I recently decided to create season-long projections for every running back in the league for the first, a process that involved a top-down approach -- in which I collected pace of play and run/pass split data in order to produce realistic estimates for total rushing and passing attempts for each team, examined rushing efficiency data related to offensive line units, coaching staffs, and individual running backs in order to calibrate expectations for per-carry output at the team level, looked at quarterback, coach, and coordinator tendencies for positional target distributions, made note of historical workload splits so as to properly assign backfield opportunity shares, and so on -- and, while I’m certainly not done tweaking inputs, gave me the framework from which to build out my rankings for 2023 redraft leagues.

Informed by my projections, here are the top-12 runners in version 1.0 of those rankings:

I’ve been a Najee Harris apologist since he entered the league and began struggling in non-ideal circumstances in the Pittsburgh offense, and I think 2023 marks the first season of his NFL career in which he’ll be playing behind a competent offensive line (a survey of preseason line rankings from various national outlets -- including Pro Football Focus and Sharp Football Analysis -- has the Steelers’ group at an average rank of 14) and alongside a quarterback who is neither a rookie nor a noodle-armed 39-year old. Those factors, in combination with an improved bill of health for Harris himself (he suffered a Lisfranc injury in preseason last year), mean that I have him averaging over four yards per carry for the first time as a pro in 2023. Additionally, a slight bounce-back in the receiving game -- 2022 saw the Steelers throw the ball nearly 100 fewer times than they did in 2021, while Harris was targeted on just three screen passes last season compared to 14 as a rookie -- seems likely as Matt Canada takes the training wheels off for Kenny Pickett, vaulting Harris back up into RB1 territory with a receptions-fueled boost.

I have Rhamondre Stevenson down for a slight decrease in Target Share given the addition of JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mike Gesicki to this offense, but a projected bump in pass rate (New England had the lowest pass rate of the team’s three-year post-Tom Brady era in 2022) and the extra carries he’s likely to absorb without Damien Harris in the running back basically cancel that out. Unless Pierre Strong or Kevin Harris are much readier to contribute than I’m assuming (I currently have them receiving 66 and 34 carries, respectively, fewer combined than what Damien Harris had in just 11 games last season), Stevenson will have one of the higher opportunity shares in the league after finishing as an RB1 with an opportunity share right at the median for lead backs a year ago. He’s just a solid player with a well-rounded skill-set in an offense that will need to feed him.

I thought I was high on Jonathan Taylor prior to going through the projections process, but turns out I’m kinda not. I have the Colts projected for the most rushing attempts in the league, and I have their offensive line bouncing back after a weirdly ineffective 2022 season, and I have Taylor receiving the highest share of backfield carries among any runner in the league, but with Anthony Richardson presumably accounting for a lot of their rushing volume on his own (I have him at 132 carries, which would’ve ranked third among quarterbacks last season) while also causing the team to not throw the ball much, it’s difficult to find a calibration of inputs that results in Taylor finishing as a high-end RB1. The path to that upside is paved by a lot of long touchdowns, but that’s tough to bet on, even for a guy like JT.

I was also surprised to find myself slightly higher than ADP on Jahmyr Gibbs, but I don’t even think I’m being particularly aggressive with his projection. I currently have him at 146 carries, 78 receptions, and 10 total touchdowns in 16 games, which is right in the ballpark of how D’Andre Swift produced as a Lion (as well as in the ballpark of how Reggie Bush produced early on in his career with the Saints) -- his 16-game pace over three years in Detroit was exactly 146 carries, exactly 10 total touchdowns, and 62 receptions. I think it’s reasonable to expect Gibbs to be a slightly more productive receiver than Swift was considering the draft capital spent to acquire the former and the degree to which the latter fell out of favor during his time with the team, and we also don’t have to go crazy with our efficiency-based assumptions to get Gibbs in the RB1 range: I currently have him down for 5.0 yards per carry and 8.5 yards per reception, marks 0.5 yards lower and 0.4 yards higher, respectively, than what Swift posted last season.

This is one where I feel like I might be a bit aggressive in my projections given the uncertainty faced by running backs returning from ACL tears, but Breece Hall is currently being drafted as the RB11 on Underdog: I’m hardly alone in thinking he could hit the ground running in year two. I have him slated for 14 games played, which would obviously limit his season-long volume numbers, but I anticipate that Hall will dominate touches in the Jets backfield when he’s active. Additionally, we can expect significant regression in yards per carry, yards per reception, and Target Share (where Hall ranked second, third, and tenth, respectively, among qualifying runners as a rookie) and still end up bullish on Hall’s 2023 prospects, so the ceiling is even higher than where I have him here given the possibility that he performs like one of the few most effective backs on a per-touch basis once again.

As with Taylor, I thought I was high on Nick Chubb prior to doing projections, but it turns out that I’m actually slightly low on the guy who is currently being selected as the RB4 on Underdog. Basically, Chubb’s elite hypothetical ceiling is largely predicated on a significant increase in receiving work with Kareem Hunt now out of the picture, but considering that Deshaun Watson has not historically targeted running backs at a high rate (whether on a per-route or season-long basis), I’m not sure there’s any law of the conservation of backfield targets that really applies here. Chubb himself has maxed out as a 9.1% Target Share guy (from the 2019 season, when guys like Phillip Lindsay and Chris Carson accounted for a greater portion of their respective teams’ target totals than Chubb did), so a) it’s not as if he’s some underutilized pass-catching weapon suddenly being thrust into long overdue opportunity, and b) even across-the-board career highs in the major receiving categories (which I am currently projecting for him) probably fall short of the kinds of numbers he’d need to vault him into the next stratosphere of fantasy production. That upside exists, I just don’t view it as likely.

Holdout-based caveats exist with Josh Jacobs and the next guy on this list, but assuming he doesn’t plan on martyring himself for a hopeless cause via sitting out actual games in 2023, the Raider runner should once again be in line for heavy volume on a team that still has no incentive not to run him into the ground. Maybe Jacobs’ holdout means that Zamir White is able to run with the ones and assert himself into the overall plan for the offense a bit more this preseason, but I’d have to project Jacobs for a massive decrease (like more than 20%) in his share of backfield carries in order for him to not finish as a solid RB1 given the assumptions I’m making about team-level play volume and run/pass splits in Las Vegas. I’m also assuming that Jacobs sees some regression in his per-touch efficiency after a huge workload in 2022, and that’s probably where the biggest non-contract-related risk comes for him this season: the track record for runners attempting to follow-up big volume seasons is not great, so perhaps the 4.7 yards per carry and 7.2 yards per reception I’m assuming for Jacobs are each still too optimistic. This is one I anticipate mulling over quite a bit before the season starts.

Like Jacobs, Saquon Barkley is an offensive centerpiece with some holdout risk who is currently coming off a top-five season, but unlike with Jacobs, I think there’s reason to believe that Barkley could be even a little bit better in 2023 than he was in 2022. He’s now another year removed from the injury troubles that really slowed him down in 2020 and 2021, so I have him returning to prime-Saquon levels in both yards per carry and yards per reception (at 4.8 and 7.4, respectively). From there, it’s just a matter of seeing how good the Giants offense can be in year two of the Brian Daboll era and year five of the Daniel Jones experience.

I sort of don’t know what to do with Tony Pollard. The door is open for him to receive a ton of rushing volume with Ezekiel Elliott no longer on the team, but as a former wide receiver who’s never led a backfield and has a relatively thin running back frame at 6-feet tall and 209 pounds, Pollard doesn’t really feel like a 250+ carry guy. Then, it seems like the opportunity is there for Pollard to maximize his receiving upside with a greater snap share and Kellen Moore (who ran offenses that maxed out Pollard at just 55 targets while throwing to running backs in general at per-route rates near the bottom of the league, trends that held pretty steady no matter which one of Dak Prescott, Andy Dalton, Cooper Rush, and Ben Dinucci was starting games) no longer calling plays, but head coach Mike McCarthy and new offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer don’t have much history of unleashing running backs in the passing game either (the last time we saw McCarthy without Moore he was underutilizing Aaron Jones in all facets back in Green Bay, and Schottenheimer has produced just two 60+ target running backs in his 12-year career as an NFL play-caller, the last being LaDainian Tomlinson in 2010). Still, there’s pretty much nobody else to hand the ball off to in Dallas in 2023, so the increase in rushing volume alone is enough for Pollard to project out as a top-five runner on a quality Cowboys offense, and if he gets closer to a 15% Target Share than the 11% I currently have him down for, he could flirt with an overall RB1 finish.

I wrote extensively about Ekeler’s fit in what should be a new-look Chargers offense about a week ago, so I’ll spare you many details here. Basically, though, the addition of Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator introduces some unknown to Ekeler’s situation, and I anticipate more rushing volume but less receiving work for him in 2023. Either way, Los Angeles still hasn’t found anyone to split touches with him in any material fashion, so we’re probably in for another high-end fantasy finish out of the former UDFA.

I feel like I’m being pretty conservative with my projections for Bijan Robinson’s rookie year -- I have him #5 in backfield carry share, at a Target Share mark that would’ve ranked 11th among runners last season, with a per-carry rushing average that exceeds what Tyler Allgeier produced in this same offense in 2022 by just 0.02 yards, and with per-reception efficiency that would’ve been 25th in the league among qualifying backs a year ago -- and he still ends up as the best challenger to Christian McCaffrey at RB1. Ultimately, Bijan just checks too many boxes and is going to get too much volume on a team that wants to run the ball. His projection doesn’t quite end up there, but 300 carries, 70 receptions, and 15 touchdowns is not out of the question in year one.

I have Christian McCaffrey down for slight decreases in yards per carry and carries per game relative to what he was doing with the 49ers last season, but he’s going to score a ton of fantasy points through the air -- I have him at 12.2 PPR points per game via receiving work alone -- and the 200-or-so carries he’ll get in an always-good San Francisco offense will be gravy on the way to his once again being one of the most valuable assets in fantasy football. There are guys who can beat him out for the RB1 spot -- Bijan, Ekeler, Pollard, even Chubb could scorched-earth his way to it -- but this is a Tiger Woods-style, CMC-versus-the-field situation.