- Fantasy football managers typically have their preferred type of running back: The gashers — players who explode for chunk gains — and the grinders — those who chip away at defenses for consistent production — make up the NFL running back landscape.
- Christian McCaffrey has turned into a grinder: His longest run of the season is only 20 yards, but his pass-catching work and reliability have made him the RB1 through 11 weeks of action.
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Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
Fantasy football managers typically have their preferences for running backs. They either love speed and blink-and-you'll-miss-it action and explosiveness, or they find joy in a grinding, methodical approach, content to let the flashier counterparts zip and dash around while others yield respectable results on consistent workloads.
No one way is correct; it’s just that one looks and feels more exciting and can give you the dopamine hit you crave, whereas the other one just happens very boringly and effectively.
That’s all to say that in fantasy football, a trend is developing. Big-play threats at running back are getting drafted earlier and earlier, and in dynasty formats, their prices are experiencing constant inflation, even if their overall body of work suggests they shouldn’t.
Conversely, running backs who take what’s blocked for them, plus falling forward for an extra yard, are not the prized asset of many fantasy rosters, even if they’re always capable when called upon.
It’s just not how the game of fantasy football is played. Fantasy owners covet players who can give them 12 points on one touch by taking a screen 50 yards to the house or patiently wait behind five large human shields before emerging on the second level, picking up speed and leaving linebackers in their dust.
Think about it: Has a player such as Tyler Allgeier ever commanded the sort of respect or buzz in fantasy circles as a player like Tyrone Tracy Jr.? Or Jacory Croskey-Merritt? Being seen to be doing a lot can oftentimes be more damaging than simply picking up yards.
So, which is better, a grinder or a gasher? Who gives you more consistent weekly production, which finishes higher in fantasy and which players have moved teams and shifted from one sort of back to another?
At the time of writing, six players have racked up at least 10 rushes of 15 or more yards: De'Von Achane (16), Breece Hall (15), Jonathan Taylor (15), J.K. Dobbins (12), Kenneth Walker III (10) and Bijan Robinson (10).
Of those six, Taylor, Achane, Robinson and Dobbins are all in the top 10 in rushing yards, although Dobbins will soon start slipping down those rankings due to season-ending foot surgery. Allied with that, Taylor, Achane and Robinson are all in the top five in total fantasy points at their position.
Taylor represents the best of both worlds of these running back types. Not only does he have the second-highest breakaway rate in the NFL, but he also leads the league in carries inside the opposition's five-yard line, converting six of those 16 attempts into touchdowns.
Conversely, Achane joins players such as Julius Chestnut, Raheim Sanders and Ray Davis in having three or fewer carries inside the five-yard line. However, that should not be a knock on Achane, as his 5-foot-8, 188-pound stature meant he was never going to be relied on between the tackles in the red zone. The attention should be on just how hard Achane is having to work to gain all those yards.
The 2023 third-rounder is running behind the 30th-ranked offensive line by PFF run-blocking grade (57.7), and the Dolphins‘ offense as a whole has 262 rushing attempts through the midpoint of the season, 24th most in the NFL. Of Achane’s 900 rushing yards this season, 650 have come after contact, a mark good enough for second in the league.
Interestingly, Achane already has six more designed runs of 15-plus yards than he did across all of last season. Even with that low explosive run rate, the Miami rusher still finished as the RB5 in standard PPR scoring leagues. Jahmyr Gibbs and Derrick Henry paced the NFL in breakaway runs in 2024, with 25 each, and they both finished as top-five running backs in fantasy football.
The top three backs in breakaway runs in 2024 — Gibbs, Henry and Barkley — all finished inside the top four in fantasy scoring at their position. Taylor and the Arizona Cardinals‘ James Conner round out the top five for 2024, and they finished as the RB13 and RB11, respectively.
In 2024, just six players had 15 or more runs of 15 yards: Gibbs, Henry, Saquon Barkley, Taylor, Conner and Chuba Hubbard. All six finished as top-15 running backs in fantasy football. Of that group, only Conner and Hubbard didn’t have a single rushing touchdown of more than 40 yards. Meanwhile, Barkley had seven 40-plus-yard runs, with four going for scores. When the gashers gashed, they left significant wounds in opposing defenses.
An interesting member of the group is Dobbins. The former Baltimore Raven is perhaps not the first name you think of when looking for breakaway speed and chunk runs. Dobbins currently sits as the RB21 in standard PPR fantasy, but he already has two more runs of 15-plus yards than he did throughout the entirety of the 2024 campaign (12 to 10), and he has matched the 12 he had in 2020 — the only other season he has topped 130 rushes due to injuries. While the Denver Broncos field an outstanding offensive line, it’s a middle-of-the-pack run-blocking unit.
Dobbins, for a lot of his career, has been much more of a grinder with the occasional explosive run. Before his injury this season, the former second-rounder had the potential to eclipse 20 breakaway runs for the first time in his career.
That brings us to the grinders. The most interesting member of the group is Christian McCaffrey. The San Francisco 49ers running back is currently the overall RB1 — and yet, his longest run of the season is 20 yards. Only Las Vegas Raiders rusher Ashton Jeanty has fewer 15-plus yard runs (three) than McCaffrey’s five, despite McCaffrey having the most carries in the NFL. He is still a superb pass-catching back, ranking ninth in receiving yards among all NFL players (732) and sporting an elite PFF 91.0 receiving grade.
But on the ground, McCaffrey is grinding the opposition to the very modest tune of 3.7 yards per carry (29th out of 33 qualifying running backs). His 707 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns help supplement his insane receiving numbers.
The other great grinder of the group is Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs. The former Raider has just seven rushes of 15-plus yards this season, and his 648 rushing yards — 64.8 per game — is a modest return. But Jacobs places behind only Taylor in rushing touchdowns so far in 2025 (11). He also ranks behind only Taylor and Henry for carries inside the five-yard line, converting seven of 15 tries into touchdowns, which is tied for the most in the NFL with Dallas Cowboys runner Javonte Williams.
Jacobs has accounted for 169 of the Packers' 284 rushing attempts on the season — a whopping 59.5%. And for all that opportunity and workload, his longest run is even shorter than McCaffrey’s (but only by a single yard). Yet, the Packers back finds himself as the current RB7. This is not an outlier performance for Jacobs, who in 2024 had just 11 runs of 15 or more yards, fewer than Joe Mixon, Najee Harris, Jordan Mason and Tony Pollard, among others.
While Jacobs finished behind all of those players in that one particular metric, he still ranked as the RB6 last season. For context, Mason finished as the RB40, and the closest back of that group to Jacobs was Mixon at RB17. Jacobs isn’t flashy; he’s just the ultimate RB1 grinder. Much of his work won’t make highlight shows, but he produces.
The Los Angeles Rams‘ Kyren Williams also slowly bludgeons his way to an RB1 season every year. For an offense that slots into the top 10 in points scored (seventh, 272) and ties for fourth in plays of 20-plus yards (44), not a lot of that explosion is coming from the ground game. Williams has just five explosive runs, tying with McCaffrey for the second fewest in the NFL. However, unlike his fellow undersized running back Achane, Williams is getting a heavy dose of red-zone carries, especially inside the five-yard line. Only Taylor, Henry, Jacobs and Javonte Williams have more than his 11 carries inside the five, and his five scores from those rushes are just two behind the league leaders, Javonte Williams and Jacobs.
Much like Jacobs, Kyren Williams is getting the bulk of the carries for his offense. Of the Rams' 277 attempts this season, Williams accounts for 57%.
Williams' lack of breakaway runs is not a glitch; it’s a feature of his game. In 2024, he had just six runs of 15-plus yards, and the year before, he had nine. In both seasons, he topped 1,000 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns on his way to back-to-back RB7 overall finishes.
Ultimately, those true gashers — Gibbs, Barkley and Achane, among others — represent your best opportunity to land the overall RB1 in any given year in fantasy, providing the turbocharged potential to turn a 10-yard gain into a 30-yard chunk play into a 50-yard scamper to the house. But never turn your nose up at a player who slowly chips away at opposing defenses. Remember, volume is king in fantasy football, and if your player is getting carries across all situations (outside of third-and-long, perhaps), there is always the opportunity for fantasy points.
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