NFL Best Ball Upside Scenarios: Running Backs
In the NFL Best Ball version of fantasy football, the later rounds aren’t about finding decent sleeper value so much as finding those who can smash their smash spots for incredible value. Guys who can break weeks on multiple occasions.
The running back position is one where over which the community wars — zero RB, robust RB, everything in the middle, someone has an opinion. Zero RB tries to flip the volatility of the position on its own head by stacking up later and late value on top of an elite WR corps. Robust RB argues that the scarcity of bellcows is the argument for securing a couple of them, despite the fact that we cannot trade them away for value later. I take a more compatibilist approach, that isn’t balanced, but doesn’t subscribe to one approach going into a draft.
But this post isn’t about those earlier-round and top-half approaches. We’re talking about later rounds where we’re filling out our roster.
I promise you — for sure — this is gonna get ugly.
LATAVIUS MURRAY, SAINTS
Taysom Hill likely beats out Jameis Winston to be the Saints QB. And, as much as a running QB is bad for RBs, this might not be a bad situation for the hopes of Latavius Murray.
We can trust the Saints to find the red zone pretty often, which is usually where Alvin Kamara just does his thing. The problem is that Hill has struggled to get Kamara the ball, so Murray could get leaned upon more near the goal line. The only thing that would be missing.
Murray has only had 9.42 carries per game in New Orleans. Without Drew Brees slingin’ the old man game, this up-the-middle aspect of normal football will have to get leaned upon more often and across the whole field more than in the Saints’ past. And with that comes more need to disguise those runs by putting Murray on the field more often when he isn’t getting the ball.
Murray is also their most-trusted blocking back in an offense where the TE runs a lot of routes. Do we love our timeshare back blocking 23.1% of the time, as he did last season? No, but it’s nice to see 57 catches in 69 targets over 798 snaps over his Saints tenure. The volume isn’t fantastic, but a nice bonus, considering that he’s the thunder in a thunder-lightning backfield.
He had six TDs over 48 carries in 2019-20. We’ve seen him get four carries inside the ten three times as a limited back over that span. I’m saying we could see three or four games with opportunity like this season, as he won’t simply be a between-the-20s back anymore. The Saints can’t afford to not utilize his size.
Then, of course, we’re obliged to state the obvious: if Kamara went down with an injury over the course of his high volume of open field action, Murray would become an RB1 as an all-purpose back.
JAMES CONNER, CARDINALS
The great thing about James Conner is that it won’t take an injury for him to put up great weeks. Sure, this is a timeshare with Chase Edmonds, but Edmonds lined up in the slot 96 times in 2020 — more often than any RB in the NFL. His 25.5% slot rate was miles ahead of the next RB with at least 200 routes run — Malcolm Brown, 17.6% — so there’s plenty of air for Conner to suck up.
Not only has Conner been a successful bellcow in the recent past, but the Cardinals showed last year with Kenyan Drake that the mobile Kyler Murray won’t stifle their RB volume. Drake had 18-plus carries in seven of his 15 games; 20 or more in five. The downside is that Drake failed to reach 15 carries in six games, but this is Best Ball; gimme the damn seven and five.
Conner is also a more prolific receiver than Drake could be, yet Drake ran routes on 78.9% of passing plays where he was on the field, compared to Conner’s 72.1% That said, Conner still saw 43 targets to Drake’s 31, two years after catching 55 balls. The Cardinals run game is led by Murray, but Conner as a weapon can be far more than Drake and the Cardinals have showed that they want to use their literal backfield as more of a weapon.
TARIK COHEN, BEARS
This is, um, complex.
David Montgomery was a bellcow last season. But only because Tarik Cohen wasn’t there.
Before Cohen’s injury, dating back to Montgomery’s rookie season of 2019, Cohen and Montgomery played 19 games together. In those games, Cohen only saw 78 carries, but he also saw 113 targets, including nine games with six or more targets. After the Bears’ Week 6 bye in 2019, Cohen had four games of nine-plus targets.
But how can this happen with Montgomery’s high snap count?
- Given the high infrequency of bellcows existing, let alone carrying over from season to season, there is a higher margin of error in projecting Montgomery’s volume than we might think.
- Cohen’s more of a slot receiver who can line up in the backfield than a pure receiving back.
In 2011 and 2012, Darren Sproles lined up in the slot 104 and 109 times at rates of 26.6% and 28.4%. Ever since, the term “Darren Sproles Role” has been thrown around a lot to many failures and I’m here to say that Cohen has that role — one where he will get his targets in the open field, regardless of gamescript or the lead rusher’s volume.
Cohen lined up in the slot 112 times in 2019 at a 26.6% rate and lined up wide a whopping 56 times at a 13.7% rate.
Maybe seeing what’s left over after Montgomery’s volume is barking up the wrong tree. Cohen’s upside lies in the volume he gets after Allen Robinson gets his. Darnell Mooney and Marquise Goodwin are there in a crowded WR pool, but they’re all competing with each other more than with Cohen.
My contention that Cohen is actually competing with nobody.