One of the toughest situations in fantasy football is dealing with a running back that snatches away touchdowns from an otherwise solid running back. These touchdown “vultures” cost solid running backs six or more points a game, but are not sufficiently valuable themselves because they do not often get the yards to make them valuable when they aren’t stealing touchdowns.
Ryan Mathews Does Not Like Fantasy Football Touchdown Vultures, Either
San Diego Chargers running back Ryan Mathews knows exactly how you feel, fantasy football owners.
Ryan Mathews has had a solid 2011 season, but often when he gets the team down inside the 20, head coach Norv Turner replaces him with backup Mike Tolbert. While Mathews is rushing at a 5.0 yards per carry clip, Tolbert has one more touchdown than him on the season. In the Chargers opening drive this issue arose once again. Mathews rushed four times for 31 yards, but was then replaced by Tolbert who rushed 13 yards for a touchdown.
In the fourth quarter, Mathews made sure that was not an issue. After an errant snap on a punt attempt, the Chargers took over at their own 31 yard line. Rather than create a situation for Mike Tolbert to get another touchdown, Mathews decided it would be easiest to just run it in himself and he scored on a 31-yard touchdown run. After the game, he had this to say:
“Sometimes I get caught up in thinking too much and I get tackled,” said Mathews, who tied a career high with five runs longer than 10 yards. “I just let it fly and tried to get to the end zone. If I’d have gotten caught, the vulture would have come in and put it in. So I tried to finish it off.”
Fantasy football owners understand where you are coming from, Ryan Mathews.
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