Los Angeles Rams: Todd Gurley quite familiar with high fantasy football expectations

Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley was recently named the top fantasy football player for the 2018 season by NFL.com.

Two years ago, Todd Gurley encouraged fantasy football owners that he was worthy of being the top player for the 2016 season, and it was easy to see why, as the Los Angeles Rams running back was coming off a strong rookie year in which he took home Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.

Unfortunately, the fantasy football owners that took Gurley’s advice by selecting him at No. 1 or early on in the first round would end up regretting their decision when seeing how 2016 ended up being a season to forget for the former Georgia running back.

Due to a horrendous offensive line along with a weak receiving corps, Los Angeles as a team averaged just 14 points per game that season, and even though it was unfair to put most of the blame on Gurley, the Rams running back still received plenty of unfair criticism.

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Not only did Gurley finish that season with a disappointing 885 rushing yards to go along with just six touchdowns, but also he failed to record a single 100-yard rushing game, which seemed impossible after his stellar rookie campaign.

Obviously, the circumstances would have been much different had Los Angeles as a team put Gurley in a better position on offense, but at least he was able to take advantage of improvements in numerous areas during the 2017 season.

As soon as Sean McVay was hired as the team’s new head coach, the Rams wasted no time improving the offensive line and receiving corps to provide Los Angeles with one of the top offenses in the NFL. In fact, the Rams actually made NFL history in 2017 by becoming the first team to go from worst to first in scoring, with Gurley playing a major role in this happening.

Watching Gurley bounce back last season by finishing with 2,093 yards from the line of scrimmage to go along with 19 touchdowns while finishing second in the MVP voting was truly amazing to witness, especially since it helped Los Angeles overtake the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC West.

Even more exciting, the folks at NFL.com believe Gurley was worthy of being the No. 1 fantasy football player in their top 50 list, bringing back that familiar feeling from two years ago.

However, unlike that disappointing 2016 season, there’s every reason to believe that Gurley will pick up where he left off last year, and continue to make a case for being one of the top running backs in the league, making this placement in the top 50 a fair assumption.

This time around, Gurley is in a much better shape in which he can rely on his teammates on offense to come through on their end to give Los Angeles a much better chance of living up to the Super Bowl hype from this offseason.

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Reaching the 2,000-yard mark from the line of scrimmage may be a challenge, but after overcoming the obstacles he did in 2017, Gurley will be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen.