Fantasy Football Dynasty Stock Watch: Redrafting the 2017 Rookie Draft

1. Kareem Hunt, RB, Kansas City Chiefs

There is no doubting who the most impactful rookie has been through five weeks of the season, as Kareem Hunt has inserted himself into the conversation for both the Rookie of the Year and the Most Valuable Player awards. The Kansas City Chiefs remain the NFL’s lone undefeated team, and the brilliance of their third-round pick has been a huge factor.

If your league was drafting during the early summer, Hunt likely was selected as one of the last several picks of the first round. Sure, he had upside, but still had to surpass the incumbent Spencer Ware to have any immediate fantasy success. As a prospect, he was seen as a good player who likely lacked the athletic traits to be special, but who possessed the vision and instincts to be a solid starting running back in this league. The NFL’s third-round evaluation seemed to validate that idea.

Through five games, however, Hunt has proved to be far more than a third-round talent. He's posted 100-plus total yards in every contest to go along with 6 touchdowns, and he's become the centerpiece to the league’s most effective offense. His 609 yards rushing easily pace the league, and he now has a Rushing Net Expected Points of 17.21, which is nearly double that of his closest competition in Aaron Jones (9.00).(For the uninitiated, Net Expected Points (NEP) is our metric that describes the contribution a play (or player) makes to their team’s chances of scoring. By adding down-and-distance value to the box score, we can see just how much each play and each team as a whole influence the outcome of games. For more info on NEP, check out our glossary.)

While other backs in this class may possess more athletic upside than Hunt, his ideal situation, all-purpose ability, and natural running instincts more than warrant the top selection in this class.