The Most Likely Breakout RBs in 2026
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this video and kept the full transcript here for context.
31 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Jun 24, 2026
Published
Wed, June 24, 2026
6
Player insights
6
Players mentioned
Topics
Cam AkersJames ConnerJeremiyah LoveKeaontay IngramTrey BensonTyler Allgeier
Player analysis
Player insights
Cam Akers
PositiveValue6:30
At RB19 ADP, analyst 'really, really like[s] Cam Akers this year.' Impressed by his college tape and three-down ability despite being 'a little bit slow,' noting his athleticism and versatility 'took hold of the NFL immediately.' Suffered open ankle dislocation with fractured fibula and ruptured deltoid ligament in late October; underwent emergency same-day surgery. Cleared to jog by spring, attended April voluntary workouts, and was seen doing backflips at team softball game. Analyst believes he is 'very ahead of schedule' and 'very close and near to what he used to be,' with projection of 'likely no limit by week one.' Not concerned about long-distance explosiveness post-injury given Akers does not have elite 4.3-4.2 speed profile.
Insight pageJames Conner
PositiveRole1:26
Expected to pull some carries in Cardinals backfield despite ankle injury last year; will compete with Keaontay Ingram and Tyler Allgeier for touches; not expected to be the passing down back.
Insight pageJeremiyah Love
PositiveProjection3:00
Incredibly explosive and athletic; expected to dominate the passing down role in Cardinals offense as 'check down king' if Trey Benson is traded. Will capture most of the 17-18% RB target share in an offense that threw the ball 649 times last year (statistical outlier that could repeat given difficult schedule and expected trailing situations). Analyst projects he will piece together RB1 finish via ~75 targets, 3-4 receiving TDs, 4-6 rushing TDs, and explosive plays in run game rather than heavy carry volume (300-335 carries likely deferred to future years). At RB13 ADP with top-10 draft capital and best pass-catching ability in backfield, analyst assigns 9.5/10 breakout score relative to other players on list.
Insight pageKeaontay Ingram
PositiveProjection1:26
RB13 in ADP despite being 3rd overall NFL draft pick; analyst expects him to lose some base work to Tyler Allgeier and James Conner competition, but not a crazy amount given top-five capital investment. Key upside in passing game where Arizona had 126 RB targets last year (17-18% target share to RB position), though Jeremiah Love expected to dominate passing down role. Downside is Arizona's difficult schedule (underdog in every game). Analyst frames decision as likelihood of reaching floor (70% chance) versus ceiling rather than simply getting him at floor value. Typically available end of second round, early third round.
Insight pageTrey Benson
NegativeDepth Chart1:26
Analyst believes there is a real chance Trey Benson gets traded or moved out of the Cardinals backfield; if he remains, might get sprinkled in as a breather back in passing down roles, but not expected to be the primary passing down back.
Insight pageTyler Allgeier
PositiveRole1:26
Signed to significant money by Cardinals; expected to take base work away from Keaontay Ingram in the backfield; will compete for carries alongside James Conner.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Good morning, friends and enemies. In today's video, we are going through the most likely breakout running backs in 2026. I'm going to score all them on a
0:11scale of 1 to 10. Who is the most likely breakout candidates? And the way this is going to work is we're going to look at
0:16running backs ranked outside of the top 12 right now per ADP. So, if they're already getting drafted as a top 12 guy,
0:22they're already expected to break out.
0:24So, we're going to start at running back 13. We're going to double that and go through running back 26. And I'm going
0:29to talk about each player that has never finished as an RB1 so far in their career and what I think the likelihood
0:35of them finishing as an RB1 this year will be on a scale of 1 to 20. Now, I also want to caveat the scale of 1 to
0:4210. If I give a player a 9.5 out of 10, it does not mean I think they have a 95% chance of finishing as an RB1 this year.
0:48It will be relative to the other players on this list. So, if I think the RB17 has the best chance of every player on
0:55this list to finish as an RB1, he might get a 9, a 9.5, or a 10 relative to the other players on the list. So, their
1:00chances are as strong as any other player to break out this year. The other important criteria, this will not take injuries into account. The lens I'm
1:09looking at is purely from a going into the season, their current situation, the likelihood of them finishing as an RB1 by the end of the year. Like if we get
1:18to Keaontay Ingram, I'm not going to sit here and say if DeAndre Swift got hurt, sure. We're talking about if all players
1:23equal, all players stay safe. All right, let's stop talking about the rules.
1:26Let's get into some players here. The RB13 in ADP right now was the number three overall pick in the NFL draft.
1:33That is, of course, Keaontay Ingram of the Arizona Cardinals. It's It's pretty messy right there in this backfield, right? They went out and signed Tyler
1:40Allgeier to some some real money. James Conner broke his ankle last year, but it was early and they also brought him back
1:45in, so expected to, you know, pull some carries there. They still have Trey Benson. Uh I think there's a real chance
1:50he gets traded or moved out of this backfield right now. There's a little bit too much firepower. So, when I look
1:54at Keaontay Ingram, what I What I like about his draft position is like you're not paying what those like Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley prices were.
