Falling in love with Jerick McKinnon is easy.

The 26-year-old is still operating on relatively fresh legs – given that he was never really the feature back during his time with the Minnesota Vikings.

And he’s joining Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy Garappolo in San Francisco – one of the most talked-about head coach and quarterback pairings in the league right now.

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But in the lead-up to fantasy drafts this offseason, I feel that the hype for McKinnon has gone too far, even in point-per-reception leagues. McKinnon is currently being drafted as the 13th running back in fantasy drafts in standard and PPR leagues, according to FantasyPros’ rankings. But there’s much better value to be found in later rounds.

Let’s start with the fact that we don’t even know what McKinnon’s workload is going to look like. Sure, Shanahan can talk a big game about how he has big plans for McKinnon. But that doesn’t erase the fact that McKinnon will still have to share the backfield with Matt Breida and Kyle Juszczyk – who Shanahan seems determined to get involved in the offense.

Last season in San Francisco, with Carlos Hyde appearing in all 16 games, Hyde carried the ball 240 times, with Breida still getting 105 carries and catching 21 passes. Two-hundred and forty carries seems to be the upside for McKinnon this year, as well, assuming health for both he and Breida. If they weren’t even willing to give Hyde more than that, who the 49ers clearly had no long-term plans for, why would they cut into Breida’s workload more than they did last year?

Juszczyk also was targeted in the passing game 42 times – which has to scare potential McKinnon owners.

I also can’t bring myself to trust McKinnon’s history. In Minnesota, he twice had the chance to rip away the starting job. In 2016, when Adrian Peterson tore his meniscus in Week 2, McKinnon was just barely the featured back for the Vikings ahead of Matt Asiata. Asiata, I will remind you, only averaged 3.5 yards per carry over the course of his career and was mainly used in short-yardage situations during his time in Minnesota.

Rather than wrestling the job away from Asiata, McKinnon only started seven of the 14 non-Peterson games remaining that year and finished the year with just 38 more carries and 12 more receptions than Asiata. That’s a big enough difference to make McKinnon fantasy-relevant, but not enough to prove to me that the Vikings’ coaching staff at the time thought he was appreciably better than Asiata.

Then, the following year, the Vikings brought in Latavius Murray, who averaged 4.4 yards per carry during three seasons with the Oakland Raiders. Again, McKinnon wasn’t able to distinguish himself from the running back group, receiving 30 fewer total touches than Murray during the season. And he assuredly would have been further down on the depth chart had Dalvin Cook been healthy the entire season.

When you look at guys who are currently being drafted behind McKinnon, it’s easy to sit back and wait for better values to fall to you.

I would much rather target Mark Ingram (currently ranked as the 23rd running back in standard leagues according to our rankings) and Dion Lewis (ranked 19th in PPR leagues). Below is a per-game comparison of McKinnon’s past three seasons to Ingram and Lewis, according to data from Pro-Football Reference.

Player Games played Rush attempts Rush yards Receptions Rec. yards Total TDs McKinnon 47 7.7 29.4 2.4 18.1 12 Ingram 44 13.7 66.7 3.5 25.9 28 Lewis 30 9.8 47.1 2.8 23.2 13

Ingram finished last year as the sixth-best running back in fantasy and has a clear-cut role in New Orleans’ offense this year. While he does have to sit out the first four games of the season due to a suspension, I’d much rather have 12 games of Ingram after drafting him in the fifth round and expect consistent production from him rather than take a flier on McKinnon in the second.

The Saints also won’t have to deal with four games’ worth of Adrian Peterson drama like they did last year, and I don’t expect Terrance West to cut into his workload at all when he returns from suspension — though it could be worth nabbing West to use during the first four games of the year.

I often hear about time being against Ingram as well (he will turn 29 in late December). But Ingram has had very few seasons where he’s been the workhorse back. He’s carried the ball more than 200 times in only three out of his seven seasons in the league, so his total mileage isn’t nearly as high as many other backs heading into their age-28 season.

Meanwhile, in PPR leagues, Lewis is a far more attractive option than McKinnon. Over the past three seasons, Lewis has scored one more total touchdown than McKinnon, despite playing 17 fewer games. Lewis has also averaged more yards per reception and yards per carry than McKinnon during that span.

I would much rather hang back and wait until the fifth round to take one of these guys, rather than reach into the third or second rounds to take McKinnon, whose role is still in question to me and who never really took control of the starting job in Minnesota while he had the chance.

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Jon Munshaw is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Jon, check out his archive and follow him @jon_munshaw.