Transcription
As we go through and look at these running back rankings, I want to make sure you understand the momentum of the guys going upwards versus downwards because obviously we have changes.
Tier one, this is a neutral ranking. Christian McCaffrey was by himself in these tiers last week and he's going to remain by himself in these tiers this week. Jonathan Taylor's very close in points per game. I just think that McCaffrey's production is going to be a little bit more sustainable and you actually have upside for this to get better, as crazy as that sounds. Because CMC has given you 20 fantasy points every single week so far this season. And if you were looking at his targets per game, the dude is averaging over 10 targets per contest. So realistically, he is a wide receiver one that's going to run the ball some and you get to play him at running back. He has yet to score a single rushing touchdown so far this year. So when those eventually come, which they will, I mean, you could see some 30 point, 35 point, 40 point performances from McCaffrey.
Now going over to Bijan Robinson. One thing that I really like to do in fantasy football trades is value guys that have already gone through their bye week a little bit higher than what you'd have with players that haven't already because you're going to get Bijan Robinson for an extra week, right? Which is a really big deal when you're comparing him to somebody like Jonathan Taylor. I'm making these rankings for a full PPR format and there McCaffrey does give you that floor where he's averaging about six targets per game so far this season. You're also seeing him just be a ridiculous player when it comes to the receiving yardage. He has had two out of his four games with over 100 receiving yards at this point. And I had to double check to make sure that this stat on flockfantasy.com is correct, but Bijan Robinson is averaging 146 total yards per game this season.
Now, technically, Jonathan Taylor is averaging more points per game. And a big reason for this is Jonathan Taylor just has the blow-up performances specifically with his rushing touchdowns. We have now had two separate games this season already where Jonathan Taylor has had three rushing touchdowns in a single performance. Like if we go through and if we look at what Jonathan Taylor has given you this season, you are sitting with six rushing touchdowns and at the same time you already have 121 fantasy points through the first five weeks. The Indianapolis Colts look like they're legit and it's not like Jonathan Taylor has another running back pushing him for volume like Jahmyr Gibbs has. Right. Obviously Jahmyr Gibbs having to deal with David Montgomery. Gibbs still perfectly fine. Like he's out here averaging about 19, 20 points per game while at the same time you have a really nice floor. Now the yardage totals with Jahmyr Gibbs going to be much lower than what you have with these other running backs. Gibbs actually only averaging 70 yards per game. But the reception floor is always going to be there. And obviously the Detroit Lions offense would just score so many points that you have a ton of touchdowns scored by Gibbs.
Now moving over to De'Von Achane. Achane just is going to be at the very top of the NFL in receiving outside of Christian McCaffrey this past week with no Tyreek Hill. You have him up there with another six receptions and this is following a couple of games that he's had with seven and eight receptions so far this season. Obviously, touchdowns aren't going to be super common here for the Miami Dolphins, but De'Von Achane has only scored one touchdown so far this season. And we look at the fact that he's had 16 fantasy points at the very minimum every week. Full PPR format, you get an incredibly high floor. James Cook not going to give you the same level floor, but obviously you're going to get a very high ceiling based off what you have with the rushing touchdown. Now, he didn't score a rushing touchdown against the New England Patriots this past week. You're going to prefer James Cook in matchups in which the Bills are leading from the beginning to the end where obviously Achane's going to be a little bit different.
Now, going over to my running back one and my running back two on my teams, we have Josh Jacobs and Saquon Barkley. It's tough for me to rank Jacobs ahead of Barkley, but realistically, Jacobs is averaging more points per game at this point. Realistically, Josh Jacobs has played at least 60% of snaps every contest. He's giving you a receiving floor. You have the rushing touchdown upside. You're not having to deal with Jordan Love vulturing rushing TDs. And most importantly, why I would value Josh Jacobs higher than Saquon Barkley personally is I've already had to deal with the Josh Jacobs bye week in week five. And I'll let you know during that Jacobs bye, I thought I was going to lose, but Stefon Diggs came through for us in a big-time way. And it looks like we just need a great, and I mean a great Travis Etienne performance here for Monday night for us to end up taking this home.
