Is Devin Singletary worth the risk in 2020 fantasy drafts?

With dual-threat quarterback Josh Allen and No. 86 overall pick Zack Moss expected to steal plenty of rushing work in 2020, Buffalo Bills running back Devin Singletary is a risky pick in fantasy football drafts. While there may be value once Singletary drops past a certain point, be wary of over-drafting a running back expecting to share work in year two.

Although Singletary showed signs of being a productive NFL back in 2019, his questionable workload in 2020 makes him a high-risk fantasy selection at his current 50.7 FleaFlicker ADP in PPR formats. Singletary finished his rookie season with 969 combined rushing and receiving yards, but his two rushing touchdowns show a lack of fantasy upside.

Before we look ahead to the 2020 NFL season, we must first look at the process of how we got here. Along with using Consistency Score (CS) to look at Singletary’s rookie season in the NFL, we’ll also use Relative Athletic Score (RAS) for a peek at the former Florida Atlantic standout’s athletic traits.

Devin Singletary’s Relative Athletic Score (RAS)

After a three-year career in which he obliterated almost every single rushing record in Florida Atlantic’s football history, Singletary entered his name into the 2019 NFL Draft. As you can see from Singletary’s very poor 1.73 Relative Athletic Score below, the former FAU standout didn’t exactly set the NFL Combine world on fire.

Relative Athletic Score is a metric developed by Kent Lee Platte that lets us put a prospect’s athletic testing numbers into a better overall context. Singletary scored poor or very poor on the vast majority of athletic drills, although he did show okay explosion on both the vertical and broad jumps at the NFL Combine.

Devin Singletary’s Consistency Score (CS)

A metric created by Pro Football Network fantasy analyst Phillip Caldwell, Consistency Score doesn’t look at overall points scored, but instead looks at how consistent each player is throughout the season. More consistent fantasy-producers are better season-long investments than inconsistent boom/bust prospects since they produce more starter-quality weeks.

Despite seeing single-digit carries in five of his twelve contests, Singletary put up a fairly solid 4.47 Consistency Score over the course of his rookie season. Singletary finished the 2019 season as RB25 in Caldwell’s CS rankings ahead of James Conner, David Montgomery, Ronald Jones, Raheem Mostert, and David Johnson, among others.

Will Devin Singletary’s rookie success translate to 2020 fantasy football?

If you were only looking at the raw stats from a season ago, Singletary would be a must-buy at his current ADP in fantasy drafts. The Bills ended the 2019 season with the sixth-most rushing attempts in the NFL, and Singletary’s 969 combined yards (775 rushing, 194 receiving) last season are nothing to scoff at.

Singletary might not have been explosive at the 2019 NFL Combine, but that didn’t stop the Bills running back from exceeding expectations last season. Singletary’s 5.1 average on the ground was the sixth-highest in the league, while he also averaged 6.7 yards-per-reception on 29 catches out of the backfield.

How much fantasy value does Devin Singletary have in 2020?

All of this looks pretty good on paper, but when you take a deeper look at Singletary’s usage in 2019, you have to wonder just how much the Bills believe in his ability to be a three-down running back.

Despite only having the aging Frank Gore and career backup T.J. Yeldon behind him on the depth chart, the Bills were extremely hesitant to give Singletary anything even resembling a full workload. Singletary only saw 49.58% of the total running back snaps last season and didn’t rise above an 80% snap-rate until the Week 14 showdown with Baltimore.

When he was on the field, his lack of red-zone and goal-line work ultimately held him back in fantasy football. Singletary only received 18 total carries in the red-zone, two of which came inside the five. No, that’s not a misprint. Singletary legitimately only had two rushes inside the five-yard line last season.

With the powerful Moss expected to take over the Gore role between the tackles and at the goal-line, Singletary’s goal-line usage isn’t guaranteed to improve in his sophomore NFL season. While I still think Singletary is the 1A running back in this Bills offense, the former FAU standout is an extremely risky pick at his current ADP. I’m mostly avoiding this backfield in the early rounds, but Moss is a terrific zero-RB option in the later rounds of drafts.