Transcription
I've done over 100 real money fantasy drafts this season. Today I'm showing you my seven least drafted running backs, including the reigning running back one in fantasy, a Super Bowl MVP, and a guy that I've now faded for four years in a row.
And here's the thing I realized when I lined all seven up. Every single one of them fails the same simple test. Three questions. One, does he catch passes? Two, is his efficiency trending up or down? And three, does his price actually match his situation? Honestly, I'd be a little embarrassed to be drafting most of these guys at cost. We're counting down seven to one, ending with my least drafted running back the entire off-season.
And number seven's going to make some of y'all angry because we're starting with Christian McCaffrey. Yes, you heard that correctly. The running back one last year, 24 and a half points per game. And credit where it's due, he went nuclear, right? 54 receiving yards per game, his most since 2019. And when he averaged 62 and a half, and he put up nearly 30 points a game. Last year, he had one regular season game under 15 points and four games over 30. And his price isn't even that insane on the surface. It's not like he's the 101, 102, 103. He's going to pick seven, right after JSN and Jonathan Taylor, and right before Amon-Ra St. Brown and CeeDee Lamb. The Niners offense projects to be basically flat year-over-year. 25.7 points per game last year, 25.4 projected this season.
So, you may ask like, hey, where is the problem? Well, let's run that test. Question one, the receiving role. How did McCaffrey score all those points last year? Through the air. Seven and a half targets per game. And who was he competing with? Nobody. Ricky Pearsall got hurt, gave you nothing. Kittle missed six games. The top receiving options next to him were Jauan Jennings and Kendrick Bourne. Now, look at this here. Kittle's on track for week one, Ricky Pearsall's healthy, and they added Mike Evans. The exact pipeline that made him the running back one overall is now going to be under question. I'm still obviously expecting him to be the best receiving back in the league, but instead of setting career-high numbers with this receiving volume, I'm expecting that to get scaled back a bit.
Question two, the efficiency. 3.9 yards per carry. His rushing success rate told the same story. Both marks his worst years since Carolina in 2017. That was his rookie season. And this leads into the big concern that you obviously have, right? Dropping efficiency plus the upcoming age cliff. McCaffrey turns 30 this season. Coming off a massive workload, pull up the range of outcomes tool on flockfantasy.com and look at every other running back with a comparable age 29 season. It's an incredible list of names. Derrick Henry, LT, Jamaal Charles, David Johnson, LeSean McCoy, Kamara, Conner, Steven Jackson, Matt Forte. Hall of Famers and multi running back one finishers. Literally not a single bad player. Now, watch what age 30 did to them. Forte minus five points per game. LT minus five. Conner minus four plus an injury. LeSean McCoy minus seven. Kamara minus 10. David Johnson minus 10. Jamaal Charles went from over 20 points per game to under five. Steven Jackson's the only one who held steady, and that's literally the entire list.
So, at pick seven, I'm just taking the player who checks every floor and ceiling box instead, and that's going to be Amon-Ra St. Brown. And my money is where my mouth is. St. Brown is in 15% of my drafts, and McCaffrey's in 4%.
Now, let's move to number six, the Super Bowl MVP, Kenneth Walker. And yeah, that's exactly the problem. The Super Bowl run is the only thing anybody remembers. Let me show you the season that came before it. Walker was the running back 29 in points per game. Career low 13 carries per game, 2.1 targets, under 50% of the snaps. Kenneth Walker was a league-losing pick in fantasy last year. Now, he's in Kansas City, and I'll grant you the obvious, no Zach Charbonnet means a bigger role, right? Especially at the goal line where Zach Charbonnet was vulture those rushing touchdowns. But it is worth pointing out while the Kansas City Chiefs offense projects out very well at 24.2 points per game this upcoming season, is this as good as Seattle was last year? No, Seattle scored over 28 points per game last year. The Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl. So while Kenneth Walker is going to be expanding his market share numbers with less competition in his backfield, he's actually going to be going to a worse offense than what the Seattle Seahawks did when he finished as a running back three in fantasy.
So the question isn't will he be better? It's what price already assumes that he's better. And the answer is RB 10. He's going directly behind Devon Achane and Amari Hampton. How Devon Achane multi running back one finisher. Amari Hampton, honestly, projects out to be in a better situation in my opinion this next year. And directly ahead of Chase Brown, Derrick Henry, Drake London, and Brock Bowers. You know we'll be talking about one of those names at the end of this video. That's a top 10 running back price for who hasn't ever shown the ability to be a top 10 running back in fantasy. The market took new team plus Super Bowl glow and priced in the entire best case scenario before we've seen a single snap of it. Again, I think I would rather just take Chase Brown where we've already seen the production and honestly his situation may be getting better with the healthy Burrow.
