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The Herd with Colin Cowherd
FantasyPros - Best RB Values for 2026 Fantasy Football Drafts | 4 Running Backs Experts Can’t Stop Drafting (Ep. 2064)
00:21:09
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- [00:00]
Podcast Advertiser
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- [00:04]
Jeff T
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Chris Welsh
What's up, friends and welcome into Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy Football podcast. I am Chris Welsh and I've got two of the brightest and best minds at Fantasy Pros. And what are we here to talk about? Wait, wait, where. Oh, wait, no, I've got Patton Debro. Sorry, I've got Patton Debro. Still pretty great, you guys. Sync that up fantastically. By the way, hat tip to both of you. We got Pat Fitzmorris, Derrick Brown, the king of bros, dbros in the house where we're going to be talking about some running backs. We're not going to go insane with tons and tons of ranks, but we're going to get hyper focused. We're going to talk about four running backs that these fine gentlemen cannot stop drafting because there's floor, there's upside, they've just got to have them. And guess what? Their ECR might be kind of juicy because they are players that are very obtainable. So we've got four of them to be tackling today. Dbro, what's up, brother? You ready to talk some running backs?
- [01:20]
Dbro
Hell yeah, Welsh. I mean, this is the sex appeal show, right? Like it's all in vogue. The year of the running back is back. Run the dang ball. I mean, passing is out the window in the NFL. So this is in vogue, right? Like we're stylish here. Correct.
- [01:35]
Chris Welsh
Okay, very interesting. Take Pat. I would say, does this show and this conversation make the case why you can get back into all your early wide receivers and not have to play the. The early running backs? This, this might be the case. It's not like a no running back situation or anything like that, but these are maybe some of the players that are going to make it a little bit easier for you to tap, you know, wide receiver, tight end for you, Pat. Or wide receiver, wide receiver. What do you say about that?
- [02:02]
Pat Fitzmorris
Yes. Value running backs. Here are the guys we're going to talk about. Walsh and I believe everyone we're going to discuss today has an ECR of RB20 or later.
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Chris Welsh
Okay, so there you have it. You want to get a little bit heavier in the wide receiver streets. Maybe you want to make sure you're getting yourself a Brock Bowers or something like that. These are some running backs that might be speaking to you. If you guys want to join in the conversation you can go to fantasybros.com NFL rankings. You can check out all the rankings we've got going on. You can look where these fine gentlemen have everybody the expert consensus ranks. I believe we're up up over 50 plus rankers that are on there right now. That's only going to continue growing and there's lots of other plays you can check out the ADP to compare against lots of good fun stuff. So go and check that out if you want to follow along. Let's jump into it. We've got four running backs. Dbro, we are going to start with you. Your first running back. He's a guy you can't stop drafting. He's a value we're looking best ball versus ecr. We got the whole thing under the sun. Which running back do people need to know about that you are going to
- [03:02]
Dbro
be targeting Every single time I log in to draft a basketball team or I'm looking at early ADP David Montgomery stands out to me as a massive value. He's RB20 and best ball, RB24 and ECR and I just think people are forgotten what Joe Mixon did in this exact offense a few years ago. In 2024 Mixon was fifth in opportun share, top 15 and snap share, 13th and freaking carries. He finished with 281 touches in that offense and there's nothing stopping Montgomery from flirting with that number or 300 touches this year and he's not washed guys. That's the other part about this. They look at the age on Montgomery and they say can he still be in every down back what we saw in Chicago? I think he can. Like last year on a per touch basis he was still awesome in Detroit. 12th in yards after contact per attempt. We want to talk about three down skill set and him shoving Woody Marks into a clear just change of pace role which I think is going to happen. He was also 22nd in yards per route run, 12th and first downs per route run. Montgomery beat Woody Marks on every single per touch efficiency metric last year and as well as a pass protector regardless of whatever you look at, Montgomery is a better running back. I think they're going to ride him into the ground this year very much Similar to Joe Mixon and he's a top 15 back for me. I think he's got RB1 upside if all the things hit.
