With these late round picks you’re not paying for what they’ll do in Week 1, you’re paying for the version of them that shows up when the guy in front goes down. Three of them are priced like afterthoughts right now and could lead you to the winners’ circle come December.
Let’s start with Blake Corum. He has a real job, not just an emergency one. The discount is there because Kyren Williams is going nowhere as the featured back and owns the most metronomic workload in the league, 42 straight regular-season games with at least 12 carries. So yes, Corum gets treated as a pure handcuff at an ADP of 101.9. What the handcuff label misses though, the current projections still hand Corum a 36.5% carry share against Williams‘ 51.5% inside an offense that generated 76 red zone drives last year which was the most in the NFL. Corum did plenty with a smaller slice in 2025, finishing as the RB37 with 746 rushing yards and six touchdowns on a tidy 5.1 yards per carry. Give a compact, downhill back that many goal-to-go looks and you can get standalone flex weeks even when Williams is healthy. Worst case scenario you’ve got a usable flex to fill in on bye weeks or when the matchup is right. Best case scenario you’ve got a league winner if Williams has a multi-week injury. That is exactly the type of guy we are looking for in the late rounds of your snake drafts and in those single digit auction draft buys when everyone is out of cash.
Next up – Kimani Vidal. I don’t need to project what Vidal does with volume, he showed us in 2025. On 152 carries he ran for better than 630 yards, scored three times, and stacked three separate 100-yard games. That’s a career year from a guy who then re-signed to stay in Los Angeles, tendered in March and back under contract in April. The market files him as the No. 2 next to Omarion Hampton and prices him around RB41, which is fine by me because the standalone flex weeks come free and the real prize is the contingency.
If Hampton stays upright and hoards touches, Vidal is a bench non-factor, no way around it. But you’ve watched what this backfield looks like when Vidal is the guy, and it’s a lead-back workload on a good offense. If he is your RB4 or 5 you are in great shape.
And last we’ve got Mike Washington Jr. – Ashton Jeanty is nursing an ankle, and Washington’s ADP has moved up as it should. He’s up to RB52, and his ADP is scattered somewhere between 134 and 178 depending on where you draft. That’s a last-round dart. The job security behind him is better than the price suggests. He should win the No. 2 role outright: The remaining guys behind him combined for all of 12 carries in 2025. He’s the uncontested backup to a runner who posted a 72.1% carry share and a 77.9% snap share as a rookie. Now factor in the ankle. As long as Jeanty is healthy and running at that clip, Washington is a stash and nothing more, and I won’t pretend otherwise. But when a back carries that kind of usage, his handcuff isn’t a lottery ticket, it’s a near-featured role waiting to be activated. At his current ADP I’m perfectly happy holding him in redraft as pure contingency and in best ball where the ceiling games pay for themselves.