The Jets have ruled out LeVeon Bell, and suddenly Bilal Powell looks like the No. 1 wild card for Week 15. He could help swing a lot of key fantasy games.
Powell on the one hand is a nominal veteran. He’s 31, and I’m not sure he’s even going to be in the league in 2020. He’s not a big guy (5-10, 204) and has spent most of his career as a third-down back and committee guy. He’s never run for 800 yards in a season.
But Powell is in line to start on Sunday, and he’ll be playing against the league’s 2nd-worst run defense. The Dolphins are allowing 144 rushing yards per game. With Powell also having good receiving ability, a decent chance he puts up top-20 numbers this week.
Powell has fresh legs, and he became New York’s 2nd-string tailback a few weeks back. He carried 7 times for 42 yards at Washington. He’s averaging 3.9 yards per carry, and while that’s not great, