Every August somebody asks me what “target at any cost” actually means, usually right after I’ve talked myself into a third draft of the night. It doesn’t mean panic. It means there are a handful of backs every year whose floor is so high and whose path to touches is so clear that letting them slide one round too far is how you lose a league in August. These are the guys I plant a flag on. If you have to reach half a round, reach.
The volume tells you everything
Start with De’Von Achane, because the projections people are putting out for him are borderline absurd in the best way. We’re talking north of 200 carries, close to a thousand rushing yards, and the part that should make you stand up, more than 80 receptions with over 500 receiving yards. In PPR that combination is a cheat code. A back who eats on the ground and catches 80 balls isn’t a running back anymore, he’s a slot receiver who happens to score rushing touchdowns. The only knock you’ll hear is the “can his body hold up” worry, and I get it, but you don’t draft for the injury that hasn’t happened. You draft for the role, and his role is enormous. If he’s there at the back of the first or top of the second, I’m not thinking it over.
David Montgomery is the opposite kind of bet and I love him just as much. Nobody’s getting excited at the dinner table about a 29-year-old grinder, which is exactly why he’s the value. The man handled 235-plus touches in five straight seasons before the last two, and Houston is lining up to feed him again. The projection floating around has him near 200 carries, 900 yards, and double-digit touchdowns, and the comp that keeps coming up is Joe Mixon’s RB5 finish in that same offense in 2024. That’s not a fluke comp, it’s a system that funnels goal-line work to one guy. Montgomery is the back you draft in the middle rounds and quietly start every week while your leaguemates chase shiny names. Get him as your RB2 and you’ve solved a problem most people will be patching together with waiver scraps in October.
The one nobody’s drafting yet
Here’s where I’d push you a little harder than the room is comfortable with. Kenneth Gainwell in Tampa is the kind of after-hours tip I’d normally keep to myself. He caught 73 balls last year, he’s walking into a Bucs offense that has thrown to running backs as much as anybody since 2022, and the man in front of him, Bucky Irving, missed seven games and ran for 3.4 yards a carry, dead last among qualified backs. Read that again. Gainwell is coming off a career-best 4.7 per carry and had as many touchdowns inside the 10 as Irving had carries inside the 10. The model that nailed Daniel Jones’ big season last year likes Gainwell ahead of guys being drafted as locked-in RB1s like Tony Pollard and Chuba Hubbard. I’m not saying he buries Irving. I’m saying the cost to find out is a late-round pick, and the upside is a pass-catching back attached to a team that loves throwing him the ball. That’s the definition of a free lottery ticket with a real payout.
If you want one more name to file away, keep an eye on the unsettled backfields, because that’s where ceiling lives. Brian Robinson and the Washington committee, the Jaguars sorting things out, these are the situations where a Croskey-Merritt type can flash into RB10 territory during the fantasy playoffs and win somebody a title. I’m not telling you to bank your season on a dart throw, but the late rounds are for swings, not for handcuffing your own starter out of fear.
So here’s my actual instruction, not a survey of options. Get one of the two anchors, Achane if you want the every-week monster or Montgomery if you’d rather pay less for nearly the same production, and then make sure Gainwell ends up on your bench before somebody who read the same model snags him. Reaching for the right back is never the mistake people remember. The mistake they remember is the week they started a guy who wasn’t getting the ball, wondering why they passed on the one who clearly was.