Jordan Mason: Minnesota Vikings
(2025 ADP: RB31, 94 overall)
Things set up exactly as I drew them up in my head. Aaron Jones is old, plodded to 4.2 yards per carry, and missed five games. Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell gave Mason the goal line work like he said he would. And Mason turned it into six rushing touchdowns and led Minnesota in rushing. NAILED IT. Right?
Not so fast, my friend. Mason finished as RB42 in ppg. How?
In the 12 games they played together, Jones out-carried Mason 11-to-6. Even worse, his efficiency regressed to a career-low 4.8 YPC. It turns out you can be right about the depth chart, the goal line, and the age curve, and still hand your readers a ninth-round pick scoring eight points a week.
My bad.
Verdict: Miss
James Cook: Buffalo Bills
(2025 ADP: RB14, 42 overall)
““It’s like I have ESPN or something”
– Karen Smith (Mean Girls)”
– Jay Felicio (QB List)
Every word of this one hit. James Cook led the NFL in rushing with 1,621 yards on 309 carries, scored 14 total tuddys and averaged 5.25 a pop. THE RB6 in points per game. Third straight RB1 season at an RB14 price.
One thing I will take the slight L on is my argument was that I argued his efficiency would overcome lighter volume, and I was hedging against something that never happened. Buffalo gave him 309 carries and 342 total touches, both career highs by a mile. The receiving stayed thin as I said, 40 targets and 26th at the position, and it didn’t matter. I built an elaborate case for why 200 carries would be enough, then he got 300.
Dear Diary. JACKPOT
Verdict: Hit
Quinshon Judkins: Cleveland Browns
(2025 ADP: RB26, 76 overall)
I’ll give myself the process and take nothing else.
The Jerome Ford section holds up. Ford was a non-factor, Dylan Sampson never threatened the job, and Judkins walked into the three-down workhorse role I said was waiting for him. 230 carries and 256 touches in 14 starts is the usage I promised.
What I got wrong is that he wasn’t good with it. He averaged 3.6 yards per carry, among the worst marks in the league, and finished RB26 at 12.1 points per week. That’s exactly his ADP. You paid RB26 and got RB26, the fantasy equivalent of driving to the store and back.
Two things muddy the grade. An assault charge that was dropped cost him all of training camp and Week 1, and that news broke after this article was published. Then a dislocated ankle and fractured fibula in Week 16 ended his season during championship week. I don’t get credit or blame for either.
Verdict: Push
Kenneth Walker III: Seattle Seahawks
(2025 ADP: RB16, 50 overall)
This is the one that stings, because the analysis was good.
I said the line would improve, the run rate would climb under Klint Kubiak, and Walker’s efficiency was being buried by circumstance rather than decline, and I was one million percent correct. He went from 3.7 yards per carry to 4.6, set a career high with 1,309 total yards, and finished as PFF’s highest-graded running back in football. Everything I claimed was suppressing him got fixed, and Walker responded like I said he would.
He finished RB22 in total points and RB28 in points per game at 11.3, the worst per-game number of his career. Zach Charbonnet took the workload I assumed Walker would inherit, and the touchdowns dropped to five. I said top-five potential at an RB16 cost. He was a bench player.
Then he ran for 135 yards and won Super Bowl MVP, roughly three weeks after the fantasy season ended. Perfect.
Verdict: Miss
Went 1-for-4 here, even though it feels like I was ever so close to 3-for-4. Let’s turn things around in 2026.
Omarion Hampton, Los Angeles Chargers
The only knock I’ve heard on Hampton this offseason is that Mike McDaniel brought in Keaton Mitchell and seems to like him. First off, how dare you that is not new information. In 2023, he had 31-year-old journeyman Raheem Mostert and rookie De’Von Achane finish fourth and fifth among running backs in PPR points per game from the same backfield. The talent earns it, McDaniel feeds the guy. Achane took 55% of Miami’s carries in 2025, amassed over 1,800 total yards, scored 12 touchdowns, and led the league at 5.7 yards per carry on his way to a top-five finish. That happened in an offense that ranked 24th in rushing attempts, 31st in total plays, and 32nd in situation-neutral pace. Imagine what it looks like when the surrounding cast is not actively working against you.
Through four games, Hampton averaged 17 touches and 95 total yards, ranking as the RB13 in points per game before an ankle injury in Week 5 ended the fun like a show that was abruptly canceled after the season finale ended off a cliffhanger. Hampton was top 10 in explosive run rate and, despite only playing in nine games, still handled 80% of the team’s running back carries inside the five.
