July 25, 2026

The Shrewdness Top 10 Guillotine Running Backs: Season Preview Continues

The blade keeps swinging. Pru, Dex, and Chiz are back with the second installment of their 2026 Guillotine Fantasy Football preview series, and this week it's running back — arguably the most important position on the board when a bad Sunday can end your season outright. Full individual rankings and the group averages are posted at theshrewdness.beam.ly, with the site's top-200 overall master list dropping August 11th. Draft before that and, as Chiz put it, "you're in a stupid league."

Why Running Backs Decide Whether You Survive September

Quick refresher for anyone new: in Guillotine, the lowest-scoring team gets chopped every single week. There's no riding out a bad month — one disaster Sunday and your studs hit waivers for everyone else to pick over. That reality makes running back the position that can make or break you fastest, because as Chiz laid out, this isn't a talent-only list. Two things matter above all else: floor, meaning a back locked into 15-plus touches no matter what, not one of the roughly one-third of NFL backfields that split carries between two or three guys (the crew's term for these: "hydra backfields"); and first-month schedule, weighted more heavily than usual, because a great back with a brutal September matchup does you no good if you're already eliminated by November. A pure talent list would look very different from this one. This list is built to get you through the first month alive.

The Countdown: Shrewdness Top 10 Running Backs

10. Ashton Jeanty (Raiders) — Talent-wise, a top-five back — maybe the most talented runner on this entire list. The problem is Las Vegas: a shaky offensive line, quarterback uncertainty between Cousins and Mendoza, and a defense bad enough that the Raiders will spend most Sundays playing from behind, which yanked Jeanty out of game plans late in games as a rookie. The opening schedule helps some (home vs. Miami, at the Chargers, at New Orleans, home vs. Kansas City), and Chiz especially likes him in Week 1 if Vegas can grab an early lead. Dex had him a touch lower on his personal ballot at 12th; still a clear top-10 talent, just capped by circumstance.

9. Omarion Hampton (Chargers) — A repeat of the "great rookie talent, brutal rookie season" story, except the Chargers' offensive line is finally healthy and new OC Mike McDaniel has a track record of feeding running backs in the passing game (see: De'Von Achane in Miami). Add a beautifully soft opening slate — Arizona, at Vegas, at Buffalo — and Hampton becomes, in Chiz's words, "the one this year." Pru's only real hesitation is health, given how many games Hampton missed as a rookie, but all three hosts had him inside their personal top 10 once you factor in the schedule.

8. De'Von Achane (Miami) — The widest range of opinions on the board. Pru has him as high as 4th, loving the consistency, the receiving volume, and a juicy Week 1 date with Vegas. Chiz has him as low as 16th — Achane averaged an absurd 5.7 yards per carry last year with everybody knowing he'd get the ball, but a new head coach and offensive coordinator inject real uncertainty into his role, raising his ceiling but lowering his floor. What keeps him in the top 10 either way: with no household names left at receiver in Miami, he's the only proven option to move the chains, and even on a bad day he's probably catching three to five passes.

7. Jonathan Taylor (Colts) — When healthy, Taylor was must-start appointment television last year, stringing together an eight-week run of two-to-three-touchdown games and finishing as the third-highest-scoring fantasy running back in the league. Dex had him as high as 4th on his personal list for exactly that reason. Chiz is more skeptical at 11th: Taylor's workload dipped hard when Daniel Jones got hurt, he only had two receiving touchdowns all year, and nobody should expect another 18 rushing touchdowns. The opening schedule is also rough — at Baltimore, at Kansas City, home vs. Houston. Still, as Chiz put it, "if he's there, you gotta take him."

6. Chase Brown (Bengals) — The model of a Guillotine floor play. Brown is a true three-down back who racked up 88 targets, 69 catches, and 11 total touchdowns last year even with Joe Burrow missing significant time — a healthier Burrow this year should only push those numbers up. Add a contract year, a soft Cincinnati schedule, and an offense that doesn't have a quarterback sneaking in and stealing goal-line scores, and you get one of the safest floors at the position. All three hosts landed within a pick of each other here.

5. Saquon Barkley (Eagles) — The biggest split on the board. Chiz had him as high as 2nd overall, pointing to elite talent, arguably the best offensive line in football, 20-plus touches a game, and a schedule so soft it's "drooling"-worthy. Pru had him all the way down at 8th, worried about the running-back cliff at age 29 and — the real culprit — Jalen Hurts poaching goal-line touchdowns via the tush push (Hurts had eight rushing scores to Barkley's seven last year). Everyone agrees Barkley's a clear top-five talent; the debate is purely about how many of his touchdowns Philly's own quarterback is going to steal.

4. Christian McCaffrey (49ers) — CMC scored 46 more fantasy points than the next-closest running back last year, a genuine chasm. He was the only 49er who stayed healthy all season, hauled in 102 catches on 129 targets (for comparison, Puka Nacua saw 166), and didn't lose a single fumble despite the workload. The lone knocks are age and an injury history predating his time in San Francisco, but in three of his four seasons there he's played 16-plus games. If the run game clicks better this year, expect the catches to come down and the rushing yards to climb — either way, the touchdowns follow him.