- [04:26]
Chris Welsh
What do you think? Just real quick before we get Pat's take on this, what do you think the biggest factor between the best ball and the ECR ranks is? Why is best ball Again, it's not like a tier difference but it's, you know, it's closing in on like mid RB2 versus the back end of RB2. Why do you think the best ball ranking differs from his ecr?
- [04:43]
Dbro
I think his people in best ball will push him up a little bit more. Maybe they're more in line with my thinking and saying he's probably one of the best volume bets that you can make at that part of a draft. So that pushes him up the board just a little bit. Whereas like ECR and people ranking like you got a lot of other running backs like however you want to device this up, like do you want to go for upside? Do you want to go for the safe veteran and the volume play and stuff. So I think some people could be gravitating to younger or potentially sexier names at the low end RB2 territory and it kind of pushes Montgomery down the
- [05:15]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
board a little bit.
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Chris Welsh
I think volume is a really interesting thing there too. Best ball. Maybe, you know, if it's not their first running back or if it is their first, you know, maybe the volume plays into wanting to take some shots later or if it is their second running back, maybe they took a shot a little bit earlier. So volume seems like it's in play there. Pat, what's your take on David Montgomery here? Obviously ECR versus best ball is kind of interesting, but where do you think he is on the reign of like, you know, value betting a guy that you want to take and you think experts are going to be taking.
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Pat Fitzmorris
Yeah, if you can wait and get Montgomery. If you do go with a wide receiver heavy approach in the early rounds. Montgomery is a really nice target in the fifth round or so because there is built in volume for him. I don't see who's going to challenge him for early down carries in Houston and Houston has that great defense, should provide plenty of run friendly game scripts and I think he returns value if he just gets five, six, seven touchdowns this year. The nice thing is there's a path to 10, 11, maybe even more touchdowns than that because he's going to be the goal line guy.
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Chris Welsh
Yeah, touchdown equity seems like it's. I've stared at him in his ranking and like you look at potential upside, even though he doesn't feel like a quintessential upside play, it's like touchdown equity seems like it's like a much more of a premium or in the positive side for him he was best ball RB20 ECR34 Pat super fascinating. Your player is the opposite. Best ball 24 RB and then ECR20. I know this has been one of the guys you've been talking about, but you're talking about players that not just experts are drafting, but Pat Fitz Morris the expert is drafting and wanting to have on a lot of teams. That player is who?
- [06:52]
Pat Fitzmorris
It's Bucky Irving and I don't know if the experts are really drafting him. Every expert I'm seeing on Twitter is fading. Bucky Irving My affinity for Bucky is somewhat personal. I was very out on him in going into his rookie year after he ran a 455 at the combine at 192 pounds even though he had two really good season to wrap up his college career at Oregon, even though a lot of the talent evaluators were raving about him. Started his rookie year as Rashad White's backup, but he was getting about a third of the offensive snaps, maybe like nine carries a game. I wound up picking him up in one of my leagues just before the midpoint of the regular season and just before the Buccaneers reduced Rashad White's role and made Bucky their lead back. I already had a pretty good team and adding Bucky to the mix just gave my team a nitro boost. From week 10 on, Bucky averaged 115 yards from scrimmage per game, scored five touchdowns. He was RB 7 1/2 point PPR scoring over that stretch right between Chase Brown and Derrick Henry. Now Bucky's ECR sitting at RB20 and I think like 54th overall. That's middle of the fifth round and I get that Bucky is coming off kind of a rough season. He had foot and shoulder problems last year, only played 10 games. He went from 5.4 yards per carry to 3.4. I really believe the drop off was more about the Buccaneers offensive line than Bucky himself. Tampa Bay's offensive line just injury ravaged last season. Tristan Worfs missed five games. Cody Mock missed 15 games. Luke Get a Key missed six games. Buccaneers O Line had