainly have dynasty owners everywhere clamoring to acquire him, and excited about his potential.
