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Alexander Mattison is the clear choice to top this list of running back handcuffs to target in fantasy football.
There are some NFL backfields with two fantasy-relevant running backs who have standalone value in fantasy football even if both RBs stay healthy.
And there are other backfields that feature a backup who doesn’t offer much standalone value but is still a must-roster player due to the workload he’d assume if the starter went down. That’s a handcuff running back, or an insurance running back, and these are five of the top candidates you should consider this season.
Fantasy football risers and fallers entering Week 11.
In fantasy circles, running backs are a premium because so few consistently carry 15 times or more in games. That’s what made Derrick Henry such a joy to watch (and have on your roster. In the eight games before injury, Henry had 219 carries for 937 yards and 10 rushing touchdowns. After having 17 carries in Week 1, he had 20 or more in all of the subsequent seven games, including 28 or more carries in six of those.
So, with him gone, who picks up the mantle for the workhorse running backs? Hint: There aren’t many. By my count, there are currently just four.
Dalvin Cook has 15 or more carries six of seven games played. In the two games he has missed, backup Alexander Mattison has rushed 51 times for 225 yards. Jonathan Taylor has come into his own, with 15-plus carries in eight of 10 games. Najee Harris has hit that number in seven of nine games, including five straight games with 22 or more carries (the Steelers are 4-0-1 in those games). Alvin Kamara has 15 or more carries in six of eight games played.
A case can be made that the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears backfields fit in that category, but injuries of kept them down. If you ever wonder why elite running backs remain the most expensive fantasy investments, that should answer your question. So few are dominant that it makes them more precious, and King Henry was the gold standard.
Here is the Week 11 Fantasy Market Report:
It’s rare when you have the opportunity to acquire a quarterback off the waiver wire who has the potential to have the kind of games Newton is capable of having. He isn’t the star he was when the Panthers went to the Super Bowl, but when you have Christian McCaffrey as an ultimate weapon and a strong pair of veteran receivers, Newton has the ability to be a fantasy starter with the right matchups. He’s not an every-week starter, but he can bolster a roster and be a pick-and-choose type that can be plugged in as needed.
When the Packers drafted Dillon, they did so because they understand the conditions in which Green Bay plays – often a combination of cold, wind and snow. Dillon is a hammer whose value goes up as it comes to be later in the year. That is even more pronounced now that the regular season stretches into mid-January. Aaron Jones made the Fallers list due earlier this month due to not having more than 15 carries in any game since Week 3, and much of that was due to Dillon’s presence and his ability to be a banger between the tackles when they need it. Since Week 3, Green Bay has had two games with a runner with more than 15 carries – Dillon at Arizona Oct. 28 and Dillon Sunday against Seattle. He will likely be a 1b option when Jones returns after spraining a knee ligament, but he has two weeks to make his case to be in a time share, if not the lead dog as weather in the Great White North deteriorates.
Consistency has been an issue with the Eagles offense all season, and it’s always an issue when dealing with rookie wide receivers. However, Smith has topped 60 yards in five of the last seven games. In the last two, he has been the big-play threat in the Philly offense, catching nine passes for 182 yards (more than 20 a catch) and has scored three touchdowns. For much of the season, he was showing promise, but it wasn’t translating into consistent big plays or touchdowns. Now it is starting to show, and his value is gaining steam.
Ingram was the leading rusher in Houston, but nobody felt confident that he could produce the kind of numbers needed to be in a fantasy lineup. When he was in New Orleans to start his career, once Alvin Kamara arrived, his role changed, but his ability to have big weeks continued. Running backs are the most difficult commodities to obtain in fantasy leagues. Ingram is the No. 2 guy, but Sean Payton is still the head coach and still calls the plays. He knows better than anyone what Ingram can do in his offense. He’s not a handcuff for Kamara, who happens to be out with a knee sprain of his own. He can post numbers as a rusher and receiver on his own. Playing alongside Kamara limits some of those opportunities, but look back at his first run in New Orleans. He will have his share of fantasy moments.
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The funny thing about Gordon is that those who have him on their roster get frustrated because he’s clearly in a time share in Denver’s backfield. In his last seven games, he has rushed more than 10 times just once. But, his bottom line is that he has scored a touchdown in five of his last six games. I wouldn’t want to have my fantasy season hinging on Gordon having a huge game, but, if you need someone who has consistently been putting up consistent weekly numbers as a runner, receiver and scorer, Gordon checks a lot of boxes in that regard.
In the first two games of the season, Lockett was on fire, catching 12 passes for 278 yards and three touchdowns. In the seven games since? 31 catches for 324 yards and no touchdowns. That works out to four catches for 46 yards a game. You can’t blame his lack of production on Russell Wilson missing time. In that same seven-game span, DK Metcalf has caught 32 passes for 493 yards and seven touchdowns. Lockett is still a talent who fantasy owners will have a hard time miring on their benches, but it seems like it is time to make Lockett a matchup-only type of play.