ranked second in the league in adjusted line yards in 2024. That's a run blocking metric for those not initiated with that stat. In 2025 they dropped to 22nd in adjusted line yards So I acknowledge that the Buccaneers might continue to give Sean Tucker the goal line work, but Bucky is still Tampa Bay's lead back, and I don't want to hear that Kenneth Gainwell is. Is taking over. Gainwell averaged 6.7 carries a game for Pittsburgh last year, and that was a career high. And Bucky Irving is a better pass catcher than Kenneth Gainwell. Bucky has averaged 1.56 yards per out run for his career. Gainwell 1.19. Bucky in 2024 led all qualifying backs in yards per carry after contact yards after contact per carry. Excuse me. 3.93. Had a breakaway run right. Run rate of 34.9%. Ranked sixth in the league in rushing yards over expected per attempt, just ahead of Jameer Gibbs and James Cook. Bucky's a great player. I can't wait to see what he's going to do with a healthier offensive line. That's a very good offensive line when it's intact, even in a bad year. Last year, Bucky averaged 20.3 carries per game. He is not a committee back. Don't believe that. Yeah, I just. I think he's a really good value.
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Chris Welsh
And. And also, like you using the word healthy is really interesting because I think there was just a lot of health questions that were just following him and the valuation of what people wanted to put on him. But, like, he's already running practices, you know, like he's out. Like he. Like that. That, I think is one of the biggest things to be an eye opener, because I think you would almost have the conversation of, like, you know, do you really want to focus more on the injury or do you want to focus more on the other. The other running backs that are there? What is going to take away? I'm just not sure A healthy Bucky Irving can be taken off the field at a dramatic degree. That drops his value. So he does seem like a really good value. But dbro, you've been shaking your head. You're not in full agreement. Obviously, there's roles. Kenny Gainwell could play a passing role. Sean Tucker can play a goal line role. But does that not make Bucky Irving still a top 20 running back? Does that take him out of being a top 20 running back? What say you?
- [10:40]
Dbro
I think the. I really love Pat's point about the offensive line. Last year, because it was decimated.
- [10:44]
Pat Fitzmorris
They.
- [10:45]
Dbro
They couldn't block anybody. They couldn't keep Baker Mayfield upright. I think this offense could definitely bounce back this year. My. My biggest concern about Bucky Irving, like I, I and to Pat's point, yes, Bucky has been the superior receiver to gain well over his career. Gainwell kind of closed the gap with the usage and stuff last year. 1.44 yards per route run them bringing him in off the street in. We've seen Rashad White factory into this backfield in both seasons. My worry for Bucky is if Gainwell can just be Rashad White but actually be better than Rashad White, which is kind of a low bar to clear because Rashad White's never been efficient in his entire NFL career. Even as massive like RB1 season, that hasn't been the case. Then I worry about Gainwell carving more of a role than what we saw previously before Rashad White. But I do think Bucky will still retain the lead back role. My worry, my bigger worry for Bucky Irving is the injuries like and it's, it's I, I don't want to ding him and I didn't ding him coming out because we're living in a new era, the NFL where if you're sub 200 pounds, it used to be like a really big knock on you as a prospect and looking at your, you know, you're projecting your volume forward. But then we had Jameer Gibbs, Austin Eckler says hi, Devon Achan, other players of that size to where they've been given runs of backfield, but those guys have held up to the volume. And Bucky, I mean even looking at last year, he had a foot sprain, a shoulder AC joint spraying. You rewind to 20, 24 hip, back, toe and hamstring issues. And the thing that kind of got buried in all of that was the toe issue. Seemed like it wasn't a short term thing. It's something he's dealt with since college. It might deal with on and off his entire NFL career. So the size kind of is showing up for Bucky Irving. Can he stay healthy? And, and those health concerns are what pushes me with Bucky Irving down the trough just a little bit versus other running backs in that range. But depending on how my team makeup and stuff like that, am I willing to draft Bucky Irving at some spots? Because he could be a massive value if he can stay healthy. Yeah, it's possible.
