Felix Jones

This guy was born right about the time we started playing fantasy football! The year was 1987, we were about to be freshman in high school, U2 was touring in support of their newly minted album the Joshua Tree, we all had terrible haircuts, used safety pins to taper our acid washed jeans, and had just started to experiment with refilling our parent's vodka and Jim Beam bottles with water. We, as every Chicago fan is to this day, were all still high off the Bears Superbowl victory a year and a half prior. As we prepared to enter high school (and were about to find out that it was no longer acceptable to safety pin or acid wash jeans), our friend's father was telling us about this game he played at his office that involved the NFL. We were instantly transfixed. 21 seasons later, we're finally doing this site. There is no excuse, folks. We apologize for taking this long.

Felix Jones will be featured as a sleeper candidate across the fantasy football industry. Before we all get carried away, let's not forget that almost all of his production came against three crap defenses (Bengals ranked 21st vs. the rush, Browns 28th vs. rush, and Packers 26th vs. the rush). He was, though, much more effective per carry than Barber in those games.

Many thanks to youtube's "stchane" for compiling the vid. He must really like a Felix Jones. That and 80's rock. The Sammy Hagar/Boston soundtrack is tight!

In college, Jones was the second option behind the highly touted Darren McFadden for the three years he played at Arkansas. He never carried the ball more than 154 times (2006), but had off-the-charts rushing averages of 6.3 YPC (2005), 7.6 YPC (2006), and 8.8 YPC (2007). Peyton Hillis blocked for both as a fullback. In keeping with YPC progression, Felix managed 8.9 YPC in rookie season at the pro level - but on only 30 carries. While the YPC averages are fairly jaw-dropping, the underlying concern here is that no one knows whether this guy can hold up to the number of touches required to make a difference on your fantasy team. He tore a ligament in his left hammy in week six and missed the remainder of the season in '08. The long TDs and gaudy rushing average have everybody wondering.

Felix has a couple of things working against him. The first is the Dallas system. Let's assume that Jason Garrett decides to start running the ball a bit more than the last two seasons (2008 - 401 times and 2007 419 times). He is still going to be splitting carries with Marion Barber. If he can manage the 8.9 YPC over his roughly 180 carries, he'll be fine. He'll be better than fine, he'll have averaged more YPC than any back with over 150 carries in history...by over three yards. The second issue he has to deal with is that he won't be getting goal-line carries as long as Barber is healthy. So unless he is able to rip 30 yard TDs off at the same clip he did in '08, his TD load could be light. His best chance for success is an injury to Barber. Barber has showed an uncanny knack of staying healthy - especially if he's splitting carries. Make Felix the very first backup RB off the board if you are a Barber owner - he should be the 41st RB off of draft boards this summer.

Felix signed a five-year, $10.525 million rookie contract.  The deal contains $7.665 million guaranteed, including a $3.57 million signing bonus.  The remainder of the deal is outlined below:

2009 - $731,250

2010 - $775,000

2011 - $1,023,750

2012 - $1,117,000

2013 - Free Agent

Felix is technically the handcuff in this situation as Barber will go ahead of him in fantasy drafts. But Felix is our top ranked handcuff to Barber, and we may as well list Tashard Choice here as a handcuff to a handcuff.

• Offensive Line


• Offensive Scheme


• Major Off-Season Moves


• 2009 NFL Draft

DALLAS COWBOYS

Rank #24 vs. Rush

Rank #11 vs. Pass

1=Toughest  32=Easiest

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