Transcription
This is maybe the biggest change that we've had with running back rankings since week one. McCaffrey is still going to be number one. Obviously, we had him here last week. If he's going to be number one in my weekly rankings every week, and the Niners are still going out there giving him 20 to 30 opportunities in every single game, they're clearly saying, you know what, we're not worried about his injury history. We're not worried about him going down. And if they're not worried, I'm going to try not to be worried as well. CMC is just an autolock to at the very minimum get you 20 points every single week this season, and we haven't even had a rushing touchdown yet, and you know those are on the way.
Now Bijan Robinson will jump up to being my running back two, ahead of Jameer Gibbs. The Atlanta Falcons offense, they showed signs of life this week, but the fact of the matter is, who gives a damn if Atlanta's horrible or great, because Bijan's putting up points regardless. Bijan Robinson, 246 and 28 points so far this season, and honestly, it hasn't even impacted him at all the fact that Tyler Allgeier is getting work, and Bijan has an even higher ceiling from this point. Because I want to remind you, very similar to McCaffrey, he only has two touchdowns so far through the first four weeks. Going over and looking at Jameer Gibbs, obviously a much better offense than Atlanta, honestly, better offense than the Niners as well. Gibbs has had four rushing touchdowns through four weeks. The receiving usage wasn't really on display this past week against the Cleveland Browns. But really, it goes to show that Gibbs is going to work in any game script. If the Detroit Lions are going to go out there and blow out the other team, like they just did to Cleveland, um, Jameer Gibbs is going to have 100 total yards, going to have a bunch of work as a rusher. He's going to get a rushing TD. Or if the Lions get blown out, as they did against the Green Bay Packers in week one, he'll have 10 receptions. So, he'll get there in a full PPR format.
Um, Jonathan Taylor, obviously from a points perspective, wasn't incredible this past week against the Los Angeles Rams, but it was mainly for two different reasons. One, we had a massive rushing touchdown called back from the holding penalty. And two, Tyler Warren vultured a rushing touchdown at the goal line. Now, honestly, those vultured rushing touchdowns are probably going to be something that you still have to contend with going into the future, knowing that you do have Daniel Jones with the rushing upside as well. But nonetheless, Jonathan Taylor this past week is going to give you over 90% of the snaps and is a clear auto-start every single week going into the future.
Now, dropping down to our next tier, we are going to have Saquon Barkley. So, this is the first time that I've had to throw in the towel, and I have Saquon Barkley on my fantasy football team. I drafted him ahead of Jonathan Taylor. I drafted him, and honestly, behind CMC, Bijan, and Gibbs. So, really the only guy I drafted him ahead of was Taylor on this list. But at this point, like the receiving usage isn't the same as what you have with the S-tier running backs. The ceiling's not the same as what you have with the S-tier guys. He's yet to have a game where he's given us 20 fantasy points so far this year. Now, to be fair with this, every matchup's been pretty tough, other than the matchup that you had against the Dallas Cowboys. So, I, I really hope that I can move Barkley to TS. I really hope he starts performing for us much better, but honestly, um, I, I think I have to throw in the towel. I, I can't say that he's even in the same tier as Bijan Robinson. I will say it may not matter because I'm still 4-0. So, maybe Saquon Barkley is just saving his best games for the second half of the year when I need him.
Going over and looking at James Cook, we have five touchdowns through the first four weeks. The touchdown regression that we were scared of coming into this season looks like it literally is non-existent. James Cook has averaged over, he's had over 20 points per game every single game he's played. So, I, I think we end up flipping James Cook and Saquon Barkley in these rankings, um, a week from now. It's trending that way.
Going over and looking at what we had with Bucky Irving. Kentucky. Um, against the Eagles, it was a really tough matchup, but the assumption was the receiving work was going to be great with no Mike Evans, with the banged-up Godwin. And yeah, he ended up having 102 receiving yards. Actually, looking at the receiving so far this season, he's averaging almost 50 receiving yards a game, which is incredible. And at the same time, he's yet to have a game with fewer than 10 fantasy points. So, in that full PPR format, you're getting an incredibly high floor. And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are getting healthier, which obviously should positively impact this offense.
