The 5 Most Slept on Running Backs in 2021 Fantasy Football

The 5 Most Slept on Running Backs in 2021 Fantasy Football

Already went in on Damien Harris, so he won't fit this category, but his Underdog ADP of 83.5 is still disrespectful, tho it's moved up 5 spots since making that video

Leonard Fournette - Tampa Bay Bucs

Current ADP: RB34 | 93

Listen here, there wasn't anybody harder on uncle lenny last year than me...

 

but... it's a new draft its a new smashhhhhh

 

 dddHe's just a part of a backfield you want a piece of. To be completely honest, I'll take Fournette in Round 9, Ronald Jones in Round 10 if I miss Lenny. I prefer Lenny, but this is a backfield that I don't think we're realizing as fantasy players just how good it's going to be.

Last year, Fournette was a 4th/5th round pick and Rojo a little bit after that.

Yes, Brady is a monster and this passing offense is fun and shiny, but there's going to be so much going around to eat for everyone. It's a family re-union and Uncle Lenny has a seat at the table. This offense averaged over 30 ppg last year, 2nd highest scoring in the league.

On top of that, the passing game just won't need much volume. Bc they're going to be so efficient moving the ball downfield, but more importantly that defense is going to be smothering. It's going to be high levels of defenses, high levels of running the ball and wildly efficient passing numbers. Brady had his highest TD rate since 2010 and Fournette scored on just 1-of-9 GL carries. Something's going to give there.

Things were weird in Tampa, especially to start the year, new faces, new players, new places, injuries, people in and out of the lineup - but when it mattered, like in real life, your mother's brother showed up.

Fournette rushed 64 times for 300 yards in the Bucs' four playoff games on top of playing third-downs. Ronald Jones only made three appearances in the postseason. He earned 35 carries for 139 yards in those contests 

Fournette scored 7 times in his final 7 games for TB last year. 

And as much as you needed to clench your ass every time Brady checked down to a running back last year, the volume was there for Fournette, he had 47 targets in 13 games, close to 60 on a full 16 game slate. And the drops were uncharacteristic for him. He can catch. He just chose not to last year. He was eating too many snickers bars in the summer.

Fournette is a true stand-alone value fantasy RB with really, really high upside if something happened to RoJo given this offense. And, like I said, vice verse. I don't dislike RoJo either.. I was pretty high on him last year, and he's proven to be way better than people gave him credit for, but it's clear he's not getting work in the passing game, and it was Fournette that they rode when it mattered last year.

 

Zach Moss - Buffalo Bills

Current ADP: RB36 (98)

This is sort of like a poor man's version of Ronald Jones & Leonard Fournette in Buffalo.

Despite being linked to reports of just about every FA running back as well as possibly drafting one, the Bills only added Matt Breida who might as well have no ankles at this point.

TB and BUF are similar in that they both have very good offenses, that're going to score a ton (TB - 2nd in scoring = 30.8, BUF - 3rd = 29.9) of points in 2021. Someone on this team is going to score 10 rushing touchdowns.

I know, it's going to be Josh Allen.

Singletary stinks. Like really stinks. He's just an undersized version of Moss. His splits when Moss was healthy vs. not: 

When Moss was not hurt, he out-carried Singletary on the GL 11-3. Singletary saw 50 targets, sure, but 21 of them (42%) came in the first four weeks of the season. Two of those games Moss was out, so 42% of his targets came in the first 25% of the season. Averaged over 5/game in September, and just 2.6 over the remaining 12 games. Singletary was more or less phased out once Moss finally got healthy. 

What else I found interesting, was that Zack Moss actually wasn't bad last year. Like as a runner. I'm not going to lie, this shocked me. I liked him in college, and I like the ambiguous situation this year, in a great offense, but I didn't expect to see this:

His avoided tackles /attempt per PFF was 14th in the league last year and tied with Austin Ekeler, Aaron Jones, Chris Carson, Josh Jacobs and CEH. Good company.

I'm not saying Moss will get all the GL carries, bc Allen will get a bunch but he was 16th in the league in GL carries while missing 3 games, there's not reason he can't be top-10 or even top 6-8 in that offense.

  

Gus Edwards - Baltimore Ravens 

Current ADP: RB40 (115)

This is a popular pick for a late-round guy to target.

Edwards has been awesome as a role player for the Ravens in his three years. He's seen at least 130+ carries in each of his first three seasons and averaged over 5.0 yards per carry each and every year. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm willing to be he's in very, very shallow company with that stat.

 

Alright fuck u guys, I looked at the numbers.

I mean, Dobbins is the explosive guy, Gus has a very capped ceiling obviously, but a little bit of TD luck will go a LONG way with Gus. And now with Ingram completely out the picture, it's not unlikely to see it.

This is obviously the most run-heavy team in the NFL and Gus has averaged just about double-digit touches/game in his 3 NFL seasons.

Double-digit touches isn't anything to go crazy about, especially double-digit touches that aren't receptions and probably not "explosive" plays, but just bc they're not explosive doesn't mean they can't be chunk plays.

 

Gus is probably a better athlete than most people realize. 80th percentile WASS, actually higher than I realized. But this comes as no surprise to me

This is a really good Ravens team and they're going to blow some teams out in 2021, Gus's game script is going to be juicy. They start the year off with LV, KC, DET and their fantasy playoffs are CLV, GB, CIN.

 

Honorable Mentions

yall can waste your time in the comments about handcuffs where your only analysis is if this guy gets hurt - sure, whatever Tony Pollard, etc. I'm firmly on the stance of draft your own handcuffs, not other peoples in redraft, which somehow has become a wildly unpopular take and i love to see it.

 

James Conner - Arizona Cardinals

Current ADP: RB38 (104)

I've talked about Conner a bunch already this offseason, in reference to him being a reason I'm not drafting Chase Edmonds.

Kliff has shown over the last three years he doesn't want to feed Chase carries. He had a career high of 95 carries last year in a year that Kenyan drake suffered a high ankle sprain and chase had a damn 25-carry game.

Kenyan Drake saw 21-GL carries, Chase saw just 1.

Kyler was already not a huge check down to the RB guy - so you add Rondale Moore and AJ Green to the pass-catching mix and I'd rather have the guy getting carries, and GL work than the pass-catcher, especially 4 rounds later. I don't think Conner is anything special, at all, but their's a price for everyone. And this is right for him.

 

David Johnson - Houston Texans

Current ADP: RB42 | (120)

This list is going to make me throw up.

It's been the theme the whole time, these shitty older backs that were so far overpriced last year, are a value now.

And now I'm byke. Should you be drafting anyone on this Houston team, probably not. But I imagine this team is going to be similar to the Bengals, two years ago when Dalton got hurt. And they literally fed Mixon 30 carries/game just to kill clock and not get beat 45-0 every game. It didn't stop that from happening, but DJ might be forced into a high-volume role and believe it or not, I think he's. got some left in the tank.

 

Javian Hawkins - Atlanta Falcons

RB80zillion | (134313)

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