Running backs ready to make a jump

We asked nine analysts to uncover a top candidate to help you get an idea of ​​which players are ready to exceed expectations this fantasy football season.

If you somehow missed Cook’s hype this summer, just please know that he was breathless and relentless. He ran exclusively for the Bills’ starting lineup in the team’s preseason opener, With impressive resultsand only worked with the first-team offense again in limited action on Saturday against the Steelers.

He probably won’t be a right-back every moment, because such creatures have all but vanished from the Earth – only four players in the league carried the ball more than 275 times last season. But it seems pretty clear at this point that Cook is the Buffalo backroom chair, with Damian Harris (current) and Latavius ​​Murray behind him.

As a junior, Cook played his best in the second half of the season, averaging over 6.0 YPC in Weeks 11-18. If the Bills are really serious about cutting back on their quarterback’s rushing attempts, Cook should thrive as a receiving threat and possibly as a direct ball carrier. The current Yahoo ADP site in the mid 1980’s. — Andy Behrens

Damion Pierce, Houston TX

If you love soccer, then you must be a big fan of the way Damion Pierce plays. It is a fierce runner who takes no prisoners. Pierce averaged 3.21 post-contact yards per attempt as a junior, putting him in the same territory as fantasy champs like Josh Jacobs (3.23) and Derrick Henry (3.24), according to Fantasy Points Data. His 0.22 missed tackles forced per carry ranks eighth among linebackers with over 200 rushes.

We know Pierce is a good runner but there is more to him than that. We got answers to one variable in the pre-season. Obviously, Pierce will serve as the right linebacker for the Texans And Devin Singletary is a change of pace option. The second variable is the overall ecosystem. It will be hard for the Texans to be as bad as they have been in the past two years. I like CJ Stroud as a willing passer and find the idea of ​​Bobby Slowik installing an offense similar to what we saw in the early Shanahan 49ers days interesting. Everything comes roses for Pierce. He simply lags far behind in drafts with a Yahoo ADP of 48.4. — Matt Harmon

Gibbs It has a large project capital After being selected twelfth overall. He will play for it The rising black crime This helped D’Andre Swift to be among the top 20 fantasy players last season despite playing Only 41% of the shots. Gibbs is legitimate possibility from He led in goals when he was 18 years old And now he can play inside on offense and averaged 33+ NFL points per home game last season.

However, it is a crime not to have alternative weapons outside the area of ​​Amun-Ra Saint Brown.

While Gibbs may have missed a few goal-line touchdowns, Jamal Williams was gone, and David Montgomery was gone. The least efficient in the league over the past four years And it is permissible Not ideally suited for this role. Gibbs will See enough opportunities (incl Tons of goals) in the Detroit offense that produced the most Fantasy points expected from her background Last season.

There is a real opportunity Gibbs is a fantasy first-round pick for next season. — Dalton Dale Donne

It took a while for the Rams to settle on Akers last year, but goodwill was rewarded in the final third of the season. Akers racked up 512 yards (4.9 per carry) and six touchdowns over his last six starts, making him RB3 during that cumulative span. The LA backyard is languishing after Akers, yet the market hasn’t completely bought him out — he’s currently RB21 in the Yahoo drafts. I don’t comment on the ratings – you can call Akers a breakout player, value picker, ADP beater, take profit picker. Just appreciate how great this opportunity is. — Scott Pianofsky

Herbert is poised to launch now that the David Montgomery era is officially over in Chicago. Yes, the Bears brought in D’Onta Foreman and made a fourth-round pick over Roschon Johnson in the 2023 NFL Draft, but Herbert has the most upside as a standout linebacker. Playing alongside Justin Fields, he averaged 5.7 yards per carry (the highest among all right backs) and proved to be one of the better players. The red team’s most elusive and efficient player last season.

He plays first offense and is already showing glimpses of his potential as a triple linebacker, shredding 56 yards and running for a score. In his first pre-season game. Montgomery’s departure frees up 201 carries, and as a Chicago RB1, that kind of volume would put him well over his value relative to his ADP (101.4). Shout out to hockey because this kid is going to be playing ball. — Dan Titus

We don’t need to hit you over the head with this, guys. Matteson is slated to punt, though he’s been coming off a season-high 3.8 yards per carry. In fact, Matteson was generally less efficient than former teammate Dalvin Cook in 2022 across the board, from yards per attempt to yards after contact per carry and yards per run. However, there is no denying that the former third-stringer has made the most of the limited opportunities available to him as captain.

In Matteson’s six career games without Cook, he averaged 25 complete opportunities (goals and rushing attempts) for 115.5 scrimmage yards and just under a touchdown per game. That translates to over 20 fantasy points per game in full PPR recording formats.

Matteson now enjoys a workhorse role to himself in the NFL’s seventh-highest-grossing offense of 2022. Buy. — Kate Majdzyuk

White walks the ADP range (82.8) with wide receivers like Mike Williams, Mike Evans, Michael Pittman Jr., and Big Ten. Yet he can outpace them as one of the final selected linebackers who can see the RB1’s workload. White saw 129 carries and grabbed 50 of 57 targets, with Leonard leaving Fournette Tampa after compiling 262 touches last year. That’s a big pie available for White, and the Bucs have just added undrafted free agent Sean Tucker to a running back room that also includes Chase Edmonds and Ke’Shawn Vaughn.

At 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, White is built for a heavy workload and has shown good work in the passing game. Freshman quarterback Baker Mayfield has targeted running backs 18 times in five games, which will need to be increased for White to become more of a factor. The workload is in place for White to become one of the rising stars of 2023. Jorge Martin

David Montgomery, Detroit Lions

David Montgomery, at the very least, plans to fill Detroit’s Jamal Williams role, a role that saw the former Lions’ goal line weapon score an astonishing 14 touchdowns from inside the opposition’s five-yard line last season, and he’s on his way to 17 rushing touchdowns in total. Although we can detect some natural decline in that category – especially when we take into account the fact that Amun-Ra Saint Brown was Tackled inside the five yard line Seven times – the early turn behind a league The best offensive lines It will still produce plenty of chances to score.

The Lions spent the 12th overall pick on Jahmyr Gibbs during the NFL Draft, so they’ll want to use him wide, but there’s no reason to think both members of this backfield can’t get along. Gibbs’ inclusion in the backfield puts a strict cap on Montgomery’s target quota, but the former Bears linebacker has targeted totals of 51 and 40 over the past two seasons on offenses that historically have been loath to pass the ball. You don’t have to look very hard to see Montgomery return to the top 20 as an eighth-round draft pick (75.6 ADP), even if Austin Eckler is skeptical the Lions linebacker can provide that range of fantasy value. — 4for4 justin Edwards, Who has more RB breakthrough candidates.

My colleagues have rounded up some of the best hack picks, so I do my best to predict a breakout season for someone who doesn’t get developed in many Yahoo leagues, but is among the most valuable backups in fiction. Nagy Harris isn’t very good. Sure, he’s a workhorse, but he’s the bad kind of workhorse – the kind that absorbs a lot of touches and doesn’t do much with it (3.8 yards per carry or 5.6 yards per catch in 2022).

Warren was more efficient than Harris last season (4.9 yards per carry, 7.6 yards per catch) and declared he was ready for a bigger role this season when The Bills ran for a 62-yard TD run last weekend. The speed of the second-year pro can spark the Steelers offense if he gets 8-10 carries and 4-5 goals per game. Warren will slowly move the right-back split in his direction until he becomes a flexible option. — Farid Zinki