David Phillippi looks at the Zero RB Countdown through a dynasty lens and provides a glimpse into how you can use this redraft resource to evaluate your dynasty squads.
With four weeks in the books and bye weeks now complicating our lineup and end-of-roster decisions, it’s a great time to just count back down through the candidates and see where things stand with these players/backfields in dynasty.
Any RB queries and quandaries not mentioned here will usually be covered in Shawn’s Zero RB Universe with actionable dynasty takeaways also appearing in Curtis Patrick’s Dynasty Command Center.
No. 15 – Evan Hull
Rostership: 8/23 teams
Dynasty Direction: Holding
Although officially recommending Hull, Shawn made this striking case for Zack Moss in writing about methods for playing the 2023 Colts.
Moss might have been an interesting soft handcuff if not for the broken arm . . . In that context, let me float a ridiculous question.
Could Moss be the 2023 Josh Jacobs?
Jacobs had been a barely competent starter across 2020 and 2021, but he was a broken tackle machine as a rookie. Well, Moss joined the league as a fantasy sensation due to elite evasion rates in college. He then tied with Aaron Jones for the top broken tackle rate of any RB as a rookie in 2020. That season he averaged 2.8 yards after contact per attempt, and while he was still a below-average overall runner, his signature tool had apparently translated to the NFL.
Moss was not quite as dynamic in 2021 and didn’t really have a place in the Buffalo offense before the mid-season trade of 2022.
Especially with a hybrid QB – and with a crafty schemer/play-caller in Shane Steichen at the controls – you could see Moss making a similar jump to Jacobs, albeit without the huge workload or similar level of fantasy relevancy.
Moss’s impressive performance during Jonathan Taylor’s absence has helped prove out the situation portion of the Hull thesis, making him a fairly easy hold in leagues with deep rosters or IR spots. With Taylor looking set to return, Hull will be RB3 at best once back from a knee injury (about which there seems to be no real update), but the contingent upside here is worth stashing unless the roster is under real pressure for room.
I drafted with Shawn and Colm Kelly in the FFPC Best Ball Tournament just prior to the start of the season. We were lucky enough to hit on three of the top breakouts from the Zero RB list and entered the week in third place . . . before we got a huge score from Justin Fields last night. It may whet your appetite for the full list to go back and listen to the values we go on priority RBs.
