Fantasy Football Week 13 Running Back Rankings: How high does Zack Moss move with Jonathan Taylor out?

Chris Towers walks you through his Week 13 RB rankings

By Chris Towers

Dec 3, 2023 at 10:59 am ET • 2 min read

The biggest concern at the running back position for Week 13 is already settled, as Jonathan Taylor had surgery on his thumb injury and will reportedly miss 3-5 weeks while recovering. That forces Zack Moss into the starting role for the Colts -- and back into your starting lineups in pretty much all circumstances. Moss has been the lead back for the Colts eight times going back to the end of last season, and he's averaged 16.3 PPR points per game, and he was even better earlier this season than that. He's a must-start Fantasy option as long as Taylor is out.

Otherwise, the RB position is in pretty good shape as of Sunday morning as far as injuries go right now. Aaron Jones (knee) is out, as expected, as he still hasn't practiced due to his lingering injury. AJ Dillon is in the RB2/3 discussion with a tough matchup against the Chiefs on the way. On the other side of that one, Jerick McKinnon (groin) has been ruled out, which makes Isiah Pacheco a stronger start -- he was targeted five times last week against the Raiders with McKinnon out.

The other key names on the injury report all look like they're going to play. That includes Breece Hall (hamstring), De'Von Achane (knee), Dalvin Cook (shoulder), and Ezekiel Elliott (thigh), though there is seemingly more uncertainty around the latter two (who you probably shouldn't be relying on in Fantasy anyways). The one concern here is Travis Etienne (chest), and only because he doesn't play until Monday night. However, reports indicate he is expected to play against the Bengals. If you have Joe Mixon as an alternative, you could just slide him in in case Etienne is an unexpected inactive; otherwise, D'Ernest Johnson would probably be preferred over Tank Bigsby if you need one, but they'll likely split work, at least.

We should spend some time talking about how to handle Achane, of course. He was removed from the injury report and will play after missing last week's game with a knee injury. He's played just one game since Week 5, and made it through just three snaps when he tried to come back two weeks ago, which makes it awfully tough to trust him here. We know how good Achane can be in this offense when he's right, with 35.6 points per game in his three healthy, full games, which makes it hard to go away from him here. But we don't really know what kind of role he's going to have, nor whether he can make it through a full game. I'm starting Achane where I have him, but I'm ranking him more like an RB2, given the uncertainty.

Here are my full rankings for Week 13 at running back for PPR leagues: