One team commonly mocked to select a running back in last weekend's NFL Draft was Buffalo. Travis Etienne, for example, might have really juiced up that ground game. It didn't happen. Buffalo has signed Matt Breida, and will add him to the running back room with Zack Moss (pictured) and Devin Singletary, and that's about it. Will one of these backs be fantasy-relevant?
Odds don't look great, especially with Breida added into the mix. Singletary has generally been a disappointment, and Moss didn't stand out as a rookie. I could get behind Moss as a potential sleeper, but a committee of some sort looks more likely.
Moreover, the upside of any running back on this roster looks pretty minimal, especially in terms of scoring. Since Josh Allen entered the league, Buffalo running backs have found the end zone at the lowest rate in the league. By far.
Over the past three seasons, the Bills have 44 rushing touchdowns. That's 16th among NFL teams, so exactly middle-of-the-pack.
But their running backs have accounted for only 16 of those rushing scores, tied with Jacksonville for worst in the league over those three years. That's just 36 percent of the team total, lowest in the league by a wide margin. All but one of the league's other teams have had running backs account for at least two-thirds of their rushing scores. Even Houston has had running backs score more than half of them. Buffalo is barely over a third.
| TEAM RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS, 2018-2020 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | RuTD | RB TD | Pct/RB |
| Detroit | 35 | 34 | 97.1% |
| Minnesota | 48 | 44 | 91.7% |
| Seattle | 45 | 40 | 88.9% |
| Green Bay | 48 | 42 | 87.5% |
| San Francisco | 49 | 42 | 85.7% |
| Denver | 42 | 36 | 85.7% |
| Pittsburgh | 35 | 30 | 85.7% |
| Washington | 39 | 33 | 84.6% |
| Cleveland | 51 | 43 | 84.3% |
| Jacksonville | 19 | 16 | 84.2% |
| NY Giants | 37 | 31 | 83.8% |
| LA Chargers | 40 | 33 | 82.5% |
| Atlanta | 34 | 28 | 82.4% |
| Las Vegas | 42 | 34 | 81.0% |
| Tampa Bay | 42 | 34 | 81.0% |
| Indianapolis | 50 | 40 | 80.0% |
| LA Rams | 62 | 48 | 77.4% |
| Philadelphia | 44 | 34 | 77.3% |
| NY Jets | 26 | 20 | 76.9% |
| Tennessee | 62 | 47 | 75.8% |
| Kansas City | 45 | 34 | 75.6% |
| Chicago | 36 | 27 | 75.0% |
| New Orleans | 68 | 50 | 73.5% |
| Cincinnati | 35 | 25 | 71.4% |
| Baltimore | 64 | 45 | 70.3% |
| Carolina | 56 | 39 | 69.6% |
| Arizona | 49 | 34 | 69.4% |
| Dallas | 45 | 31 | 68.9% |
| Miami | 32 | 22 | 68.8% |
| New England | 55 | 37 | 67.3% |
| Houston | 39 | 22 | 56.4% |
| Buffalo | 44 | 16 | 36.4% |
Running backs do other things; Singletary and Moss combined to catch 52 passes for 364 yards and a touchdown last year. Should the team settle on one, featured back, they can have a viable player in most scoring systems.
But it's far from certain they'll do that, and it's pretty likely that even if they do, that player won't get in the end zone very often. Not great production to chase even in the later rounds of fantasy drafts.
--Andy Richardson