Lineup Fantasy Football Show - 5 DARK HORSE RBs With a Real Shot at RB1 Overall in Fantasy Football

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

The Dark Horse Fantasy Football RBs that have a REAL shot at finishing as the overall RB1 in fantasy football this year. Mitch and Mello break down 5 running backs with extremely high upside heading into the 2026 fantasy football season, including one we consider a league winner and help you take down a championship in redraft, best ball, or dynasty fantasy football. Timestamps: 0:00 - Fantasy WRs with Sneaky RB1 Upside 0:27 - James Cook 5:45 - Saquon Barkley 9:14 - Kenneth Walker III 12:43 - Derrick Henry 16:23 - Jeremiyah Love Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome into the line of fantasy football show. I'm Mitch Anderson. I'm Justin Mello. And Mello, we are not talking about guys like Bijon, Gibbs, or even CMC today. We want to break down five players that we think have a legitimate shot at the overall running back one that are ranked outside of the top five. We're going to go from the highest ADP to the lowest and wrap it up with our deepest dark horse candidate to finish as the RB1 and explain exactly why they have a realistic path.

You ready to kick this off? I'm so ready, Mitch. Let's talk first about James Cook. Running back six, we're cheating a little bit here. We just went just outside the top five. Can I tell you something? Please do. We debated on how to rank these guys and if we wanted to do what we're doing now,

which is basically earliest ADP to latest, or if we wanted to go from best chance to worst chance type of thing to finish as the RB1. And I actually think of everyone on this list, I have the hardest time imagining James Cook getting there. Wow. I don't know if I'd agree with that, but let's hear it. My fear starts and ends entirely with the fact that I think he has a relatively low ceiling in the passing game. And I think they have a really tough strength of schedule for running backs in Buffalo this year.

That's fair. That being said, take those worries aside. And I do think there's an opportunity for him to do it. And it comes with the idea that there could be more passing work going James Cook's way this season. We're talking about the leading rusher from 2025. It wasn't Bejohn or Gibbs or Taylor. It was James Cook. the same James Cook that also was tied for the most rushing touchdowns back in 2024,

still a part of this elite Buffalo Bill's offense that only got better over the offseason with the introduction of DJ Moore. He was wildly efficient, third highest yards per carry among any running back with 75 or more carries. It was also fourth in the entire NFL in yards after contact. And one thing we have been trying to just keep hitting and keep hammering is our talk about coordinator changes and not to discount them and to make sure that we're breaking that into our analysis.

And so obviously the bills had some turnover in the coaching department, but I don't think it's going to affect James Cook as much as some of the other coordinator shifts we've seen just because Joe Brady is still going to be handling the offensive play calling duties after taking Sean McDermott's job. Yeah. But something I want to touch on is their new offensive coordinator, Pete Carmichael, is like as much a disciple of a head coach as you could ever be with Sean Payton. He spent 2006 to 2023 with Peyton and Breeze for much of his tenure at the Saints,

and then spent the last two seasons in Denver working closely with Sean Payton again. Brady's going to be calling the plays, but I do wonder if we're going to see some of that Sean Payton influence seep into game plans and get James Cook a little bit more involved in the passing game. And that's where I think the path starts beginning for James Cook to actually make this RB1 run is because we've seen him do it on the ground. He's unbelievable. He's incredibly efficient on not as much volume as a lot of other guys. And he also has a nose for the end zone. And it feels like every time you're watching the bills drive down the field, you know they're going to get it within the five, then you're just flipping a coin on Josh or James Cook. And so we know Sean Payton has had a tendency to really get running backs involved in the passing game.

And this is one of those coordinator shifts that I think doesn't affect his outlook too much. But if it does affect it, I think it has some actual upside. So to me, James Cook's path is simple. Continue being efficient on the ground. Keep fine in the end zone. See a bit of an uptick in the bill's offense overall and a bit of an uptick in his. receiving work. And if he does all that, I don't see any real reason why a guy who's finished as an RB1 in three straight seasons couldn't be the one.

Sean Payton loves throwing to his running backs. He's addicted. He lives for it. He dreams about it at night. I'm glad you brought that up. That's actually a really good point. Like, we could see some of that influence seep into this offense. And it really probably is the one thing holding James Cook back from running back one overall upside. His career high interceptions in a season is 44, which isn't a lot. by any means, but it's, you know, it's not the elite running back, you know, numbers in terms of reception. So we would need to see a step up there, but everything else is in place because when I think

about what I want in my fantasy running backs aside from receptions, I want a really talented player who's on a really good offense with a really good quarterback and a really good offensive line. And I just described James Cook there. Or you want Bejean Robinson. Or you want Bejean Robinson, of course. Yeah, I'll take Bejohn probably even over that. But just from a philosophical perspective, James Cook and his situation, every single box is checked.

