Welcome back to our RotoBaller offseason review series! Where we, your beloved RotoBaller fantasy football gurus/experts/shamans/soothsayers/yogis help you come to terms with the past season and slowly lull your inner football fan back into his or her offseason slumber once again. To do my part in helping guide this process along, I wanna talk running backs. Those brave, beautiful men who play the most crucial fantasy football position and guide many an owner to the glorious promised land of the championship every season are getting their own article dedicated to their marvelous misadventures… to be written by someone else at a later date.

“HWAT?” you scream from your office cubicle! “HAVE I BEEN BAMBOOZLED? TWAS THIS ARTICLE NOT SAID TO BE CONTAINING A RUNNING BACK POSITIONAL REVIEW?” Yes, dear reader, this writeup is about running backs, just not the brave and beautiful running backs aforementioned. No, this article is about the names that send shivers down your spine, the faces and jerseys that haunt you in your dreams, the players you saw tackled for loss more times than you’ve seen bandwagon Patriots fans in January… this article, dear reader, is about the running back busts. We also have 2016's biggest busts at the quarterback position broken down for you when you're finished here. Note: 2016 average draft positions from Fantasy Football Calculator are in parentheses.

Editor's Note: Our industry-leading NBA DFS Lineup Optimizer/Generator tool helps you build winning DFS lineups in seconds. Try it now for free, and get an edge on your competition.

• 2025 fantasy football rankings
• Running back (RB) fantasy football rankings
• Wide receiver (WR) fantasy football rankings
• Tight end (TE) fantasy football rankings
• Quarterback (QB) fantasy football rankings
• FLEX fantasy football rankings
• Defense (D/ST) fantasy football rankings
• Kicker (K) fantasy football rankings
• Dynasty fantasy football rankings

Running Back Busts for 2016 Fantasy Football

Arian Foster, Miami Dolphins (ADP 5.05 STD, 5.09 PPR)

I actually just wrote a fantasy eulogy for Arian Foster, so it hurts me to have to linger on Foster’s sad last season in the NFL, but it is my duty to assemble this list as unbiased and critically as possible. Foster was a known gamble going into the season, as it was unclear if he could bounce back from recent injury-riddled years and get another strong season under his belt. However, the Dolphins were seemingly uninspired by Jay Ajayi, so it appeared Foster would get first crack at the starting role and fantasy relevance. Unfortunately, Foster’s body had already quit on him and he never came close to doing anything notable before hanging it up for good midway through the season. Even with his downside being known ahead of time, your fifth round pick retiring mid-season isn’t something any team can prepare for.

Jeremy Langford, Chicago Bears (ADP 4.08 STD, 4.11 PPR)

The first of the two Brothers Jeremy on our list, Langford had some question marks going into the draft, but seemed to be a relatively safe bet. After all, Langford had impressed with the carries he'd gotten in Matt Forte’s absence the season prior and according to all reports was head and shoulders above KaDeem Carey and Jordan Howard on the depth chart. Knowing Chicago’s love to run the ball, he was a prime value RB2 selection. However, Langford simply looked out-played on every carry, and after suffering an injury in Week 3, Langford lost his job for good, as Jordan Howard stepped in and ran away with the starting role. While it was surely disappointing for those (like me) who drafted Langford to suffer through his complete meltdown, the sacrifice of his career as a starter gave birth to the next great Chicago running back, and for that, we thank him.

Jeremy Hill, Cincinnati Bengals (ADP 4.01 STD, 5.01 PPR)

The elder of the Brothers Jeremy also had a terrible 2016. Some might say, “Wait Jacob, didn’t Hill have a couple big games? I remember him going off during the season, surely he wasn't a bust!” And to them I’d say - he plays in the AFC North, you’re just remembering that Cleveland is also in that division. You couldn’t even make the "he's in a timeshare" argument this season, as even when Giovani Bernard went on IR with a torn ACL, Hill did absolutely nothing with the bellcow role, besides play Cleveland. Seriously, look at his game log, he had three 20+ carry games in a row, Weeks 14-16. In those three games, he had 238 yards. 142 of those yards came in one game against Cleveland. Cincinnati sorely missed Hue Jackson's offensive mind this season and Hill was one of the worst affected. Here’s to hoping he can rebound, but knowing he won’t.

Thomas Rawls, Seattle Seahawks (ADP 3.09 STD, 4.05 PPR)

Rawls exploded onto the scene last year as Marshawn Lynch missed time to end the ‘Hawks 2015 campaign and was a hot name in the fantasy football community come draft day. While his ADP reflected people’s natural hesitation to go all-in on someone with only a few games experience, drafting him also meant potentially getting a high-end RB1 in the early mid-rounds, considering just how dominant he looked to end 2015. Unfortunately for those that took the gamble, Rawls was terrible when he got his chances to play early on, before re-injuring himself and missing the majority of the season. However, to be fair to Rawls, when you play behind an offensive line as pitiful as the 2016 Seahawks’ was, there isn’t much you can be expected to accomplish. While Rawls eventually won the starting job back heading into the NFL Playoffs (even while playing simply miserably), but it was too little too late. Owners (again, like me) who couldn’t resist the temptation of a potential steal got absolutely burned.

Todd Gurley, Los Angeles Rams (ADP 1.02 STD, 1.06 PPR)

While I was foolish enough to get caught with more than one of the RBs on this list this past season, even I knew better to fall into the deathtrap that was Todd Gurley’s 2016 season. It’s been beaten to death a thousand times over, but here we are, once again, kicking the dead horse that is this absolute disaster of a pick. The Rams offensive line was god awful, but unlike a team like the Seahawks, they didn’t even have a passing attack to at least keep the defense from stacking the box literally every play. Gurley didn’t suck due to lack of talent, he sucked because the Rams offense besides him is atrocious. Name ONE player on that offense that would start for any other team in the league - you can’t. Poor ‘ol Todd was facing an uphill battle and got crushed. Here’s to hoping Sean McVay can bring in actual receivers and linemen to give Goff and Gurley a sliver of a chance next year, because they’re gonna need it.

Before we end, I’d like to draw special attention to one specific running back who couldn’t suck quite enough to make the top five, but I felt needed a shout-out anyway. Our RotoBaller 2016 Dishonorable Mention running back is… Lamar Miller! Miller came at a gaudy price tag in redraft leagues (1.10 in PPR and 1.08 in Standard) and was far too meh for anyone to dare say he was worth the cost. Miller played like an RB2 when teams were counting on him as an RB1, as QB Brock Osweiler's horrendous play put a glass ceiling on Miller's production. If Lamar Miller's 2016 season was a really cute girl, it’d be the type you take out for a fancy evening only to realize halfway through the date you have no real connection, leaving you forced to sit through the rest of the evening pretending you like her to prevent an awkward situation. You’re just not my type Lamar.

Thanks for joining me on my walk back through the house of horrors that was the 2016 fantasy RB position. Hopefully we all learned something and will approach these players with intense caution come next season. But if come draft day you can’t resist and you get burned again, don’t say I didn’t warn you.