Scott Pianowski Fantasy analyst Wed, October 28, 2026 at 9:36 PM UTC · 6 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On one of my primary fantasy teams, a contending team , I've been struggling to fill the RB2 slot all year. It's been a weekly challenge, sorting through injuries and pickups and underachievers. And last week, in the middle of a trade negotiation , I threw up the white flag. I made the most desperate of moves.
Kamara, of course, used to be fantasy royalty. We remember the 21-touchdown season and the 18-touchdown season and the six-touchdown game . We remember five straight Pro Bowl trips. We remember the "Lights, Kamara Action" fantasy team names.
Kamara hasn't been that player recently, of course. The NFL is not kind to back-nine running backs. Kamara has fallen off to 3.9 YPC since the 2021 season, and he's at 3.0 this year. Sometimes it's a wonder the Saints hand the ball to Kamara at all. He's 31, and he looks 31. This could plausibly be his final season.
So there I was, Week 7, dialing Kamara up as my RB2. All I wanted was something. And Sunday morning against the Steelers in France, Kamara gave me, well, something:
— Seven catches on seven targets, 57 yards
And with that, I was ready to start hugging strangers . For one thing, I intuitively knew Kamara probably just outproduced what the mediocre options on my bench would eventually score (looking at you, TreVeyon Henderson). And there's something oddly satisfying when you're getting away with something — I knew that Kamara hadn't really played that well but he had scored passably (at least given my lowered expectations).
And we have a phrase for this: the PPR scam.
Wan'Dale Robinson is probably the patron saint of the PPR scam. Think back to his 2024 season, when he caught 93 passes and finished as the WR41, a quasi-useful player. Robinson's value was immensely tied to those catches, because he collected just 699 receiving yards and he scored a meager three touchdowns. Your league scoring was critical as you judged Robinson's value.
We'll discuss this year's receiver PPR scams at a different time. For today's spreadsheet dive, the focus will be on the Kamara-like running backs who are using opportunity in the passing game to keep their fantasy profiles alive.
I culled the top-40 scoring backs in fantasy this season and looked at the players who are getting the biggest share of their scoring from catches and receiving yards in half-point PPR leagues. I didn't count any rushing production, and I ignored all the touchdowns. Who's living merely off catches and yards?
Here are the top five from that list. Surprise, you'll see a familiar name near the bottom of it.
The Denver offense has been a brick most of the season, and Harvey's rushing work isn't helping (3.6 YPC). But he's been reliable in the passing game, securing 25 of 28 targets and making 7.8 yards per target. This doesn't make Harvey the second coming of Marshall Faulk, but it could keep him afloat even if Jonah Coleman runs away with this backfield, as suspected. The best thing you can say about Harvey right now is that he's outplayed J.K. Dobbins all season. Harvey doesn't have an exciting ceiling, but his floor is worth rostering. He's averaging 9.2 points in half-point PPR leagues. Scam away, scammer.
We can live with the Harvey return since he wasn't expensive in the summer. Brown's season is legitimately painful because he fetched second-round draft capital.
I'll admit I'm legitimately concerned about Brown, especially after seeing how the Bengals ran things after their bye. Those post-bye games are often reveal weeks, and here's what the Bengals revealed — Samaje Perine stole a goal-line touchdown, and Tahj Brooks collected some clock-draining carries. Brown has always been viewed as a good talent but not a special one, and the case for him was always built around needing high volume. I'm not confident he'll keep enough of it to pay the ADP back. He's currently the RB25 in cumulative half-point PPR scoring and averaging 10.1 points.
While my backfields might have 99 problems, Jeanty isn't one. I failed to see a generational prospect during his rookie season, and when Jeanty had the ankle issue in the summer, I put him on the fade list.
Is that fade a hit or a miss? Jeanty is stumbling to 3.1 a carry and rookie Mike Washington Jr. has shown more juice in the running game. But Jeanty leads all running backs in targets, catches and receiving yards (he's also gobbling up goal-line rushing attempts ). The receiving work has been especially helpful during the team's current four-game losing streak, making Jeanty capable of beating negative game scripts.
The timing could be right to trade Jeanty . He's currently RB12 in cumulative half-point PPR scoring (RB14 if you switch to per-game) and it's despite his struggles to run the ball consistently. Head coach Klint Kubiak is frustrated by the recent losses and seems open to changes. Washington is screaming for a bigger role, too.
We couldn't do this piece without Kamara, our spirit animal. But I wonder if I'll even get a second week of playability out of the veteran. The Saints don't play in Week 8, and Travis Etienne Jr. might be ready to return after that. Kendre Miller is also around, though somehow his YPC is actually lower than Kamara's.
I don't have to make a call on Kamara until Week 9, and I suspect I'll probably give him low-end RB2 or flex privileges until it burns me at least once. He's averaging 9.1 half-point PPR points, but I'd be surprised if he held reliable value through the season. In the meantime, I'll keep panning for gold with the lesser-rostered running backs, hoping to get lucky.
I'll openly admit, I don't understand the Cardinals. I don't get why they signed Allgeier to a decent contract and then drafted Jeremiyah Love a few weeks later. I don't understand why they ran Love into the ground in a preseason game, resulting in an injury. I didn't see Bam Knight emerging recently, though that 6.4 YPC (on just 25 carries) sure looks nice.
Allgeier has earned his scam stripes, catching 16 of 17 targets but gaining just 84 yards with them to go with an average of 5.7 half-point PPR points. Jacoby Brissett doesn't want to hold the ball long. Somehow, nothing seems to work in this passing offense — every primary Arizona pass catcher is at 6.5 yards per target or lower.
The Cardinals have a friendly second-half schedule, which means some shrewd managers will look for the smart look-ahead play. Maybe that's buying low on Love, maybe it's adding Knight for low cost, maybe it's believing in the veteran Allgeier. But I can't escape the decision-makers in Arizona and the inefficiency in the offense as a whole. Unless one of these backs is given to me at a gift cost, I'll merely pass.
Source: Sports
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