2:02You're able to typically get him around, you know, the end of the second round, early third round. And while there's going to be a lot of talk about like,
2:08"Oh, you're getting him at his floor." I think the the conversation to have is what is the likelihood that he reaches
2:13his floor or that he ends up, you know, performing at his floor versus the ceiling. So, it's easy to say, "Oh,
2:19you're getting him at his floor." But if he performs at his floor and and that's a 70% chance likelihood of him
2:24performing that way, then was it really that good of a pick? And, you know, you can break down whatever the odds are
2:28that you want to, but I think looking at the situation right now, I think he'll he'll lose a bit of base work. I think
2:33that's kind of obvious with Algier there and and James Conner there, but probably not a a crazy amount, right? They're a
2:38team that just invested top-five capital into this running back. You're going to assume they're going to use him at a heavy pace. We'll see what the goal line
2:44role ends up boiling down to. Last year, Arizona as a team scored six rushing touchdowns inside the 5-yard line. That is um horrendous. They did, however,
2:54have 126 running back targets last year.
2:57It was a team pass attempt total of 649, which is obviously extremely extremely high, but it's still a good target share
3:03there. It lands somewhere, I think, in the 17 to 18% range in terms of target share to the running back position. And
3:08that's obviously where a guy like Jeremiah Love, who's incredibly explosive, incredibly athletic, will dominate the passing down role, I think, in this offense on a team that's not
3:15expected to win a lot of games. Right now, if you go to the look-ahead lines, Arizona is the underdog in every single
3:20game on their schedule this year. And I don't blame Vegas cuz their schedule's actually insanely difficult. It's not that they're just a bad team or expected
3:28to be a bad team, but their schedule's one of the hardest schedules in the entire NFL, which is crazy cuz they were
3:32bad team last year and now they get the schedule. That's kind of par for the course when you play in the NFC West.
3:37You got the Niners and you got the Rams and you got the Seahawks and that ends up encapsulating, you know, 35% of your
3:41games. But I also think that's a case for the upside here where you look back at last year, it's like they threw the
3:47ball so many times. It was like a statistical outlier that will never happen again. It's like it can kind of happen again because of the makeup of
3:53the schedule, because of the makeup of the team, and they might need to throw the ball a thousand times again this
3:57year. And if they're trailing and we're expecting Jeremiah Love to be the passing down back here, which is definitely not going to be Algiers, it's
4:02definitely not going to be James Conner.
4:04If they keep Trey Benson, maybe he gets sprinkled in a little bit as a breather back in in passing down roles, but if
4:09Trey Benson's out of that situation, you'd imagine Jeremiah Love's going to be a check down king here. I also think if we look historically at running backs
4:16drafted early in the NFL draft, it's a little bit more pronounced when you actually break up where they were drafted in the NFL draft. You have guys
4:23that go at pick 32 or guys that go at pick 24 or 26 or whatever, they don't have as much success. But when you look
4:28at guys that were top 10 in the NFL draft, the NFL has actually done a pretty good job of hitting on those
4:34guys. So I looked at the running backs drafted inside the top 10 over the last 15 years. You have Najee Harris last
4:41year, finishes as the RB11. And these finishes are overall finish in PPR. So Najee was the RB11 last year overall in
4:49PPR. Bijan Robinson was the RB8 his rookie year, Saquon was the RB1, Leonard Fournette was the RB9, CMC was the RB10,
4:55Zeke was the RB2, Gurley finished as the RB10 while missing the first four games.
