With the news last night that rookie running back Montario Hardesty has a torn ACL and is now out for the season, the fantasy landscape changes for RBs in Cleveland.
Last summer, rookie RB James Davis suffered a similar fate as Hardesty. Now by virtue of Montario's injury, Davis may just be fantasy relevant again. I have been saying all along not to dismiss his presence. Remember, Davis was the guy who kept CJ Spiller on the bench at Clemson. The talent is there.
As 2009 opened the expectation was Davis would supplant Jamal Lewis as the team's #1 RB, then he got hurt and Jerome Harrison rose to be "that guy."
While I'm taking nothing away from Harrison, but I did give you four reasons not to draft him earlier this summer. One of those reasons is gone, making the others more relevant.
Below are the team's preseason stats. As you can see, James Davis leads all RBs, and even FB Peyton Hillis has a much better YPC than Harrison's paltry 3.1.
| Rushing Statistics | |||||
| Player | Att | Yds | Yds/Att | Long | TD |
| James Davis | 26 | 103 | 4.0 | 19 | 0 |
| Jerome Harrison | 23 | 72 | 3.1 | 9 | 1 |
| Peyton Hillis | 21 | 80 | 3.8 | 10 | 1 |
We'll have to wait to see how this all plays out, but I would wager that Harrison's stock remains steady at this point but Davis is on the rise and most assuredly a sleeper who could usurp Harrison much as Hardesty was thought to.