You mentioned last year he led to league in yards if you include the playoffs. He was third in carries last year as well. He was first in rushing touchdowns in 2024. So if all of those things can come together in one season, which is absolutely possible, he could definitely be the running back one. So, yeah, a few different things have to fall his way in all. in one season, but it is in his range of outcomes. A thousand percent.

And yeah, I think those two things that I mentioned in the beginning go hand in hand. One, the worry about the ceiling with his receiving work and two, the strength of schedule for running backs, because I don't always let that really affect my decision-making and fantasy, but when you have a guy who so much of his production comes on the ground, strength of schedule matters a whole lot more. Yeah, the counterpoint, it's really cool when he rips like a 60-yarder. It is really cool. one of those guys that it's like,

there's so few of them that it's like every time he gets the ball, you're like, yeah, there's a shot here that he just takes this thing. And then he hits the second gain. You're like, oh, he's gone. He's gone. That's Peter. Well, speaking of guys who can rip 60-yard touchdowns, we got another guy here who's going a little bit later as the running back seven, but unlike James Cook, he has

a running back one finish under his belt. That is Sequan Barkley. And people are really quick to forget. He was the running back one in 2024. actually as two running back one finishes under his belt. He did his rookie year as well. It really does feel like the Justin Jefferson thing where it's like, that could have been 15 years ago for how long the 225 season felt for him.

Such a distant memory. The Philadelphia Eagles feel like a Pop Warner team to some people right now. Like it's just the vibes are bad. But we're not that far removed from them being the Super Bowl champions. And Sequan being the biggest fantasy asset in the entire league that season. So let's think about what was on the last. season. The offensive line was super hurt, which made them not very effective. The play calling was worse than your kid cousins on Madden. Like, just the worst display of play calling we've seen

in many, many years. They should unplug Kevin Petool his controller and just let him keep playing on the sideline. Yeah, just, yeah, move that stick up. You're going deep. Good job, dude. And then to top it all, off, you had AJ Brown on this roster who was, like, threatening war crimes if he didn't get the football, so they had to start increasing his volume. But all that's fixed now. The offensive line should be healthy, which the offensive line went healthy is very, very good. We have a new play caller in town. We have A.J. Brown on the Patriots.

So the situation is closer to what it was in 2024 than 2025. And also, going into 2025, he had the 400 plus touches from the year prior. He was probably pretty beat up. He had a longer offseason to rest up. Hopefully he's healthier now. we could just see 2024 all over again. I'm not saying we will, but it's entirely possible if he's healthy, if the situation is back to what it was a couple years ago.

He's so talented he could be the running back one again. Yeah, the exact reason why I wanted to make that, like, kind of disclaimer, that I felt like James Cook had the biggest challenge to get there is, like, the big difference here is we've seen Seekwon have a very real receiving season. And we also saw two years ago, had he played week 18, he probably would have broke the rushing record. like he's truly been doing it all in this offense. And like, this guy's finished as a top five back three separate times in fantasy football. And so I feel like we've just been asking people to kind of like wash your eyeballs from the Kevin Petulah experience.

I feel like it's like that episode of SpongeBob where Mr. Crabs realizes they're giving away everything for free and he like makes them like give back the movie they were watching. That's how I feel like we all need to access towards last season with the Eagles. But you've talked about the concerns with how much like work Jonathan Taylor got and how we're a little bit concerned this season about. he could be efficient. And we talk about guys getting like high 300 carries and that being a huge concern. Sequin was coming off of a 436 carry season if you include the Super Bowl run. And so there was so many efficiency concerns, so many red flags going to last season. But I think we're going to see a healthier Saquan. And I think if they continue to rely on him in the passing game, which I think there's a good chance he gets more involved with no AJ Brown.

And if he can get some of that touchdown equity back, I honestly think we are like very much sleeping on his upside for 2026. I hope we're unlocking our audience's memories of that 2024 campaign, the way you just unlocked my memory of that SpongeBob episode. It's such a good episode. That took me back. I didn't, like, I forgot we were even doing a show right now when I was just thinking about that episode. But yes, the situation is there, the talent is there, all of the upside is there.