The best thing that happened to Roethlisberger owners is that he didn’t play last week due to COVID protocol against the Detroit Lions, because there may have been the temptation. At a time when quarterbacks routinely throw for 300 yards, Big Ben has done it just once – and that was in Week 3. More troubling is that he has 10 touchdowns in eight games – two games with two TD passes and six with one TD. Given that he is a glacier in the backfield and hasn’t earned a single point for rushing if you go on the point-for-10-yards standard. He has six yards rushing all season. I would rather take a chance with a QB left on the waiver wire gut pile than go with Roethlisberger with the expectations of having a big fantasy day.
In the first two games of the season, Rob Gronkowski scored four touchdowns. In his first three games, he caught 16 passes. He hasn’t caught a pass in the last six games due to injury, yet he leads Tampa Bay tight ends in receptions. Cameron Brate has played in all nine games for the Bucs and has caught 14 passes for 131 yards and one touchdown. O.J. Howard has played in all nine games and has caught 13 passes for 125 yards and one touchdown. Given how the Tampa Bay offense (and the Tom Brady offense) has routinely included a heavy dose of tight ends, it’s shocking that neither Brate nor Howard has filled in the void left by Gronk’s injury. They’re posting the kind of numbers glorified offensive linemen put up and have reached the point of not being able to live up to their talent or their past histories.
With all the upside the Browns came into season with, Landry may be the next disgruntled receiver looking to work his way out of town. He has missed four of the Browns’ 10 games due to injury and, in the six he has played, he has caught just 23 passes for 219 yards no touchdowns. That works out to an average of four catches for 37 yards and no scores. Futility like that is difficult to maintain over a long stretch, but he has managed.
Coming off a season in which he emerged as a fantasy threat with 11 rushing touchdowns, Gibson was taken in fantasy leagues to be a starter most if not all weeks. In his last seven games, he hasn’t rushed for 65 yards in any of them and, aside from a 73-yard screen-turned-touchdown as a receiver, he has caught 18 passes for just 85 yards in the other eight games. Instead of being a weekly must-start, Gibson is player who is in lineups more by force than choice. Granted, he has scored six touchdowns, but fantasy football is played on a weekly basis and, many more weeks than not, he has come up empty.
Fantasy football risers and fallers entering Week 2.
I was involved in a football roundtable discussion leading up to the start of Week 1 and the moderator asked, “What preposterous statement can you make about the 2021 season?”
I offered to go first.
“All four teams from the NFC West will make the playoffs.”
The rest were in unanimous agreement that my idea was preposterous. Last year was the first time such a concept was possible, but these are four teams built to win now. Russell Wilson has never had a losing season. Many project Seattle to finish last in the division. San Francisco has the personnel on both sides of the ball to make a Super Bowl run – their betting odds to make it show that. The Los Angeles Rams like to go all-in for a short-term run and felt all that was missing was a QB and traded for Matt Stafford. Arizona won eight games last year and is viewed by many as the trendy team to make the next big jump to relevance and dominance.
The new playoff format has four division champions and three wild cards in each conference. It can logically be assumed that Tampa Bay and Green Bay will be the prohibitive favorites to win their divisions. Someone has to win the NFC East crown. Beyond two-and-a-half teams, what team would you take right now over any of the four teams in the NFC West to make the playoffs in a head-to-head bet?
In Week 1, none of them played each other and they went 4-0. Three were on the road. Three were against 2020 playoff teams. And they won them all.
Thanks to the expanded schedule, what you do in the division has less of an impact if you have four quality teams than it ever has. Only six of the 17 games are played against division rivals. The other 44 games they collectively play will be against teams from other divisions (4-0 to start that slate), including the NFC North and AFC South.
Injuries may derail one of them, but it can’t derail all of them. Pay attention to the non-division games the NFC West plays this year. The only reason we won’t see more 4-0 weeks is that they’re going to start playing each other. It’s too early to be flying the “Mission Accomplished” banner, but we may be witnessing history that will be hard to replicate.
Here is the Week 2 Fantasy Football Market Report.
Injuries help make careers and the 49ers have made their share in recent years at running back because of injury. Mitchell, a sixth-round rookie, was supposed to be an afterthought on the practice squad. However, an injury to Jeff Wilson and a healthy scratch of third-round rookie Trey Sermon, left Mitchell as the next man up. He responded with 19 carries for 104 yards and a touchdown and made a case that he should be in the mix at a minimum and the lead dog at a maximum considering Raheem Mostert is out an expected eight weeks.
With so many weapons missing from the New Orleans offense, it’s insane that Winston threw just 20 passes in his debut as the front man for the Saints. He completed 14 of them and, of those, five went for touchdowns. While one game doesn’t a fantasy starter make, one thing seems certain: Putting the boots to Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers has earned Winston the designation as the unquestioned starter – something that wasn’t a guarantee heading into Week 1. Winston was on the field for 60 of the Saints 62 offensive plays. He’s the starter – for better or worse and can be had on the waiver wire.
