The Top 10 Fantasy Football Running Backs for 2015

July 16, 2015

Adam Sabol's 2015 rankings of the top ten NFL running backs (RBs) for the 2015 fantasy football season. Ranks are based on supporting casts, 2014 production and team changes.

I'm here to breakdown some 2015 fantasy football rankings, and analyze who the Top 10 Running Backs will be in standard leagues. This should get you through your second or third rounds of drafting, depending on your league size. For more rankings articles and analysis, check out RotoBaller's excellent Rankings Dashboard which is broken down by position.

As always, running back is a premium position in fantasy football given the low supply and high demand. Hitting on an early running back will make your season that much easier. Unfortunately, this year's crop of running backs comes with a ton of question marks.  Will DeMarco Murray avoid the specter of regression and stay healthy? How will LeSean McCoy fare outside of Philadelphia? Is this the year Marshawn Lynch finally hits the wall? How good will Adrian Peterson be after a year out of football?

We won't find out until the NFL season starts, but here's how we at RotoBaller think running backs should be ranked on your draft board.

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1. Jamaal Charles, KC

Charles checks all the boxes.  History of elite production?  Check.  At least 4.5 yards per carry?  Check.  Playing on a decent team?  Check.  Focus of the offense?  The Chiefs' wide receivers scored zero freaking touchdowns last season.  Charles is the offense.  That's a check plus.

Now the Chiefs added Jeremy Maclin this offseason, but I really must reiterate that the Chiefs' receivers never scored a touchdown.  Never.  Not once.  Not a single, solitary TD for all the Chiefs' receivers.  To put that in perspective, the Chiefs scored a touchdown every time one of North Carolina's student-athletes wrote their own paper.  They scored so few TDs that North Carolina student-athletes could actually count them all.  If their touchdown count was put on a grading scale in a Swahili class at North Carolina, they would barely have passed.  Charles is probably safe.

2. Le'Veon Bell, PIT

Le'Veon Bell was possibly the most reliable running back in fantasy last season.  He put up 1,361 rushing yards on 290 carries (4.7 ypc) and added 854 receiving yards on 83 receptions.  That's good for 2,225 all-purpose yards, and Bell put up 11 TDs on top of that.  He also did not fumble.  If you're in a points-per-reception league, there's a strong case for making Bell the #1 overall pick.

The only downside to adding Bell is that as of right now, he's set to serve a three-game suspension for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy, so you won't be getting a full 16 games out of him.  Presumably, he allowed himself to be in the same county as someone who once smoked weed a month before at a party (pour one out for Josh Gordon).  However, if you can make it through Bell's suspension, your RB1 slot will be locked down for the rest of the season.

3. Eddie Lacy, GB

Now, far be it from me to suggest doing anything in the NFL is easy.  If I were to suit up in an NFL game, there is a 100% chance that by the end of the first play I would be a red smear on the grass/AstroTurf/vacant city lot surface the Redskins play on.  However, if you're an NFL running back, it must be really nice to have Aaron Rodgers as your QB.

Lacy had a rough start to the 2014 season, but bounced back spectacularly, putting up 246/1,139/9 production on the ground (attempts/yards/TDs) as well as presenting a 42/427/4 through the air.  In 2015, there's very little to worry about when considering Lacy's prospects.  His team is an elite offensive juggernaut.  The only reason he falls below Bell in my rankings is that he isn't quite as active in the passing game.  He's still a consensus top-3 pick, however.

4. Marshawn Lynch, SEA

Statistically speaking, Marshawn Lynch is at the end of his career as a top-flight fantasy option.  Of course, Lynch was at the end of his career as a top-flight fantasy option last year, too.  And the year before that.  It's becoming one of those "I'll believe it when I see it" things.  He still plays in Seattle's brutal ground-and-pound offense.  He's still good for at least like 15 runs where he just becomes nigh-impossible to tackle and ends up ripping off 40 yards after getting hit 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

He put up a 280/1,306/13 line on the ground last season, as well as adding 367 yards through the air and three additional touchdowns.  While the addition of Jimmy Graham will make Seattle's aerial attack more potent and therefore threaten Lynch's touches, teams will now have to account for Graham through the air and not key in on Lynch.  It's not a serious threat to Lynch's value.

