Week 7 Streamer Stock Watch
Your usual guide to a hoard of un-usual RBs
Hey folks,
Just as we do every Friday Night / Saturday morning we’re going to run through the ‘Streamer Stock Watch’ — ranking every plausible starting back with a post-100 ADP for this week, plus notes on their dynasty value and match up.
I’m leaving this as a one-off free column for anyone who wants a look into the teeth of the actionable in-season work.
If you want further detail on where to evaluate RBs this week and going forward, check out this week’s Sunday Drive:
STATISTICAL NOTE: utilization data is from Nathan Jahnke of PFF. All qualitative data is from the FantasyPoints Data Suite unless otherwise sourced with exception of the following: Rush Yards over Expected (RYOE) and Percentage of Rushes over Expectation (ROE%) are sourced from NFL Next Gen Stats. PFF Grades are from PFF. BAE Rating and Relative Success Rate (RSR) are from Noah Hills. Juke Rate is from PlayerProfiler.
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SEE: “Metrics Legend” at the bottom for an explanation of each stat and its acronym
THE STREAMER STOCK WATCH
To count as a “streamer” for the purposes of this section, you must have been drafted outside the top-100 picks (underdog ADP), and be a plausible fantasy starter and/or RB1 on their team. The idea here is to give you start/sit advice in the near term for teams relying on these backs, along with a longer-view dynasty stance. The backs are ranked in order of my preference in starting them in the coming week.
The categorizations are taken from my those I used for my pre-season annotated RB tiers. Refer to the legend below for what each mean: (or ask in the comments if you need more clarification)
Tiers ranked in order.
TIER 1 — STREAMERS TURNED STARS
Chuba Hubbard
Production Class: Star
Contingent Class: N/A
Asset Class: N/A
This Week: High-end RB1
Matchup: Elite
Dynasty Value: Base 2
Perhaps it still gets upset by the return of Jonathan Brooks later in the year, but for now Chuba Hubbard is the best streamer in fantasy — taking the crown at least for one week ahead of Jordan Mason.
Since Andy Dalton was named starting QB, Hubbard ranks 6th in the NFL with 18.7 xPPG —and has 21 actual PPG. He even grew his role slightly last week from handling 2/3rds of snaps as he’d done the first 5 weeks when games were competitive, to over 80%.
He gets goal-line work, passing work, and is part of an excellent rushing environment. On the season, he has 3.10 Yards Before Contact per Attempt — which trails only Jonathan Taylor, Derrick Henry, and Joe Mixon among qualified backs.
I often gripe that the fantasy community too simplistically credits the back with yards gained after contact, while giving all the credit for yards gained prior to contact to the offensive line and scheme. It take patience, vision and burst to rack up a 3+ YBC/att figure, and Hubbard has excelled in those areas. However, there’s no doubt the investments Carolina made in the interior offensive line are also paying dividends — Hubbard has a lot of great holes to run through.
For this week, he gets the Commanders — one of the worst defenses in the league. He’s a must start in every league. But I wanted to talk a little more about the medium-term and long-term outlook for this backfield with Jonathan Brooks expected to return in the next two weeks.
Hubbard’s success has really widened the range for Brooks as a dynasty asset in particular — not unlike what Sam Darnold is accomplishing in Minnesota and how that could affect J.J. McCarthy. In the most likely scenario, Hubbard parlays this year’s success into a mid-tier starter contract with another team in 2025 Free Agency, and we can get exceptionally excited about Brooks’ upside walking into this spot. In other scenarios however, Hubbard sticks around in Carolina and we wind up with a frustrating split. For both backs’ sake in fantasy, let’s hope that’s not the case.
For this year however, the combination of Hubbard’s strong play — and excellent results — combined with Brooks’ injury taking additional time to return from his ACL repair, the chances of Hubbard being an all-season starter grow by the day.
