Use these recommendations for a little last-minute pep in your fantasy football lineup or an investment for the future.
In this series, I’ll try to help find some fantasy football running back diamonds in the rough to help you for this week and beyond. Some will be better suited as bye week fill-ins, others will be wait-and-see bench stashes, and hopefully, some will be stars in the making.
I’m shooting for under 50 percent ownership in ESPN and Yahoo! leagues to make this column, but there will occasionally be exceptions. Here are some previous weeks’ picks:
Week 8: 10. Malcolm Brown, 9. Danny Woodhead, 8. Tarik Cohen, 7. James White, 6. Rob Kelley, 5. Latavius Murray, 4. Theo Riddick, 3. Matt Forte, 2. Jalen Richard, 1. Dion Lewis
Week 9: 10. T.J. Yeldon, 9. C.J. Prosise, 8. Damien Williams, 7. DeAndre Washington, 6. D’Onta Foreman, 5. Andre Ellington, 4. Matt Breida, 3. Orleans Darkwa, 2. Kenyan Drake, 1. Marlon Mack
Week 10: 10. Lance Dunbar, 9. Rex Burkhead, 8. Chris Ivory, 7. Alfred Morris and Darren McFadden, 6. Dion Lewis, 5. Damien Williams, 4. Danny Woodhead, 3. Latavius Murray, 2. Kenyan Drake, 1. Orleans Darkwa
With 32 teams and (at most) two fantasy options at running back on any given team, my goal here is to not give you the same player two weeks in a row unless there’s a significant breakthrough in their status. Now that bye week hell is (effectively) over, these options should be a little more robust:
This marks the third straight week that Williams has graced this list, albeit in his lowest spot to date. Williams was fairly impressive in Week 9, the first in Miami’s post-Jay Ajayi era. Unfortunately, he didn’t build on that performance too much in Week 10, posting just 19 yards on nine carries and two catches for 20 yards.
It seems that his lack of performance won’t cost him, however, and Dolphins head coach Adam Gase still plans to give him about half of the workload going forward, splitting carries and targets with the more effective Kenyan Drake (whose ownership percentages have now mostly graduated beyond “sleeper” status). Here’s what Dolphins offensive coordinator Clyde Christensen had to say this week:
Clyde Christensen said that despite Drake's penchant for big plays, the formula is going to stay the same.
— Adam Beasley (@AdamHBeasley) November 16, 2017
“The formula,” AKA about a 50/50 split of backfield work. Good stuff for Williams, especially with a cushy matchup against a Jameis Winston-less Tampa Bay team this weekend. This is one matchup where the Dolphins, who aren’t exactly an all-star team themselves, could presumably get up big early and lean on the run game to burn clock. Williams could benefit, and his low ownership percentages mean there’s a decent chance he’s available in your league.