5:00And surprisingly, Trent Richardson was actually, obviously a top 10 pick within the last 15 years, finished his rookie season as the RB8 in PPR despite what we
5:08talk about when we talk about TRaw. So you'd actually have to go back 16 years, back to 2010 to find CJ Spiller, who was
5:16the last running back drafted in the top 10 of the NFL draft not to finish as an RB1 in PPR in their rookie season. Kind
5:22of wild. So I think he's going to kind of have to piece it together, like where he's getting his yardage from. It's
5:27going to have to be, you know, 75 targets his rookie year. He's probably going to have to score three or four
5:32receiving touchdowns, four to six rushing touchdowns. He'll probably have to have a couple explosive plays in the run game because I don't think he's
5:38going to end up being a 300, 335 carry type guy out the gate, maybe next year or the year following. But because of
5:44how messy this backfield is right now, I think he'll lose a lot of base down work. That being said, when you're the
5:48RB 13, you are knocking on the door when you have this type of draft capital and you look at the history of guys drafted
5:53this early, when you look at kind of the catch-up ball that they're going to have to play and he's the best pass-catching
5:57back in this backfield, I mean, I don't think there's going to be a guy that has a situation quite like this with this
6:03type of capital behind him. I'm putting Jeremaih Love in that 9.5 out of 10 score here. And again, that's relative to the other players that we're going to
6:12talk about on this list, not necessarily me saying that Jeremiah Love has a 95% chance of finishing as an RB1. Now, the
6:20next five running backs in ADP have all already finished as an RB1, so we're not going to get into them. That is Breece
6:24Hall, Kyren Williams, Travis Etienne, Josh Jacobs, and Javonte Williams, which lands us at RB19 and that is Mr. Cam Akers of the New York Giants. And I've
6:33got to say, I really, really like Cam Akers this year. Really liked him in college. Was, you know, relatively unsure about how he was going to
6:39translate, but he was just so good as a football player that regardless of him being a little bit slow, I thought
6:47he brought so much athleticism and three-down ability to the field that it just like it it it took hold of the NFL
6:55immediately. The first thing that needs to be addressed, obviously, is the injury. And when we look into our draft guide, we have the injury rating and and
7:03all this kind of stuff for every single player that is dealing with and or coming back from an injury. He suffered
7:08an open ankle dislocation with a fractured fibula and ruptured deltoid ligament in late October. Obviously, he had to have emergency same-day surgery
7:16because it was an open ankle dislocation. You got to take care of that immediately. He was cleared to jog by spring and attended April voluntary
7:22workouts and was seen doing backflips at the team softball game, giving him a real shot of being 100% by week one. At
7:27this point, you guys have probably seen, you know, the videos of Cam Akers just out in public doing things that you
7:32probably shouldn't be doing with this type of injury, but it feels pretty obvious to me that he is very ahead of
7:38schedule, that he feels very comfortable with the injury, that he is very close and and near to what he used to be. And
7:45I think with Cam, it's like this isn't a guy who who has 4 3 2 speed, so it's not necessarily a guy where I'm worried
7:51about his long-distance explosiveness coming off of the injury. We look at Depo Shona, he said Cam Scat likely no limit by week one. Stats average dip 12
8:00months October-November. Suspect short yard drill sees less of a hits. He's taking live 11 on 11 reps. Why I really like Scat going into this year, if you
8:11can get past the health thing. If you're someone who's like listen, the history of that type of injury, which is a very
8:15small sample size that we have for NFL running backs, it's not a good one. You know, we've had the Tony Pollards, we've
8:20had other players that have had trouble coming back from this injury. So, if you can't get over that, I've got no problem
8:24with that. I am personally in on Cam Scat. I think everything I've seen has got me to the point where I'm like,
8:30okay, fading the injury risk on this one, which is not how I historically play fantasy football, but Cam Scat has such a clear three-down skill set. And
8:37as soon as he got onto the field last year, he just ended up taking that job and was playing 70 to 75 to 80% of the
8:44snaps and played all of the valuable snaps. Like yes, he is a short-down grinder, but he got all the goal-line carries. He is a phenomenal
8:51pass-catching back and that's where I think the upside comes into play. In the five games that he was like the starter
8:55and he was really the guy, he averaged about five targets per game. Him and Jackson Dart have this crazy chemistry already. I think you have to look at
9:01like the pass-catchers in this offense as well. Like you have Wan'Dale Robinson who has gotten 140 targets in back-to-back seasons. He's gone and now
9:08he's in Tennessee. Malik Nabers obviously is dealing with his own injury. If he starts on the pup, I mean, who else is Jackson Dart really going to
9:14throw the ball to besides the running backs and guys like Isaiah Likely and and Darius Slayton. And we have the we
9:19have the sample of of last year, what we saw with this this running back group.
9:22And obviously, it's a new, you know, set of coaches coming in there, but when Cam and Tyron Tracy were both back on the
9:27field healthy, it was it was Cam's backfield indefinitely. And I think he obviously would have ended up going on to have a massive season had he not
9:33gotten hurt. You you got Tyron Tracy behind him who I think is pretty much as good as like any running back two you're
9:38going to find in the NFL, but I still think he's a 25 to 30% snap guy. And if Scott's playing 65 to 70% of the snaps
9:44in the NFL next year, like there's just not many running backs that actually do that.
9:48If you look at the numbers, you don't have like the clear old school workhorse running backs that really exist in the
9:53NFL anymore. And they drafted an offensive lineman top 10 in the NFL draft this year, so I expect them to have a little bit better of an offensive
10:00line. You have the mobile quarterback, which I do think opens up things for the running back and opens up more holes for
10:05the linemen. I would say the biggest downside I was worried about before I started doing a little bit more research was does Jackson Dart end up scooting in
10:12for six or 10 rushing touchdowns of his own? So I'm looking back at, you know, what I think this offense might look
10:17like. You have Matt Nagy coming in as the offensive coordinator. You also have Greg Roman as like the senior offensive assistant for the Giants. And I think
10:24when we look at like Greg Roman and his offense, you know, he was obviously in Baltimore for a while. Lamar was never
10:29really used inside the five-yard line.