All right, let's move on to another running back here at number three, going at the RB10, Kenneth Walker the third. This one feels, I feel like this is becoming the theme of this episode, but like if we're being real, it's kind of the cheat code to running backs performing in PPR now is like, this feels so reliant on if the reports are true that they're going to try to get Ken more involved in the passing game than he was in Seattle. But even if they don't, we finally get to see Ken Walker unleashed as a bell cow running back. This is pro football focus's number one highest graded rusher in the NFL in 2025, joining the Kansas City Chiefs offense that we were all dying to get pieces of just

what two years ago. Remember, I don't know how many years ago it was now, like probably five when we were drafting Clyde Edwards-Layer in the first round because he was just playing for the Chiefs as a rookie? Yeah, he was like already ranked as a top 10 dynasty asset before he played in a full snap. And now you go back to the Eric Beenemy led Chiefs offense. We talked last episode about Matt Nagy and my concern with him. The offense has been so much more successful with Beenemy at the helm. Mahomes seems healthier than myself and others expected and seems wheels up for them. Among running backs with 100 or more carries, he was fifth in the NFL and explosive run rate. The one thing that this guy has been missing, like I mentioned, has been the volume.

Seattle, he had the Zach Charbonnet problem that he no longer has. And so one other thing when I look at the Patrick Mahomes recovery, I think it's great and I think that he looks better than I expected, but I still do think that if he's out there week one, the mobility is not going to instantly be right back. And so what do you do as an NFL team if that's the case? You've run. run the ball a hell of a lot more with Kenneth Walker, and you make some easy dump-off passes to him as well. And I think that you could see Ken have a huge, huge first few weeks as Mahomes gets ramped back up.

So Kenneth Walker is looking great at OTAs right now. We always say follow the money. They just made him the sixth highest paid running back in the NFL with a little over $14 million a year. They have plans to use this guy like crazy. If that involves passing work, I think this one is like a really real shot at him just being the RB1 here in Kansas City. Yeah. We've always known he has all the talent in the world as a pure runner. I've been

skeptical about the past catching because I don't think it's his strength. Yeah. But guess what? I don't think it's the strength of anybody in the Kansas City Chiefs running back room. I don't know who else is going to do it. It's going to have to be Ken Walker. The reports are it's going to be Ken Walker. So it's going to be part of his game. I don't think it's a strength of anyone on the offense outside of Rishie Rice and Travis Kelsey. Thank you for saying something. I don't think receiving. No, you're right. Yeah, you want Tyquan Thornton out there catching passes. I can tell you as a Patriots fan, I certainly don't want Tycoon Thornton out there catching passes. So Ken Walker is going to get that work. I think this Chief's team is going to be back with vengeance.

They're like the evil empire. I think we see this offense rebound and Ken Walker's going to be a huge part of it. He's going to be a major beneficiary. And the volume's going to be there. Mitch, would it surprise you all that much of K-9 finishes next season, top five in opportunities? No, not literally not at all. Not at all. And if he did it, he would do it in a Patrick Mahomes-led offense. Talk about upside. Like, there is no ceiling. There really isn't.

Like, this feels like you're unleashing the canine. We're letting the dogs out, Mellow. We're going to have to start a T-shirt business. We're together this. No, yeah, no. All right. Well, I got another veteran for you, someone that we have. talked about so much on this show going as the running back 12.

Derek Henry. Let's go. One of our favorites here at the lineup. We probably sound like broken records. You can't stop us, though. We're going to keep talking about Derek Henry. Smoke a whole pack of Derek Henry. Oh, yeah, no.

Every episode we're going to be talking about Derek Henry. And really the main argument here is that he has not hit the clip yet. Last year was frustrating. I know. I had him. I cried myself to sleep a couple times in a redraft league where I drafted him. Mitch is laughing because he's in that league, that bastard. But the truth is Derek Henry was very good last year.

Over five yards per carry. He got the top of the league kind of volume, was very efficient with it, was really the only thing that went well for this offense. And the main reason being, the offense was beat up, particularly Lamar. Lamar Jackson is the true engine that makes this offense go. He wasn't available. and when he was he wasn't himself. So nothing seemed to go right.

The offense couldn't stay on the field. It hurt Derek Henry's fantasy output, although the efficiency was there. I'm still so confident that he is still the same King Henry. Now you get Lamar back. Now you get a healthy offense with a new play caller, which could be exciting coming from the Ben Johnson coaching tree in Declan Doyle. So the upside is there.

He's had four top five finishes before. he can do it again if he scores enough touchdowns, which I really think this offense will be humming and he can fall in the end zone enough time. So all the upside is there, despite some concerns around his age and a potential cliff. Yeah, I think we're all just projecting a cliff because we see an age where I just,

there's no metric or efficiency measure that shows that Derek Henry is slowing down at all. Do you think there's also a part of the vibe around Derek Henry because of those early fumbles last year that people were just kind of thinking he was like losing it a little bit. Yeah, they're like they treated him like their senile grandfather because he Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, like he was like walking down the highway in the middle of the night.