Devon Singletary plays tonight. So obviously, I'm going to keep on updating the rankings on fogfantasy.com. I can't really speak on Singletary too much. What I will say is obviously the receiving skill set's been phenomenal. Coming into the week, he was the RB6 in fantasy points. Looking at what you have on Underdog, they have a higher or lower 54 and a half rushing yards, but higher or lower 39 and a half receiving yards for tonight's game, clearly indicating, yep, a chance Singletary still has all the receiving upside in the world. And of course, if you wanted to check out any of those picks for Underdog tonight, I'll leave the link in the description and comment section. Underdog Fantasy is available in almost every single state. And on top of that, they are doing the biggest promo that they have ever done, at least during the five years that I've been sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. And that's after you play your first $5 with promo code Flock, you are going to get $100 added to your account. And on top of that, you're going to get a free gimme pick of Bo Nix, higher or lower, half a total yard for the Monday night game tonight.
Um, Josh Jacobs, um, it was a great game against the Dallas Cowboys. Obviously, it goes to overtime. I know I don't really sound that excited about it. Let me know if I'm weird this way, but whenever I already have my fantasy football win locked up and I see like Josh Jacobs go and drop 30 points, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, did we waste this performance? Maybe I needed this two weeks from now and you're going to do it now and I don't need it." I, I know that's a weird way to think, but um, Josh Jacobs, super excited to see the receiving involvement. 71 receiving yards. He had four receptions. This is back-to-back weeks where they really have involved Jacobs as a receiver. Obviously, there were other running backs in this backfield that had touches this past week, but um, if anything, I'm going to just look at a workload of 26 opportunities for Jacobs and say, you don't need to give him much more than this. Keep our guy healthy. And you have a really high floor. I mean, he's averaged a touchdown a game so far this year. And going back to week nine last season, he's only had one game since then where he did not score a touchdown.
Now, Ashton Jeanty will be our next player. Ashton Jeanty skyrocketing up other people's rankings. We were still confident on him regardless. 33 fantasy points. I mean, he had scored 1276 coming into this. The concerns, everything stays the same with Ashton Jeanty, to be honest. Coming into this week, you knew that he was a very talented running back based off his prospect profile. You knew he was in a very bad offense with a very bad offensive line, and the receiving usage wasn't great. What has changed from that point? Nothing. The receiving usage still isn't great. Now, he had two receiving touchdowns, but still at the same time, he's had 20 receiving yards for the first four weeks. And um, it's not like this Raiders offensive line just improved miraculously. I mean, if anything, the additional offensive line injury that they had just made them worse. Like if it wasn't for the additional offensive line injury that just occurred in Los Angeles, Amari Hampton would be much, much higher in these ranks. Amari Hampton, back-to-back games with at least 24 fantasy points. He had 17 opportunities in this one. He's had 12 targets over the past two weeks. He is playing every single snap for the Los Angeles Chargers. And I'll reiterate the thousandth time, elite bell cow size, round one NFL draft capital, lead athlete at the NFL combine, um, a great receiving skill set coming out of school, a good offense, he checks every single box. But the reason I'm not going to be moving up Amari Hampton in our rankings from where he was last week, because he was at the same spot last week, is the Joe Alt injury. Now, the offensive line for the Chargers goes from what was a top five unit coming into the season with the best pair of offensive tackles in the entire league to now losing both of them and projecting out as a bottom 10 unit. And I do think the offense is going to get worse from here. Now, um, obviously a lot will hinge on Joe Alt. The usage is still phenomenal. So, we're gonna have Amari Hampton as an RB1, just explaining why he's a tier A player, not a tier S player.
And then Derrick Henry, I wanted to move him to tier B. I'm going to be honest, but I've done it enough. I have made a fool of myself enough. Over the past three seasons, I have faded Derrick Henry. Obviously, two years ago, he gets hurt. Works out well. Last season, um, he blows up and embarrasses us in front of everyone. I thought this year he was also going to embarrass us in front of everyone after week one. But since then, you've had two points, 10 points, seven points. The Baltimore Ravens defense looks very bad. And that is very bad news for Derrick Henry because if you are rolling with one of these RBs that's not going to catch the ball, we know Derrick Henry won't. He's not a receiving back. You want their respective offenses to be leading, to be winning games so they can run the ball in the second half. Obviously, I can't just declare that Derrick Henry is dead and dusted because last time I did that, he turned out to just be an elite RB the rest of the way. So, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here.
Now, Kyren Williams is trending in the wrong direction. Now, he did at least get four targets this past week against the Indianapolis Colts, but Kyren Williams has yet to have a game where he's hit 20 fantasy points. And you look at the underlying snap data coming out of PFF, you'll see that Blake Corum's playing more and more. Kyren Williams playing less and less. So, if this turns into a running back by committee, Kyren Williams has never been an efficient back. The reason Kyren Williams has been elite in fantasy is strictly based off volume. And if that volume goes, we should be concerned.
Now, Alvin Kamara is in one of the league's worst offenses. And it looks like his volume may be going. The hope that you have with Kamara, the hope and the prayer is that the New Orleans Saints look themselves in the mirror and go, "You know what? It is true. We can't win this year. There's no way. There's nothing we're playing for. We're playing for the number one overall pick in the draft. Let's do Alvin Kamara a massive favor. The one of the cornerstone pieces for our franchise over the past decade. Let's do the right thing. Let's send him to the Kansas City Chiefs. Let's send him to a team that is actually going to contend that needs a running back." That's the hope here. If that were to occur, then Kamara can move up dramatically in these rankings. But as of now, the workload's sliding, and the offense is horrible, and the receiving usage isn't anything close to what it has been historically. Like so far, Kyren's season high is 21 receiving yards in a game.
Going over and looking at Kenneth Walker, Walker hasn't really been used as a receiver either so far this season. You have a total of six receptions through the first four weeks. He's been the more efficient running back between him and Zach Charbonnet. Um, honestly, considering the fact that this is a running back by committee. Obviously, I'm going to keep tinkering with these rankings throughout the week. One of the tinkers that we may make is I may move Javonte ahead of Kenneth Walker. Um, Javonte goes into overtime against the Green Bay Packers, tough matchup. You get 23 opportunities. The week prior, 15. The week before that, 25. The week before that, 18. So, Javonte's averaging about 20 opportunities a game at this point. Javonte's also averaging about 20 points per game. He's been great. Keep in mind, this was a great running back prospect. He performed well early in his NFL career in Denver. The issue was the injuries were believed to completely zap all his athleticism. And honestly, now that that's back and he's in an offense that's scoring a ton of points, he may need to flip Kenneth Walker out. He may need to go to the top of this tier, and we may just need to get over the fact where he was drafted. Sometimes with these players like Javonte Williams, if they were severely mispriced in drafts, like they were going way too late, it's hard for me to get over the mental hurdle and just go through and realize he's an elite option now. Rank him accordingly.
Um, Travis Etienne will be in my starting lineup this next week. I made the mistake of benching him. He's had double-digit points every single week so far this season. I will say the receiving involvement is not great. You have both running backs in this committee outside of Etienne actually running more routes. He's only had a total of six receptions so far this year. Over the past two weeks, he's had one. I'm going to start him this week because Josh Jacobs is on the buy. So, I kind of need to get him in. DK Metcalf's on the buy as well, but I'm a little bit concerned.
Um, Breece Hall, again, I'll update y'all. I'm going to be live streaming after the games tonight. You know, I live stream every single day. So, just make sure you subscribe, especially because we are trying to hit 300,000 subscribers, and I would really appreciate it. But, Breece, his projections on Underdog right now, higher or lower, 82 and a half total yards for tonight's game. I will obviously talk about him and update those rankings on the site right after. The reason I'm going to initially have him ahead of Quinn Jean Judkins, despite me investing a lot more money into Quinn Jean Judkins than any other running back in this tier so far this season, is the Browns still have a garbage offense. And um, Judkins is still primarily the first and second down running back, but things are trending in a way where he's going from being the first and second down running back to instead being a three-down workhorse. And if that were to occur, um, even if he's in a garbage offense, like Alvin Kamara is in a garbage offense, right? It's not like Kamara has a great receiving role, he could very easily move up to like RB13 at the very top end of this tier. Um, I think it may be a little bit tough for him to get inside tier A just because of the offensive output, but we'll see.
Chuba Hubbard is in a very bad offense as well. Chuba Hubbard is a similar type workload to Quinn Jean Judkins. The reason I'm going to be putting Hubbard behind Judkins is I straight up just think Judkins is the better running back. I think he's the more talented back. I think he has the bigger play upside. Um, and again, I, you know, I've made this very, very clear. Not a fan of Bryce Young.
