My 2026 Fantasy RB Rankings & Tiers

Good morning friends and enemies, and welcome into rankings week. Each day this week, I will be going through a different position. Starting today with the top 30 running back rankings for 2026 fantasy football. These are for PPR leagues, so you can adjust accordingly. Each player will be thrown into their own tier as well. Because we'll be talking about nearly 30 individual players, I'm going to give a quick elevator pitch, the upside, and the downside for every player and move along quickly. As always, timestamps are down below. But if you stay tuned to the end of the video, we will be ripping off some NFL trivia at the end. It will be fun. So for the ball knowers that want to stick around, again, timestamps are down below for each player in every section of the video. If you are new here, we will be doing the exact same thing for wide receivers, and then quarterbacks, tight ends together in a video later this week. So subscribe here if you want to see those.

So starting at the very top, the elite RB1 tier. These are guys that I think should be just relatively going in the first round. And as we go down these players, what you'll see on the screen, similar to a lot of the weekly rankings that I was doing last year, throughout the season, it has their Vegas odds, their season-long props going into the year. So Jier Gibbs' rushing lines at 1,200.5 yards, rushing touchdowns, receiving yards, total touchdowns, etc., as well as their strength of schedule, which we can click on and kind of just jump into at any point. So strength of schedule on the left side is for their entire season-long for running backs, and then the right number is their playoff strength of schedule. So just weeks 15, 16, and 17.

So tier number one, the elite RB1. You have Jir Gibbs as my RB1, Bjun Robinson, and Christian McCaffrey. For Jir Gibbs, there's very, very little downside case here. They get rid of David Montgomery. He's a guy who goes for nearly 2,000 yards, 20 touchdowns year in and year out. I would say the biggest downside to Gibbs is like their offensive line does not play as well. They don't have the pieces that they had over the last half decade to consider them an elite offensive line, but he's such a good playmaker. Not worried whatsoever. I just think the small sample we've seen with him on the field without David Montgomery has been so league-breaking that I don't really want to pass that up. He has a great strength of schedule as well in the playoffs. Minnesota's tough, but they get the Giants and they get the Chicago Bears in your semis and your championship. So, we love a little Jir Gibbs here.

Bjan Robinson the RB2 coming off of a 2,300-yard from scrimmage season, only 11 touchdowns. So, I think he's got a lot of room to grow there. Offensive line still pretty good. Biggest question mark here is a quarterback situation. I think Tua probably goes into the year as a starter, and we saw what Tua did with Devon Han in terms of checking down and seeing those PPR numbers just absolutely destroy the league. So I think we could see a similar situation with Bejian Robinson, maybe a thousand, thousand season. Realistically, they just got Bejian Robinson and Drake London there as pass-catching weapons. End of story. Nobody else catches passes in that offense. So both of those guys are worthy of the 101 if you wanted to go in either direction. I have no problem with it.

Christian McCaffrey, my RB3 here in the elite RB1s. I mean, we just saw him have a top 10 fantasy season of all time for fantasy running backs in just this previous season. When I look at the weapons around there, like even if his efficiency has dipped a little bit in terms of rushing and like yards per carry and the breakaway plays, the receiving floor is just so insanely high that I imagine he's going to catch four, five, six, seven passes per game. George Kittle coming back from the Achilles. Jauan Jennings no longer there. Ricky P is always a liability to get hurt. They just don't have many proven weapons that are healthy in that offense right now. So, I think CMC probably starts out the gate catching an insane amount of passes. And I should note, at any time, any of these tools, any of this information is available right now in our fantasy membership on bdgeg.co. The draft guide will also be a part of that package. If you are a member, for any player that you're looking in the rankings, you can simply click on them and it shows basically all of their information in one teeny tiny little package for you. So, you've got the Vegas props, you've got any team data that you want, team total wins, offensive line ranked, you can look at their strength of schedule. It's incredibly useful when you're on the clock drafting in your draft. It's got the team additions in terms of who's in, who's out on the team fantasy relevance-wise. So, anything that you can need to make your decision on the clock, it's all in our draft guide in our fantasy membership on bdge.co.

Moving on to tier number two. These are guys that I feel good with as my running back one. So, I'm not looking at them as like league-breaking players, but if I leave my draft and they're the guy that's the top of the depth chart for me on my fantasy team as my RB1, I still feel relatively good with that. That is James Cook, Jonathan Taylor, Saquon Barkley, Ashton Genty, Chase Brown, and Derrick Henry.

So, James Cook has just been a beast the last two seasons, scoring touchdowns left and right. This was the first season last year in which they finally allowed him to like really take control of that workhorse role, over 300 carries for the first time in his career, and he was incredible with it. The upside case you can make for James Cook here, I think, is that their new offensive coordinator, you could see Pete Carmichael, former Denver senior offensive assistant, was also with the Saints with Sean Payton for like 15 years prior to that. If you look at like a running back pass-friendly scheme from any head coach in the history of the NFL, I don't know if there's a better one than what Sean Payton has done. So Pete Carmichael learning from Sean Payton. James Cook is a very good receiver, and it just pains me that they don't use him in a high-volume role like that. So I think the upside case comes in the form of James Cook doing what he does rushing-wise year in and year out, but catching 50, 60, 65 passes and being a top two, three running back in fantasy this year.

Moving to Jonathan Taylor, the RB5. I don't think I need to make a huge case for him. We saw what he could do last year, but he also really struggled when Daniel Jones was out, and Daniel Jones is recovering from his Achilles tear. So, I think Jonathan Taylor will be a very, very high floor, high volume back this year. I think naturally some of the explosive plays will probably regress quite a bit. So, I don't think JT will be, you know, in the contending runner of offensive player of the year like he was last year. But, I still think if you, you know, if you end up leaving your draft and he's your RB1, you'll be fine building that team.