My expectation is that whenever we do see Brooks he starts out playing the early-season Miles Sanders role: 25-35% of snaps. From there, it’s on how he plays. We’ve seen the Rams and Cardinals be perfectly happy to ice Trey Benson and Blake Corum this season in favour of workhorse roles for entrenched starters. While Brooks was drafted a round earlier, he’s also returning from a very serious injury. Part of why it was assumed Brooks would more quickly gain the lead role is because we thought less of Hubbard compared to Kyren Williams and James Conner. However, we should meaningfully shift our view of Hubbard at this point — or at least shift our expectation of the coaching staff’s view.
For what it’s worth, while Hubbard’s overall efficiency profile is excellent, his 2.53 YAC/att is average, and his 0.09 MTF/att is well-below. He’s doing an incredible job of getting everything that’s blocked, but it’s possible Brooks could match that and even add a little more individually if he’s at full health. But is likely what he’ll need to do in order to be in a better than 50-50 position even by the fantasy playoffs given the results this team is getting from Hubbard.
TIER 2 — STREAMERS TURNED STARTERS
JK Dobbins
Production Class: Starter
Contingent Class: N/A
This Week: Mid-range RB1
Matchup: Elite
Asset Class: Speculative
Dynasty Value: Base 2
The Chargers offense looked far more functional after the bye week with time for Justin Herbert to heal, and their two star tackles — Joe Alt and Ra’Shawn Slater — each returning from injury.
JK Dobbins was a beneficiary of this, turning in an RB1 week. While 25 carries for 97 yards isn’t the most efficient day, his RYOE was fantastic as I touched on in the Sunday Drive. As Michael Leone will happily tell you, RYOE and YPC are often quite correlated, but I’m inclined to believe that a circumstance like this — when a back is inefficient in YPC but strong in RYOE — that the metric is picking up on the difficult of the assignment fairly well.
That certainly matched my eye test, as Dobbins got the bulk of his carries with a two-score lead against boxes completely stacked up to defend the run. He looked good working in a phone booth, and showing his usual elite vision.
One of my favourite runs watching live was clipped by Nate Tice. As you can see, the left guard and the TE each pull to to the right, and the inside-linebackers flow to the right with them. Dobbins recognizes he can cut this way left immediately and have a one-on-one with the un-blocked safety to the edge. But rather than just sprinting to the edge, watch him run at the safety to get him flat-footed, then quickly cut outside.
Dobbins makes and executes two excellent decisions to give himself free access to the edge in about 2 seconds. Super fun back to watch.
Kimani Vidal came out of that game with a lot of hype — and looked great! He’s a priority add everywhere with long-term upside, but right now Dobbins is the every-week starter, and he should feast in a plus matchup with Arizona on Monday Night.
Jordan Mason
Production Class: Star
Contingent Class: A [in effect]
Asset Class: Speculative
This Week: volatile mid-RB1
Matchup: Poor
Dynasty Value: “Early” 2
We’ve discussed Mason plenty in this column the last few weeks. He rocks out loud. He’s not in his usual #1 spot this week due to a tough rushing matchup with the Chiefs — and the nature of Mason’s profile is more dependent on rushing efficiency than most backs since he rarely catches passes — and his A.C. Joint sprain.
He’s going to play, and shouldn’t suffer much of a performance downgrade. But A.C. Joints carry high re-injury risks, so if you have an option with a comparable projection, you’re better off leaning on them given there is some chance Mason has to leave this game early.
Kareem Hunt
Production Class: Starter
Contingent Class: N/A
Asset Class: N/A
Matchup: Poor
This week: Mid-range RB2
Dynasty Value: Late 3
I’ve been not as impressed by Kareem Hunt as other folks from an on-field perspective. Most of the time I’ve watched him it’s felt like he’s made good choices or even a nice move to shed one tackler, but then you look up and what felt like it could have been a 6-yard gain is actually a 4-yard gain.
That’s just what happens when you don’t have the juice to take full advantage of what’s available to you — or what you’ve created for yourself.
Hunt is a plodder at this point, but he is a competent one, and more importantly he’s the clear lead RB for the Kansas City Chiefs. That’s worth a start.
