Fantasy Football RB Report: Meet the new leader of the Broncos’ backfield, Audric Estimé

On By Littum

Running backs remain king in fantasy football. While it feels like there are more elite quarterbacks and wide receivers than ever before, the pool of consistent, reliable running backs is dwindling. This makes it all the more important to find value at running back in fantasy football. To help you with that, I’ll take a look at a few backfields each week that stick out based on recent trends or new information we’ve learned.

Week 10 featured a mixed bag of running back situations around the NFL. There were a few rookies starting to earn more work, some running backs re-establishing themselves after battling injuries and a veteran holding calls for a shared workload.

Without further ado, let’s get into my top backfield takeaways for this week.

I am pleasantly surprised. After claiming Audric Estimé would get more work for the Broncos last week, Sean Payton actually backed it up. Estimé led the Broncos in touchdowns against the Chiefs, with 14 carries to Jaleel McLaughlin’s two and Javonte Williams’ one. Estimé also played a season-high 26 snaps, which was more than Williams and McLaughlin combined. This was a bit of an odd situation because McLaughlin started the game for the Broncos and Williams was also used on the team’s first drive, but Estimé saw pretty much all the work after ripping off two explosive runs late in the first quarter. This indicates that the Broncos may be running the hot hand on a weekly basis based on who looks the best early, but still, I think it bodes well for Estimé.

Estimé should be this week’s top priority in relief, even if his usage isn’t a switch for good. It’s extremely rare to find the RB1 on a team this late in the season without an injury, which makes Estimé a huge potential value if he continues to see this type of volume. His lack of involvement in the passing game limits his ceiling a bit, but I’d still be comfortable spending 15-20% of my FAAB budget on him as he could become a solid RB2 for your team.

Meanwhile, I’d avoid starting Williams for the next few weeks, as he could very well become the team’s second or even third running back for the rest of the season, and the Broncos offense isn’t nearly productive enough to support multiple fantasy-relevant backs.

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Gus Edwards returned from a five-week stint on injured reserve and had a fairly productive day. He ran for 55 yards on 10 carries and got back to his usual impressive yard-per-carry marks after a slow start to the year. Neither Edwards nor JK Dobbins had a particularly noteworthy fantasy day, mostly because third-string running back Hassan Haskins grabbed a one-yard touchdown. Unfortunately, fantasy darling Kimani Vidal seems to have been sidelined with Edwards back; Vidal was a healthy scratch this week.

Going forward, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the Chargers’ goal-line-carry distribution specifically. If Edwards, who was excellent as a “closer” last year, starts eating into Dobbins’ short yardage work, it would make for a pretty confusing fantasy situation. Although Jim Harbaugh has made a point to label the Chargers a run-first team, they’ve quietly been one of the pass-heavy offenses over the past few weeks, ranking third in neutral down pass rate since week 5.

I’m not sure both Dobbins and Edwards can co-exist as reliable fantasy assets. For now, I’d continue to start Dobbins since he has a more established job this year, but I also think he’s a sell candidate because of Edwards’ looming usage. Edwards is absolutely worth adding off waivers this week.

After being hampered by a knee injury to start the season, it looks like Jaylen Warren is finally healthy and getting more involved in the Steelers offense. Warren saw a season-high 14 carries Sunday, which he turned into a respectable 66 yards. He added two catches for 29 yards through the air. Warren has averaged about 14 touches over the past three weeks, which feels like a steady number we can expect him to hit for the rest of the year.

Warren’s fantasy value obviously has a hard ceiling because Najee Harris is still undeniably the RB1 in Pittsburgh. Harris ranks eighth in the NFL in carries and has received nearly every touch on the goal line, and you can still count on him as an RB2. However, I think Warren is relevant in fantasy as a depth piece/fringe FLEX starter as he is one of the more effective running backs in the NFL and should benefit from the overall increased ceiling in the Steelers offense with Russell Wilson under the center. Warren may have been dropped to your waiver wire by a frustrated manager (he’s listed in just 51% of Yahoo leagues), so be on the lookout for him.

Trey Benson had another promising performance for the Cardinals, running 10 times for 62 yards. He was more efficient than James Conner on the ground, with 29 more yards on 2 fewer carries. Conner still doesn’t appear to be in danger of losing his role as a starter as he received all the goal line work and had a productive day as a receiver.

That said, Benson has flashed in back-to-back games and I expect him to slowly continue to scrape Conner’s workload after the Cardinals’ bye week. You can continue to treat Conner as a weekly top-15 play for now, but Benson’s impressive play shouldn’t go unnoticed.

I hyped up Ray Davis a lot last week, but maybe it was a little too soon. Davis was barely involved in the Bills offense in their win against the Colts, with just three carries for six yards. I was optimistic that Davis could get some work late when the Bills went up by two scores in the entire fourth quarter, but he ended up playing just 11 total snaps. James Cook, on the other hand, was quite productive and currently ranks as the RB8 in fantasy football.

The Bills have a difficult schedule coming up, playing the Chiefs, 49ers, Rams and Lions in the next five weeks. So I doubt they’ll be in game scripts that allow Davis to get too involved, meaning he’s likely just a bench in fantasy football for the rest of the year.