Since the start of the 2010 season, there have been five flex players (running backs, wide receivers and tight ends) who have scored more than 14 fantasy points per game. Three of them are surefire first-round picks and one was unsigned until the middle of July. The fifth is possibly the most underrated player in the first two rounds of fantasy drafts this season:?Jamaal Charles.The leader, and the one who was on the market until July, is none other than Arian Foster. The three surefire first-rounders are Odell Beckham Jr., Adrian Peterson and LeVeon Bell (at least before his suspension), and the wise among you will remember times at which all three of them suffered concerning injuries.Beckhams career got off to an incredibly slow start thanks to a hamstring injury, similar to the one he dealt with in 2015. Peterson suffered an ACL injury just a couple of years ago, and had serious injury concerns coming out of college. And Bell, setting aside his suspension, is recovering from a knee injury that led ESPNs fantasy experts to place him below Peterson in our first?batch of rankings.Yet Charles was ranked 12th, and is being drafted outside of the first round. Which seems a bit odd, right?Lets do some mythbusting to dismiss a couple of your likely concerns about the Kansas City back.But he has competitionYes, Spencer Ware and Charcandrick West had moments of brilliance last year, and those lucky enough to scoop up Ware for his six touchdowns or West for his five were almost certainly thrilled with their decisions.But lets consider where both of these players fall short of Charles.Before suffering his injury, Charles had 71 rushing attempts, on which he gained 364 yards and four touchdowns. Thats good for 5.13 yards per carry. From 2010 until 2014, he averaged 5.42 yards per rush. We have come to expect, and failed to appreciate, his consistent rushing production.Theres no other way to explain how anyone would expect West, who averaged 3.96 yards per attempt on 160 rushes last year, would be a true threat to Charles. He scored the same amount of rushing touchdowns on more than double the carries (meaning fewer touchdowns per rushing attempt). He gained fewer yards after contact per carry and posted similar numbers as a receiver (an 80-yard touchdown reception against the Broncos boosted his yards per catch from just more than 7 to just?less than?11).A better case can be made for Ware, as the LSU product scored six touchdowns on the ground on 72 attempts, and picked up tons of yards after contact. He was a nightmare for opposing defenses, and proved to be a real threat to score.But Ware managed just six catches for five yards on the season, and this is where he clearly falls short. Hes going to take touches away from Charles inside the 20, but that has never been an area where Charles has relied on volume.From 2012 to 2014, the prime of Charles fantasy dominance, he ranked 10th among RBs in rushing attempts inside the opponents 20. However, change that to per game stats and he ranks 24th. Still, he wound up with 18 red-zone touchdowns, seventh most over that span.So give Ware a few red zone touches -- he was probably going to have them anyway. Give West a series or two per game as the every down back. It only makes sense, you have to keep your starter fresh. But I just dont see a way that Charles isnt the teams lead back by a wide margin, even if its at a slightly lower volume than we were spoiled with in recent seasons.But hes too old, hurt and has too many carriesThis is the other main concern about Charles, and probably the one that most people will cite when choosing to draft David Johnson, Devonta Freeman or Lamar Miller ahead of him in fantasy drafts. While it is certainly true that those three players have accumulated less mileage in their NFL careers than Charles, its not like the Kansas City back has been overworked in his career, nor that his injuries are due to an overload of hits and bumps and brusies.Since 2010, Charles ranks 20th in carries per game in the league and 14th in receptions per game among backs. (Now compare these figures with his top-five standing in fantasy points per game referenced earlier.)And he has proven that he can flourish in low-volume situations before. His breakout season in 2009 afforded Charles just 230 touches in 15 games, on which he scored eight touchdowns and totaled more than 1,400 yards. His 217 PPR points that season would have ranked seventh in 2015, and ninth in 2014.Yes, past injury predicts future injury, and players like Bell and Charles have recent, major knee issues that should be a red flag moving forward. But even our top-ranked Peterson has a major knee injury in his past, and hes not getting any younger or rewinding the wear and tear on his body after being the lone source of offense for Minnesota for quite some time.So while I cant blame you for liking Bell, Peterson or even Todd Gurley (who suffered a notable injury himself), I dont see a reason why Charles shouldnt be in the discussion with those players as a top-seven pick in every single draft. And now that Bell is facing a suspension, there are even fewer proven commodities at the running back position with the upside Charles possesses.If his floor in a 16-game season is the volume from his 15-game debut in 2009, hes currently being drafted at his floor as the sixth or seventh back off the board in ESPN leagues. And in other league formats on other sites, hes going even later, while many analysts say hes not an RB1, and some claim hes not even an RB2.His ceiling is being the top fantasy running back, as my early projections using ESPN standard scoring have him with the most points of all players at the position. Theres risk and reward to consider, but theres no reason for Charles to fall outside of the top 10 in drafts or the top five at his position. Cheap College Jerseys Free Shipping . Sulaiman, 44, was chosen unanimously Tuesday in a vote by the leadership, the World Boxing Council said. Sulaiman becomes the sixth president of the organization. College Jerseys Outlet . Louis Cardinals. Victorino is batting sixth and playing right field after missing two games because of back tightness. http://www.cheapcollegechina.com/ . -- Former San Diego Chargers safety Paul Oliver was found dead at his Atlanta-area home Tuesday night, and a medical examiner said Wednesday that the ex-player committed suicide. Wholesale Football College Jerseys . -- Jonathan Drouin gave Halifax the boost it needed to edge host Sherbrooke Phoenix 3-2 in a shootout in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. Cheap NCAA Jerseys Online . Didier Drogba gave away the penalty that put Senegal one goal away from a major upset, but the veteran striker will get another chance -- probably his last -- at the World Cup after Salomon Kalous injury-time strike sealed the Ivorians place in Brazil next year. TORONTO -- Canada had no interest in playing Game 3 against Team Europe in the World Cup of Hockey finals.Pushed to the brink of possibly playing a decisive game, the Canadians picked it up a notch and there simply was nothing the Europeans could do about it.Brad Marchand scored a short-handed goal with 43.1 seconds left after Patrice Bergeron tied it with 2:53 to go on a power play, giving Canada to a 2-1 victory over Europe on Thursday night and the World Cup of Hockey title.What was Sidney Crosby thinking in the final minutes?We dont want to go to Game 3, he said after winning the MVP award with a World Cup-high 10 points, helping Canada win the best-of-three series 2-0. Anything can happen in one game. Especially the last 10 minutes, we were really pressing.Here are some takeaways from the last game of the first World Cup of Hockey since 2004:OH, CANADA: Like the U.S. in Olympic basketball, the rest of the world is trying to catch Canada in hockey. Sure, a group of NHL players from eight European nations played better than the Canadians for much of Game 2. But when it mattered most, the Canadians flexed their muscle, used their speed and flashed their talent to take care of business. Canada has won 16 straight best-on-best hockey games and two Olympic gold medals since getting stunned by the U.S. early in the 2010 Olympics. During the dominating streak, the Canadians have won by an average of more than 2+ goals per game.The only way you get to celebrate being the best in the world is when you prove it, Canada coach Mike Babcock said.SUPER STREAK: Crosby , coming off his second Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh, has won 25 straight games with a maple leaf on his sweater. In addition to the 16-game, best-on-best streak, Crosby helped Canada win nine straight games at the 2015 world championships.In the biggest moments, he turns it up, Babcock said.PRICE IS NICE: Canada goaltender Carey Price has not played in an NHL game in more than 10 months because a knee injuury knocked him out of the Montreal Canadiens lineup last season.ddddddddddddRusty? Hardly. Price made 32 saves in the final game of the World Cup, lowering his goals-against average to 1.4 and improving his record to 5-0 in the tournament.We took a lot of risks in this game and Carey Price was, once again, was just amazing, Europe coach Ralph Krueger said.At the Sochi Games, Prices GAA was 0.59 and his record was 5-0 to help Canada win gold at the second straight Winter Olympics.MISSING IN ACTION: Anze Kopitar was arguably Europes best player, but he didnt score a goal and had just four points in six games. The Los Angeles Kings forward from Slovenia bristled when asked about Crosbys line following Game 1, saying he didnt match up with the trio. Kopitar did start Game 2 matched up with Crosby, Marchand and Bergeron. Given the last change as the home team, Krueger also put Kopitar in the game at other times when Crosby and Co. were in the game. Like a lot of players, even some of the worlds best, Kopitar came up short trying to slow down Canadas top line. And when Canada was attacking late in the game, Kopitar was called for holding and Canada took advantage with a game-tying goal.PARTING SHOT: Some chuckled at the concept of combining eight European nations, outside of the continents traditional powers, before the tournament began. By the end of it, though, no one was laughing at a team that deserved to be in the finals.This group just continued to surprise and beat the odds and beat the thoughts of everybody that was watching, Krueger said. Looking back, I know with some distance from today, we will do nothing but celebrate this month of September 2016 as a special month for this Team Europe group and what they did here.---Follow Larry Lage at www.twitter.com/larrylage and follow his work at www.bigstory.ap.org/content/larry-lage ' ' '