10:31He's not used in the way that Josh Allen or Jalen Hurts are. And that's to protect him from, you know, getting
10:35hurt. And I think we'll see a lot of that carry over to a Jackson Dart. Like Todd Monken was a guy who never used
10:40Lamar inside the five and I was like, I I I bet like Greg Roman did a little bit more. What I found during those four
10:44seasons that Greg Roman was the OC in Baltimore, Lamar had a total of 16 carries inside the five-yard line. So a
10:50total of just four in in the entirety of the season. So I think when you have a guy like Jackson Dart, you want to
10:56protect him. Especially when you have a guy like Cam Skatabo, where it's like we don't need to protect him. He's just
11:00going to he's going to do what he wants to do regardless. Let's just chuck him up the middle and see what happens here.
11:05So, all that to say again, really big fan of Cam Skatabo this year. He will be a dude that I'm likely targeting pretty
11:11heavily in drafts come redraft season.
11:14The three-down skill set in an offense that I think can be pretty good this year. Improvements on the offensive line, opportunities in the targeting
11:21game. Will get a lot of the goal line work. I mean, he gets the valuable touches there. And I think he proved
11:25last year that he's a pretty good player and they want to use him to a very, very high capacity. So ultimately, I think
11:29I'm going to score Cam Skatabo at a 7.5 out of 10, which is a very, very strong candidate for this list. Moving on to
11:35the next running back in the ADP chamber, we've got Bucky Irving. And I think the the first thing to do with
11:41Bucky Irving, he's the RB 20 right now in ADP. I think he's going to continue to fluctuate as reports kind of come up
11:46and come down on his injury status. The biggest deterrent for him is whatever the hell's going on with his health. So,
11:51I want to I want to pull back because, you know, it was very odd last year. We never got a real read on on what was
11:56going on with Bucky Irving. So, I think I want to give you guys a quick timeline to give you a reminder of like what
12:01happened to Bucky Irving last year, how it ended, what's what's going on this summer, and like catch you up to current
12:06date Bucky Irving. So, Bucky started last year, obviously, coming off a really good rookie year and played the first 4 weeks, and he was he was good.
12:13He was fine, right? And then he suffered both a foot sprain and a shoulder subluxation in week 4. And those two
12:19things kept him sidelined until week 13.
12:22So, the foot sprain was like the immediate short-term concern in which like he couldn't really run or plant, whatever. And he eventually recovered
12:29from the foot sprain, but the shoulder injury was more of a long-term concern.
12:33So, he comes back in week 13, the foot sprain is fine, but he saw a massive dip in his receiving performance when he
12:39ended up returning, which I think makes sense if you have a bad shoulder injury, like it's hard to pass block, it's hard
12:44to reach your your you know, your hands above your head to like make plays in the passing game as well. So, passing
12:49downs are tough for a guy I think dealing with a shoulder injury. So, the season ends and he has off-season surgery on the shoulder. Todd Bowles
12:56comes out and and lights Twitter on fire by saying the team expects him back sometime in the summer or fall. And when
13:04you hear that, you're like, okay, sometime in the summer or fall can mean July, can mean August. When you say the
13:09fall, like the fall literally goes into, you know, October, November. So, people were like losing their minds. And then like 5 seconds later, Bucky Irving
13:17showed up and was participating in OTAs.
13:20They're non-contact, and I imagine he'll probably be non-contact for a lot of the drills that they do recovering from the shoulder injury, but it definitely eases
13:27the concern around a lot of the negative injury. Another, you know, tweet from Deepak Chona, "Low concern, average 6 months from February surgery. Data
13:34strongly favors playing week one, plus return to pre-injury production." Look at Dr. Jesse Morse, "The normal timeline for return to contact is about 6 to 9
13:41months depending on specifics. The good news is there's a very good chance he returns to 100% full strength once he is
13:47surgically cleared. So, it will depend on the timeline again. I think he'll probably be non-contact for the majority of the summer here." What I think is the
13:55bigger concern, like we know Bucky's a good running back. We know he's elusive, we know he's explosive, we know he can
14:00perform at the NFL level. It's what kind of committee are we going to see in Tampa Bay? Now, they let Rashad White
14:05walk, but they did sign Kenneth Gainwell, which is like, you know, you're you're letting your pass-catching back walk out. And that was a guy that
14:11they kind of like had given up on, I think, like by the end of Bucky's rookie year they had kind of phased him out. I
14:16don't think they wanted to use him much last year until Bucky's injury, and then they signed Kenneth Gainwell to a 2-year, $14 million
14:22deal, which I think, in my eyes, allows him to operate almost definitely as their passing down back. And I also think there's a world where Sean Tucker
14:31is really, really involved on the goal line. Last year, Sean Tucker led the team with nine carries inside the 5-yard line. And what's more of a shocking
14:39stat, I think, is while Bucky was hurt most of the year, he appeared in 10 games. So, listen, he might have been at
14:45like 70% for six of those 10 games.
