By Matt Kelley (@Fantasy_Mansion)

Special to Yahoo Sports

Let’s start with the hot take: C.J. Anderson is a fraud. Now let’s go on a deep dive to back it up.

Heading into the 2016 NFL season, Justin Forsett was the Baltimore Ravens’ incumbent primary running back. He was the most familiar with the offense. He was a team leader. He was eventually cut.

I am old enough to remember Forsett’s unceremonious release and will be avoiding this season’s version in Fantasy Football leagues, which brings us back to Anderson. Like Forsett, Anderson tenuously sits in the No. 1 running back position for the Denver Broncos, and like Forsett, he may not open the season on the roster.

California Mirage

Looking back Anderson’s football resume, the perception of him being a talented, high-upside play is more myth than reality. During his time at Cal, the then 215-pound Anderson could not supplant 200-pound scat back, Isi Sofele, and underwhelmed statistically. Operating as the Golden Bears’ No. 2 running back, Anderson capped out at 790 rushing yards and never logged more than 15 receptions in a season. His muted role contributed to a lackluster 18.2-percent College Dominator Rating (22nd percentile among NFL running backs), measuring Anderson’s overall contribution to the offense at the college level, or in his case, a lack of contribution.

Here is a list of successful active NFL running backs who could not secure the No. 1 back role for a full season during their college careers:

Athletic Void

At the close of an uninspiring college career, Anderson underwhelmed again at the scouting combine. His workout metrics: 4.60 40-yard dash, 113.9 Burst Score, and 11.27 Agility Score, and 17 bench press reps all fell under the 60th percentile. Even Anderson’s 100.1 Speed Score, which factors in Anderson’s above-average size and sturdiness, barely crested the 60th percentile.

View photos C.J. Anderson More

Athleticism matters, especially for NFL running backs. Writing for Rotoworld, Kevin Cole found that size-adjusted athleticism is predictive of running back performance. Cole pinpointed five key variables for predicting success for pro running back prospects:

Draft position 40-yard dash time Receptions Rushing yards Weight

Coming out of Cal, Anderson’s prospect profile featured neither dominant rushing production, nor impressive athleticism. Then it got worse … Anderson went undrafted. A young player finding NFL success with a college prospect profile as weak as Anderson’s sounds like a fairy tale.

Storybook Beginning

After going undrafted, Anderson signed with Denver and found himself buried as the third back on the depth chart behind Montee Ball and Ronnie Hillman. An unlikely star in a seemingly impossible situation.

After both Ball and Hillman suffered foot and ankle injuries in 2014, Denver coaches turned to the former college backup. Anderson went on to arguably become the greatest in-season waiver wire pickup in Fantasy Football history. From weeks 10 through week 17, Anderson was the No. 1 running back in fantasy football, ringing up 195.7 PPR fantasy points, exceeding even Le’Veon Bell’s epic second half fantasy point total (191.1). During that brief flash of greatness, Anderson was the quintessential league winner.

Fooled by Randomness

In his groundbreaking book, Fooled by Randomness , Nassim Taleb explains that our innate desire to seek out shapes in clouds illustrates how the human mind is predisposed to identify causality, to find concrete explanations to any and all phenomenon. In this context, the fantasy football community’s reflex explanation for Anderson’s outstanding 2014 second half seemed reasonable: Anderson’s exceptional talent caused his fantasy heroics.

Perhaps fantasy football enthusiasts were fooled by randomness in 2014. Here is C.J. Anderson’s 2014 game log:

Week 10 – Oakland (No. 22 vs. the run): 26.3 PPR fantasy points

Week 11 – St. Louis (No. 14): 19.5

Week 12 – Miami (No. 24): 29.5

Week 13 – Kansas City (No. 28): 26.5

Week 14 – Buffalo (No. 11): 23.8

Week 15 – San Diego (No. 26): 11.6

Week 16 – Cincinnati (No. 20): 27.8

Week 17 – Oakland (No. 22): 30.7

Story continues