Now, our number five running back's going to be David Montgomery. And I'll be honest with you up front, Montgomery's probably going to do fine this year. Right? I'm not telling you he's going to be the RB 50. I'm telling you that just fine looks to be the ceiling and the price is not really reflected in that. Let's start with the part people skip past. So the Detroit Lions move on from Montgomery in a deal that makes a ton of sense for them, right? And the Detroit Lions have Montgomery in the building every single day. They know exactly what they are getting with Montgomery. And there was an efficiency drop off from 2025 to 2024. We don't have to talk about the fact that his fantasy points per game fell from 15.8 down to 9.8. We can give credit where credit's due where Jahmyr Gibbs is the best running back or one of the best running backs in the league. And obviously, that the Lions wanted to get him as much work as they possibly could. But even the underlying efficiency, like his elusiveness, the juke rate fell from 29% in 2024 down to 18% in 2025. Yet, people are pricing in of course that Montgomery is going to be a much better option in fantasy this year where he finished the RB 33 in points per game last season and he's currently being drafted as the RB 21.
Now, he lands in Houston and here's the situational problem. The Texans offensive line has been one of the worst run blocking units in football for years and nothing about this off season says that flips overnight. And of course, we can compare that to the Detroit Lions offensive line, which is one of the premier units in the league. And the sportsbooks actually agree with this data. Season-long rushing projections have Montgomery for like 774 yards. And you compare that to some running backs that are currently going after him, like De'Andre Swift at 799, Tony Pollard at 800 as well. And we look at those other backs, they probably have a larger receiving role as well that Montgomery's not going to be able to accomplish. So for me, if I wanted to take a ceiling swing in this range, I'm actually going to be going with TreVeyon Henderson in a better offense, this receiving capability, and the big play upside. And if I want the safe veteran, I'm going to keep taking De'Andre Swift a few picks later. I broke down the full De'Andre Swift case in the most drafted running backs video on this channel, which you can find from last week.
Before we talk about Quinshaun Judkins, I do have good news for y'all. I posted all of the Vegas sports book data on flockfantasy.com. That's all the rushing yards projections, rushing touchdowns projections, receiving yards projections, receiving touchdowns, passing touchdowns, hell, team points scored year over year. That's all on the site right now available to everybody who already has the flockfantasy.com season pass. And of course, those people are going to be getting all the draft guides that all the creators on the site including myself are going to be posting this year. All the real draft assistance that you're going to be able to use to dominate your drafts in real time. And we have the season pass still live for only $34 on flockfantasy.com. If you sign up with code flock, I'm also going to be answering your questions during the season for free.
But now let's move over to our fourth running back with Quinshon Judkins. And this is the fade I hold the loosest because there's real stuff to like here. The recovery from that devastating ankle injury looks great. He's at camp running around and the clips are exactly what you want to see, right? Like it's what we would have wanted to see from Bucky Irving, Cam Akers, Malik Nabers that we're not getting right now. And Quinshon Judkins looks to be an extremely talented running back. This is why the number one expert in the space, Nate Schmidt, >> [laughter] >> took him in round five last year. His age 22 comps on the range of outcomes tool including Todd Gurley who went from 12 and a half points per game at 22 years old to 25 and a half points per game the following season. Now of course, that's the dream scenario and what did that take to happen? Oh, it took the Rams from going to be the worst offense in the league to the best offense in the league with Sean McVay. Are we expecting that to be the case with Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns this next year? Nope, the Cleveland Browns actually project to score the fewest amount of points in the league.
Now we combine the fact that Quinshon Judkins doesn't have the receiving profile, I mean at Ohio State and in the NFL. Um 12 receiving yards per game, 2.6 targets per game, 1.9 receptions. So we're looking at a running back who doesn't catch passes in a bad offense. Now of course, we have to look for alternatives in this range. I would rather take D'Andre Swift, that's the running back that I keep going back to. Better offense and the receiving profile. Or hell, if we wanted to go with a running back that doesn't have a receiving profile in a much better offense, you can get Kendre Miller in the next round.