3. James Cook (Bills) — Dex is the low man here at 7th, purely because of a scary Week 1 date at Houston's league-best run defense — the same unit that held Cook to 49 yards in a Week 1 meeting last year. But Cook actually torched Houston in their second matchup (116 yards, a touchdown, 24.9 fantasy points), and the schedule opens up nicely after that (Detroit, at the Chargers, at New England). He led the NFL in rushing yards last season with 1,621 — after signing a new contract, which answers any motivation questions — and Buffalo's lack of a true number-one receiver means touchdowns funnel to Cook and Josh Allen. The one real flaw: he led the league in fumbles lost last year, six fumbles total.

2. Bijan Robinson (Falcons) — Genuinely one of the most fun players in football to watch, and the numbers back it up: he was the number-two scoring running back in fantasy last year despite playing on a losing Atlanta team and seeing his touchdown total drop from 14 to 11. He lines up in the backfield only about 75% of the time — the rest, he's split out wide or in the slot like a true receiver, giving him a shot at 20-plus touches most weeks. He's also only 23, with a soft opening schedule (at Pittsburgh, Carolina, at Green Bay, at New Orleans) and a bye that lands late enough not to matter. If you don't have a top-five pick, don't bother dreaming about him — he won't be there.

1. Jahmyr Gibbs (Lions) — The safest floor at the position, full stop. Gibbs was the third-highest-scoring fantasy running back last year while effectively splitting touches with David Montgomery, and Montgomery's replacement, rookie fourth-rounder Trotter Pacheco, isn't expected to cut into his workload the same way. Gibbs is also a legitimate receiving threat (77 catches last year) with a nose for the end zone — 18 touchdowns last season alone. Detroit's schedule is a dream to open the year, and the only real debate between the hosts was a tiebreaker: Dex nudged Bijan Robinson to 2nd purely because Gibbs carries an early Week 6 bye, a minor scheduling wrinkle on an otherwise unimpeachable case. Fun fact: Gibbs posted the highest-scoring single week by a running back in fantasy history last season — 67.4 points in Week 12.

The Debate Round: Names That Didn't Crack the Consensus

  • Kenneth Walker III (Chiefs) — Pru's lone top-10 pick that didn't make the group cut. The reigning Super Bowl MVP now lands in Kansas City with no clearly established RB2 behind him (the presumptive backup is a fourth-round rookie), and Andy Reid has historically liked a dependable option near the goal line. If new OC Eric Bieniemy's offense gets rolling and Patrick Mahomes' health holds, Walker could rack up serious touchdown volume — though some injury history bears watching.

  • Derrick Henry (Ravens) — Dex's guy, sitting just outside the top 10 mostly on the strength of a gorgeous opening schedule (at Indianapolis, New Orleans, Dallas, Tennessee, Atlanta, Cleveland, Cincinnati). Henry posted 1,595 yards and 16 touchdowns last year at age 32 and shows zero signs of slowing down, but he cedes passing downs entirely to Justice Hill, which caps his weekly floor and leaves him capable of the occasional dud alongside the huge weeks.

  • Kyren Williams (Rams) — All three hosts landed him in the 11-to-14 range. The concern is Blake Corum "looming around the goal line" and repeatedly poaching touchdowns Williams sets up — plus a pass-heavy Rams offense with Puka Nakua and Davante Adams soaking up red-zone targets. Still a high-volume back on a team expected to win a lot of games; just don't count on him for touchdowns every single week.

Beware the Rookie Running Back

A recurring theme this episode: don't chase the shiny rookie name, no matter how high he went in the draft. Ashton Jeanty, Omarion Hampton, and Trevion Henderson were all hyped rookie backs a year ago, and in Guillotine, none of them were startable early — rookie running backs typically take time to earn a full workload in the NFL, and a missed blitz pickup gets them benched fast in favor of a veteran who knows the playbook. That puts this year's buzziest name, Jeremiah Love, firmly on the "stash, don't start" list — the group's average ranking on him lands in the high-20s to mid-30s, and none of the three hosts would trust him as a Week 1 starter regardless of draft-day hype.

The Big Takeaway

This list isn't ranked on pure talent — it's ranked on who keeps you alive in September. That's why a bell-cow on a bad team like Bijan Robinson or Ashton Jeanty can outrank (or underrank) a more "talented" back depending on touches and schedule, and why touchdown thieves like Jalen Hurts and Blake Corum are dragging down backs who'd otherwise be higher. Get the full individual rankings and the group averages at theshrewdness.beam.ly — wide receivers are up next in the series, with the final overall top-200 rankings landing mid-August.

Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts, and follow The Shrewdness on Spotify and YouTube for the rest of the series.

Stay shrewd, everybody.

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