14:48Ultimately, Bucky had zero carries, per PFR, inside the 5-yard line. So, you have Sean Tucker with nine, still on the roster, and you have Bucky Irving with
14:57zero. And again, it's not black and white, maybe it's the injury, maybe we don't want to shove him up the middle
15:01when he's got the shoulder injury, but still a little bit alarming in terms of what this committee can end up being.
15:06So, I I look at Bucky Irving and I'm like, you know, what's the ceiling we can get from a dude like Bucky? And I do
15:11think the ceiling is something like what we saw from Aaron Jones in 2024. Which, if you look at the numbers, it's pretty
15:16underrated, but still somehow felt a little bit disappointing. Aaron Ronald was the dude who like quietly ended up with 14 to 1500 yards from scrimmage,
15:24caught a decent amount of passes, I think it was in like the 50 range, scored six or seven touchdowns, and I
15:28think that's kind of a realistic outcome or ceiling for him given that we have Kenneth Gainwell who signed not a nothing deal. Like Rashaad White signed
15:35a one-year, $2 million deal with Washington. Kenneth Gainwell, two-year, $14 million deal. So, they could have kept Rashaad White for a much cheaper
15:43price, and they went out and filled the void with a guy that they clearly think is going to be a part of their
15:47backfield. Ultimately, when I look at Tampa Bay last year, I would definitely lean towards most of the offensive woes that they they ended up uh you know,
15:54going through, I would attribute a lot of those to injuries. You have Baker's shoulder injury, you have Evans and Enagbare's hamstring injuries, Godwin
16:01was returning from a very serious lower body injury the year before, Tristan Wirfs missed four games. So, like their narrative definitely still exists. I I I
16:08think there is a little bit of systemic risk. They are with a new offensive coordinator. I think it's their fourth offensive coordinator in four years now,
16:14Zach Robinson coming over. Um there's a chance that the offensive line is just not a top 10 unit anymore. There's a
16:19chance that Enagbare maybe is a little bit more second half Enagbare than he was first half Enagbare. The departure of Mike Evans definitely shifts the
16:25dynamic of this offense for sure. So, again, I I think this there's a world where they're not a top half of the NFL
16:31offense. Like maybe their offense 17 or 18 or 19 or something like that, and that obviously hurts all the running backs in the backfield. Ultimately, I'm
16:39going to score Rachaad White a 5.5 out of 10 here. I think his pass-catching ceiling is limited by Kenneth Gainwell being here. I think his touchdown
16:46ceiling is limited by Sean Tucker taking a lot of the goal line carries. So, well, Rachaad White's not like a full
16:50fade for me by any means. He doesn't scream upside to me the way that going into last year felt like he might have
16:56that. The very next running back in ADP, RB 21, is TreVeyon Henderson. And I went pretty deep into TreVeyon Henderson in a
17:04video I put out a couple weeks ago talking about guys that I probably won't own very much of in fantasy this year.
17:09And to me, it's like Rachaad White RB 20, TreVeyon Henderson RB 21, that's that's a pretty easy choice for me. I
17:15won't go like super in-depth here because I did so in the previous video and I will link that down below if you
17:20want to watch that. Also, I'll be doing the same exact video version for the wide receivers in the next video. So, if
17:25you are not subscribed and you want to hang around for that, please subscribe to the channel. So, ultimately with AJ Dillon and Aaron Jones, I I think it's
17:32just very clear they're going to use a committee here. I think it was very clear that Aaron Jones just completely out performed him last year. It was very
17:37clear that Aaron Jones was a better pass blocking back and a better in between the tackles runner. Josh McDaniels still their OC. Josh McDaniels has always
17:45historically used a running back by committee and in the very, very few years that he hasn't done that, it was with a bigger, bruising type of back
17:53like a Knowshon Moreno. So, I just don't see a world where AJ Dillon and Aaron Jones becomes this workhorse running back in the offense. Can he make plays?
18:00Can he have, you know, big explosive games on a week-to-week basis?