Trey Benson will be our next name. I know a lot of people were disappointed with Trey Benson against the Seattle Seahawks. To be honest with you, he had 13 opportunities in a game where Seattle pretty much got blown out. Like the Seahawks were trailing in this game from start to finish. So, with that being the context of it, like I think going into the future when the Cardinals are in more competitive contests, we realistically should expect that Trey Benson is much, much better. Like I'm not going to be giving up on him at all.
Now, moving over to our next guy that we need to look at. This is going to be Mr. Chase Brown. Chase Brown, no idea what to expect for tonight's game. I'll say he's been the least efficient running back in the entire NFL. He's looked like the worst round two pick um of the entire offseason. He's currently our lower 74 and a half total yards. The thing with Chase Brown, he's still averaging like 20 opportunities a game at this point. The efficiency has just been horrendous because again, you are looking at a setup in which this offense and specifically this offensive line looks to be one of the worst in the league.
Now let's move this over to our next player, which is going to be Cam Akers. With Akers, I started him this past week. I'm really hoping that he comes through and he continues to dominate for us. The hesitation that I have is one, if Tyrone Tracy does manage to come back, what's going to happen? Not necessarily to Akers' ability to lead this backfield, but his ability to just dominate the volume. Because realistically, if this goes to being a 70-30 split, 60-40 split, even if you do have Cam Akers seeing the majority of it, I'm going to be a little bit concerned just because again, you are looking at one of the worst offenses in the league post Malik Neighbors injury. And at the same time, we don't have a super high checkdown rate when it comes to what we have with Jackson Dart, who can effectively just run the ball himself.
Now, TreVeyon Henderson will be our next running back. I was very much hoping that TreVeyon Henderson was going to come through and he was going to crush this week. I thought no Rhamondre Stevenson because he fumbled last week, maybe they were going to scale back his involvement, and that just simply did not happen at all. Rhamondre Stevenson played just as much as ever. They freaking gave Antonio Gibson a rushing touchdown. So, super frustrating. I still believe Henderson's a great running back, so I still want to bet on him in the long term.
Going over and looking at Jordan Mason, Jordan Mason again is going to be much higher than this in our weekly rankings whenever you actually have no Aaron Jones, but I'm going to be putting a slight discount on him in our rest of season rankings because even when Aaron Jones comes back, I'm going to expect Mason to be the lead RB, but it will transition over to a committee. And Jordan Mason, we know, is not going to be the receiving back in that instance.
Going over and looking at DeAndre Swift. Swift, the workload's been very consistent. Like, I mean, every single week you're getting about 20 opportunities, at least 15 to 20. 22 week one, 15 week two, 17 week three, 20 week four. So, you have a really nice floor with DeAndre Swift. The offense is decent as well. Um, maybe just maybe, Kyle Manungai gets more involved after the bye week, which obviously would be a concern.
Now, going over to our next tier, David Montgomery would be like a desperation play. Like, we're never that excited to get David Montgomery in your starting lineup with a healthy Jameer Gibbs. However, if Jameer Gibbs were to go down, like say Jameer, I'm not wishing this. I really hope it doesn't happen, but if Jameer Gibbs were to go down with a torn ACL tomorrow, David Montgomery, I don't know if he's a tier S running back for us, but he's definitely in tier A at the very minimum. And he's probably near the top of tier A as well.
Now looking at Tony Pollard, I need to start Tony Pollard this week in one of my flexes because I'm dealing with a couple of buys. I am really hoping, of course, that we have no Taj Spears, but once Spears comes back, Tony Pollard all of a sudden is going to um become unstartable. I would still expect Pollard to be the lead running back in Tennessee, but the Tennessee Titans look like they are the worst offense in the NFL. And the only reason Pollard's been startable at all is because he's playing 90% of the snaps and he's the only running back that they trust until Spears comes in. Like he had 17 opportunities this past week. So, like a team like mine, again, I'm going to throw him in that second flex spot um just for the baseline floor in a week in which I'm dealing with buys, but the second that you end up getting Spears back in, he goes away.
