Roundtable: RB Rebound Candidates

The Footballguys roundtable staff discusses RBs who struggled in October but will rebound moving forward.

Matt Waldman's Roundtable: RB Rebound Candidates Matt Waldman Published 11/06/2025

© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images roundtable

Welcome to Week 10 of the 2025 Footballguys Roundtable. Our intrepid panel of fantasy pundits discusses and debates four topics every week. We split the conversation into separate features.

This week's roundtable features these four topics:

Let's roll...

Matt Waldman: These RBs had a worse month -- Weeks 5-8 -- than their current overall rankings.  

Pick the one most likely to rebound.

Jeff Blaylock: It's Jeanty, by a mile. He's the most talented player, to which I'll add that he's getting the most opportunities. He's the only back of the four averaging more than 65 percent of his team's rushing attempts, 10 percent of his team's targets, and running routes on at least 40 percent of his team's dropbacks. He also has all of the team's rushing attempts inside the 5-yard line and 91 percent of the attempts inside the 10, which leads all running backs in the league. 

He gets more of the highest-value touches, and he's more of a factor in the passing game, which is gold in PPR formats, than the other three options. He may become even more of a weapon in the passing game following the Jakobi Meyers trade.

Of the four options, Jeanty has the toughest remaining schedule for RBs, including two games against the Broncos and one each against the Texans and the Chargers. But he gets the Cowboys in Week 11, and they've surrendered the fifth-most rushing yards and second-most receiving yards to RBs this season. 

Will Grant: There isn't a lot to get excited about for the Raiders this season. Brock Bowers is their passing game, and Ashton Jeanty is their running game. Ashton's yards per carry stats are sitting at a pedestrian 3.9 after eight games this season. The key stat that indicates he's due for a rebound, though, is his volume compared to the rest of the team. 

Jeanty is averaging over 42 touches a game - solid numbers for a running back. He also has 124 rushing attempts compared to Raheem Mostert (16) and Zamir White (10).

Jeanty's 20 receptions are also a far cry from those of the other running backs on the team. With no real competition from anyone else in the backfield, Jeanty should maintain solid fantasy value on volume alone. 

The Raiders also have tough run defenses coming up, with Denver and Cleveland, but they also have games against the Cowboys and Chargers - two teams that struggle to stop the run.

Best of all, if Jeanty is your back for the fantasy playoffs, the Raiders play the Giants in week 17. New York is ranked 32nd in rushing yards allowed per carry at 5.5, and they have given up 12 rushing touchdowns in just eight games. 

Jeanty has had a rough patch these last few weeks, but I expect he'll be able to work his way out of it. The Raiders don't have many options, and they will continue to feed him the ball regardless of who they are playing. 

Colton Dodgson: I feel like every time I watch Ashton Jeanty, he flashes. You see his ability to make people miss, impact the game as a receiver, and run through people.

I also don't want to downplay how significant Brock Bowers' return appears to be for the rest of the Raiders' offense. Before its Week 8 bye, Las Vegas finished with the worst expected points added per play metric of Week 7 (-0.87) in its blowout loss to the Chiefs. The effort against the lowly Titans in Week 6 wasn't much better.  

The Raiders ranked seventh in expected points added per play (+0.15) in Week 9, and the league-worst rushing offense, at least in terms of team EPA per rush, showed signs of life. That coincided with 17.4 Half-PPR points for Jeanty, giving him his third Top-12 finish.

The rushing efficiency is still coming along, and the offensive line will do him no favors. Still, Jeanty offers more receiving efficiency than the other options in this group.

He's dynamic enough to stay involved when the Raiders can't establish the run. The version of the offense we saw against a Jaguars defense ranked 11th in opponent expected points added per play (-0.07) could support a big stretch run for Jeanty.

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