The smartest pick in your draft this year is going to come out of a backfield that looks like a coin flip in June. Everybody hates uncertainty. Everybody wants the clean three-down workhorse with no questions attached, and everybody is willing to reach two rounds early to avoid having to think. That’s fine. Let them. I’ve made a career out of buying the muddy committee at a discount and watching it sort itself out in my favor by Week 4, and 2026 is loaded with these spots.
Start in Washington, because the consensus has this completely backwards. The crowd is treating this as a true three-headed mess and shrugging, when the film and the playoff usage already told you who the guy is. Jacory Croskey-Merritt finished as an RB10 in points per game during the fantasy playoffs last year, topped 95 yards in two of those games, and found the end zone four times down the stretch. That is not a fluke sample against soft competition. That is a back who earned the volume when the games mattered most and the coaching staff trusted him with it.
Yes, Austin Allen is hanging around as a touchdown vulture, and the safe-money types will tell you Brian Robinson’s old role belongs to the proven pass-catcher first. I get it. The “safe” play has a defined job and a floor. But a defined job with a low ceiling is how you finish ninth in a twelve-team league. Croskey-Merritt is the only one of these names with real league-winning upside, and he’s going to cost you a fraction of what the safer back costs. Draft the ceiling. I’m not interested in your floor.
Jacksonville quietly handed someone a feast
This is the one I keep circling. Jacksonville let Travis Etienne walk in free agency and then declined to draft a single running back across ten picks. Ten. Front offices don’t do that by accident. They do that when they already know who’s getting the ball, and everything points to Bhayshul Tuten inheriting the entire workload, including the passing-down role Etienne held in 2025.
Here’s the part the rankings are sleeping on. The playcaller running this offense has averaged the most running back screens in football since he took over in 2024. That is a scheme built to manufacture touches and yards for whoever is on the field, and now that back has almost no competition for snaps. Tony Pollard, sorry, that’s the wrong city, the point stands: when a screen-heavy offense commits to a single back and refuses to add bodies, you are looking at a target floor most “starting” backs would kill for. Tuten is going to be a weekly RB2 with RB1 weeks, and you’re getting him at a tier-three price because his name doesn’t pop yet. Fix that.
Don’t overthink the obvious value
David Montgomery in Houston is the boring one, and boring is exactly why he’s a target. The film on Montgomery has never changed. He is a punishing interior runner who finishes goal-line work and protects in pass-pro well enough to stay on the field on third down. People keep waiting for him to lose touches to a flashier name, and people keep being wrong about it. He’s a riser for a reason this offseason, and the goal-line equity alone makes him a far steadier weekly play than the rookie darts everybody is chasing two rounds higher.
If you want the cheaper swing in that same range, Rachaad White is the cleanest “I know exactly what I’m getting” pass-catching back on the board. He has struggled to hold a lead role for stretches, and that scares people off, but his receiving chops give him an RB3 floor with flex value even in his worst-case scenario. In a PPG world, a back who catches the ball is never truly droppable, and White’s price reflects fear that the film doesn’t support.
The thread tying all of this together is simple. The market is paying a premium for the illusion of certainty and discounting actual opportunity, which is the only thing that matters at this position. Croskey-Merritt has the ceiling, Tuten has the volume and the scheme, and Montgomery has the floor that wins you the weeks the ceiling guys give you a dud. Build your backfield out of these spots and let everyone else pay full freight for names they recognize. I’ll be the one collecting in December, same as always.