Saquon's a guy that I'm investing in for a bounce-back season going into this year. I think most of the struggles last year were just toxic environment between A.J. Brown and that [ __ ] and Kevin Patullo, their offensive coordinator, just being one of the worst. And he is no longer there. So having any new offensive coordinator in Philadelphia is going to be a huge win by subtraction for the entire offense. So I'm expecting a bounce back for Saquon Barkley. I think their offensive line was just absolutely decimated with injuries last year. They won't be elite like 2024, but I am expecting a bounce back for Saquon Barkley, and I think he's going to see a ton of volume in an offense that's going to be very, very run-heavy, and I imagine he's going to be the centerpiece of the offense. So Saquon, I'm very okay having back in on as my RB1.

Same thing with Ashton Genty here. I just think he struggled as a rookie, still ended up finishing with a relatively strong season, saw over 70 targets. And the biggest upside case for Genty, of course, is you bring in Ken Kubiak as the head coach. You get Colton Miller back, one of the best tackles in the NFL who missed a lot of time with injury last year. And then you signed Tyler Linderbaum to a fat, fat contract this offseason to really retool the interior of the offensive line. Genty obviously had zero running room in 2025 as a rookie. I expect that to be a huge change this year with a new progressive scheme under Clint Kubiak and a retooled offensive line, and hopefully better quarterback play with Kirk Cousins for a few games, but the number one overall pick in Fernando Mendoza coming in as the quarterback there, probably sooner than later. Genty to me is a three-down player. Saw the highest opportunity share of any running back in the entire NFL last year. Still finished his rookie year with, I think it was like 1,300, 400 yards from scrimmage, 10 total touchdowns. So that was a miserable year. You give him the same opportunity share, which I don't see why he wouldn't, better scheme, better offensive line. The upside case for Ashton Genty is incredibly, incredibly real here.

And what Chase Brown has done over the last two years is also incredibly real here. He's been nothing but the workhorse in a high-volume offense for Cincinnati. Two years in a row, he's been a great fantasy running back. There have been basically zero changes to the offense, except for like, feels like the energy is pretty good in Cincinnati right now, where at this point in the summer, there's usually some [ __ ] going on between Joe Burrow being hurt, between contract holdouts, between Jamar Chase or T. Higgins being hurt. Like there's always something going on. This is the first time it feels like in a long time that we haven't had any of that stuff for Cincinnati. So if the Bengals went out and signed, you know, some sort of real pass-catching back or drafted someone in round three or round four, even like round five, maybe I'd have a slight hesitation. But I just think you are now attaching a guy who they've shown to be the workhorse, who was crazy good over the second half of last year. Really, outside of the first like three, four games, he was great for fantasy in 2025. So Chase Brown's a guy I think a lot of people are just going to overthink. But if you wipe away your subjective feelings about it and just say, "Okay, this is a workhorse who's only competing with Samaje [ __ ] Prying for touches in what's projected to be one of the best offenses in the NFL." I think you could do no wrong.

King Henry typically does no wrong in fantasy football if you end up drafting him. He's coming in as my RB9. I don't really think he lost a step last year. What I think happened was the Baltimore offense lost a step because Lamar Jackson was badly banged up. The hamstring injury clearly hampered him. When you look at Lamar Jackson's rushing totals over the last six, seven years since he's been in the NFL, it's been like 130 carries, 140 carries, 155 carries, 127 carries, and last year it was like 65. There was a very, very clear difference in last year versus every other year prior to that. And to me, I'm willing to wipe away most of Baltimore's troubles on offense to Lamar Jackson being injured. I am interested to see what the new offense looks like. They no longer have Todd Monkin. Obviously, a huge coaching change there in Baltimore. And they do lose Tyler Linderbaum, so maybe their offensive line takes a step back. They did use their first-round pick on an interior offensive lineman. So, just kind of replacing him with a little bit of youth. But once again, zero competition for Derrick Henry. Keaton Mitchell is now in Los Angeles. So, you have Derrick Henry here kind of by himself doing his thing. Very good offense. This is a team with a team win total of 11 and a half wins. Like, give me the guy who's going to be on a very good team that's going to score a [ __ ] ton of touchdowns. You can see their strength of schedule is phenomenal as well. A Cleveland Miles Garrett-less defense in week 16 and then Cincinnati in week 17. So, love the fantasy playoff schedule for Derrick Henry as well.

Moving to tier number three. This is what I'm calling the borderline RB1 RB2. If I go into the year with them as my RB1, I think I'm going to have a little bit of skepticism about my team. Would obviously rather have them as RB2s, but you could do worse. Overall, I think there's upside cases for all these guys. I think there's downside cases for all these guys as well. And this tier consists of eight players: Kenneth Walker, Omarian Hampton, Devon Achane, Jeremiah Love, Josh Jacobs, Javante Williams, Cam Akers, and Kyren Williams.

Kenneth Walker signs a fat new deal with Kansas City to be their premier featured workhorse running back. I don't think they have real competition behind him. Will he lose some snaps on, you know, clear passing downs for sure. But I think Patrick Mahomes is recovering from the serious knee injury, the ACL tear. So I think they want to lean on a guy like Kenneth Walker. Kenneth Walker has always been able to put together like small sample sizes of elite play at running back, and I think he's going to have every opportunity to be a dude who just blasts off this year. I think about like Kareem Hunt's rookie season under Andy Reid when he led the league in rushing yards with, I think it was like 1,300, 1,350 or something like that. I think Kenneth Walker has a real chance to lead the NFL in rushing yards this year. And even an uninspiring team that the Chiefs have kind of become in recent years, like they still have a 10 and a half win total here and six primetime games. So the NFL's got no hesitation about the Kansas City Chiefs being a good team. Give me the goal line guy. Give me the really, really explosive guy in a backfield that just has not seen anything close to this level of explosiveness in a very, very long time.

