Five Under-priced Backfields

Identifying Backfields worth targeting, and how to attack them

This will be the first of some more “micro” analysis posts as we finish out Best Ball season and get into redraft. Today I’m writing about backfields I feel are under-priced and want to target on a systemic level.

A common theme in my writing — in particular regarding the RB position — is that while in a given play or game, touches can be a zero-sum proposition, we don’t have to draft that way over the course of a portfolio. Take the Miami backfield for example: it’s probably true that not all of De’Von Achane, Raheem Mostert, and Jaylen Wright will be major hits this year, especially not in the same game. However, we don’t necessarily have to pick a winner. Each player should be judged within the context of their offense, and their own individual range of outcomes (fantasy points don’t just fall out of a coconut tree after all).

At his Round 2/3 turn price, if we’re drafting De’Von Achane we should assume a largely healthy season, and project some level of role growth vis a vis Raheem Mostert, while Jaylen Wright is largely relegated to the bench when both Achane and Mostert are healthy. In fact, if we get a healthy season from Achane that’s how I’d *project* things to go. However, I’m actually over-weight all three backs, most of all Wright — whom I project to hardly see the field if all three backs are active in a close game. The appeal of Wright to me is a bet that should either of the other backs miss time, or should Mostert hit the age cliff in a hurry, or should I be wrong about the base-projection for this offense, I am extremely bullish on the rookie’s ability to be a fantastic real-life fit in a time share role in an elite offense for RB fantasy production, and want access to scenarios where things break in Wright’s favour. The assumptions we make in one draft to support the picks we’ve made don’t have to remain embedded when we have opportunities to bet on other players in the next draft.

While the Dolphins aren’t on today’s list, this is the idea under-pinning today’s column: backfields in which the environment, the collection of players, the price points, or a combination of all three suggest an opportunity for one or major wins at cost. I’ll walk through why I think each of these backfields is so appealing to me, and who I’m betting on.

Honourable Mention: Cleveland Browns

Below is a chart showing the combined half-ppr expected fantasy points per game (xFP/g) of each NFL backfield in 2023.

This chart was my “step 1” in coming to this list, in an attempt to identify more and less RB-friendly environments — before taking into account all the changes for each team this year, and any other necessary context. Because of that, not including the Browns on my list seems a bit out of place, and at least worthy of explanation. Cleveland ranked 6th in the NFL last year in RB xFP, and currently has the latest drafted RB1 of any team (Jerome Ford).

My first inclination with Cleveland was that their RB xFP may have been artificially juiced by the Joe Flacco sample in which Cleveland ran hot on total plays per game, and Flacco happily checked the ball down on short completions. However, the Browns surprisingly averaged more backfield XFP in the non-Flacco weeks. Nonetheless, I’m currently under eight percent on all three commonly drafted Browns backs, and I don’t plan on changing that stance.

The first reason is that I think the Browns had one of the most under-discussed coaching changes in this year’s cycle. Kevin Stefanski will likely remain the play-caller, but he subbed out Alex Van Pelt as Offensive Coordinator with Ken Dorsey — former O.C. of the Buffalo Bills. Van Pelt probably didn’t deserve a firing on merit. Since joining the team in 2020, Van Pelt oversaw a major rebound year for Baker Mayfield, helped coach a Jacoby Brissett offense to respectable levels in 2022, and implemented a major shift in game plan with off-the-coach Joe Flacco to field a competitive offense down the stretch. What Van Pelt could not do however was help scheme a consistently successful offense with Deshaun Watson at the helm.

Over the past two years, it’s been debated whether Watson could fit with Stefanski’s west-coast scheme, noted even in his best years as a better improvisor than in-structure player. The hiring of Ken Dorsey makes a ton of sense if the team is committed to seeing the Watson experiment through, bringing in an offensive mind with more of a spread background, and experience building a game plan around a mobile, backyard-style QB in Josh Allen. If Stefanski wanted more of the same, there was no reason to make this shift. I suspect the 2024 Browns will fuse a lot of Dorsey’s shot-gun, spread concepts into the offense even if the former remains the play caller.

This may be good news for the team, but it’s not likely to be good news for their backs. Ken Dorsey’s offenses in Buffalo rarely leaned on his backs at the goal line, passed at an extremely-high rate, and threw to the backs at a low-rate. Surely a lot of this is on Josh Allen, but (as we’ll discuss soon), the Bills prioritized their RBs far more when Dorsey was let go mid-season and Joe Brady took the reigns.

The more pressing issue in this backfield is that I am unable to conclude who the obvious beneficiary is to any given assumption. Current reporting suggests that Nick Chubb is likely to play this season, but not in Week 1. In the meantime, Jerome Ford is the projected starter, with Pierre Strong cited as his ‘back up,’ while D’Onta Foreman is slated for a short-yardage specialist role akin to Kareem Hunt’s in 2023.

If that reporting is correct, I struggle to see an appealing target. Nick Chubb’s draft position in a given room is extremely volatile, so I’ll happily scoop him when he slides. But at his current 125 ADP I have a very difficult time making a bet on him when he’s surrounded by backs without health concerns who project as major parts of timeshares from Week 1 onward. I’m completely guessing, but my median expectation for a Chubb return is between Weeks 4-6, with a strong likelihood is workload is gradually scaled up upon return. It’s likely you’ll need to wait until Weeks 8-10 for Chubb to project as more than a timeshare back, and his odds of re-injury or poor performance are quite high given the severity of the injury and his age. The path for him to pay off in a big enough way to be worth the early-season zeroes compared to someone like Rico Dowdle or Zach Charbonnet seems thin to me.

I’ve seen some float Jerome Ford as a possible league-winner, but his spike in Week 17 notwithstanding, he was a borderline RB2/3 last year competing with only Kareem Hunt who was employed neither prior to Nick Chubb’s injury, nor currently, while in a top-five xFP offense. I like aspects of his game, but the Browns didn’t trust him in goal line or short yardage situations, which was reasonable given he posted an extremely poor relative success rate.

Early in the year, I thought D’Onta Foreman was the best bet against Chubb’s health and Ford’s limitations. However, with more reporting on this backfield I’ve been scared off. If Strong is seen as the “backup” to Ford, Foreman may have limited contingent value. And Strong plays special teams as well, meaning Foreman may find himself inactive when Chubb returns and likely handles short-yardage duties. Ben Gretch floated this theory on a recent podcast with Micahel Leone and I was quite convinced it’s the most likely scenario.

My fear is that Foreman merely siphons high-value touches before fading from relevant in the playoff weeks, and both Ford and Chubb are too limited by health or skill deficiency to provide meaningful value, while enough bodies remain to blight the contingent upside of any one player. I don’t expect an actual 4-way committee at any one time, but the end result could look as though one existed.

My Exposures: D. Foreman (6%), Nick Chubb (4%), Jerome Ford (4%)

5. Dallas Cowboys

The first team to make my list is the Dallas Cowboys. Unlike the rest of this list, I can’t muster much for a talent-based take here, but at a certain point it’s just *too* cheap. Dallas finished 6th in backfield xFP/g last year and they had absolutely nothing worth leaning on. Tony Pollard — after years of extreme efficiency — ranked solidly in the bottom half of the league’s starters in Rush Yards over Expectation (RYOE), success rate, yards after contact (YAC), and missed tackles forced (MTF). Rico Dowdle graded out better per touch, but was never able to carve out a true 1B role despite Pollard’s struggles.

I view the Cowboys as a fragile offense this year, given the dearth of offensive talent on this roster outside of Dak Prescott and Ceedee Lamb. However, they are still projected to a top scoring offense by Vegas. Despite that, Ezekiel Elliott is the 2nd-last ‘RB1’ off the board at RB38 on Underdog. The Cowboys have committed to ‘RBs Don’t Matter’ in a rather extreme fashion, but in truth, I’m not convinced the Cowboys backfield is actually that much worse than what several other NFL teams will trot out on the field this year; they’re just more honest about their ambivalence. Despite being completely and totally washed, Ezekiel Elliott posted a superior RYOE to mid-round draft picks Rachaad White and Alvin Kamara and his success rate was above the 50th percentile. I don’t think ‘Zeke’ is more than 10-20-percent worse than ‘lead backs’ with much higher ADPs such was Alvin Kamara, Joe Mixon, Rachaad White, Zamir White, Devin Singletary, Josh Jacobs, or Zack Moss. He’s just the most memed.

Rico Dowdle is largely a black box, but he did show some juice in limited opportunities last year, and competing with Zeke and Lollipop guild member Deuce Vaughn is reason enough to pique our interest. I certainly wouldn’t rule out a free agent or trade addition beating out either or both of these backs should it occur, but the Cowboys have yet to take any actions that indicate they care about the RB position even a little bit this off-season. It was a loaded free agency class with several backs signing for mid-level money; the Cowboys signed only Elliott for 1-year and 2-million after the draft concluded. Speaking of the draft, 19 backs were selected; none of whom were taken by Dallas. Nor did the team sign a priority-UDFA. I don’t think the team was wise to walk into the season with such a talent-devoid RB-room, but they had ample opportunities to address this at a minimal cost and chose not to. Further, we just went through this last season with the Cowboys; everyone waited for the other shoe to drop with the team bringing in a legitimate RB2 or 1B behind Tony Pollard, and yet they just rolled with Dowdle.