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Chris Welsh
Conversation is going to be very interesting over the next month how this starts to transpire around Bucky Irving. But just remember, Pat was there first. We got two more running backs coming up. But the running backs we're talking about today are values because, you know, they're simply too cheap. But that only matters if you know when to take them. With Draft intel you can see how your league mates have drafted in the past spot who tends to push running backs up the board and build a plan around your actual draft room. So before you assume one of these running back values is going to fall back to you and follow our ECR, make sure you go to fantasypros.com intel. That's fantasypros.com/intel. Use draft intel and know when you need to make your move. DBRO we're jumping back to you for your second running back value that you're drafting all over the place. And this is the lowest of whether it's best ball or ecr. This is the lowest of any of the running backs values that we have on the board. And you my friend, want to give us a little Tony Pollard. So why don't you drop it for us? Why? Tony Pollard is a RB value that you're drafting this season.
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Dbro
He is an RB3 across, best ball and ECR RB31 on both of those different iterations of rankings and ADP and stuff. And I don't understand why. Like I'm not worried about Tajie Spears. Taje Spears. We haven't seen him be ultra efficient. We haven't seen him be able to stay on an NFL field. And you look at what Brian Daball, the new OC for the Titans, has done in his entire career as an offensive coordinator or a head coach. He rides one running back religiously. You can go all the way back to Devin Singletary even before that. Peyton Hillis. We could talk about Saquon. We could talk about when Cam Scatter Boo before the injury. You can talk about Tyrone Tracy before that and Devin Singletary before Tyrone Tracy took his job. It has been one running back and it's going to be one running back in Tennessee this year and that guy is going to be Tony Pollard. So I don't understand why he's not an RB2 in rankings. I I get that he had a disappointing season, but again, we all think that Tennessee is going to improve this year. The question is how much. We're discussing an offense that crushed Pollard because he couldn't score any freaking touchdowns. He was 49th in red zone touches. This offense was bottom three in points per game and red zone scoring attempts per game. Those numbers are going up with better play from Cam Ward, the addition of Carnell Tate, the addition of Wando Robinson, Calvin really hopefully, hopefully being healthy and if he can't do it then Eleka Manor or Shamiri DK can hopefully step up there and an improved defense and quietly. I don't think that people understand that this offensive line, while I'm not telling you this offensive line is going to be a top 12 unit this year. They were close to that last year in run blocking. This offensive line had the 13th best yards before contact per attempt last year. And that is also without like fielding a competent passing attack. If they do that this year, they could be top 10 in that metric. And then we're discussing they're opening up consistent holes for Tony Pollard in an improved offense. He owns the backfield. He wasn't washed last year amongst 49 qualifying backs. He was 22nd in yards after contact per attempt. So I keep drafting Tony Pollard and at this price point I will continue to draft Tony Pollard because he's an RB3 who is really an RB2, although nobody seems to put respect on his name.
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Tab Ramos
Pat is this though.
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Chris Welsh
I mean DBRA's making a great case here, but the thing that maybe still floats out there is like is Tony Pollard going to be the guy unquestioned player? Because if, if you do believe that I think it is hard to not look at like him outside the top 30 as being a great value if he's going to be untouched in that offense. Is that what you believe or do you think there's bigger questions around Tony Pollard and him usage as an RB1 in his office?
- [16:33]
Pat Fitzmorris
I think he, I think he's the guy and we saw how well he played down the stretch last year when the Tennessee passing game finally got going. That was the key. They just debro said it they couldn't get anything going early in the year. So even though Pollard had the backfield to himself with Taije Spears on ir, it was a rough start. But then gets it going late in the season once Cam Ward starts cooking a little bit. Rattles off three straight 100 yard rushing games late in the season. Also the schedule was kind of sneaky tough last year during that slow start. He had the Texans twice, the Rams, the Jaguars, some really good run defenses. And yeah, I think, I think things set up pretty nicely for Pollard this year. He's in a better spot.
