If you’re not paying attention to pre-season football, you’re missing out on vital information that could win you your league. So here’s my biggest running back takeaways from the first week of pre-season games.
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Running Back Winners and Losers
Winners:
–Kyren Williams has a new contract while Blake Corum and Jarquez Hunter are fighting it out for the backup role. It’s clear from the first pre-season game that Williams will be the clear lead back, as Sean McVay has always preferred. Williams is a clear top 10 back for me.
–RJ Harvey is the clear early down back in Denver, with JK Dobbins set to take passing downs. This is a strange turn of events given Dobbins has never been considered a strong receiver with only 330 of his 2500 career yards gained coming through the air. This boosts Harvey’s value while suggesting Dobbins is at best a handcuff.
–Bucky Irving will have a similar role to last year, with Rachaad White likely a change of pace and sometimes-receiving back. But White’s groin injury this week should make Irving even more productive earlier in the season. He’s right on the cusp of being a top 10 back.
–Tony Pollard will remain the lead back in a Titans committee with Tyjae Spears, but may do more than that early in the year, with Spears suffering a high-ankle sprain and nobody of note waiting down the depth chart to take touches. Pollard’s a great option if you go WR-heavy early on.
–Keaton Mitchell is the clear backup to Derrick Henry and would likely have the same early down role if The King were to go down injured. Justice Hill appears to remain the third down back.
–Omarion Hampton is the clear lead back with Najee Harris on the PUP list with an eye injury, with major question marks around his availability for Week 1 and beyond. While OC Greg Roman has claimed another back will join Hampton in the backfield, when the options are Kimani Vidal and Hassan Haskins, you have to assume Hampton will get enough touches to threaten top 12 fantasy production as long as Harris is out. The reason I’m not willing to take Hampton earlier in drafts is that Harris will eventually return and this likely then returns to a committee situation.
–Rhamondre Stevenson is clearly ahead of Antonio Gibson and has a chance to keep the early down role ahead of TreVeyon Henderson. We know Henderson is an excellent receiving back but it now looks possible this is more of a committee than we expected. This isn’t a major issue for Henderson, who is already being drafted as a mid rounder. But Stevenson now has some upside as a Zero RB pickup who can help you early in the season.
–Jakory Croskey-Merritt has already emerged as the early down backup to Brian Robinson, with receiving back Austin Ekeler backed up by Jeremy McNichols. It’s unusual for a seventh round rookie to be one injury away from a starting role at this point, but it’s even more valuable for fantasy when Robinson’s play has disappointed of late and the rookie could at some stage win the role on merit (no pun intended). The Commanders early down role isn’t exactly a fantasy gold mine though, making JCM more of a fantasy stash than a redraft bench option.
Losers:
–Week 1 has me very concerned about Breece Hall. The Jets have indicated for weeks that Braelon Allen would be receiving more carries this season and now we also have to worry about Isaiah Davis as a potential third down back. This is a situation I’m keen to avoid as all three of these players would need two injuries to really pay off for fantasy given their current draft costs.
–Samaje Perine will be the third down back for the Bengals, badly hurting Chase Brown’s value. For me, he can’t pay off at his current cost without playing regularly on passing downs and that is evidently highly unlikely. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as pass blocking has always been Brown’s greatest weakness. He’ll have some big weeks on the ground, but especially in PPR he’s a strong avoid for me given his current second round cost.
–Kaleb Johnson is in an ugly three-man committee with Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell. Johnson will be the early-down banger but Warren should be plenty of change-of-pace touches and Gainwell appears set to be the clear passing down back. Given Johnson’s current mid-round cost, it seems unlikely he’ll work his way into a league-winning every-down role with so many cooks in the kitchen.
–Chuba Hubbard looks set to lose many passing downs and some early downs to Rico Dowdle. He’s still a solid value given his draft cost isn’t excessively high, but this certainly limits his upside and makes it hard to see him becoming a league winner.
–Bhayshul Tuten has been getting a lot of buzz as a potential new starter for the Jaguars. But he not only played well behind Travis Etienne and Tank Bigsby, he was in a battle with seventh rounder LeQuint Allen for the backup role. This could easily change as the pre-season goes on, but it does show that Tuten is being massively over-drafted in the middle rounds.
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