Brian Robinson Jr. (if active)
Production Class: Starter
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: N/A
This Week: Volatile RB2
Matchup: Elite
Dynasty Value: Base 2
If we knew Robinson was fully healthy he’d be in the RB1 conversation this week given the matchup vs. the Panthers. He practiced this week and is being labelled a game-time decision. I suspect he plays, but it’s not a guarantee, and when we last saw him in Week 4 his snaps were managed.
I’d rank him in the RB16-24 range if active, and would say to break ties away from or toward him depending on whether you need more floor or ceiling.
Chase Brown
Production Class: High-end Streamer
Contingent Class: A
Asset Class: Speculative
This week: Mid-range RB2
Matchup: Average
Dynasty Value: Base 2
Chase Brown took over the 1A role (arguably the “1” role) last week, and now is the first time he’s separated from Zack Moss in a major way in these rankings.
Expect him to handle 65% of the RB touches, even if the snaps are a little closer with Zack Moss playing in most LDD situations. This is a better matchup for Brown than it is for Moss as well. Jim Schwartz plays a lot of single-high, stacked fronts. This lends his rushing defenses toward high stuff rates, but can be prone to giving up big hits as well.
** TIER 2B — CONTINGENT STARTERS **
Austin Ekeler
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: A [potentially in effect]
Asset Class: N/A
This Week: High-end Flex if Brian Robinson starts, Mid-range RB1 if not
Matchup: Elite
Dynasty Value: Early 3
Ekeler is startable in any case this week given the matchup and the chance that Robinson is limited. But if he misses, we saw him handle the vast majority of touches last week over Jeremy McNichols — whose skillset makes him a better Ekeler replacement than a Robinson replacement.
He is a legitimate RB1 if Robinson misses the week.
Antonio Gibson
Production Class: Bench
Contingent Class: B [potentially in effect[
Asset Class: Speculative
Matchup: Elite
This week: streamer if Stevenson is active, mid-range RB2 if not
Dynasty Value: Base 3
Gibson found little running room in his last spot start vs. the Texans. But the Jaguars are not the Texans, and took another hit to their run defense this week after trading away Roy Robertson-Harris who — at least in prior seasons — was a very strong run defender.
The Jaguars also remain a sieve vs. pass-catching RBs. We noted this with the Colts a couple weeks ago and saw D’Andre Swift take advantage last week. James Cook, De’Von Achane, Ty Johnson, and Dare Ogunbawale have all posted strong receiving lines against them. Gibson should feat in the screen game if he gets the chance.
If Stevenson is out, expect Gibson to handle 65-70% of snaps and most of the HVTs so long as the game is reasonably close. I’d also add Hasty as a desperation streamer in that case given the pass-catching matchup.
If Stevenson plays, Gibson may still get closer to half the touches than usual due to Stevenson’s health, and the matchup really suits him. He’s in flex consideration in any event.
Tank Bigsby
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: B [potentially in effect]
Asset Class: Speculative
This Week: Volatile Flex if Travis Etienne is active, mid-range RB2 if not
Matchup: Strong
Dynasty Value: Base 2
Travis Etienne is a game-time decision after practicing the whole week. If it were me running the team, I’d give him the week off after an early-season now affected by hamstring and shoulder injuries. But Doug Pederson knows this could be his last game, and likely does not have the benefit of the long view.
We’ve seen what a limited-by-injury Etienne workload looks like, and it results in a messy 3-way committee in which he shares early-downs with Bigsby and D’Ernest Johnson plays LDD snaps — and occasionally gets a run form the 9-yard line to put me on tilt.
If Etienne is up, both him and Bigsby are very volatile flex plays.
If there’s no Etienne, you can count on Bigsby to play the majority of early downs as long as the Jaguars are in neutral or positive script. There’s a good chance of that this week as 5.5-point favourites vs. the Patriots, but seeing Johnson dominate snaps in comeback mode last week adds a lot of risk in case things go south.