Like, okay, grandpa, I'm sure you were really good back in 2018. Yeah, he was, I mean, he was top three among qualified running backs in yards per carry last year. Like you said, you bring in a healthy Lamar, you bring in Declan Doyle from the Ben Johnson coaching tree. He's had 16 touchdowns each of the last two seasons. and like I think most times it's a regression is imminent for that but it's Derek Henry

and he's just the exception of the rule and I think he's also the exception to the carries rule that we just talked about with Sequin because he does it every single year he's always getting 300 or more carries and he hasn't had a healthy season of nine or more games without finishing as the RB1 since 2019

and that included one year that he got hurt so you said earlier this spring you love him as a dark horse for offensive player of the year. And I want to come in right now and say, I think I'm fully bought into that as my favorite sleeper pick for offensive player of the year,

and I will be placing that. Love that. Absolutely love that. Counterpoint to ourselves, though, did you see, I saw, I think it was Sleeper tweeted it, that the last like four or five years, he's just alternated between the running back four and the running back eight every year.

And last year, he was the running back eight. So he's actually destined to be the running back four, not the running back one. But either way, he's about you. Dark Horse candidates to finish is the run. running back four. Either way, he's a value at the running back 12. He is an absolute value. Let's jump into a guy that we have no idea what this is going to look like. But every sign points to there being an actual path here to finish as the overall running back one. And that's

RB 13 off the board, Jeremiah Love. We're not going as deep here as we did with the wide receivers when we went all the way to wide receiver 20. But I think that's just kind of like the landscape of running backs and how this works. Like the odds that you're going to draft a guy at the RB 18. that could finish as the number one overall is insane. Like, we know enough about workloads and play styles that it's almost nearly impossible for a guy to ascend that much over a season. But jumping off of that, what makes Jeremiah Love so fun is that we know he has the skill set to do it.

We just don't know what it'll look like both at an NFL level and in this Arizona Cardinals offensive environment. We may not have the NFL numbers to go off of, but this is a guy with top three NFL draft capital who just went for 6.9 to carry, nice, 13702 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns. Second only to Caleb Hawkins have North Texas in PFF's rushing grade among the entire NCAA. He also tacked on three more touchdowns plus 280 yards through the air. He has the skill set.

He has the physical profile to be in every downback, an immediate fantasy producer. And then the big holdup that happened was that he went to the Arizona Cardinals. And I know it was a bit of a nightmare scenario in the draft regards to like fantasy production and fantasy potential, but I think it's gotten blown a little bit out of proportion. I look back at a guy like Sequin years ago, who was a generational talent, went to a terrible Giants team, also in the top three second for him.

And they just rode him with so much volume and he finished as the overall running back one. Granted, that Giants team didn't have a guy like Algier that they just paid on the roster who cut into the production. But we've kind of talked a lot this offseason about how I don't know if Tyler Algiers been that productive or efficient when you really break it down.

And if Jeremy Love gets out there and he's just absolutely lighting it on fire, you're telling me they're going to start spelling him for Tyler Algier? No. And I'm so glad you brought up this Sequon comparison because he was, I think we mentioned it earlier, the running back one as a rookie. And the thing I'll add to that, too, is he was running back one with a horrible offensive line. That giant's offensive line was terrible. And he still succeeded.

So there is a path for Jeremiah Love. Obviously a big part of it came in the passing game. Eli Manning loved throwing the ball. to Sequan Barkley. So that's a key ingredient. But the good news is love has that skill set. He can catch passes, certainly better than Tyler Alger can buy a lot. And this was the most pass heavy team in the NFL last year. So if they're going to pass the ball a lot, Jeremiah Love can be involved. And I know they probably won't pass the ball quite as much as they did last year because it was just a ridiculous rate in which they did draw the ball. It is probably impossible.

But guess what? That doesn't hurt Jeremiah Love. They're going to run it more. Okay, they're going to run it more with Jeremiah I love. So there is a pat there. I think the biggest thing, though, like you mentioned, is he can't let Tyler Alger put him in the cuck chair by the goal line. That cannot happen. If that happens like it did with Bijan, there's no running back one upside.

No, I couldn't agree more. That was just the most perfect way to put it. Thank you. I've worked hard on that one. Those were our top five dark horse candidates to finish as the overall running back one in fantasy football. If you agree with the list, Let us know down below.

If there's anybody that we didn't include that you think has real potential, let us know down below as well. And, Mello, do you miss anything? I'm done. All right, we'll catch you guys next episode.