Daryl Richardson a fantasy football buy-and-hold as Steven Jackson trade rumors continue

If you've noticed more fantasy football activity than usual around St. Louis Rams backup running back Daryl Richardson, don't bother looking at his stats—it's nothing he's done, in particular. With the NFL Trade Deadline days away, people with open bench spots burning holes in their fantasy pockets are making a small bet on recent rumors suggesting Steven Jackson will be traded, whereupon Richardson would probably get something approximating what passes for a starter's workload in today's pass-heavy NFL.

Richardson, the second-to-last player selected in the 2012 NFL Draft, has done nothing to dissuade the rumors, for his part; he's got 62 career carries for 335 yards, and took seven for 53 against the New England Patriots. But even if Jackson's traded, it's worth sounding a note of caution: The Rams have also, over the last two weeks, given former invisible man Isaiah Pead a few garbage-time looks.

Pead is still just four carries into his own career, so it's hard to get too concerned, and picking up Richardson if he's still available isn't exactly a significant expenditure of resources. But the possibility exists that the Rams will trade Steven Jackson and still not give Daryl Richardson a full workload, at least at first.