Um, J.K. Dobbins, don't know what to expect. Same thing with Rachaad White. We'll see what the usage looks like tonight. I'll update the rankings on the site. I'll tell you what they are in the live stream. Um, Jaylen Warren, the injury stuff's going to be super important to monitor. Um, obviously Kenneth Gainwell was maybe the most impressive player if we're looking at what happened in week four. Um, I don't necessarily know if we can say that it's going to dramatically impact the Jaylen Warren usage where week three he had 80% of the snap. So he was just the future RB and clearly a great receiving back and he had been very efficient as a receiver, specifically pretty inefficient as a rusher. But the Pittsburgh Steelers have the week five buy. So this is going to be a week in which the Steelers can get right. Jaylen Warren can get healthy, and it's going to be tough to project out what the split is going to be afterwards.
Now, Jakoriu Croskey Merritt will be our next running back. Um, I don't know what to do with this dude. He looks like the best running back in Washington, but at the same time, it's a three-man running back by committee. So, if anything, there's honestly like I'm going to update these rankings again tomorrow. And the more that I think about this, um, you'll see this in the waiver wire video we drop on Tuesday. I'll show you where the updated rankings are. But there's a good chance that we move um either Charbonnet or Woody Marks ahead of Jakoriu Croskey. Charbonnet's similar to David Montgomery, just a worse option in that like Kenneth Walker goes down, Charbonnet is an A-tier running back for me. But if Kenneth Walker's playing, Charbonnet is just a desperation play at the very best. Woody Marks looks like he could be taking over as the starting running back in Houston. Like Woody Marks this past week not only displayed the most efficient running back play the Houston Texans have seen, but on top of this, he actually saw a career-high with snaps and a career-high with touches. My only hold up with this is, is there any shot that Joe Mixon comes back? Because here we'll kind of say the same thing.
Kenneth Gainwell, this next player, Gainwell clearly proved me wrong. He is a premium handcuff RB. Drops 31 points this past week. Looks amazing while he was doing it. It's like a highlight. Like watch the entire game. It was the only game on at the time. So, we saw pretty much everything. And Gainwell looked great. It wasn't just random volume. He almost scored three touchdowns. So, we don't really know what to expect with the split coming out of the bye. We're going to have to monitor the Jaylen Warren injury and keep this updated. Joe Mixon. Uh, we have not really heard anything about him. Maybe, just maybe, he comes back after the bye week, starting in week seven, but right now it is radio silence in Houston.
Um, Bijan Robinson, you'd assume that oh, when he looks good in weeks two and three, they expand his role in week four, but no, it was just the Travis Etienne show.
Moving down to our next tier, Tyler Allgeier. Maybe we need to start viewing him a little bit more like Zach Charbonnet, where he is a desperation play if you really needed somebody with a healthy Bijan Robinson, but obviously more so just a premium handcuff. Say the same exact thing with Rashaad White. Premium handcuff. Bucky Irving goes down, he's a must-start player. Bucky Irving's healthy, can't really trust him. Rhamondre Stevenson, I'm not trusting either. The dude had seven opportunities two weeks ago. He had 10 opportunities this past week. I'm expecting his role to shrink as time goes on.
Um, Aaron Jones, we will see if he can come back in week eight. That'd be the earliest that he could. I'm assuming that Jordan Mason's probably going to be the lead back here regardless.
Isiah Pacheco continues to look pretty damn bad. He had the receiving touchdown this past week, but Kareem Hunt was actually the lead RB. Um, Nick Chubb looks like he maybe just lost that job to Woody Marks. And you have the concern that Joe Mixon is going to come back. And then Tyrone Tracy, we have no idea if he is going to be in the mix once he returns from his injury or if he's more so going to get used as a kick return type option. But I really appreciate y'all and really hope I was able to help you out here. Of course, if you wanted to check out any of those picks that we talked about over on Underdog Fantasy, they currently have Devon Singletary higher or lower a total of 101 yards. Insane. They have Breece currently higher or lower a total of 82 and a half yards. You can check them all out with the link in the description, link in the comment section. Code Flock will get you a $100 bonus added after you play your first five. And on top of that, you'll get a free Bo Nix pick. And if you use code Flock, you're going to get free questions to ask me in the live streams that we're doing every single night. I'll leave that link in the description, comment section. Underdog Fantasy is available in almost every state. But I really appreciate you and really hope we get to see you out with the live stream later tonight.