D’Ernest Johnson would also make the desperation streamer list if Etienne is out.
TIER 3 — STREAMERS
Tyrone Tracy
Production Class: High-end Streamer
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: Upside
This week: Volatile Flex
Matchup: Average
Dynasty Value: Base 2
We discussed this backfield in the Sunday Drive, and since then Brian Daboll confirmed he wanted to “ease in” Devin Singletary.
I suspect the veteran still plays slightly more snaps, while Tracy gets the majority of the high-value touches, in particular in the passing game.
With his athleticism, that makes me put Tracy at the top of this group of backs in which there is a fairly wide range of outcomes in each’s workload this week.
Tyler Goodson
Production Class: Low-end Streamer
Contingent Class: C [in effect]
Asset Class: N/A
This Week: Low-end Flex
Matchup: Strong
Dynasty Value: 4
The Colts started leaning on Goodson more last week playing from a slight-deficit after Trey Sermon continued to give them nothing on the ground. Then they went back to Sermon in close-out mode.
Goodson is pretty blind, but he has juice, and you just can’t operate any sort of run-game with the way Sermon is playing.
Maybe I’m over-indexing on my talent perception between two marginal players and the overall distribution of touches remains the same as it’s been the last two weeks, but Shane Steichen has talked up Goodson and Sermon was on the injury report this week as well. This team is 3-3, and likely gets Jonathan Taylor back in short order. I think rational coaching prevails and they give the rock more to the back with more big-play ability to try and get this win.
That being said, I don’t expect more than 3-4 RB targets this week from Anthony Richardson, and their QB is now their best goal-line back by far. The floor here is quite shaky.
Bucky Irving
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: Speculative
This week: Low-end Flex
Matchup: Poor
Dynasty Value: Base 2
This is another backfield we spent a lot of time on in the Sunday Drive. Since then, Liam Coen said the plan is to give all three backs an early series and then ride the hot hand.
I’m not taking this completely literally, but I do think there is a major element of the team not having decided yet how touches will be allocated.
If I had to play any Bucs back this week it would be Irving. He has the talent edge over Rachaad White, and I think there’s a better floor to his workload than with Sean Tucker. But I take the Tucker threat seriously, to the point that I preferred Irving as a weekly start when White was healthy prior to last week’s events than I do now, despite his strong play.
Devin Singletary
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: N/A
Asset Class: N/A
This week: Volatile Flex
Matchup: average
Dynasty Value: Early 3
Zack Moss
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: N/A
This Week: low-upside Flex
Matchup: Poor
Dynasty Value: Late 2
Ray Davis (if active)
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: Speculative
This Week: Volatile Flex
Matchup: Poor
Dynasty Value: Base 2
Prior to the quad injury he sustained in practice this week, I’d have slated Davis for at least 35-40% of the early down rushing work this week after his breakout performance on Monday night.
The hope long term is that they decide the dynamism of Davis, James Cook, or both, is worth taking Ty Johnson out of the rotation for and instituting a 2-man backfield. The Bills have never trusted Cook in LDD situations where his value as a pass catcher is drowned out by his lack of size as a pass protector.
I do think Davis would excel in that role however, and would love to see this backfield get toward a split of early-down rushing, Cook getting the creative pass game usage on early downs, and Davis playing in LDD situations.
I think we get there at some point this season, but perhaps not this week. They likely slow play Davis off the injury, and as a result he won’t be in many of my lineups.
TIER 4 — DESPARATION STREAMERS
Nick Chubb
Production Class: Starter (when/if ramped up)
Contingent Class: N/A
Asset Class: Speculative
Matchup: Elite
This Week: Volatile Flex
Dynasty Value: Late 2
I have no idea what to expect from Chubb’s workload in his first game back. He’s helped by the absence of Jerome Ford, so I suspect he splits early down rushing work with D’Onta Foreman while Pierre Strong probably has the best floor as the passing downs back.