Now, my third least drafted running back is going to be Blake Corum. Now, all the buzz from Blake Corum this off-season is coming from one beat reporter blur, and that was saying that Corum is going to be splitting the backfield 50/50 with Kyren Williams this year. Do I believe that? Or do I think the Rams are positioning themselves ahead of the Kyren contract conversation before it even happens? I think it's probably the contract leverage. Because here's the actual track record. Even when Blake Corum's role expanded late last year, he topped out at 29% of the snaps. Yes, his efficiency looked good, 5.1 yards per carry, but he has never averaged more than three receiving yards per game in an NFL season. So, even if that role grows to 35%, 40%, he doesn't catch passes, he's not beating out Kyren Williams on talent. So, what you're describing is a premium handcuff. And we look at what the price point is, he's going ahead of Harold Fannin and Sam LaPorta, who are the tight end six and tight end seven off the board, and he's going a few picks after Patrick Mahomes. I've only drafted Blake Corum in 2.3% of my drafts because I can't click a handcuff running back over a top-end tight end or Patrick Mahomes.
Now, two running backs left, one is a guy that I want to be wrong about, the other is my least drafted running back in 100 drafts, and a fade I've been living with for four straight seasons now.
Two, Jonathan Brooks. And of everyone on this list, this is the one I hope I am wrong about because y'all know I went to University of Texas. I want to root for this man, and the optimist case is real. Great prospect, round two draft capital despite coming into the league off a torn ACL, genuine positive camp buzz, still only 22 years old, about to turn 23. For reference, Tyjae Spears merits about three years older, and Jonathan Brooks is like two years younger than Cam Akers, Bo, got drafted last year. But he tore the ACL coming into the NFL, and then he tore it right as he started to get ready for work. His career NFL touch count is nine. Nine touches, and he's still limited at camp for the ACL that he tore back in 2024. That's the whole problem. At this price, you're actually having to pay draft capital for a profile that's 100% projection and 0% evidence. In this range, I'd rather take a shot at like Matthew Golden or just lock in a quarterback like Kyler or Goff.
And number one, my least drafted running back of the entire off-season is Derrick Henry, and let's address the elephant in the room. This is year number four of me fading Derrick Henry, and it's been a wild ride. Year one, he's a round one pick. He falls to finishing as a mid running back two. So, honestly, pretty good fade there. Year two, he's a third round pick, finishes top five at the position in points per game. Absolutely brutal fade. I should have known better. I'm an idiot. Um last year, he was going in round two, and he finishes as the running back eight, and looks like maybe that's a miss on paper. Except, here's what the running back eight finishes actually hiding. It was one week. One single week, and everything backloaded into it. Week 17, an effectively meaningless game where Green Bay was starting Malik Willis, and the Baltimore Ravens were starting Tyler Huntley. No Lamar, both real quarterbacks out. That is the game environment that rescued Derrick Henry's season. Remove that one game, and look at what you actually drafted. One other game above 22 fantasy points, nine games under 15. The Derrick Henry fall off didn't get avoided last year. It actually happened, and he saved it all in one singular game. Of course, the game that matters most, fantasy championships.
Now, let's run him through the test, because he fails all three. Receiving, he had fewer receiving yards per game last season than any year in his NFL career outside of 2020. And Henry's never been the receiving back anyway. Efficiency, yards per carry down from 5.9 to 5.2. Juke rate at a career low 18%. And if we look at his price versus situation, he is a second-round pick turning 33 in January. And the history here is the nastiest table in the whole of video. And if we use the range of outcomes to a lawn flock fantasy.com, which is tough because we don't have many a hall of fame running backs producing at 31. But we can see all of these names. Marshawn Lynch, Frank Gore managed to improve the following year. But LT, Matt Forte, Steven Jackson, Raheem Mostert, LeGarrette Blount, Patterson all got significantly worse. And then look at the best rushing seasons by a 32-year-old running back since the year 2000, right? We're going over 25 years ago. You had Ricky Williams with 1,100 rushing yards, Emmitt Smith with 1,021, Mike Anderson with 1,014, and Frank Gore with 967. Those are all-time greats. And at a second-round price, Derrick Henry has to be better than every single one of them just to meet the expectations. If he gives you weeks 1 through 16 last year again, he's the worst pick in round two. So I would rather have Chase Brown. I'd rather have Drake London. And hell, honestly, you can even give me Brock Bowers.
So with the three questions, does he catch passes, which way is the efficiency trending, does the price match the situation, run your draft board through that test before your next draft. And drop the running back you're fading hardest in the comments. And again, I want to remind y'all season pass at flockfantasy.com, 34 bucks, code flock get you free questions on the live stream to ask me during the season. Obviously, get all your draft assistance, all your draft guides, all the sports books projections. But much love, and I really hope I get to see you in the live stream tonight.