Next up, we've got Omarian Hampton, whose upside case here. Offensive line is extremely healthy again. Joe Walt coming back. Rashawn Slater coming back. They use a second-round pick on Jake Slaughter. They signed Tyler Biadasz. So their offensive line went from a liability last year to probably a top 12, top 10 unit. I think Herbert should be awesome. He threw the ball a lot to Omarian Hampton when he was playing last year. From Mike McDaniel comes over as the OC, who has just fed running backs in terms of fantasy points. Yes, he'll be battling a little bit with Keaton Mitchell, Kamani Vidal, but I think those players get scraps. Those players get very situational snaps on the field, where Omari Hampton's going to be what's projected to be a very, very good offense with a new offensive coordinator who obviously knows how to score points in this league. So, another one where I think people are probably going to overthink Omarian Hampton again. If you think the Chargers are going to be good, then you should just be drafting Omarian Hampton because he's going to be able to piggyback on the success. He's obviously going to be the goal line back there. He's a three-down guy, first-round draft capital, extremely explosive, 220 lbs, can catch the ball, like not much this guy cannot do. So, when people are taking small sample sizes of what his rushing efficiency might have looked like when he was and/or wasn't injured last year, it's just not something I am totally interested in.

And the next player on this list who I will probably get the most pushback from will be Devon Achane. He's my RB12. So, still an RB1. I was all in on Devon Achane last year. Ended up being a phenomenal pick. I am pulling the reins back. And it's probably nothing that you haven't heard from people in the industry pulling back on Devon Achane. I've made a video already about this. He was like in the thumbnail. It's 10 guys I think that I will have very, very few shares of on any of my fantasy teams. We will link that video down below if you want to go check that out afterwards. Devon Achane is one of them. They did re-sign him, but like the offensive system and just Miami's team in general going into 2026 is probably the worst environment in the NFL. I think their offensive line has the ability to actually be okay, but you have no offensive playmakers. Like, they're going to have so much trouble moving the ball. You have Bobby Slowik as the offensive coordinator. I think Malik Willis coming in as a quarterback. It's a mobile quarterback. So, you go from Tua, who is like a check-down king, to Malik Willis, who is going to scramble a ton. So, this is not an offense I think is going to be able to sustain drives. They have no actual playmakers. No, I think like Greg Dulcich is probably the odds-on favorite to lead the team in targets outside of Achane. So, yeah, he'll obviously have his explosive games. He's De'Von Achane. He's a [ __ ] phenomenal running back, underrated in between the tackles, can pop off for 30 fantasy points on any given week. He can take a swing pass to the crib, and I think you'll still have those high-ceiling games. But in terms of consistency and in terms of what we saw from last year, I think we're probably in for, unfortunately, a bit of a down year for Devon Achane despite how talented he is.

Same thing with Jeremiah Love. I mean, picked as a top five guy in the NFL draft this year. Goes to Arizona. Not a great offensive system there. Not an envious position for him to be in. They signed Tyler Allgeier this offseason. Not a great offensive line. They brought back James Conner. They still have Trey Benson. Maybe not for long. But it's a messy backfield. I do think Jeremiah Love probably has a pretty high floor because he has obvious three-down ability. Draft capital's crazy. Very, very good pass catcher, explosive as well. And I made a video last week. I can't even remember what the topic was, but I talked about Jeremiah Love and I went back and looked at all of the running backs that were drafted inside the top 10 and where they finished in overall PPR ranks during their rookie season. You'd have to go back to CJ Spiller to find a top 10 drafted running back in the NFL draft that didn't finish as an RB1 PPR in their rookie season. Now, you know, take that with a grain of salt because like if you drafted Bijan in the rookie year, obviously price matters here. If you drafted Bijan the rookie year, like he was RB, I think 16 or 17 in points per game, but overall all of them finished as RB ones in terms of the length of the season and staying healthy, which I don't think is maybe a coincidence because when you're drafting a guy top 10, normally they are workhorse size, speed, they have all those things going for them. So not crazy that they stayed healthy for it. But I think Jeremiah Love with the Arizona Cardinals, they're not a team that's going to win a lot. I could see them, you know, they're obviously not going to pass as many times as they did last year. They'll probably still have a very, very high pass rate. I think he'll be taken out in obvious goal-line situations. He'll probably need high target volume. I think he'll need some explosive plays in order to be like a really good fantasy pick. But I like the floor for Jeremiah Love if he's going to drop to like the two, three turn in fantasy drafts.

Next up, we've got Josh Jacobs. Kind of in just like wait and see mode on Josh Jacobs. Um, you know, he's got off-field stuff. He's got some injuries that he's battled in each of the last couple years just because of his running style. But I think if things continue to be relatively positive from here on out for the rest of summer, I will continue to move Josh Jacobs up. To me, he reminds me a little bit of like a lot of these guys over the last few years, which we'll talk about in a little bit, where like it's Omarian Hampton right now, Javante Williams, Kyren Williams, where it's like it's easy to overthink these players because they're kind of like the boring picks, but at the end of the day, when you're sitting there on a [ __ ] Sunday and the Packers are on TV, it's like, yeah, I want their starting running back. They're just like a good offense that scores a lot. LaFleur uses Josh Jacobs on the goal line to an insane degree. You could see that his rushing touchdown Vegas prop is at 11 and a half. There are almost no running backs outside of Jir Gibbs and Derrick Henry who are sniffing that number. So he's a dude who just basically scores weekly, and they just don't really have other running backs that they want to hand the ball to. Like Emanuel Wilson is now in Seattle. So Jacobs again, like, yeah, if he's healthy, if the off-field issues don't lead to some sort of suspension, Jacobs is like a very boring third, fourth round pick that you're going to be really glad is just kind of sitting in your RB2 slot on a weekly basis.

And I think you could say the same thing with Javante Williams, where he cooled down towards the second half of last year, but they added nothing in terms of backfield competition to Dallas. So I expect another very high-volume year for Javante Williams, especially early down. That goal line role is going to be beautiful in the Dallas Cowboys offense, a team that's projected to score the third most points in the NFL in this upcoming season. It's like maybe Jayden Daniels gets it together this year, but maybe he just [ __ ] doesn't. And Javante Williams plays 80% of the snaps once again. Like Daniels showed us zero last year. So, I'm not going to go as far as giving him the benefit of the doubt that like, yeah, he's going to play this big pass-catching third-down role here. I think they were pretty damn comfortable with Javante Williams, and he's a pretty good pass blocker. So, wouldn't be surprised if Javante again ends up being a really boring pick in the third, you know, fourth round turn that again you're going to be really happy just sitting there in your RB2 spot.

