Fantasy Football Week 9 Running Back Rankings: Deon Jackson, D'Onta Foreman worth trusting this week

The fungibility of the RB position is one of the few constants in Fantasy Football

By Chris Towers

Nov 6, 2022 at 9:56 am ET • 2 min read

As we hit the rough halfway mark of the NFL season, I figured this was a good time to stop and take stock of the running back landscape for Fantasy Football. Week 9 is an especially tough one for running backs with Nick Chubb, Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pollard, Najee Harris, Kareem Hunt, Melvin Gordon and Latavius Murray all on a bye, which makes it even more necessary than normal to identify who, exactly, we can trust at the position.

Depending on how you define it and limit it, you could say as many as half of the team's have a different lead back than they did back in Week 1, and while that level of turnover isn't at all unprecedented for the position, it's noteworthy, and highlights the level of uncertainty we're always dealing with at this position. So, before we get to my Week 9 rankings, here's a quick rundown of the tiers of running backs for Fantasy, starting with the guys I definitely trust to start every week no matter what and working our way down from there:

The stud tier: Austin Ekeler, Christian McCaffrey*, Saquon Barkley*, Alvin Kamara, Derrick Henry, Nick Chubb*, Jonathan Taylor, Joe Mixon, Josh Jacobs, Dalvin Cook
Starting every week: Kenneth Walker, Leonard Fournette, Aaron Jones, Dameon Pierce, Travis Etienne, D'Andre Swift, Rhamondre Stevenson, Miles Sanders
Playing the matchups: James Conner, Ezekiel Elliott*, Raheem Mostert, Najee Harris*, D'Onta Foreman, David Montgomery, Khalil Herbert, Damien Harris, Gus Edwards, Tony Pollard*, Antonio Gibson, Jamaal Williams, Devin Singletary,
I'm desperate: A.J. Dillon, Chuba Hubbard, Michael Carter, Brian Robinson, Melvin Gordon*, Latavius Murray*, Darrell Henderson, Kenyan Drake, Kareem Hunt*, Clyde Edwards-Heliare, Isiah Pacheco
Stick him on my bench: James Robinson, Sony Michel, Alexander Mattison, Eno Benjamin, Cam Akers, Rachaad White, Nyheim Hines

*on a bye in Week 9

The order within the tiers doesn't matter as much as the tiers themselves, so this gives me 18 players I'd say are firmly within the circle of trust – fewer in any given week due to bye weeks or nagging injuries, like the one Jonathan Taylor is dealing with right now with his ankle. That's not very many, and you could argue Conner or Elliott or some of the other guys belong there if healthy – maybe you'd even make the case for D'Onta Foreman, though I think that's an iffy case if Chuba Hubbard is healthy.

And this list could look way different next week. The fungibility of the RB position is one of the few constants in Fantasy Football – we don't know what the RB position will look like, but we know it won't look like how we expect it to for long.

But that's how it looks to me. Right now, at least. And here are my rankings for Week 9: