You may only think it is a terrible comparison because you have never seen Perkins play and we don't know what he can do. It may be true, it may be a bad example, but that's like saying way back when that comparing lightning fast Joey Galloway was the like saying lightning fast Rand Moss. So much of it really comes down to opportunity and use and that is to be seen. We don't know if Perkins is 3.2ypc guy or a 4.6ypc guy.
I don't expect him to be 5.0+ like Charles but I'm not going to say because one thing isn't likely to be true that nothing can be true as a satisfiable result. We didn't know how Jamaal Charles was going to be valuable to the NFL and to us in FF until he was. In some ways (and to get away from such an obvious high-bar comparison), this is like Dion Lewis last year. So many people said "little guy", they acknowledge his strengths but pound his weaknesses, etc, and didn't think much of it. But what SO MANY people missed last year was the opportunity. So many people couldn't wrap their head around the idea that, in this particular system, this guy was going to have some major opportunity and that is exactly what he did. Had he not gotten hurt, he realistically could have been the #1 Rb in ff last year and this is from a guy that at least 50% of ff people completely wrote him off.
That is what I see in Perkins. I said yesterday that a month ago, I would not have thought of him as being all that impactful but he landed on a team with serious opportunity. People keep saying "the Giants backfield is cluttered and its a mess". It is only a mess because there is a lot of trash lying around. Get rid of the trash and it becomes clear. McAdoo has an offense that loves short passes and misdirection stretch and screens to the RB and the Giants passed on three "traditional" type big pound the rock rbs and took Perkins instead. Just my opinion, but I think they clearly see the opportunity here. Again, I'm not saying we are sitting here in week 3 talking about the gem of the year but I think come late November, we are absolutely talking about how this guy is going to help ff teams down the stretch.
I hate to make the comparison to the great players because it automatically programs responses from people to shoot it down but, to me, this is the exact same stance I had on David Johnson last year. People saw that skill set he had but he was well documented for not being a "pile mover". They saw Ellington in the way. Chris Johnson came in. All that. And I said in his thread when he was hurt, "you wait. This guy is going to come on" and I said the night he made his pre-season debut something to the effect of "enjoy people. You're going to see the beginning of something here." To me it is simple: If you can remove yourself from the clutter and saturation of information and misinformation and paralysis analysis where everyone overthinks every speckle of information during this time of year and you simply judge them on what they have done in college and you marry that up with their opportunity and situation where thye land, I think you can get a great indicator of what it is going to be like (assuming health).