2016 Fantasy Football Draft Day Dilemmas: Best is yet to come for Melvin Gordon

Melvin Gordon was terrible as a rookie in 2015, but Jamey Eisenberg says he should bounce back in a big way this season. Gordon will turn into a great value pick this year.

There are plenty of adjectives to describe Melvin Gordon last year -- and most of them aren't suitable for a PG audience.

We'll stick to what's allowed -- awful, terrible, disastrous and barf should suffice.

But the worst word of all for a football player, especially in the Fantasy world, definitely applies here. And that's bust, which is what Gordon was as a rookie in 2015.

The Chargers traded up in the first round of the NFL Draft to select Gordon at No. 15 overall, and he was a huge letdown with 184 carries for 641 yards (3.5 yards per carry) and 33 catches for 192 yards in 14 games. You don't see a touchdown listed in that stat line because he failed to score, and he ended last season on injured reserve with a bum knee, which resulted in microfracture surgery.

To a lot of Fantasy owners, especially those who were burned by Gordon last year, that screams stay away no matter the cost. I'm taking a different approach, and Gordon should be considered a post-hype sleeper. He's going to be this season's Fantasy bounce-back player of the year.

Let's start with some of the issues that plagued him last season, notably San Diego's offensive line. Due to injury, the Chargers used 24 different offensive line combinations. It was awful, and the running game struggled as a result. But this year the line should be healthy, and San Diego added another lineman in rookie Max Tuerk, who was drafted in the third round from Southern Cal. With that unit intact, the running game should improve, which means good things for Gordon.

His knee injury also appears to be behind him following the team's minicamp in June, which is six months following his surgery. Gordon said he feels "pretty good," and offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt was impressed.

"You can see him get more comfortable with the runs we're asking him to do," Whisenhunt told ESPN.com. "Part of it is what does he do well? Early in this period, he wasn't doing a whole lot; he was just doing the individual drills. And I think part of it for him was getting it through his mind that he was ready to go. Probably over the last two weeks I've seen some real nice cuts, some explosive runs. And hopefully that trend will continue."

Whisenhunt said of Gordon "there's no question there's talent there," and it's up to Whisenhunt to unlock it. The last time Whisenhunt was the offensive coordinator in San Diego was 2013, and he got a career year out of Ryan Mathews in tandem with Danny Woodhead.

That season, Mathews had 285 carries for 1,255 yards and six touchdowns and 26 catches for 189 yards and one touchdown. Woodhead also had a big year with 106 carries for 429 yards and two touchdowns and 76 catches for 605 yards and six touchdowns.

There's room for both running backs to play well in this offense given their separate roles, and Gordon owners shouldn't worry about Woodhead stealing work. San Diego also added no one of significance to challenge Gordon for carries, but the Chargers did draft a rookie fullback in Derek Watt in the sixth-round from Wisconsin, where he was a college teammate with Gordon.

Hopefully, the two will recreate some of that Badgers magic since Gordon had 343 carries for 2,587 yards and 29 touchdowns and 19 catches for 153 yards and three touchdowns in his final year at Wisconsin in 2014. He was the consensus No. 2 running back coming out of the draft behind Todd Gurley, but he was outplayed by other rookies like David Johnson, Thomas Rawls, Jeremy Langford, Ameer Abdullah and Duke Johnson.

This year, however, there's a chance for Gordon to live up to last season's expectations. He's only going to cost you a fifth- or sixth-round pick in the majority of leagues based on his current Average Draft Position on CBS Sports, which is No. 60 overall.

But he's healthy now. The offensive line is ready to go. He doesn't have significant competition for carries, and the coaching staff believes in him. And he's motivated after last year's failure.

So call Gordon all the names you want after the way he struggled last season. And then forget about 2015. Then remember to call Gordon's name on Draft Day this year because he should reward you now that his bust campaign is behind him.