San Diego Chargers RB Danny Woodhead suffered a season ending injury on Sunday and now fantasy football owners are scrambling to pick up Donald Brown, as he is the top free agent option with Ryan Mathews also injured and now that Woodhead will be out for the 2014 season, Philip Rivers and the Chargers will have to find a way to overcome those issues to keep a consistent offense going.
The Chargers started the season with a three headed monster with Brown, Mathews and Woodhead, who also just signed an extension with the team, and now two of the three backs are down. According to Pro Football Talk, Woodhead will be out for the season with an ankle injury and now it will be Brown as the lead back until Mathews can return. Mathews has had injury issues in the past and it appeared he finally got over that last season, but now he could miss more time moving forward. Brown is now the top pickup for fantasy football owners and he could be big going forward.
PPR owners love the Chargers and their RBs because they use them so much out of the backfield and Woodhead was looking like a great sleeper option for the season. Now Woodhead will be out for the year and with Mathews on the mend, Brown is the top back and he is coming off of a career high 36 touches after the injuries and now he could be in line for more starting type numbers. Brown is available in most leagues for owners and he can make up for Woodhead and Mathews, as he is also a solid receiver out of the backfield and a strong runner up the middle.
Woodhead suffered a high ankle sprain and a fractured fibula and now he is put after getting off to a solid start this season. Woodhead had five catches for 34 yards along with 38 yards rushing and while that is not much, he was expected to get a heavy workload going forward with Mathews out. Last season Woodhead was great for PPR owners, as he had 76 catches for 605 yards along with 429 yards rushing for over 1000 total. Woodhead was looking to put up even more, but now his season is over.
Mathews played in 16 games for the first time in his career last season and he ended up setting career highs for total touchdowns and yards, putting up a best of 1255 yards on the ground last season. Mathews had 71 yards and four catches for 46 yards before going down and the team is hoping that he can be back soon. Reports have Mathews out for at least a month and that means Brown will be getting the bulk of the carries.
Brown comes in after having his best game with 31 rushes for 62 yards and five catches for 27 yards and now he is looking to take over as the feature back. Brown has 81 yards this season and eight catches for 37 yards and he is coming off of a solid season with 537 rushing yards and career best 27 catches for 214 yards with the Colts last season.
