Fantasy football running back tiers 2019
Four staff members from FanSided Fantasy combined to bring readers our personal Running Back Tiers for the fantasy football draft season!
A group at FanSided Fantasy decided that with draft season right around the corner, that we wanted to share our personal tiers and give some insight into why we think this way. We broke this up into fantasy football Running Back Tiers, so you know where you are with running backs in your draft.
As we come out with all the positions, the goal is to create what amounts to a mini draft kit to help you navigate a draft board. The three gentleman joining me in this endeavor are Dan Everhart, Dan Palyo(Thunder Dan henceforth) and Joe Metz.
As you dig into the fantasy football running backs, we’re aiming to have wide receivers out later this week.
Please join in the conversation on Twitter(mine is @bucn4life) and @fantasyCPR to let us know what you agree with or what you think we got wrong. It’s just about the most wonderful time of the fantasy football year! To make this one a little easier to digest, we’ve split each Tier into two parts.
Running Back Tiers: Tier One – Part One
Dan
Christian McCaffrey – Unbelievable talent that we should all be familiar with by now. He’s going to be getting a ton of targets which is very valuable in PPR and he’s scheduled for a 300+ touch season. There are a lot of sharp people in the industry taking McCaffrey at 1 overall ahead of Saquon and I like it.
Saquon Barkley – Quadzilla is a monster. It’s VERY reasonable to take him 1 overall ahead of Christian. The Giants are obviously terrible but you can’t really game script Saquon out because he’ll catch a boatload of passes as they play from behind and he can break any one of them for a touchdown from anywhere on the field.
Alvin Kamara – Are you sensing a bit of a theme here in the top tier? Pass catching running backs are the most valuable dudes around. Especially because you are probably (or should be) playing some kind of PPR league.
Kamara is on an excellent offense and they’ve lost Mark Ingram who was taking touches from him. They replaced Ingram with Murray but Kamara is still going to produce as a top tier talent.
David Johnson – I love David Johnson this season. I think people are forgetting just how good he can be because of how underutilized and misused he was last season. This offense is looking to really shoot out of the gates and I think they will, primarily because of DJ.
Ezekiel Elliott – I’ll be honest, I’m terrified of drafting my boy Zeke. Talent alone has him arguably at a number 1 overall pick but I’m dropping him a few here. He’s still in tier 1 because projections have him as my number 3 overall even if he misses 2 games which is crazy if you think about it. That’s how good of a year he could have if he signs.
Joe
Saquon Barkley – No brainer here and no reason he should slip past the first two picks. Could be a slight concern with stacked boxes but he’s a generational talent with unparalleled usage on the horizon.
Christian McCaffrey – 2,000 plus total yards and 10+ touchdowns seems like a given with his involvement on the ground and in the passing game. If Cam’s arm continues to give him fits, that only helps McCaffrey’s stock. Interchangeable with Barkley for #1 overall.
Alvin Kamara – Less volume on the ground than the two above, but arguably more effective with his touches and always the primary target in the passing game for Brees and a PPR gold mine.
David Johnson – Things are looking up for the former RB1 with a new head coach (Kliff Kingsbury) who wants to run at least 70 offensive plays per game. If they want to score, DJ is their best bet to success.
Ezekiel Elliott – I have to put him here based on talent alone, but I’d be lying if I said the holdout doesn’t concern me. His usage in both the passing game and ground game give him a ceiling as high as anyone and his floor is as stable as they come.