Fantasy Football Week 1 Running Back Preview: Miles Sanders' absence makes Boston Scott a must-start player

At the beginning of the week we thought Miles Sanders would be fine and David Montgomery was definitely out for Week 1. As of Saturday afternoon, Sanders has been ruled out and Montgomery looks like he could very well play. Projections and rankings have been updated, so let's see how these backfields look this week. 

In Chicago, we're still unsure just how involved Montgomery will be, because we didn't expect him to be fully recovered by this point. Playing two weeks after suffering a groin injury does make me more concerned about the possibility of a re-injury. For that reason, I don't have him projected for his full workload and I wouldn't view him as anything more than a deep flex. Tarik Cohen remains in play as a low-end No. 2 running back in PPR, but Cordarrelle Patterson loses whatever chance he had at Fantasy relevance.

In Philadelphia, we expect a timeshare between Boston Scott and Corey Clement, though Scott is better, and should certainly do more in the passing game. We also expect Scott to handle short yardage. I have Scott projected for 14 carries and three catches. That gets him to 77 total yards with decent touchdown odds. He's a solid No. 2 running back that I'd start over anyone in Chicago in any format. Somehow he's still available in 30% of leagues, so make sure your's isn't one of them. He's also now the clear No. 1 value play in DFS.

As for Sanders, this sounds mostly precautionary. It's a long season and the Eagles didn't want to risk it in Week 1, but our expectation is that Sanders should be back in Week 2. With that in mind it's hard to get too excited about adding Clement. You probably won't play him this week and it's unlikely he has much of a role starting next week.

Week 1 RB Preview

The following players are not being projected to play Week 1 at this time. Here's what it means:

• 20 -- Austin Ekeler averaged 20 touches per game in four games without Melvin Gordon last year. If he's anywhere close to that this season, he's a top-five back.
• 20.3 -- James Conner averaged 20.3 Fantasy points per game from Week 1 of 2018 through Week 8 of 2019. He's a No. 1 running back whenever he's healthy.
• 4 -- Boston Scott had four carries inside the 5-yard line and scored all four times.
• 29.75 -- Kevin Stefanski's Vikings averaged 29.75 rush attempts per game in 2019. If he brings that plan to Cleveland, both Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt could be 1,000-yard rushers.
• 33 -- Antonio Gibson had 33 career carries in college. 
• 5.7 -- DeAndre Washington averaged 5.7 touches per game when Josh Jacobs was healthy last year. The hope is that a couple of those, in the form of receptions, now go to Jacobs.

Who should you start and sit this week? And which surprising quarterback could lead you to victory? Visit SportsLine now to get Week 1 rankings for every position, plus see which QB is going to come out of nowhere to crack the top 10, all from the model that out-performed experts big time last season.