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Chris Welsh
All right, final running back. We're going to be talking about ECR just as an RV to both same overall fantasy pros, expert consensus rank and best ball rank. DeAndre Swift, interesting name. I wasn't sure that we were going to get in here. And Pat, that is your guy. So the RB2 of values. You went from Bucky Irving to Deandre Swift Talk to us about why you're going to be drafting him a whole bunch and why he is such a great RB value because Welsh I think
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Pat Fitzmorris
it's rarely a bad idea to attach yourself to the NFL's best play callers and Bears head coach Ben Johnson might be the best running game designer in the league. Bears were third in rushing yardage last year. They averaged 4.9 yards per carry as a team which also ranked third. They were third in rushing DVOA only behind the Rams and the Bills. Ben Johnson also had the running game humming when he was in Detroit as their offensive coordinator for three years. The Lions ranked 12th, fourth and second in rushing DVOA during Johnson's tenure as the OC. And Ben Johnson likes to run the ball. The Bears were 11th in terms of highest percentage of running game running plays last season. Swift had 1386 yards from scrimmage and 10 touchdowns. He was RB15 in half point PPR scoring. He catches passes. The Bears have a good offensive line. They have Ben Johnson as that run game Mastermind. Swift is RB23 in ECR57 overall. And look, I'm a Kyle Menangai fan. I think he's good but he's not going to displace DeAndre Swift. It's going to be a two way backfield in Chicago, but the Bears are going to be among the league leaders in total running back output because of Ben Johnson.
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Chris Welsh
So that's where I was going to go with you. DBRO was like are we forgetting what about Kyle Menangai? Are we forgetting about him? He has an ECR of 33 but the ending there is where Pat, you know, kind of put the icing on the cake. If yes, it can be tough sometimes. Maybe just on the surface level look at the Bears and you're like can both of these guys eat? I was going to say are one of these two players DeAndre Swift at 23 or common on guy at 33 too overly ranked? But if you believe this is going to be a very run heavy offense, both of these guys are going to be able to eat and be serviceable as either an RB2 or flex. So talk to us about Kyle Menangai is well attached to DeAndre Swift here, this offense and can they both thrive?
- [19:33]
Dbro
I think they could both thrive if they stay as run heavy as they are. Which I think with Ben Johnson it's going to be at least league average with passing rate. So I think there you're still going to get plenty of rushing volume here. I think Manangai is appropriately priced, maybe a tad bit overpriced. I think Swift is is criminally underpriced like he was RB16 and PPR points per game. Even after ManaGuy's emergence after Week 9, he was still RB20 in fantasy points per game. And so if we see and he was, he bested Manangai in every single per touch efficiency metric out there, missed tackle rate, explosive run rate, rushing success rate, everything. So I don't think Swift is going away and I think at this low end RB2, RB23 price tag he's underpriced and I'm going to be drafting him too. I agree with Patty here.
- [20:18]
Chris Welsh
Beautiful from DeAndre Swift, Pollard, Dave Montgomery and Bucky Irving laid the groundwork for four R&B values. For RB values you don't have to put a top 20 tag on you can get later in drafts. Build your team up, build your wide receivers, build your tight ends, make one of these guys an RB2 and in some cases some great RB3s. What do you guys think though? Do you think these are great values? And if not, what values are you guys looking at? Put in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you. You guys want to check out all the rest? Go to fantasypros.com NFL Rankings to check out what all the rankings look like as they change throughout the season. And check out all the great stuff that Pat and DBRO have going on here at Fantasy Pros. Thanks so much for hanging out. I'm Chris Welsh. We will talk to you next time right here on Fantasy Pros.
- [21:00]
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