RB Rankings
- Cordarrelle Patterson is my RB9 and James Conner is my RB13, while Antonio Gibson is at RB28 for Week 10. You’re drunk 2021 NFL season, please go home, and bring back a healthy Gibson when you return. I do have higher hopes for him going forward, but an already injured player who has the rushing side of the timeshare is not an appealing role against this brutal Tampa Bay run defense. You have permission to bench Gibson and hope for better results later in the season, although he does draw the Panthers’ tough run defense next week. It does lighten up after that, however, with matchups against Seattle and Las Vegas.
- Darrel Henderson ranks second among all running backs with a 75.5% snaps share, so despite lackluster performances in two of his last three games, there’s still a ton of reason for optimism in this high-powered Rams offense. Henderson gets a tough matchup against San Francisco this week followed by next week’s bye, but if he can remain healthy down the stretch he seems poised to be a part of a fantasy championship run.
- Cleveland’s defense looked like a complete unit last week against the Bengals, and running backs have struggled to produce fantasy points against this front seven all year. Damien Harris is a solid play in good matchups, but in tough matchups like this, his lack of pass-catching really hurts his floor. Harris needed a touchdown just to get to 10 PPR points last week against a tough Panthers run defense, and I would expect similar results this week as well. He slips down to the RB19 range in Week 10.
- Maybe I’m too down on Boston Scott and Jordan Howard ranking them in the RB30 range. But we tend to be overly reactionary in fantasy football, and I’m trying to look at more than just their recent success. These are two running backs that we would have laughed at coming into the season if you said that they would be in fantasy lineups, especially with the lack of pass-catching work that we are seeing out of this backfield. The two running backs have combined for a single target over the past two weeks, and outside of the rushing touchdowns against the poor Lions and Chargers run defenses, what have we really seen from these players? I’m avoiding them if possible, as Scott and Howard are somehow getting this done on a 40% snap share.
Green=Strong Starter, Yellow=Solid Starter, Red=Look for Better Options
Week 10 RB Rankings