I do think even if Chubb is highly limited that they’ll get him the ball often whenever he’s on the field, and I’m sure they’d love to get him in the end zone given how desperate this team is for a feel-good story.
If he looks good, he should be a starter within a few weeks. Whether and when we see anything resembling the Nick Chubb of old, I have no idea. But I’m sure as hell rooting for it.
Sean Tucker
Production Class: Low-end Streamer
Contingent Class: C
Asset Class: Speculative
This week: Volatile Flex
Matchup: Poor
Dynasty Value: Late 3
Tyler Allgeier
Production Class: Low-end Streamer
Contingent Class: A
Asset Class: Upside
Matchup: Strong
This week: Low-end flex
Dynasty Value: Early 3
Trey Sermon
Production Class: Low-end streamer
Contingent Class: C [in effect]
Asset Class: N/A
Matchup: Strong
This week: Low-end Flex
Dynasty Value: N/A
Pierre Strong
Production Class: Low-end Streamer
Contingent Class: C
Asset Class: N/A
Matchup: Elite
This Week: Dart throw flex
Dynasty Value: N/A
Alexander Mattison
Production Class: Low-end streamer
Contingent Class: B minus
Asset Class: N/A
Matchup: Strong
This week: Volatile Flex
Dynasty Value: 4
It sounds like Zamir White is back this week. If that’s not the case, move Mattison up to the low-end RB2 range given his matchup and volume. If White’s back, I do still prefer playing Mattison, but I vastly prefer playing neither.
I don’t know what split to expect but it will be some form of one, and there’s not enough value in this backfield to split.
Zamir White
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: N/A
Asset Class: N/A
Matchup: Strong
This week: Dart throw flex
Dynasty Value: Late 3
Justice Hill
Production Class: Low-end Streamer
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: N/A
Matchup: Elite
This Week: Low-end flex
Dynasty Value: 4
TIER 5 — Extreme Desperation Streamers
D’Onta Foreman (CIN), Zach Charbonnet (SEA), Ty Chandler (DET), Braelon Allen (PIT), Emmanuel Wilson (LAR), Jaylen Wright (IND), Samaje Perine (SF), Isaac Guerendo (KC), Kimani Vidal (AZ), Blake Corum (LVR), Miles Sanders (WAS)
ON BYE // PLAYED TNF // INJURED
Jerome Ford
Production Class: Stramer [TBD with Chubb back]
Contingent Class: N/A
Asset Class: Speculative
Dynasty Value: Base 3
Rico Dowdle
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: N/A
Asset Class: Speculative
Dynasty Value: Base 3
Tyjae Spears
Production Class: Streamer
Contingent Class: A
Asset Class: Upside
Dynasty Value: Base 2
Jaleel McLaughlin
Production Class: Low-end Streamer
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: Upside
Dynasty Value: Base 3
Roschon Johnson
Production Class: Low-end Streamer
Contingent Class: B
Asset Class: N/A
Dynasty Value: Base 3
Metrics Legend:
RYOE/att = Rush Yards over Expectation per Attempt (NFL Next Gen Stats)
ROE% = Percentage of Rushes over Expectation (NFL Next Gen Stats)
BAE Rating = Box-Adjusted Efficiency Rating, A box-count weighted efficiency metric comparing a RB vs. his teammates created by Noah Hills
RSR = Relative Success Rate, a metric created by Noah Hills to measure a running back’s rate of successful carries vs. that of their team-mates
YAC/att = Yards After Contact per Attempt
YBC/att = Yards Before Contact per Attempt
MTF/att = Missed Tackles Forced per Attempt
PFF Grade / PFF Rushing Grade = Qualitative Film Grade assigned by Pro Football Focus
Juke Rate: PlayerProfiler’s tackle avoidance metric, combining both broken tackles and evaded tackles
EXP%: Percentage of rushes of 15+ yards
YPRR: Yards per Route Run
TPRR: Targets per Route Run
HVT: High Value Touches (receptions and goal-line carries)