The Injury Files: Breece Hall
THE INJURY FILES: BREECE HALL
What is going on, Rush Nation? It’s time for the return of the injury files! Last off-season I looked at players who got hurt previously and what it meant for their Fantasy Football stock the following season. The same formula to help you navigate your drafts, when it comes too picking up the guys coming back from an injury, will be applied here. Without further ado, LET’S GET IT!!
LAST SEASON BEFORE INJURY
The New York Jets Rookie was setting the Fantasy scene alight before going down in week seven. He was the RB7 overall in PPR averaging 16.4 points per game, over the seven week stretch. Hall was also averaging a whopping 5.8 yards per carry and ranked fourth amongst Running Backs in receiving yards with 218. Breece Lightning was on course for a phenomenal Rookie campaign as his production and workload grew weekly. Before being struck down with his dreaded injury.
THE INJURY
In the week seven matchup with the Denver Broncos, Hall went down in the second quarter with a season ending torn ACL and meniscus injury. It’s no secret the injury is very serious and can typically sideline players for nine to twelve months. However, a silver lining in the now sophomore’s clouded future is definitely his age. Let’s take a look at some other Running Back’s return from a torn ACL that are a similar age to Breece Hall.
Dalvin Cook: Tore his ACL just four games into his Rookie year and at the time was averaging a very nice 4.8 yards per carry. Cook did struggle with hamstring injuries to start year two but finished his 11 games with over 900 scrimmage yards. Whilst averaging 4.6 yards per carry. Cook hasn’t been below 1000 yards since.
Saquon Barkley: In week two of the Covid struck 2020 season, Barkley went down with a torn ACL. Similar too Cook, Saquon never played the full quota of games the year after his ACL tear but his production took a much more severe hit. Dropping to only 3.6 yards per carry in 2021 from over five as a Rookie and 4.6 YPC in 2019. 2022 comes around and Saquon bounces back to finish as the overall RB5 in PPR leagues.
WHAT WE KNOW NOW
It’s still early in the off-season but there has been reports of Hall rehabbing well and potentially being back for training camp in July. That would put him at the very lowest end of the recovery period expected. You may remember Cam Akers return from a torn achilles in just five months. Well, Breece had share an instagram video of himself on a treadmill recently. So, being back for the start of training camp isn’t out of the question and could help him get back to full speed in a game quicker.
CONCLUSION
Of course it’s hard to predict when we will get those treasured RB1 numbers again from the former Iowa State star. The chances are it may not be until towards the end of 2023, similar to Cook and Barkley. I currently have him as low-end RB1 for next season, purely because of the workload decrease he will see on return. Although, he done just fine whilst sharing the backfield with Michael Carter for the first three weeks in 2022. He averaged 12.8 points per game and seven targets per game over that period. For 2023, Breece Hall has league winner written all over him if you can weather the storm in the early part of the season.