5. Adrian Peterson, MIN

We've hit the "extremely talented but has significant question marks" phase of these rankings.  There's no arguing that when at full strength, Adrian Peterson is the best running back in the league and it's not even close.  Peak Adrian Peterson is either a complete freak of nature, or Skynet has perfected its Terminators.  The problem is, how much of Peak Adrian Peterson are we going to get after a year out of football?  Will he hit the dreaded age-3o wall, or will he just do Terminator things to that wall?

The Vikings have a solid, if unspectacular, team built around Peterson, and Teddy Bridgewater's continued progression should prevent teams from focusing literally all of their defensive effort on stopping Peterson.  We just have to worry about the form Peterson returns in.  However, in the interest of fairness, the last time we worried about how strong Peterson would return, he came within 9 yards of the single-season rushing record.

6. LeSean McCoy, PHI

There's no denying the talent that LeSean McCoy has when it comes to playing running back.  However, it is equally impossible to deny that he's just been shipped to a much worse football team than the one he was playing on, and he's not particularly happy about it.  The Bills don't have a starting quarterback, and their O-line is far from the unit that Philly's was (PFF run blocking grades had the Eagles O-Line ranked 1st in 2014, while the Bills finished 31st).

However, the entrance of Rex Ryan as Buffalo's head coach means that McCoy will get touches, and he will be the focus of the offense.  Especially since, you know, their quarterback situation is just so sad.  McCoy is still a first-round pick, but he doesn't have the same beneficial situations that the other backs ahead of him have. We'll see what that means for him as the season progresses.

7. Matt Forte, CHI

The Bears were kind of a nightmare last season, but a new coach should prove a nice change for Forte.  At this point in his career, you know what you're getting from Forte every week: he'll put together like 50-70 yards rushing and 40-50 yards receiving and maybe catch a TD in there.  Even in a down season, he racked up 1,846 all-purpose yards.  There's just higher-upside guys available on better teams.

8. Arian Foster, HOU

The next two guys are the guys with the biggest "INJURY RISK" signs over their heads.  Foster has had back problems in the past, but at his best he's one of the top 4 backs in the league.  Consider that the Texans are starting Ryan Fitzpatrick - wait, I'm getting word that their quarterback situation is even less inspiring than Fitzpatrick.  The Texans will be starting Ryan Mallett at QB this season since they're out to prove that having J.J. Watt on the defense is enough of a quarterback for them, dammit.  Foster will get his touches when he's healthy.  The injury risk, though, limits his upside and places him behind more durable backs.

9. DeMarco Murray, PHI

Honestly, this is the one running back out of these backs I actively encourage you not to draft.  That sounds insane, but here's why - he will absolutely be drafted too high.  I guarantee it.  He went HAM last season and now he's playing for Chip Kelly.

Here's the problem with that, though: Last season was the first in Murray's career where he played 16 games.  He played behind the Cowboys' offensive line, which was far and away the best in the league.  He had 2,261 all-purpose yards, sure, but he did it on 449 touches.  By the way, that's an unreal amount of punishment - the poster boy for "overworked and will regress," Marshawn Lynch, touched the ball 317 times last season.  Unfortunately for Murray, only two NFL running backs have ever better years after touching the ball more than 370 times - Eric Dickerson in 1983-1984 (where he set the NFL single-season rushing record, but had 6 fewer touchdowns) and LaDainian Tomlinson (whose rushing yardage remained constant - he just did more in the passing game, and that's because LaDainian Tomlinson was perfect and wonderful).  Throw in 400+ touches and the situation looks even more dire: Larry Johnson's career died, Jamal Anderson tore his ACL, James Wilder did not quite as well then fell off a year later, and even Dickerson hit the wall hard ( -500 yards rushing, -5 TDs).

In conclusion, I trust the injury-prone back who just carried the ball 450 times about as much as I trust a FIFA executive.  Actually, I trust him less: you can't bribe a knee to stay healthy.

10. C.J. Anderson, DEN

We know all the arguments: Peyton Manning's RBs always do well, the system's a good fit, etc. etc.  Trouble is we said the same thing about Montee Ball last season and Ronnie Hillman's still lurking in the wings.  I don't trust him quite enough yet.  He's a killer pick on the turnaround, though, and if you've landed a top-flight WR you can probably afford a little gamble on Anderson.

And there you have it, folks: My Top 10 RBs for 2015.  Coming soon: top 10 WRs.  Until next time!

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