Now, if you're looking at the projections on Underdog Fantasy this week for Travis Etienne, they currently have them about higher lower 12.15 fantasy points. I'm going to need about 20, chief, so please come through in a big-time way for us. But if you wanted to go through and check out any of those picks over on Underdog Fantasy, you can find that link in the description as well as the comment section. And if you use code flock, you are going to get the best offer that Underdog has had in the five years that I've been working with them. And that is after you play your first $5, you are going to get $100 added to your account. On top of this, you're going to get a free pick, Trevor Lawrence, higher, lower, half a total yard. And you're going to get free questions for the live streams that we are doing every single day until Christmas. Underdog Fantasy is available almost every single state and you can find that link in the description as well as the comment section.
Now, moving over to our next tier, we are going to have Kyren Williams leading us off. Kyren averaging about 16.9 fantasy points per game so far this year. And obviously, you have Kyren Williams himself fumbling the ball this past week, as well as Blake Corum. But this is a continued trend of Kyren Williams losing fumbles dating back to last season. And this is going to concern me given the fact that we had seen the Los Angeles Rams actually involving Blake Corum more and more leading all the way up until week five. Then obviously Corum fumbled and it turned into a Kyren game, but Kyren fumbled at the end anyway. So Kyren Williams still incredible. I just don't necessarily think that he's the same running back that he was, um, back in 2024 where he had 74% of his team's carries and 88% of his team snaps. You're just not back at that snap rate just yet.
Now, looking at what we have with Austin Ekeler and Joshua Kelley, it is way too early for me to be setting him in my rest of season ranks. I previously had him as a B-tier running back, but leaving the Chargers game, he actually was wearing the walking boot. We have no clarity whatsoever with his specific injury. So if I were to be offered Austin Ekeler for Saquon Barkley or Josh Jacobs, I personally would decline until we get some clarity with the Ekeler injury. But obviously if it's bad, we'll move them down. If it's good, we'll move them up. Those rankings will stay up to date on flockfantasy.com. And if you subscribe, I'll let you know in the streams. And side note, we are, I want to say like 6,000 subs away from hitting 300K. It's going to be real close on if we can get there this year. You can help us by dropping a like and subscribing.
Now, our next option is going to be Breece Hall. I'm in love with Breece Hall at this point. I think I have Breece Hall ranked higher than any other quote unquote expert on flockfantasy.com despite Breece Hall not scoring 20 points in a single game so far this year, but I think it's going to get better. Breece has had a total of zero rushing touchdowns, despite having a couple carries inside the five-yard line. And what's most encouraging is if we actually look at the Breece Hall usage this week, it was the highest snap rate he's played all season, the highest carry rate that he's had all year and the highest mark that he's had with his receiving yards. And the reason we're going to expect that to continue going into the future is you have no Dalvin Cook in this offense anymore. So, I think it's wheels up for Breece.
Zamir White averaging more points per game. And Zamir White this week actually doing something that I was very impressed by and that was having seven targets, 42 receiving yards and five receptions. Now obviously the Las Vegas Raiders look like they are one of the worst offenses in the entire league dealing with offensive line struggles and now at the same time you are also seeing their left tackle go to the IR which I think is a big reason why we saw the Raiders look so bad this past week.
Now, Bucky Irving, usually a B-tier level running back for us, but we just don't really have any clarity at all with this injury. They're already saying that Bucky Irving is probably going to be missing week six. And if you were to tell me that Bucky Irving was guaranteed to come back week seven and be at 100% strength, trust me, I would have Bucky Irving higher in these rankings. But right when we get these injuries to these players, I I'm quick to just drop them in the rest of season rankings because we're on week six at this point. If Bucky Irving misses two to three more weeks, then realistically that's like 25% of the rest of the season until we actually get to the fantasy playoffs.
Now, Quinshon Judkins looks incredible. Quinshon Judkins looks like one of the best first and second down running backs in the entire NFL. He's had at least 18 carries for three straight games. But a big issue that I'm going to have with Judkins is the lack of receiving involvement. Quinshon Judkins does look like he's not going to get on the field in two-minute drills. He does look like he's not going to be on the field in obvious passing down scenarios. And if you have Jerome Ford out there, if you have D'Onta Foreman out there for those spots, it's just going to limit Judkins because the Browns offense will be one of the worst offenses in the league. Clearly, he looks phenomenal, though.