18:03Obviously, that's what we go through in fantasy trying to figure [ __ ] out on a 17 game sample size here. It's like,
18:08yeah, AJ Dillon had a couple blow-up games last year, of course, when Aaron Jones wasn't there. But, if Aaron Jones is in the lineup, like AJ Dillon's not
18:13really going to have that opportunity to get 20, 25 touches a game. Many running backs that get a a game in which they
18:19can get 20 to 25 touches are going to have big games. We saw with Jordan Mason earlier in the year. We saw it with
18:24Emmanuel Wilson in Green Bay. Like, it's it's not This is the replacement value of a running back argument that everybody has when they talk about
18:31football, when they talk about fantasy football. It's like, you can kind of stick a lot of running backs into a starting role and if you're going to
18:36give them a ton of volume, they're probably going to hit a couple big plays and have a big outing overall. And I
18:40think we saw that with AJ Dillon and Aaron Jones. You can look at a lot of the numbers. Aaron Jones was actually
18:44more explosive. He was more elusive. He was a better pass blocking back. It's all that kind of stuff. I think their
18:50strength of schedule is pretty difficult. They also add a lot more target competition this year with AJ Brown and Romeo Doubs coming in. So, AJ
18:57Dillon and Aaron Jones to me is going to get a three out of 10 here. Moving to the very next running back in ADP, that
19:05is RB 22, D'Andre Swift, Chicago Bears.
19:07He has finished basically every single season of his career as as RB2 in fantasy. To be fair, he missed a game
19:12last year, finished as the RB14 in full PPR. If he plays all 17, he probably sneaks in as the RB12. He's not really
19:18qualified. Ben Johnson is just a maniacal run scheme coordinator. He was just so good with getting his running backs production. And I think something
19:25we talked about a ton last year on this channel, and I don't know that you get this on a lot of other, you know, base
19:30level fantasy channels, is like the interior offensive line adjustments that they made bringing Joe Tuney, Jonah Jackson, Andrew Dalman was going to make
19:37a world of difference for the Chicago Bears. That obviously was one of the biggest storylines of the entire year.
19:41And because of that, they finished as, you know, one of if not the best run blocking line in the entire NFL. Now,
19:46going into this year, we do have some changes cuz Drew Dalman, who signed a three-year deal coming over from Atlanta to Chicago, was one of the best run
19:52blocking centers in the league last year, just kind of randomly retired this offseason. So, they will not have him.
19:57Also, Iffy Okoye ruptured his Achilles, their starting left tackle in their playoff game last year. So, he'll likely miss almost all of 2026. So, I do think
20:05we'll see a little bit of natural regression from their offensive line and their run blocking ability. But, I also think like Ben Johnson, year two,
20:12another year of Caleb Williams, having all these young playmakers kind of ascending into their prime at the same time, Luther Burden, Colson Loveland,
20:19Rome Odunze will take this offense enough up efficiency-wise that even if it's a little bit tighter up the trenches in terms of run blocking, like
20:26the other factors in the offense will probably mitigate a lot of that. So, we saw D'Andre Swift score nine times on
20:31the ground last year, which, you know, I haven't even touched on Khalil Mungai. I think that's that's probably the bigger talking point here is the rookie out of
20:38Rutgers last year, Khalil Mungai, was awesome. And by the end of the year, they were just purely splitting drives.
20:44It was D'Andre Swift gets this drive, Khalil Mungai gets this drive. So, I think a lot of the touchdowns are going
20:49to come down to whoever just ends up being on the goal line when that drive gets down there. However, I don't want
20:54to overthink it too much cuz if Ben Johnson's the play caller here, you also look back to his time in Detroit when
20:59Gibbs and David Montgomery were both eating on a weekly basis. Like, but they were basically locks to score every single week here. So, I think D'Andre
21:06Swift just has a very, very high floor being in this offense. If touchdowns break his way, you know, he scores somewhere in like the 8 to 11 range of
21:13touchdowns and it's an overall weak running back year in terms of fantasy, he can definitely break the top 12, I think. But, there's also a world where
21:21Ben Johnson feels Kalen Ballage guys a little bit more equipped to take those goal line carries as a more of like a
21:26bruising dude. That's also within the range of outcomes. So, for Swift, I would put him at about a 5.5 out of 10
21:32here. Great chance to finish as the RB 18. He has to have a lot of things I think break in his favor for him to
21:37finish as a top 12 back though. Next up, we've got running back 23, Quinshon Judkins, Cleveland Browns second-year runner. Now, fractured ankle week 16,
21:47reportedly looking phenomenal and explosive in OTAs and camp so far. If you look at most of the Twitter doctors' analysis of it, it was kind of like a
21:54best-case scenario cuz there was no knee aspect involved in it. So, from everything I've heard from camp, following and trusting the people that I
22:01do trust, the beat reporters, etc., and just kind of reading between the lines, Judkins feels like he's in a really really good spot to be, you know, 90 to
22:08100% healthy by the time week one rolls around. The obvious problem with Quinshon Judkins and his outlook going into 2026 is Cleveland, right? Last
22:18year, Judkins faced the single highest percentage of eight-plus defenders in the box. The offensive line was abysmal.