Now, this is the end of tier number three, where I'll probably get the most pushback on rankings, where I have Cam Akers as my RB16, Kyren Williams as my RB17. So, Akers, I've talked a lot about in previous videos already, so I won't go too deep into it. Akers is coming back from the crazy ankle injury. However, we just interviewed Dr. Jesse Morse, sports physician, as well as just kind of keeping your eye on reports out of Giants camp, and everything has been like blossomingly positive out there for Cam Akers' recovery. So, I'm going to choose to believe those timelines right now. Apparently, he's going to be full go for training camp. If that's not the case, you know, if they're like, "Oh, no. We're resting him every other day." If there's even like a slight hint of hesitation there, then maybe we pull back the range. But, I haven't heard a single thing that is negative towards Cam Akers. And the first eight games of last year, the only eight games that he played last year, he saw nine of nine goal-line carries, every single carry inside the five-yard line, 23 of 26 red zone carries, and saw about 67% of the running back targets in that backfield. He was a bell cow to the highest degree. Yes, there is a little bit of a coaching shift here. So maybe they look to Tyrone Tracy in different downs, but I still think Cam Akers is going to play 65 to 70% of the snaps here. And that is such a valuable role behind a mobile quarterback like Jackson Dart. They also use a top 10 pick on an offensive line, so hopefully they're better. As you can see, their strength of schedule is really, really good this year. Cleveland, Detroit, Dallas is a wonderful run schedule in the fantasy playoffs as well. So, love Cam.

Kyren Williams, another guy I, you know, it's hard to make the case against Kyren Williams. He's just been so good and proved everybody wrong year after year after year. I do think there was material change to the offense last year. And by that, I mean like it did start to become a drive-by-drive split between Kyren and Blake Corum. There have been previous seasons when Sean McVay has come out and be like, "Oh, we want to get these guys more involved. We want to get them more involved." And then it never happens. But last year, we actually saw the change happen. And there was a report that came out from Nate Atkins. He covers the Rams for The Athletic. So, he's a very respected reporter and said that he would not be surprised if Blake Corum runs for 1,000 yards this year. And at first, you're like, "Okay, that's just, you know, that's just coach speak or that's just random speak from a guy who's probably not like tapped into stats in the nerdy way that we are." But I will say there have only been a handful of running back duos that have both run for a thousand yards in a given season. And the Rams this year, you know, it's obviously a long shot bet to happen, but if they're splitting drives, and I do think Kyren plays on the valuable downs, like he is a much better third-down back. He's a very good pass blocker. He's also a much better pass catcher than Blake Corum. On the goal line, I do think, you know, if it's like do or die, we have to give it to one guy, it probably goes to Kyren over Blake Corum. But I think the way that they play the game, to me, it's going to come down on a drive-by-drive basis. Are you on the field? Is Blake Corum the one on the field for the drive in which they get to the goal line? So, I think Blake Corum has a good chance to score, you know, six, seven touchdowns as anybody else that's a backup running back in the league. But I remember going into last year, Kyron Williams' touchdown line was insanely high. I think only Derrick Henry had a higher one than him last year. I think his rushing touchdown Vegas prop was 11 and a half or 12. Very, very high, which I get because the Rams offense is so good. They're so efficient. And going back to the duo, in order for I think Blake to hit 1,000 rushing yards, he'll need to have a very efficient season. I went back, you know, it's like the D'Angelo Williams and Jonathan Stewarts of the world. It's the Brandon Jacobs and Derrick Ward. Those duos were averaging like five-plus yards per carry. I think the Rams offense is so efficient. Sean McVay so smart. Their defense is so good that they'll have the tempo of the game to kind of dictate however they want the game to go. And I'd imagine more often than not, like you do want to have a very successful ground game. So if Blake Corum averages 4.8, 4.9 yards per carry, he really only needs 200, 210 carries, which over the course of the season is, you know, 12, 13ish carries a game, which I don't think is crazy. So again, long shot. Obviously, if you're betting on it, the betting odds of two guys in a backfield hitting 1,000 yards, very long shot, but I actually don't think it's as crazy as you make it sound. So Kyron Williams, like at the end of the day, great offense, a good role, but I do think it needs to be acknowledged that again, when you're sitting there on Sunday, you're going to have full drives when Kyron Williams is just not on the field. So the upside for Kyron Williams doesn't really exist in the way that it does for other guys on this list that will likely be the three-down bell cow. And that's why I have him as RB17. Happy to have him as my RB2, but don't think we're going to see the Kyren Williams of previous years.

Moving on to tier number four. These are flat-out guys that I think need to be RB2s on your team. If you are banking on them being your RB1, you will likely be in trouble. It's Breece Hall, it's Quinton Johnston, it's Travis Etienne Jr., it is Bucky Irving, and it is DeAndre Swift.

I should also say, I mentioned that you can sign up for our membership to get access to all of these numbers, and you can, but you can get access to three months of the fantasy membership for an incredibly discounted price. Actually, the entire website membership for an incredibly discounted price if you are in a state that's eligible for BetMGM and you are a new user on the app or the website. All you've got to do is deposit and place a slip of $10 or more. And when you do so, when you're a new user, when you first get on there, use code BDGE. Do that. Place a slip. As soon as you do, they're going to send you an in-app message in their app or on their website with a code to use on our site, bdge.co, which will unlock three months free. And at this point, that means you'll get the entire draft guide because that carries over. It's July, so July, August, September, all of September. So, you'll get our sit-start tool, all the stuff that we've been working on that we did content around last year. These tools will now fully be available for you to use. Vegas props every single week. Obviously, our rankings, there's some cool like weather API integrations that we're pushing this year. Just like a bunch of incredible tools that you guys will personally be able to use this year. So, go to BetMGM if you're a new user. $10 slip. Use code BDGE when you first get on there, and they're going to give you a promo code for three months free of everything on our website.

