NFL cut day meant movement across backfields that could be relevant for fantasy football owners. Don't confuse relevant with exciting, though, as some of the most important movement involved seemingly washed-up veterans LeSean McCoy and Carlos Hyde. At the Buffalo end of the spectrum, that might allow more interesting rookie Devin Singletary to have a bigger role, but McCoy's move to Kansas City makes a different shiny rookie, Darwin Thompson, seem less relevant.
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Then we have Houston, made up of one RB who never is trusted on early downs (Duke Johnson, Jr.), another who looked unworthy of being on the field in 2018 (Hyde), and two players who have only ever been valuable in the NFL on special teams.
Below, we dig deeper into all three of these backfields, as fantasy owners doing last-minute drafts or setting their lineups surely have questions.
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Buffalo Bills' RB Depth Chart
In reality, it shouldn't have been shocking that the Bills cut LeSean McCoy -- he's old and expensive. The news still took a lot of people by surprise, though. The general expectation was that Shady would probably lead the Buffalo backfield in touches, whether he was efficient or not. Now McCoy, and his 195 touches in 2018, are no longer with the Bills. That leaves Frank Gore, Devin Singletary and T.J. Yeldon.
During the preseason, it was Gore who split first-team series with McCoy, not the hyped-up rookie Singletary. Gore looked good doing it, too, carrying eight times for 57 yards in Buffalo's third preseason game. At 36, Gore defies basically all running back logic, and has for a few years. He averaged 4.6 yards per carry in a poor Miami situation in 2018 as a 35-year-old in a timeshare with Kenyan Drake. There's nothing that suggests Gore couldn't replicate that in 2019.
The social media reaction to McCoy's release all centered around Singletary, the rookie from Florida Atlantic. The assumption would be that the Bills wouldn't have cut McCoy for another older running back, but rather to allow the youngster to take the reins. Slow down, though. The Athletic's Joe Buscaglia reported that Singletary "won't consistently be a featured back, at least not early in the season." Buscaglia surmises that Gore will get a decent amount of work on early downs, while free-agent signee Yeldon should get some passing-down action.
Heading into Week 1, Singletary and Gore might both warrant some FLEX consideration for fantasy owners, but there's not a lot of certainty around which one should be more valuable. In the long run, we'd expect the on-the-rise Singletary to gain value as the aging Gore loses some, but it's hard to know that for sure. There also should be a bit of standalone PPR value for Yeldon, but a crowded backfield won't help that, either.
Both Gore and Singletary will probably be drafted in the leagues still needing to draft before Week 1 kicks off, so you won't be able to monitor and pounce on the right guy on the waiver wire. It's not a bad situation to take a shot on once you're past the first 25 or 30 backs, though. Buffalo improved its offensive line for 2019, and the offense as a whole should only improve as Josh Allen does.
2019 STANDARD RANKINGS:
Quarterback | Running back | Wide Receiver | Tight End | D/ST | Kicker | Top 200
Kansas City Chiefs' RB Depth Chart
This backfield has oscillated between complicated and not complicated for the whole offseason. Carlos Hyde's signing seemed to spell trouble for a full Damien Williams workload. Then Hyde looked washed up. Darwin Thompson emerged as a possible rookie sleeper, but then Kansas City expressed its belief in Williams. Finally, the Chiefs released Hyde but reunited LeSean McCoy with Andy Reid.
Buffalo didn't just get rid of McCoy because of his contract. He also was wildly ineffective last season, averaging 3.2 yards per carry and putting up his lowest yards per catch since 2014. But it's also easy to look at the Reid-McCoy pairing and recall McCoy's prolific, 17-touchdown 2011 season in Philadelphia. I shouldn't have to remind you that it's eight years later, but I will: That was eight years ago.
The Kansas City Star's Brooke Pryor expects McCoy to "take a large percentage" of the Chiefs' backfield work. A large percentage doesn't necessarily mean that McCoy becomes the backfield leader. Williams is still expected to be the de facto starter, and he'll probably be Kansas City's option when it wants to pass (which should be frequently). Those of you who were drafting Williams in the second round of drafts are probably very upset by McCoy's signing, though, because it will be hard for Williams to return that value if he receives only 70 percent of KC's RB touches.
Thompson's also ridden an interesting momentum wave this offseason. We were on him before most people, but that didn't matter as he constantly impressed at the beginning of August and made everyone take notice. As Williams' direct backup and handcuff, he would've been an interesting late-round pick. As of now, though, he becomes more of a watch-list candidate and dynasty-league target.
We've still got Williams as a top-20 running back, barely, so if you can get him somewhere in the fourth or fifth round instead of the second, he has a decent chance of living up to that.
2019 PPR RANKINGS:
Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | Top 200
Houston Texans' RB Depth Chart
Carlos Hyde had become a bit of a running joke around the office of late, simply for how underwhelming he's become. The punchline, though, was "What if he ended up in Houston?" Then he'd have to matter, we reasoned. Here we are, Lamar Miller on IR and Hyde now a Texan.
How Houston's backfield shakes out depends on whether the Texans let Duke Johnson, Jr. win the lead-back job. In his career, he's mostly been counted on as a receiving back, while will be his minimum role with Hyde in town and makes him a valuable PPR player in a pass-heavy scheme. We won't know until at least Week 1 whether Johnson can be more than that pass-catching back, though.
If Johnson isn't trusted as a three-down back, Hyde should get the first crack at early-down work. Mind you, he's been bad for a few years now, not breaking four yards per carry since 2016. His second-round pedigree out of Ohio State means Hyde is a player that teams keep kicking the tires on, though. He's at least a FLEX consideration in a strong offense for the touchdown potential he'd bring your team as an early-down and goal-line back.
The other two running backs currently on Houston's roster are Taiwan Jones and Buddy Howell, both of whom have proven more valuable in their careers as special-teams players than anything else. If Hyde looks as broken as he did last year, that could either bode well for Johnson -- who would finally get an early-down chance -- or the Texans might try and sign a different veteran to fill that role.