Then he spent the rest of the year hurt and still averaged 15.1 fantasy points per game, 13th at the position, while ranking third among all backs in forced missed tackle rate per PFF. In nine games, he had 156 touches, 737 scrimmage yards, five touchdowns, 4.4 yards per carry, and 32 catches. That is a guy producing well short of full health in an offense whose line was collapsing around Justin Herbert every week.
Everything that hurt him last year is getting fixed. Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater are back healthy. Greg Roman is out, and McDaniel is in. That means an outside-zone scheme built by arguably the best run-game architect in football and a passing game that has finished with a running back in the top five in targets for two years running.
Hampton has the talent, offensive, and explosiveness that make a top-5 fantasy finish attainable regardless of his workload. I’m planting the flag he’ll go HAM a ton.
Jordan Mason, Minnesota Vikings
Oh boy, here we go again. Yes, Jordan Mason finished as the RB42 in PPG last year.
Draft him anyway.
Among backs with at least 100 carries, Mason ranked tenth in explosive run rate, seventh in rushing success rate, ninth in missed tackle rate, and fifteenth in yards after contact per attempt, per Fantasy Points Data. He is a good running back, doing well on 159 carries. He put up 758 yards and six touchdowns at 4.8 yards per carry while barely on the field, yet still led Minnesota in rushing.
The main obstacle to real volume is 31-year-old Aaron Jones, who averaged 4.2 yards per carry last season and missed five games. One more year of wear on tires that were already bald, from a back who was less efficient of the two, I’m not concerned whatsoever.
Everything else is improving. Minnesota scored 33 total touchdowns and ranked 26th in scoring in 2025, a number unlikely to repeat with this roster. You pay nothing for a back who produces at a top-ten rate whenever he touches the ball, on an offense that should improve, sitting behind a guy whose age is working against him. I’m picking up my tattered Mason flag from 2025 and firmly planting it once again in 2026. Sometimes you’re not wrong, just early.
Travis Etienne, New Orleans Saints
Travis Etienne Jr. was not that good last season. So why is he a flag plant? Because the touches are about to be absurd.
Etienne finished RB14 in points per game, yes. But most of that was touchdowns. He scored a career-high 13, and six came through the air. Before 2025, Etienne had exactly one receiving touchdown in his NFL career. A bit flukey. His efficiency didn’t justify the finish either, finishing 34th in yards after contact per attempt, 37th in explosive run rate, and 28th in yards per carry among backs with at least 100 carries. He inherited a workload nobody projected when Jacksonville traded Tank Bigsby, and he cashed it in the most volatile way possible. New Orleans gave him four years and roughly $12 million a season to be the guy, and then the depth chart cleared itself out. Alvin Kamara sprained his MCL in the August 18 joint practice against Dallas and is expected to miss at least the first month of the season. Already turning 31 off a year with career lows in rushing yards (471), yards per carry (3.6), receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns. He scored one time in 2025. One.
Etienne is going to walk into September with no meaningful competition for early-down work, goal-line work, or third-down work, on a team that just watched its rookie first-round receiver go down for two months and is going to lean on the run because it has to.
I’ll admit, the offensive environment got dramatically worse and that will cost him touchdowns. Fine. But I’ve learned my lesson from fading the Chase Browns.
Etienne’s 2025 finish was a tad fraudulent, but the 2026 volume should be immense.
Kenneth Gainwell, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Time to get the Kenny G bit out of my system, because I’ve been using it since March, and my editor has to be sick of it by now.
Kenneth Gainwell played some sweet, sweet sax-a-ma-phone in 2025, totaling 1,023 yards and eight touchdowns for Pittsburgh, took home team MVP as voted by his own locker room, and hit free agency at just the right time, as his 73 catches were the fourth-most among running backs. His 486 receiving yards were fifth. He also averaged 4.71 yards per carry on his 114 rushes, with an explosive run rate better than James Cook or Jonathan Taylor, a missed-tackles-forced rate better than De’Von Achane, and a top-ten success rate. That’s not a change-of-pace guy. That’s starting potential sharing a backfield.
Tampa gave him two years and $14 million with $10 million guaranteed, which is not backup money, and the staff has waxed poetically about him all offseason. Yeah, Bucky Irving is still here. But in ten games last season he was last in yards per carry and seventh-worst explosive run rate among backs with 100-plus attempts. Rachaad White is gone. Inside the five, Irving got zero carries, White got eight, and Sean Tucker got 11. Gainwell’s numbers in that area were better than all of them, and there are whispers Tucker may end up a cap casualty.
Gainwell is being priced as a handcuff and is set to begin the season as at least a co-starter. He’s got standalone PPR value if Irving is solid and a top-fifteen ceiling if he isn’t. Kenny G is about to play a much longer solo than anybody has him down for.