Shawn Siegele celebrates the emergence of Zero RB stars, laments the loss of 2022’s best story (and perhaps best overall player), and grapples with a zero-catch performance from Mark Andrews.
Zero RB Options Continue to Roll
Week 7 was a great example of the way Zero RB works to build power teams that annihilate opponents during the bye-week stretch. Michael Hitchcock and I were lucky enough to draft a team that rosters three of the biggest hits from the Zero RB Candidates Countdown, including No. 1 Kenneth Walker.
Especially when laying out the strengths and weaknesses of Zero RB to new players, I’m often asked about how you mitigate the resultant weakness at RB. This is a fair and obvious question, but far from being weak at the position, I often find that RBs start to encroach on my Flex decisions by the time the bye weeks roll around.
Named after the old school Memphis Showboats of the 1980s USFL, this squad is actually an Anchor team with D’Andre Swift, but it’s a true anchor or a Modified Zero with the next RB going off the board in Round 10 (Walker). The benefits of that structure allow us to weather the storm with Swift and potentially get a unique team into the tournament portion of the contest.
Everything fell into place perfectly in Week 7, as the team put up 218 points behind the Bengals’ one-two punch (Joe Burrow/Ja’Marr Chase) and the 76 combined points from Eno Benjamin, Kenneth Walker, and Raheem Mostert.
I covered Benjamin’s big Thursday night in last week’s Zero RB Playbook (where we also encouraged you to look at Chuba Hubbard as a desperation play). Mostert’s climb has been evident in the snap counts and opportunity shares over the past month, and he had his 2022 breakout game with 113 rushing yards and a score in Week 5. But he made a big move on Sunday night when he tied his career high with four receptions. (His best game receiving came in Week 1 of the 2020 season when he caught four balls for 95 yards and a score.)
Prior to the season, the presumed best-case scenario for Mostert centered around stealing the rushing work with Chase Edmonds acting as the receiving complement. But Edmonds continues to struggle to find holes and catch easy targets, creating an opening for Mostert to dominate high-value touches. For a fuller breakdown of the pro-Mostert thesis, check out his blurb in the Zero RB Candidates Countdown.
For more on our favorite backs, Seamus Carr details the crazy highlight package that is Walker in his Week 7 recap.
Breece Hall Injures His Knee
RBs get hurt, as do all players. That’s just a fact of life in the NFL and the fantasy game that shadows it, but few feel quite like this. Hall was arguably the best story of 2022, a rookie back flashing insane hybrid upside, a 217-pound force with sub-4.4 speed who could break long runs even in one of the league’s worst offenses. I’d moved him to the No. 1 RB position in dynasty two weeks ago, and he’d done nothing but solidify his hold in the short interim, even scoring on a 62-yard run before his injury. That play essentially won the game for New York, as everything that transpired after could have featured in a political attack ad.
Our pro-Hall drumbeat had been a boon for subscribers over the first six weeks, and his Week 7 injury deals a devastating blow to our dynasty startup teams, not to mention the contrarian league-winning-RB-in-the-Dead-Zone thesis for redraft. I’ll be making some offers for Hall over the next several weeks, but the recent travails of backs like Cam Akers and J.K. Dobbins act as a cautionary tale. On the flip side, Travis Etienne is suddenly lighting things up in Jacksonville. (Akers, Dobbins, and Etienne all suffered different injuries with different recovery timelines and expectations.) Javonte Williams has brought back disappointing packages in some of my personal leagues, but the value of these young backs is going to be very contextual.
We wish Hall a swift recovery and dominant 2023 return.
Colm Kelly and I deal with the fantasy fallout and the emotional gut punch of losing Hall for the rest of 2022.
