Saquon Barkley's 2021 Outlook?

[bblontz]

What are your thoughts on Saquon for 2021? His ADP has remained steady – RB5 to RB6 – through the preseason, but his Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR) has cratered from RB4 as recently as late July to RB8.

[edmcgon]

I posted this 30 days ago. Some of the stats may have changed, but the point remains the same:

The Saquon Conundrum

I just noticed something curious: For all the experts ranking Saquon Barkley as a top 5 RB, none of them seem to be elevating Daniel Jones this year. That may equate to a lot of touches for Saquon, but it also equates to a lot of stacked defenses looking to stop the run. That isn’t a positive for a running back with an injury history whose name isn’t Derrick Henry. Kyle Yates had Saquon ranked 5th, but Daniel Jones only ranked as his 18th QB. He had this to say: “As a QB2 in Superflex formats, …

Specifically:
“For all the experts ranking Saquon Barkley as a top 5 RB, none of them seem to be elevating Daniel Jones this year. That may equate to a lot of touches for Saquon, but it also equates to a lot of stacked defenses looking to stop the run. That isn’t a positive for a running back with an injury history whose name isn’t Derrick Henry.”

Basically, Saquon isn’t a first round RB, period. At best, I see him as a third RB. The odds against him getting the same RB1 upside he once had have dropped significantly.