There were a couple other mid- to late-round fantasy receivers I considered here (Deebo Samuel and Ja’Marr Chase), but Davis was a player who, despite being handed the No. 1 receiver job with the Jets, was an extremely modest acquisition for a fantasy owner. In his debut, Zach Wilson spent most of the day running for his life. Most of his completions were of the short slant variety, but Davis caught five passes for 97 yards (a 19.4-yard average) and two touchdowns. The Jets didn’t win, and Wilson didn’t look great, but it was obvious Davis is the clear-cut No. 1 guy for Wilson. They’re only going to get more comfortable with each other as the year goes by.
There are certain guys I seemed to end up with every year. One who comes to mind is Frank Gore of Indy vintage. He would be my third or even fourth running back because everyone else projected him to hit the wall. He didn’t … until about seven years after that chatter started. He was a draft-and-trade guy in late September. I’ve always loved Ingram. He was ready to bust out before Alvin Kamara showed up in the Big Easy, and they meshed nicely – although cutting into each other’s value. In Baltimore, he showed out before he was quietly shown the door. Any running back for Houston is a problem because they’re going to be behind a lot this year. But, in Week 1, he had 26 carries – 11 in the first half and 15 in the second half. Granted, he only had 85 yards (3.3 a carry), but scored a touchdown. When you’re looking for depth, he’s not going to maintain that workload, but it’s nice to know it’s there. At worse, he’s a 1-yard belly flop for a touchdown late. If Ingram played Jacksonville every week, he’d be a starter every week, but there is value here.
I will be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of Hurts – he strikes me as a poor man’s combo of Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield. However, the Eagles thought enough of him to cut bait on Carson Wentz and stick with cribbage buddies Joe Flacco and Gardner Minshew. A lot of quarterbacks fatten their stats against Atlanta, but Hurts had arguably the best game of his career, all things considered. He completed 27 of 35 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns. He had an incredible target share for the seven players to whom he threw. He had three TD passes to three different guys and no interceptions. And he ran seven times for 62 yards. He hasn’t reached the point that you bench a pedigreed starter to put him in, but he’s getting closer.
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What makes Week 1 so troubling for those who used a first-round pick on Elliott was that the Cowboys were never in deep hole. Yet the Cowboys dropped back to pass 63 times and Elliott had 11 carries. Whether that was a one-game anomaly or not against a dominant run defense, it sure looked like an offense fully prepared to pass 50 times like it did when Dak Prescott was lighting up the NFL in September 2020. The fact Elliott had 11 carries for 33 yards and two receptions for six speaks unseemly toward his consistent role. The one takeaway was that, although the Cowboys had a chance to win Thursday night, they lost. That may have changed the tempo had they given Zeke a chance to do what he does.
The thing the separates great quarterbacks from good ones and good one from bad ones is the regularity with which they have an absolutely garbage game. Donning a man bun and looking almost disinterested, Aaron Rodgers had one of the worst games of his career against New Orleans. Considering it was his first game after his redemptive MVP award, he couldn’t have looked worse. He completed just 15 passes on 28 attempts for 133 yards, no touchdowns — throwing two picks — for a passer rating of 36.8. Nobody who has him is going to bench him, but it least it has to creep into consideration if anything close to this continues.
Often when Minnesota struggles, it is because they don’t get the ball in Cook’s hands often enough. That wasn’t the case in Week 1. He had 26 touches, which, for Cook, should translate into 150 total yards and a couple of touchdowns. He had 20 carries for 61 yards (3.1 per carry) and had six catches for 43 yards (7.2 yards per). The problem isn’t Cook. He still managed 100 total yards and a touchdown. But, his offensive line is hideous – maybe the worst in the league. Things aren’t going to get appreciably better until they have a starting five they can live with – and the left tackle (when he plays) is a rookie. Injuries kill fantasy players and sub-standard starters don’t do much better.
In his debut with the Titans, of the 36 passes targeted to receivers, only six came Julio’s ways. Two that he caught each went for 10 yards. One went for nine. And he got called out by his new coach for a stupid penalty. There is no questioning that Jones is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but he is out of his comfort zone for the first time in his career. The early returns are brutal, which could lend to making a low-ball offer of magic beans to a Jones owner because things will get better, but he is known for lapses in production that string together. He will be benched more this week than perhaps any time in his career.
When CEH was drafted by the Chiefs, the dreams of huge things were running through Andy Reid’s head. Edwards-Helaire’s rookie season was supposed to be the making of legend. It wasn’t. In 13 games, he had three outings with 70 or more rushing yards and two games with more than 40 receiving yards. That was with Le’Veon Bell and Darrel Williams cutting into his time. He didn’t lack for opportunity in his second act. He had 14 of the 16 running back carries and had three receptions. They accounted for 72 yards – 43 rushing, 29 receiving. A trend becomes a trend when it continues.