Now, Javonte Williams, I may just need to throw in the towel. I made it completely remove what we had previously thought about Javonte coming into the season where we are all collectively letting him slide to the double-digit rounds of fantasy drafts which at this point looks like the most idiotic thing of the offseason because Javonte Williams so far has had a ton of volume. 18 opportunities this past week, 23 the week before, 15, 25, 8. So, he's averaging about 20 opportunities a game. He's averaging about 20 fantasy points per game. And he's the RB3. Now, I'm going to continue to move him up and up and up and up to where eventually, hell, if he's in the tier with McCaffrey, he'll be in the tier with McCaffrey, but I'm kind of gradual to be moving these players up our rankings and then obviously it'll be quick to move them down if they have an injury. I just don't want to overreact to a small sample, but clearly he's borderline a running back one that you can project out rest of the way.
Now, Derrick Henry. Um, again, Derrick Henry's been very bad this season. He's the RB23 in points per game. Over the past month, his best game, he scored 10.7 fantasy points. He's had 10.3, 10.7, 7.8, 9.3. And the issue with Derrick Henry, again, you're not going to catch the ball. And if you're in a bad offense, there's not going to be a lot of upside for touchdowns. So, Derrick Henry will obviously better when Lamar Jackson comes back. We don't have a lot of clarity with the Lamar injury right now. Um, obviously, if you were just ranking Derrick Henry with how he's produced up until this point, you would move him lower.
Now, I am afraid of some regression when it comes to Travis Etienne because Travis Etienne is averaging 106 total yards per game. Now again, I have Travis Etienne on my own team, and I really need Travis Etienne to score about 20 points. The exact setup is I essentially need Travis Etienne to outscore Travis Kelce and the Jags kicker if I want to win this week and move to 5-0. So, nobody's rooting for Travis Etienne harder than I am. But with this being said, you're getting squeezed for the valuable touches. That's going to be the receiving work and that's going to be the goal line work. You actually have Travis Etienne averaging 106 total yards per game which is more than Henry, Javonte, Judkins, Agnew, Bree, Hampton, Chairen, Barkley, Jacobs, James Cook, Achane, Jahmyr Gibbs and he's averaging more yards per game than Christian McCaffrey at this point but he's only averaging 16.6 fantasy points per game and a big reason for this is again you're not getting the target volume. Not only you're not getting the target volume, but you're also not getting the usage at the goal line, or at least not 100% of it.
Now, Alvin Kamara will be our next RB. With Alvin Kamara, the usage plummeted this past week. We actually had a lot of Kendre Miller out there. Now, what I am waiting on is I am waiting to see if we get an Alvin Kamara trade because if you told me that Kamara is going to be a New Orleans Saint through the rest of the year, then Kamara would actually be lower than this in our ranks. But we had some very real rumors coming out of New Orleans that it seemed like they may be willing to trade a couple of their veteran pieces, which if that is the case, hell, if you send Alvin Kamara to the Kansas City Chiefs, I cannot even imagine where he'd be in these rankings.
Now, Cam Akers will be our next running back. This is the running back four on my team and I'm happy to continue to just absolutely jam him in the flex spots. I'm really hoping that the fumble doesn't impact his usage at all going into the future. He had 15 carries this week and seven targets. So, he had 22 opportunities this week, 24 the week prior. Um, 18 the week before that. So, he's averaging like 20 opportunities a game here as a starter. But eventually, you are going to get Tyjae Spears back in this offense. And I do think Akers's going to be the lead RB as you can tell by these ranks, but I think it may be a committee.
Now, Chuba Hubbard will be our next option. When we are looking at Hubbard, I understand that he was higher than this before the injury, but obviously we're going to knock players when they get injured. And I'm especially going to knock Chuba Hubbard whenever you have Rico Dowdle coming in and putting up one of the best performances by a Carolina Panther in forever. So realistically, as I would look at this, if I were the Carolina Panthers coaching staff, I'm not going to get Chuba Hubbard back into this offense and then run the exact same split with these RBs. You would think Rico Dowdle would have a little bit more involvement going into the future. And for that reason, honestly, I may need to move David Montgomery ahead of Chuba.
Montgomery is averaging 14 fantasy points so far this season. So obviously, you can start him now. You have a couple big games, a couple dud games. Like two weeks ago against the Cleveland Browns, he was the running back 64 and he scored 1.2 fantasy points, right? So because the receiving involvement is not going to be consistent, like the dude so far this season, at least over the past four weeks, he's had three receptions. So he is kind of a touchdown or bust running back. But you have the outside chance of Jahmyr Gibbs going down, making David Montgomery a legitimate top five RB week in and week out. And also, if you're in a bye week, if you have an injury, you could throw David Montgomery in there hoping for a touchdown. And there's a decent shot it happens because this is maybe the best offense in the league.