So, we've got Breece Hall re-signed to a big deal. Should be the workhorse there in New York. That, of course, is where the hesitation comes in. It is New York. They should have a good offensive line, but Aaron Glenn is still there. We saw him want to use a committee. I will say I'm more in on Breece Hall this year than I was last year, and I think I would take Breece Hall over like a Garrett Wilson. They got Geno Smith coming in, so maybe some more stability at the quarterback position. I mean, it can't get worse than it was last year. But I'm just always hesitant to bet on, you know, the Jets running back right now. His rushing total is five and a half in terms of touchdowns. So, that's always a little bit spooky. They just don't get inside the five-yard line very often. And something I say very often is normally a player's rushing touchdown total is dictated by team success. Outside of like the ends of the spectrum of guys who just hit like breakaway home runs all the time, the Gibbs, the Taylors of the world, 99% of running backs fall into the category of if you're in a very good offense, your rushing touchdown line is going to be a lot higher just because your offense, you're a product of your offense being inside the five-yard line more often. And I don't know that we're going to get that with the Jets. I will say not having Justin Fields there anymore, not taking away like rushing touchdowns in that sense could be a good thing for Breece Hall. So I'm like hesitantly optimistic about Breece Hall. I'm not going to be someone overdrafting him in my drafts, but if he falls to me and I can get him as my RB2, like won't be terribly upset about it.

Quinton Johnston, awesome rookie year before fracturing his ankle. Had some ligament damage as well. So, he's kind of recovering from the same thing Akers has been. I haven't heard too much about Johnston. They've been like relatively optimistic about him, but we'll have to wait and see because of the extra ligament damage. Overall, the concern for anyone in Cleveland is just that offense. Like the offensive line was awful last year. Their quarterback play is going to be probably awful regardless of who is under center. Probably not going to have a big third-down role there. That will likely be Dylan Samson. So Johnston, really easy to like the player. Really difficult to like the situation there.

Travis Etienne, would love to be much higher on him, but to be honest, it seems like Alvin Kamara has got something to prove here. He attended OTAs for like the first time in forever, and it seems like Alvin Kamara is not done with the NFL. Like Kamara's skill set at this point, he's not the same runner he was when he was younger, obviously, but he can be an incredible third-down player. He can be an incredible just passing-down role, and I think that will eat into Travis Etienne's upside. Obviously, I do like the Saints offensive line this year, drafting or grabbing David Edwards from Buffalo. They obviously invested into the offensive line and Kelvin Banks last year. Their offense overall, Tyler Shough looked good as a rookie. They drafted Jordan Tyson top 10. Kell Moore is always a guy who runs a very, very high-paced, high-volume offense. And of course, their strength of schedule, as you can see, is phenomenal. It is crispy. They're playing in a dome. They're playing in the NFC South. Like on paper, the Saints for fantasy have a beautiful, beautiful run out. And had Alvin Kamara like retired, I might have Travis Etienne as like a borderline top 10, if not like top eight fantasy running back this year. They did give him a fat contract, which tells you they're going to use him to a very high degree. But I will say like I wouldn't be surprised if Alvin Kamara is a dude this year in fantasy. So that's my hesitation with him.

Kind of a similar hesitation with Bucky Irving. Last year his entire story was injuries, foot, shoulder. Had shoulder surgery in the offseason this year, but not overly concerned about him as it pertains to his week one status. What I am concerned about is they let Rashaad White walk, but they ended up signing Kenneth Gainwell to a two-year, $14 million deal. And Rashaad White got $2 million. So like they could have just re-signed him and let him play the same role, but they clearly went out and wanted to get an active part of their passing game in that backfield. Sean Tucker was also a massive part of the goal line situation for the Bucs last year. Like Bucky Irving played 10 games last year. He appeared in 10 games, had zero goal-line carries. Sean Tucker had nine. So I'm worried that while Bucky Irving is a good player, and I expect this offense to bounce back a bit, you know, Baker was hurt, I was hurt, Evans was hurt, Godwin's coming back from an injury. Tristan Wirfs missed a quarter of the season. I think Bucky can be good as an early-down runner, but you have Kenneth Gainwell playing clear passing downs, and you have Sean Tucker mixing in on the goal line. It's hard to get like the projections to be really high on Bucky Irving.

Right after him, we've got DeAndre Swift, just attached to a very good offense in Ben Johnson. We saw what DeAndre Swift did last year. He's just a perennial RB2, high floor. Similar to Kyren, though, him and Kyle Pitts are going to split serieses kind of back and forth. Swift's a better pass catcher, most likely. And this is an offense that should relatively be, you know, high-scoring and be inside the 10, five-yard line. They love to use the running backs down there. So would be surprised if Swift doesn't score between seven and 10 touchdowns this year, but the drive-by-drive thing makes it a little scary. I will also say the offensive line that was just dominant last year, Alijah Vera-Tucker tore his Achilles at the end of the season or ruptured. Yeah, ruptured his Achilles, I believe. Likely going to miss most of, if not all of this year. He's their starting left tackle. And Drew Dalman, their awesome center that they signed from the Falcons last year, great run-blocking center, retired as well, just a year after his three-year contract was signed. So, I do think we'll see a little bit of regression with the dominance that the offensive line showed in the run game for Chicago last year. But just being attached to Ben Johnson in year two of this scheme with Caleb Williams, year two of Ben Johnson, like the uptick in offensive offensive efficiency overall should probably give Swift a runway lane to be an RB2.

And we will move down to the very last tier of the video. Again, we will be doing the same thing for wide receivers another point in this week. So, subscribe to the channel if you're new here. Hit the button that looks like this, the thumbs up if you enjoyed, so I know you like these videos. So, we'll move on to the strong flex tier, and that'll take us from running back 23 to 29. All right, I lied. It's 29, not 30 running backs in this one. We've got David Montgomery, Breshad Perriman, Tony Pollard, Trayvon Henderson, Jaylen Warren, Jadarian Price, and Rhamondre Stevenson.