The odds of this front office bringing in anyone who would clearly slot in ahead of either Elliott or Dowdle are slim in my opinion.

Therefore, my expectation is a 50-40-10 type split with Elliott as the snap leader and goal-line and LDD back while Dowdle receives an even share of between-the-20s carries and more work in the screen game. Deuce Vaughn may figure in for the occasional schemed touch but is simply too small to be more than a bit-player. If that role distribution holds over the course of the season I suspect both Elliott and Dowdle are positive players at cost, and each has the chance for significant contingent upside.

My preferred bet at cost is Dowdle. He’s cheaper, and I see his ceiling as higher. I give him at least some chance of becoming the runaway lead back at average efficiency should he prove himself worth of the coaching staff’s trust. Elliott is simply too un-explosive to play an every-down role for a team even remotely interested in winning games, and has a ceiling to his value regardless of role due to inefficiency. However, the possibility of 200-250 touches and 10+ touchdowns is easy to envision, which would be a massive win at an ADP of 122.

My Exposures: Rico Dowdle (11%), Ezekiel Elliott (9%)

4. Pittsburgh Steelers

Next up is Arthur Smith’s Pittsburgh Steelers. In 2023, the Steelers ranked 7th in backfield xFP, while Smith’s Falcons ranked 4th. The frustrating platoon Smith subjected us to obscured the fact that overall, the Falcons were a strong fantasy backfield. For those who will bring up the endlessly aggravating Cordarrelle Patterson touches, the Falcons would still rank 12th counting only Robinson and Allgeier’s xFP (and every backfield allocated at least some xFP to their RB3+).

For what it’s worth, call it a gut take but I really don’t think the Patterson nonsense is likely to travel to Pennsylvania. Mike Tomlin has had several offensive coordinators over the years, and largely used as few backs as possible; preferring to lean on one workhorse, be it Le’veon Bell, Deangelo Williams, James Conner, or Najee Harris. That was until last year, when Jaylen Warren forced his way into a full-blown timeshare with his undeniable play. Even so, the Steelers allocated just 3.3 xFP to their RB3; no team had fewer. Patterson — who was surely targeted as a kick returner above all else — may receive a few designed looks as a gadget player at either RB or WR, but I don’t suspect he’ll take many legitimate RB touches from his backfield mates if both are healthy, and will play a muted role should either of the two lead backs suffer an injury. I think we’d be better off focusing on Smith’s history of extreme RB-usage and plus efficiency run-schemes than his potential Patterson fetish.

Even beyond Smith, the largest reason to get excited about this backfield is the talent of the players. That’s right — I said players. We all know Jaylen Warren is to advanced-RB-analytics nerds as Neutral Milk Hotel is to sad white teenage boys. But Najee Harris was low-key non-terrible last season in his own right. The Steelers have built up their offensive line over the years from a major weakness to a strength: PFF rates their unit as 9th-best in the NFL. The former first-round pick responded with a respectable 0.31 RYOE/att and strong 41.9% relative success rate per NextGenStats. He also ranked 14th among backs with 3.03 YAC/att. Warren of course ranked 3rd in RYOE/att and in YAC/att, and 1st in MTF/att, in addition to far more impressive receiving numbers.

Harris is not an elite back by any stretch. But I am now convinced he’s closer to a league-average starter when placed in a strong environment than he is to a bum. And while Warren is the far-superior talent, I expect more than enough work to go around while the backs compliment each other quite well. Even more bullish, Russell Wilson has increased in his RB-throw rate in recent years, with a spike in 2022 followed by a massive spike in 2023. I credit much of that to Sean Payton, but he may take some of those lessons with him to Pittsburgh.

The most exciting thing about this set up is that unlike other backfields with two members of a time share priced behind the WR-window, I’m quite secure in the talent profiles of each player in this backfield standing up against chaos. This has become a time share on merit and as a result, you should safely project them to fend off any competition for touches in a base projection, and a 75-80-percent touch share for either back should the other miss time with injury. You can’t quite say the same for backfields like Cincinnati or Dallas where the gap between their currently drafted backs and a replacement level option off the street is likely marginal.

My Exposures: Jaylen Warren (16%), Najee Harris (8%)

3. Arizona Cardinals