Now, TreVeyon Henderson will be our next RB. I don't know what has to happen for TreVeyon Henderson to be the guy in New England. I don't know how many times we need to see a Stevenson fumble. It's it's amazing at this point how many times can fumble and still have the job. I'm going to assume that TreVeyon expands his role. I'm going to assume that TreVeyon at some point gets better, but it's looking like there's no light at the end of this tunnel and we're just beating our head against the wall ranking him as a top 24 running back rest of season.
Now, DeAndre Swift, you have the opportunities now. The concern always is coming out of the bye week, do you get more opportunities going in the direction of the rookie, which would be um Jalen Wright in this instance? Cuz DeAndre Swift hasn't been super compelling. Like over the past two weeks, he's averaging fewer than three yards per carry. And so far this season, like you're sitting at 3.3 yards per carry and a 19% juke rate. If you're looking at his yards per target, it's 4.7, which is the second lowest mark of his NFL career.
Now, we are nuking Kenneth Walker in our rankings at this point. It looks like Kenneth Walker's receiving involvement is not nearly to the level it was last year. So far, over the past month, this dude has had a total of four receptions. That includes a game in which Zach Charbonnet didn't play. Charbonnet's been leading this backfield in usage. He's been leading this backfield in snaps. Now, a bunch of smart people are telling me that Kenneth Walker is the much better running back. So, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm gonna go ahead. I I'm gonna keep ranking Kenneth Walker as the RB1 here, but it's getting closer and closer every single week.
Now, Chase Brown's given us guaranteed volume so far, but it's not like Chase Brown is doing anything with it. Chase Brown from an efficiency perspective so far this year has to be the worst running back in the NFL where you've had 160 rushing yards off of 65 carries. You've had 18 receptions and 95 receiving yards. Is this the fault of Chase Brown? Is this the fault of the offensive line? Is this the fault of the quarterback play? I don't know. But Chase Brown's not changing who he is anytime soon. The offensive line's not changing who they are anytime soon. Jake Browning is not changing who he is anytime soon. So, it's just the reality of the world you're getting. You're getting volume, but it's just garbage.
Now, Jaylen Warren will be our next name. With Jaylen Warren, this ranking is going to be in flux. I really want to see what the split is this next week. I want to see if Jaylen Warren's healthy. I just haven't heard anything coming out of the bye week with Pittsburgh. I'm going to assume that he is healthy and he is the guy.
Now, we had to flip J.K. Dobbins and Rachaad White in our rest of season rankings. I don't know how many weeks that J.K. Dobbins can come through and show us that he's the RB1 until we just go ahead and bend the knee. But realistically speaking, J.K. Dobbins continues to not have anything at all as a receiver. Like J.K. Dobbins over the past month has four receptions. So he really is a capped ceiling running back. He's yet to score 16 fantasy points so far this year. And it's touchdown or bust. You don't score a touchdown, you are going to have a very low floor. And I'm assuming that Rachaad White is going to continue to expand his role.
Now, J.K. Dobbins was the RB5 in points this week against the Los Angeles Chargers. A good defense. This was a career-high snap rate. This was a career-high carry rate where he had 50% of the carries here in Washington. The efficiency has been phenomenal all year long for him where he's averaging 6.6 yards per carry. Now, I'm just going to be a little bit hesitant because this is still a running back by committee at this point. Now, once he shows us one more week where he is just taking over as the starting job, he legitimately could jump 11 spots in these rankings. I just didn't want to be the guy last week going through and moving up Woody Marks like 15 spots, 20 spots in our rest of season rankings, saying that he's for sure the guy going into the future. And I don't want to do the same thing with J.K. Dobbins. You can tell in these rankings, I'm assuming they're the RB1's in their respective backfields, but I'm still assuming it's a committee until proven otherwise.
Now, Michael Carter, it looks like this may not be a committee in Arizona where you have 18 carries, 62% of this team's carries. You actually have five targets as well for 22 receiving yards. So, 23 total opportunities. And Keaontay Ingram looks like he's absolutely nothing going into the future. Now, in terms of this game specifically, it was against the Tennessee Titans. The Arizona Cardinals led this game from the very beginning to almost the very end. Uh, almost. All right. So, I don't necessarily know if they're going to have this many good game environments going into the future.
