Fantasy Football Week 2 Running Back Preview: Waiver adds, deep stashes, starts, sits, and more

Excitement about the Week 1 waiver wire is going to be highly dependent on whether yours is one of the 33% of leagues that Jordan Mason is still available. If he is, you should get excited, and you should make every effort to add Mason after his 152-yard outburst in Week 1. We don't expect Christian McCaffrey's absence to be a long one, but we also didn't expect him to miss Week 1.

Mason isn't the only running back add, but he's certainly the most exciting. That could change if we find out Kenneth Walker's injury is more serious than we've been told, but for now we are expecting Walker to play in Week 2. If we're right, and Mason is already rostered in your league, it may be more important to talk about who we drop, or don't drop.

Trey Benson, Jaylen Wright, Ray Davis, and Braelon Allen were all drafted, or added, with the same idea as Mason. They could be league winners if something happens to the starter. They didn't do much of anything in Week 1, but we didn't expect them to. Because the starters aren't injured. So while they are certainly guys I would drop for Mason, or Zach Charbonnet, I am doing my best to hold on to them if I can. One of the worst things you can do is draft a guy late because of his potential upside, drop him after one week for a middling Fantasy backup, and then see that upside realized later in the year on someone else's roster. Don't let that happen to you in 2024.

As always, you can find my full projections -- position by position -- over at Sportsline. 

Now let's get to the rest of the Week 2 RB Preview:

Week 2 RB Preview

The following players are not being projected to play Week 2 at this time. Here's what it means:

• 6.9 -- Bucky Irving averaged 6.9 yards per rush in Week 1. Rachaad White averaged 2.1. Don't be surprised if Irving's role increases if this keeps up.
• 32% -- Tank Bigsby played 32% of the offensive snaps in Week 1. His season-high in 2023 was 27%. Like Irving, Bigsby could be coming for more playing time.
• 0 -- Jonathan Taylor did not have a target in Week 1. Anthony Richardson only threw 19 passes, so we don't want to make too much of it, but Taylor's PPR upside could be limited.
• 79% -- Jerome Ford handled 79% of the Browns' running back opportunities. He looks like a feature back until Nick Chubb returns.
• 7.8 -- J.K. Dobbins averaged 7.8 yards after contact per rush in his first game back. He has been the most efficient rusher in the NFL since he joined the league, if he stays healthy he may be a league-winner.
• 21.7% -- Bijan Robinson led all running backs with a 21.7% target share. He's the only Falcon I came away feeling good about.

My full set of Week 2 Fantasy football projections for every position are now available on SportsLine. You'll find them here. Find out which of my favorite plays are projected to score higher than consensus rankings and which don't live up to their draft hype, at least in Week 2. Projected stats for all starting running backs are available, so be sure to check out the full set of projections at SportsLine.

Who should you start and sit this week? And which surprising running back could lead you to victory? Visit SportsLine now to get Week 2 Fantasy rankings for every position, plus see which RB comes out of nowhere to crack the top five, all from the model that has outperformed experts big-time.