Now, I think the name of this tier is warranted for about half these guys. And there's a couple guys that I think are thrown in here for upside cases. So, I think David Montgomery, Tony Pollard, Jaylen Warren, and probably Rhamondre Stevenson makes sense as a strong flex play. I think they have a volume floor in their respective offenses. Like David Montgomery moves over to Houston. I have a little trepidation with just that offense overall. I think they're going to be so defensive-minded, and yes, De'Von Achane might end up with like 250 carries, but I just, I don't know, like that it's not going to be a high-scoring offense. I'm not a believer in like a huge shroud bounce-back year. So, I like De'Von. I think it comes down to whether or not you think Houston's offense is going to be high-powered, which I don't. They still have Woody Marks there, and he's much better in a complimentary role. So, I'm hesitant on David Montgomery. I do have him as RB23, but like again, this is why I think tiers are important, and they'll be available in my rankings where to me, I'm looking at him as a strong flex, not like an RB2 that I want in my lineup there. So, he's ranked inside the top 24 running backs as an RB2, but I think tiers more so tell the story of like where you actually feel comfortable with them in your lineup.

Breshad Perriman, I think has crazy upside in a Jacksonville offense that was awesome last year. 20 running back scores. Obviously, Travis Etienne is gone. They do sign Chris Rodriguez, but he's been dealing with some sort of random foot injury for the entirety of the summer so far. Perriman's explosive. He's young. He showed out relatively well in his rookie season. So, I think he's got crazy upside to be a high upside guy in a very, very good offense here. They use the screen game phenomenally with the running backs. So, I think we can see a lot of that with Perriman. So, I like him here.

Pollard, kind of same story year in and year out. Thousand-yard rusher, should be the workhorse for the most part in Tennessee. It's just a matter of can the offense take that jump into the next tier under Cam Ward? They're doing a lot to make sure that they do. Brian Daboll's coming in. They've got Carnell Tate as a top-five pick. Brought in Will Robinson. So, they're giving them the opportunity to, and obviously, if the Titans offense, you know, floats up and and gets to that next tier, I also think that will obviously raise the tide of a guy like Tony Pollard.

You got Trayvon Henderson coming in this year. I'm a little hesitant on Trayvon Henderson. I don't think he played very well last year outside of the couple games in which Rhamondre was out and he was able to take that workhorse role. Overall, I think like he was worse than Rhamondre as an in-between-the-tackles runner. He was not a good pass blocker. I think you need to get him 10, 12 touches a game. Get him out in space as much as you can. My biggest hesitation is the schedule is going to be much harder this year than it was last year. And mainly, it's just Josh McDaniels being there. Like he's been the offensive coordinator or the head coach for many teams at this point in his NFL career and has almost always, always, always used a running back by committee, and we saw that to a very heavy degree last year, and I just don't think they're going to want to change that going into this year between Rhamondre and Trayvon Henderson. I have Rhamondre ranked as RB29. He's below Henderson because obviously, I think the upside case is very clear to Trayvon Henderson. Very explosive coming into year two. Of course, he can improve as a pass blocker. Of course, he can improve as an in-between-the-tackles runner. They used a first-round pick on an offensive lineman again. So, probably a better offensive line. They also signed Elijah Vera-Tucker from the Jets, who's always hurt, but if he can stay healthy, that will improve the interior pretty tremendously. And then you're also just attached to Drake Maye, who in a second year was the runner-up for MVP and took his team to the Super Bowl. So if Drake May is the next tier of the Mahomes, the Josh Allens, like you're typically going to want a running back that's explosive and young attached to those guys.

Then you've got Jaylen Warren in Pittsburgh as my RB27. I don't have a strong take on the Pittsburgh backfield, but I think I would just prefer Jaylen Warren to Rico Dowdle here. Um, I think he will play more valuable downs. I think he'll be the pass catcher. I think him and Rico will probably split goal-line work. With no more Kenneth Gainwell, I mean, we saw how serious that target share was for Kenneth Gainwell when Aaron Rodgers is under center. Obviously, he's returning. So, with Jaylen Warren, I could see him catching 60-plus passes and scoring, you know, seven, eight, nine touchdowns or something like that. So, sneaky like Jaylen Warren again, even though he's, you know, being drafted pretty low here, is like an RB3 flex play.

And the last running back is Jadarian Price here, outside of Rhamondre, who we just talked about. But Jadarian Price comes in as my RB28. I just think the Seattle backfield is like it's kind of all over the place now. We just had a report come out that says like this backfield will definitely be some sort of split. They don't want to run Jadarian Price into the ground immediately. First-round pick, but not like top 10, top 12, top 15 capital, very end of the first round. George Holani, I think is going to play a role in the passing-down game. Emanuel Wilson, they signed from Green Bay. Do they use him on the goal line? Jadarian Price is also never in his life seen a workhorse role, right? He was behind Jeremiah Love at Notre Dame. He's also a smaller back, 203 lbs. So like I think there are a lot of red flags here. The biggest upside case, of course, is that he's a first-round running back, and you don't want to dismiss that. But could see this being a committee. And then the bad part is even though we're not high on Zach Charbonnet and he probably doesn't look like himself at any point during 2026, recovering from a late ACL tear, like comes back week 10, week 12, probably takes, you know, a 40% share of that backfield. Probably takes a decent amount of goal-line work there. That's when fantasy season is on the line. That's when you're in the fantasy playoffs. And it's like you got a guy in Jadarian Price who's like, you know, a decent low-end RB2 for you all year. You add Zach Charbonnet into the mix for the last four or six weeks of the season, and he becomes kind of unplayable there.

So if you are someone who's like obsessed with Jadarian Price's talent, I can understand why you want to buy in. They do also lose Clint Kubak, their offensive coordinator now the head coach in Las Vegas. So that's another like heavy concern for me. So worried about that overall. So I get it if he ends up on my team. His ADP right now is RB26. Ivan is RB28. Not too down low. Like it's not like people are drafting him as a top 15, top 18 back. So relatively priced I think all this risk about him probably won't be overdrafting him but if he lands on my team that's okay. I just hope he's not in my starting lineup.