Now, Rachaad White will be our next RB. Um, with Rachaad White, he looked good two weeks back against the Cincinnati Bengals in garbage time, but realistically speaking, J.K. Dobbins is still the starting running back until we see otherwise.
Jordan Mason will be our next RB with Jordan Mason. You're going into the bye week in week six. Then you have Philly in week seven. There's a good shot we're getting Aaron Jones back soon. And when Aaron Jones comes back, Jordan Mason's involvement in this offense is probably going to scale back. I still think Jordan Mason will probably be the lead RB, but I mean I don't know if he's going to be startable. Like I don't know if Tony Pollard's going to be startable. I actually benched him this week and honestly looking at how things played out. If I would have just been smart enough to freaking play Jerry Judy over Tony Pollard, I would have won and I would be 5-0 right now. So I absolutely hate myself for making that decision. But with Pollard, the snap rate did go down dramatically. The carry percentage in his offense went down. If you look at flockfantasy.com you'll see he had 86% of the carries week one, 77% then 70% then 78% then 58%. So obviously Taj Spears coming in is going to have an impact and he wasn't that good beforehand.
Rashad White, stupid simple. Any week that Bucky Irving's out he's an auto-lock. Any week that Bucky Irving plays, probably not that excited. Um, the Woody Marks, I still think that he is the lead running back in Houston going into the future. Obviously he scores 2.4 fantasy points this past week, but he did play the majority of the snaps. I I do think that Woody Marks is more so the receiving type option than what you have with like the first and second down grinder. So, I actually don't believe that Woody Marks is going to be best utilized in a game in which the Texans win it easily. I think he'll actually be better in a competitive contest.
Now, Zach Charbonnet, honestly, we may need to move him up. We get one more. Like the thing is with Charbonnet, you're not starting him, right? So even if he's absolutely killing Kenneth Walker's fantasy value, is there any world in which you're ever putting him in your lineup outside of a Kenneth Walker injury? Like he may continue to climb and Walker may continue to fall and they may just eat into each other to the point where neither of them are usable and you're just looking at them as like kind of handcuffs to each other.
Now Rico Dowdle comes through and looks like one of the best running backs in the entire NFL. 32 fantasy points, the RB1 this week, over 200 rushing yards and the receiving involvement. He has 27 total opportunities. Now, I'm going to assume based off the contract, based off the large sample that Chuba Hubbard is still going to be the running back in the long term. I think that there's a chance Rico Dowdle's earned himself some playing time where he is going to be taking away from Chuba, but I don't know if it'll be enough where you can start himself similar to Charbonnet.
Breece Hall will be our next name. Realistically, I may need to actually move Breece Hall um beyond Aaron Jones in our ranks, which will probably especially happen coming out of the Aaron Jones bye. But we'll see what Breece Hall does in the game tonight. And again, of course, I'm going to be live streaming after tonight's game, and I'll be giving you all my updated rankings, all my instant reactions. So, just make sure you're subscribed.
Now, if we had to throw in 40 running backs in this list, we can talk about a bit. The dude keeps fumbling. He had two rushing touchdowns this week, but he had 14 rushing yards. Is there any world in which you're putting him in your starting lineup? No. Even if you were to get an injury to TreVeyon Henderson, then he's still probably going to be splitting with Antonio Gibson. And then I think we can still say Kenneth Gainwell, like Tyler Allgeier, they are premium handcuff backs in terms of anything occurring to the guys in front of them. They're auto-starts and then we don't need to talk about anybody else. Everybody else's question marks, but I really appreciate you and really hope I was able to help you out in some way with this video. And again, we really need Travis Etienne to outscore Travis Kelce and the Jags kicker. Underdog has his higher lower at fantasy points at 12.15. So I'm rooting on the higher. And if you wanted to ride that with me, obviously you can find the link to Underdog Fantasy in the description and comment section. I've been with them for five years now and they are doing the best promo that I've ever seen. And that is after you sign up with code flock and play your first $5, you are going to get $100 added to your account. You'll get a free Trevor Lawrence higher or lower half a total yard pick'em for tonight's game. And on top of that, you're going to be getting free questions that you can ask me in the live streams. And I'm gonna be streaming every single day until Christmas, answering your questions, helping you with your team. But I really appreciate you and really hope I get to see you out in a live stream.