22:25He ranked dead last in yards before contact per attempt. Out of 49 qualified running backs, he was 49th in yards being opened up before he was actually
22:34contacted there. Now, they do have five brand new starters on the offensive line. They made some moves. Zion Johnson, Hakeem Jackson, Titus Howard,
22:42top 10 pick out of Utah, Spencer Fano, third round pick, another day two pick, Awesome Barber on the offensive line.
22:47So, it's it's easy to say like, "Okay, they got in a lot of new talent coming in." How quickly are they able to gel?
22:54How quickly are they even good? Are these players going to be a good fit together? Uh I mean, there's only one
22:59way to go with this offensive line cuz of how bad they were, but there's also a realistic chance they go from the 32nd
23:04ranked offensive line to the 29th or 28th and you still don't really want to be selecting running backs with really, really poor offensive lines like that
23:11that aren't necessarily in a very high-scoring offensive situation. But ultimately, Judkins was awesome when he was on the field last year. He He looked
23:17the part of a workhorse running back last year. You also have to remember he missed almost like all of the entire
23:22summer with a legal situation last year where he didn't get into camp. He wasn't training at all until like the very last
23:27minute. So, I think that's kind of a positive in his corner. Right now, you have Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders kind of banging it out for quarterback
23:34reps. We don't know who's going to be the starter this year, not great regardless of how you cut it. I do want
23:39to leave a little bit of room though for the Cleveland Browns offense to be better than expected. Like I really like
23:44Harold Landry. They went out and used a first-round pick on Casey Conception and then an early second-round pick on Denzel Boston. So, now you put Jerry
23:50Jeudy as maybe the wide receiver three and you've got some talented pass catchers. Maybe Shedeur's a little bit better than we want to give him credit
23:55for. Like we've been wrong about quarterback situations before. I think Shedeur showed some flashes last year. If he can improve and be a
24:02top 25 quarterback, like maybe this offense is a little bit better than we're giving credit for. So, I think ultimately, can Judkins do what Nick
24:10Chubb did there for a while where he didn't catch a lot of passes, but even in years when Cleveland was not a very
24:16good team, he was still getting, you know, 300 carries and putting up 1,400, 1,500 yards on the ground there. And I
24:23think that's probably the upside case for Judkins and I don't think anyone would be super surprised if that ended up coming through here. So, with
24:30Judkins, ultimately, very easy to get excited about the talent, very difficult to get excited about the situation. I'm going to give him a score of six out of
24:3810. Next RB on this list is David Montgomery. He has already finished as an RB1 and then we move on to RB25. So,
24:43we have two more running backs left. We got RB25 Breece Hall Twin in Jacksonville. Twin's another dude that I don't want to go too in-depth here cuz I
24:50went really in-depth on the players with league-breaking upside video. Thank you, Jackson. Put that link down below. And ultimately I have a an optimistic
24:59outlook for Beathard II.
25:01I spoke highly of him. Was not like a huge pundit of him coming into the NFL.
25:05I didn't have like a very strong take on two and as a rookie Travis Etienne was obviously there and kind of ate him up
25:10in the backfield last year, but I do think two is kind of similar to Chase Brown very very similar size explosiveness athleticism and situations
25:17where Brown took a minute to you know get away from Zach Moss get away from Samaje Perine before busting out and
25:23becoming this legitimate like workhorse in the NFL. I thought we saw a lot of good from Beathard II in last year and
25:28now obviously Travis Etienne has moved over to the New Orleans Saints, but they did bring in Chris Rodriguez who is reuniting with Liam Cohen. They were
25:35together at the time in Kentucky. So there is a little bit of that going against two and Chris Rodriguez however is missing a lot of time with a foot
25:42injury right now. So we'll see if that plays into it. Ultimately I think two and just so much more explosive and
25:47gives this offense so much more upside than a guy like Chris Rodriguez does.
25:51LeQuinte Allen will probably take a decent amount of pass down work here.
25:55This is a very good team. They're projected to win 10 games this year in Vegas and I wouldn't be surprised if
25:59they end up going over that mark. So I don't think it's going to be a situation where you know Jeremiah Love needs to be
26:04on the field a lot as the pass catching back because they're only projected to win four games. This is a good team
26:08that's going to be able to control the clock that's going to be able to control their offense and kind of play the way
26:11that they want to play and even when they're trailing it probably won't be by the number where you need to have a
26:16specific pass down back on the field for it. So tons of opportunity. This is like explosive running back in in uncertain
26:25committee tied to a very good offense.
26:26You know 20 touchdowns by this backfield last year and then nine rushing scores for Trevor Lawrence. So this could be a
26:32backfield that scores 25 touchdowns this year, right? And if Beathard II is seeing 50% of the snaps like probably ends up with eight to 10 overall
26:38touchdowns. Their fantasy playoff strength of schedule Dallas and Washington week 16 and 17 is beautiful.