So that is my top 29 running backs. I did say 30 so I won't go into it. But I got JK Dobbins at RB30. I got Jonathan Brooks's RB31 right down below. And that'll do it for my running back rankings. But as promised we're going to jump into some NFL trivia for y'all. All right. NFL trivia courtesy of bg.co. Of course. These are all daily games that are free to play for you guys. We'll start with the daily dart. If you guys have ever played 501, this is going to be a completely random category. I have no idea what it's going to be, but we have to get down today's starting score from 500 down to zero based on the prompt here. So, we're going from 500 down to zero. Today's challenge is receptions in a single season by Rams only. There's a handful of receivers that obviously come to mind very, very quickly. We'll take Cooper Cup's big year in 2021. And you can't go over zero otherwise you bust. So, we got Cup 21 145 knocks out a big chunk. Isaac Bruce in 95 is going to be a movie 119. And then we can go, you know, we could pick just a Tory Holt year. Uh Marshall Faulk, I believe, went over a 100 catches. Was it 2000 or 99? I think they're both good. So, we can go we can go Holt Faulk and then like some combination of Robert Woods, even though those are probably going to take us over. So, we need to pick two of them. I actually don't know what Tory Holt's best year is. Let's go Faulk first. Let's go 2000. Ew. Ew. Nicholas. Uh Tory Holt. Let's go. 01. All right, we got to lock in. Uh a 74 catch season. Can we get one from this year? What about Devonte Adams? What did he have this year? Like 59 catches. That actually puts us in a pretty good spot. I think if I try to guess a random Robert Woods year, I'm going to end up busting most likely. I'm a [ __ ] I didn't even think of Puka. Puka didn't even cross my mind this year. That's how sick I am. I'm a sicko. Again, all these games that we're going to play right now, free to play for you. There's a new category every single day. All you got to do is have a login on the site which is free to have. You just got to put your email in. Let's go Devonte. This year I think he had 50 something 60. All right, even better. So we got to we got to get 14 catches in single seasons. My mind obviously immediately goes to running backs here. So like postgirly era, preyron era, we're talking about a mishmash of like Cam Acres, Sony Michelle, Derell Henderson, um Malcolm Brown. Oh, Malcolm Brown feels kind of spicy. Who who's like a thumper? Sony Michelle feels like kind of good. Cam Acres, that I already say him. I'm gonna go with a Sony Michelle year. Am I gonna be able to pick a right Rams year? So, he was drafted in 2018 by the Pats. So, he was definitely still there 2019. I think feel like 21 2021 feels kind of good. Thoughts? [ __ ] All right. So, we had 21 that year. So, we bust. And we have one more pick left. Do we go Malcolm Brown? Do we try someone from this year? Who else was on the roster? We had I can't remember who. Mumfield. He probably had more than 14. and Tutu I don't think caught a ball. We could go with one of the one of the tight ends like Kobe Parkinson probably had too many. Higgby might not be terrible. He missed a lot of the the year. 14 feels low for Higgby. Maybe Davis Allen or Terren Ferguson. Who do we feel better about? Davis Allen or Terren Ferguson. Or Higgby. Or Higgby. One of those three feel kind of good. Which one's it going to be? I think I'm going to go Terren Ferguson. Did he really have 14 catches? That's so bad. [ __ ] it. Let's ball 11. Let's go. That's a snipe. Top 10 possible answers. Yeah, Puku was sitting there. Okay, Tory Hole 03 was the year we wanted. All right, whatever. We got down to three. That's fine. Submit to the leaderboard. We keep your rating. Basically, your percentage away from zero on a game by-game basis. Let's see who else played. Alex Orgy, shout out. There's an orgy in the end zone. Jerry from the Rays. Bengal played. So, we're doing good on our uh on our end there.

All right, next game up, we will play imposttor. This one's a fun one. All right, so it gives us a random category, random stat, and there's one guy on here who was not top 10. Wow, this is a tough one. There's just absolutely no chance we run this one. So, it's NFC rushing yards in the year 1995. So, nine of these guys ranked inside the top 10. One of them was ranked from 11 to 20 that year. And we've got to click correct guesses until we get down to the final one. So, Emtt's an obvious banger. Barry, I feel I'm gonna be honest, I don't even know all the names on this list. This is some trivia. And and again, this is completely randomly generated every day. I have no idea what it is until we click on the actual game. Could be rushing yards, it could be in a conference, could be the entire NFL, could be passing yards, could be a defensive stat, could be 1987, it could be 2025. Rodney Hampton, I feel good about Terry Allen had a phenomenal year in 96. So here here's my logic here. I know Terry Allen. I know Eric Rhett. I know Garrison Hurst. So when we're going this far back in trivia, hitting names that you know feel pretty good. Terry Allen 96 was a movie. But having two Washington players on there makes me feel like the other Washington player is probably the imposttor, but I also feel like I did a trivia recently where Terry Allen 95 was not good. I think he underwhelmed and it might have been because he got hurt, which means maybe his backup came in and put up some numbies. So let's start with Eric Rhett. Let's go. Garrison Hurst. Okay, that was a number nine player. I think I might just I think I might just get it down to [ __ ] the two Washington players and figure it out from there. If I pull this off, you all all have to vent me 45 bucks. Edgar Bennett, never heard of him in my life, but this was a Brett Favre MVP season, so you got to imagine like their running game was probably pretty good, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna hit him. Let's go. All right, so we're down. And that was a number 10 guy. So, well, whoever's left is the number three answer on the board or four. So, it's very much more likely to be Terry Allen and Brian Mitchell. I think we're just going to stick with our gut here. Let's go. [applause] Like, none of y'all are ripping off the top 10 rushing leaders in 1995. Not a single [ __ ] one of y'all. You're going to submit that to leaderboard. Who they take off? Okay, Ricky Waters better run that dope bike. That's fire. Mo. So, Mo just doesn't play [ __ ] 501 anymore. He's just tapped out on his skills. He went 9 for9 though.

