5 Running Backs With Major Touchdown Upside for 2018

LeGarrette Blount, Detroit Lions

Rookies are exciting, especially skill position players taken early, and I'm expecting some "but Kerryon Johnson" blow-back on this one.

Granted, LeGarrette Blount is far from a lock to see a big overall workload in the crowded Detroit Lions' backfield, but it's a little premature to crown a back with no NFL carries as a lock to beat out a back with over 1,300 carries. Especially when Blount hasn't shown much (if any) decline with age. In addition to this, Blount is, at the very least, expected to open the season as the Lions' top goal-line back. He's going late in drafts and is especially appealing in deep leagues and best-ball formats.

5Dimes has the Lions over/under set at 369.5 points for this season, which is tied for ninth in the NFL, meaning we can expect them to be a high-scoring unit once again.

They were pass-heavy in the red zone last year, but they also ran a below-average number of red zone snaps. Big offensive success would mean that we can expect them to climb way up in that rankings (the gap between the Lions and the ninth-ranked team was 21 snaps last year), which means that even with a pass-heavy approach, there will likely be more total carries available.

Without a true goal-line back like Blount, the Lions gave Ameer Abdullah 20 red zone carries last year, and his 41.7% market share ranked top-20 in the league.

Touchdown rate is a highly variable stat that is hard to read into much over a small sample, but Blount has been around long enough that the sample isn't so small. Since he came into the league in 2010, his 17.7% touchdown rate in the red zone ranks a solid 38th among the 101 players with at least 50 attempts, giving him a great chance to hold onto that role throughout the campaign.

He's certainly a low-floor option -- for all I said at the start, Kerryon Johnson will certainly see some opportunity to earn himself a lead-back role, but this article isn't about finding high-floor players. It's about straight up touchdown upside, and Blount's is very rare for a guy who isn't even being drafted as a top-50 back, according to FantasyFootballCalculator's average draft position (ADP) data.