26:44Etienne saw a ton of screen targets last year. I think that could be Beathard II's role. So yeah the floor is
26:49obviously him just being in a three down committee with Rodriguez taking a lot of the early down roles, Tou seeing 10 to
26:5412 touches per game, and Laquon Allen playing on obvious passing down situations. But, I think there's a world where Tou just completely separates
27:00himself from the rest of the backfield.
27:02So, I'm going to give Bejon Tou on this list a five out of 10. I think the the committee approach is very real, but I
27:07also think the upside of the player is very real as well. So, moving on to the very last player on this list. And of
27:12course, if you've enjoyed this video up to this point, go hit the button that looks like this. Would be very much
27:16appreciated. And subscribe if you want the wide receiver version coming later this week. RB 26, Jahmyr Gibbs, the very last pick of the first round for the
27:23Seattle Seahawks. Now, Seattle Seahawks lose Kenneth Walker to free agency. He's in Kansas City. Zach Charbonnet tears his ACL in late January. That gives him
27:26seven months to return for week one.
27:27Right now, I think a lot of the talk kind of centers itself on Charbonnet projecting a late October early November return. So, Jahmyr Gibbs will have every
27:31opportunity to dominate this backfield early on.
27:49He's a little bit of a tough evaluation, obviously, because he played behind Jahmyr Gibbs at Notre Dame. So, Notre Dame had both of the first round running
27:57backs drafted in this year's NFL draft, and he was never a workhorse there. He is a good fit for the Seattle scheme.
28:02They do not have Clint Kubiak anymore, though. He is now the head coach of the Raiders. They got Brian Flores coming
28:08in, former San Francisco run game coordinator and tight ends coach. And they also signed Emanuel Wilson, the former Green Bay backup running back to
28:15a one-year $2.1 million deal. So, ultimately, the backfield looks like this right now. Charb coming back from injury. You have Jahmyr Gibbs at the top
28:22of it, but George Holani has been getting a lot of runs with the one as well. I think he'll end up probably
28:26having a passing down role. And I think Emanuel Wilson will chip in for a couple carries a game and be more of like a
28:30breather back for Jahmyr Gibbs. I will again say though, while the first round draft capital is phenomenal, it is important to note that while I went
28:38through all those like great performing players for Jahmyr Gibbs, once you get to the second half of first round running backs, you do start having a
28:45little bit more faltering within how consistent these guys produce, especially as rookies. I mean, we have an example of this, you know, in this
28:52team, in this franchise in Seattle, not too long ago when they took Rashaad Penny and then Chris Carson came in and
28:58just ate that man's lunch as a seventh-round pick. So, with Jahmyr Gibbs, I'm not off Jahmyr Gibbs if his if his price, ironically, gets too high,
29:06I probably will be. He's not someone I'm like fading, not someone I'm targeting.
29:09I'd be okay having him on my team cuz I think the path to him being an RB1 is incredibly clear. He's a first-round
29:14pick likely be seeing 12 to 15 touches out of the gate. And if he's good, if he is a legitimate first-round talent, you
29:20don't have much of a reason to not let him rip for the remainder of the year.
29:23And if you have a first-round running back, you know, seeing 15-plus touches per game, he's likely going to finish inside the top 12 fantasy running backs
29:30by year's end. On the flip side, there's a very real committee though that he doesn't get passing down work, that Zach
29:35Charbonnet comes back in week 8 to 10, and then that's a clear committee in the most important part of your fantasy
29:41season. And I think that's my biggest deterrent when it comes to Jahmyr Gibbs.
29:43I don't think there's a lot of room for error here for him because of Charbs' return later on in the season. This
29:48could end up being very similar to what we saw last year, and it's just like you can never predict on a weekly basis
29:53whether it's going to be a Kenneth Walker game or a Zach Charbonnet game, who's going to be on the field inside
29:58the 10-yard line. That gets really messy, and like when you are in weeks 12, 13, 14 fighting for a playoff spot,
30:03and then you're actually in the fantasy playoffs, it's like having a dude who's an unconfident, inconfident, non-confident RB3 on your team feels
30:11like a waste. So, path isn't incredibly clear, lot of opportunity out the gate.
30:15Just be good, and you will probably be able to be good for the rest of the season. I think because that's so clear,
30:20I'm I'm going to end up putting him at a six out of 10, which is relatively strong on this list, I think. But, the
30:25guys are early on. The Jeremiah Love gets a 9.5 out of 10, Cam Skabo, those types of guys will obviously have much
30:30more opportunity, better chance to finish as an RB1 this year in fantasy football. And I will wrap up there. You will see the culmination and the
30:38conclusion of all the guys and their scores right here up on the screen.
30:41Again, if you enjoyed the video, hit the button that looks like this. Subscribe to the channel if you want to see the
30:45wide receiver version of this video, and I will be back in a few days. Love you all. Smooches.
31:04>> [music]
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