We have a couple other ones. We're not going to do the Daily Grit today. It's probably going to take too long. Daily RIP's a good one. So, these are This is This is fantasy related. This is one of our money makers. Okay. Um has thrown at least 29 interceptions in a season. So, basically, you're building a fantasy lineup based on whatever the prompt is. You got to pick a specific year. So, for quarterback, we have to pick a a quarterback that has thrown at least 29 interceptions in a season. Payton through 28 his rookie year. Drew Brees had some monster INT seasons. I don't know if he got the 30 though. Jameus Winston obviously threw 30. Eli threw 30. So if you put a pro, if you put a guess in that doesn't qualify. Like if I tried Drew Brees and he only hit 28, then it would just be minus 25. You get to keep guessing. So it comes down to the whether the fact of like is Drew Brees worth going for. Like minus 25 is still better than the next best answer. There's someone else I'm like forgetting. Maybe Brett Favre, did he have 30 in a season? That feels high. It'll show us the top 10 answers for each prompt afterwards. We'll rip this just to get through. But I'll try Drew Brees first and we'll take his 2011 season. Fire didn't work. All right, we're just going to Is there anyone recently that was good that I can't think of? We'll just take Jamus in uh 2019. All right, 92% efficiency. So, one of the top answers on the board. Jacksonville Jaguar excluding Maurice Jones, Fred Taylor, and Travis ETN. That's one of the most annoying [ __ ] prompts I've ever seen. So, immediately what comes to mind is Leonard Fornette and James Robinstein. I don't really remember who was doing it post Maurice Jones Drew. It was some combination of like Toby Ghart, TJ Yelen. Um, to keep things moving here, we'll just I feel like James Robinson was low-key better than Fornette, but Fornette had some pass catching seasons. He was low-key ass in Jacksonville for fantasy, though. Let's go um let's go James Robinstein and we'll go let's just hit 2020. All right, 97% were him. Three plus rushing touchdowns in a season for three plus teams. So, we need a running back that played for at least three teams. And clearly, like the very last team they played for wasn't some [ __ ] stint. Can't use Adrien Peterson. I'm just looking at the logos of teams just to like refresh me of of running backs here. Uh Ricky Williams, where did he finish? Curtis Martin was New England, New York. Jamal Charles. CMAX played for two teams. EMTT was two. I wonder if Le'Veon Bell gets there. He'd be there for Pittsburgh. Obviously, he would be there for the Jets. Does he end up with three rushing scores in like Kansas City or Tampa Bay or anything like that? Baltimore? No. It feels risky. Arian Foster. We got Texans, Miami, probably no one. David Johnson would lowkey be a movie. Arizona, Houston, uh I don't think he scored three rushing touchdowns for New Orleans. I don't think I have a lot of other great answers for this one. You have like Priest Holmes started with Baltimore, then he won Kansas City. Like, did he end up on a random team in his last year and and score three touchdowns? Like that would be a banger of an answer. I kind of want to try David Johnson. No, there's no way he ended up with three rushing touchdowns in a season for the Saints. I might end up taking some bricks here. I mean, there's some there's like Melvin Gordon, Latavius Murray's like the, you know, the the journeyman type dudes, but we got to swing for upside. I think I think I'm going to try Lev Bell. We'll take his sophomore season 2014. [ __ ] At this point, we're just going to get absolutely trounced. Might as well try David Johnson. I would actually put my mother's life that this is not going to hit. 2016. [ __ ] [ __ ] Why is this prompt so hard? Who am I just forgetting? All right, I guess we'll just settle for Frank Gore then. Frank Gore06. That just can't be right. Frank Gore doesn't have three plus rushing sizes in a season for three teams. That one I'm confirming. San Francisco in Wow. Holy [ __ ] Okay. Yeah. No, San Francisco, he did it a bunch. Indie, he did it. And then in Miami, he had zero. Buffalo, he had two. New York, he had two. I was about to put our own system on blast right there. Why is this lowkey the hardest prompt of all time? Clinton Port is Denver, Washington. Did he end somewhere else? I think I'm just going to have to take a [ __ ] Melvin Gordon here or something. I think I accidentally paused the video. I don't know what happened, but we're on this prompt if we haven't gotten here yet. And I've already brick like multiple times on this. All right, try Jeremy Mlin. Like Dwayne B's All right, at least we know like Dwayne was on the team like big year 2010. So, we'll just [ __ ] go 2011, I guess. Just give us points or something. Okay, he's also just the number one answer. Maybe his big year. Nah, 228. Whatever. Uh 10 plus receiving touchdowns in a season for two plus teams. Okay, so Devont Adams comes to mind. DeAndre Hopkins comes to mind. I don't think Jerry ever Oh, Randy Moss comes to mind for sure. Let's hit Randy. Randy, [ __ ] him up. Randy 07 Randy. Randy Diesel. Top answer on the board. 10 plus receiving touchdowns in a season for three plus teams. Oh, I feel like Devonte is probably the only answer here, right? Raiders, Rams, Packers, 2020. All right, we're finishing strong here. >> [applause] >> We picked it up. 2004 excluding Musen Muhammad. People don't know this. Musen was going off in '04. Uh, let's think. All right, so we got Randy. Ry's biggest years were 03 and07 was probably fine. Oh, 04 might have been when he went to the Raiders, though. Could have been his last year in Minnesota. Payton Manning had a massive season in 04. So, Marv or Reggie Wayne both make sense here. When is Reggie a rookie? 01. Okay, that's kind of like peak Reggie. I like that a little bit. Uh, Joe Horn was good. go with like a Jimmy Smith, Derek May. I think I'm going to take Oh, should I go Reggie or Marv? Still kind of feels like it's in Marv's wheelhouse here. I think I'm going to go Marv right now. All right, 95%. Let's see where we went wrong. Jamus. Brett Favre. Okay, I was right there. Should have went 95. Brett Lar Fornette. Okay, his uh third year, not even his rookie year, was the best. Demarco Murray, Leon McCoy. I'm so [ __ ] stupid. And then Marv was topped by Tori, Javon Walker, and Joe Horn. All right, we'll submit that to the leaderboard. We actually moved down in our rating. Hate to see that. But there you have it. Those were today's games. Or if you're watching this, I'm filming this on July 6th. So maybe it goes up July 6th. Maybe it goes up July 7th. Regardless, you guys can play the these are new board, new trivia games for these every single day. Free to play. Just got to sign up with your email on bdgeg.co. Add your friends to your leaderboard so you can compete against them. Love you all. Thank you for hanging out today. Smoochis. Heat. Heat.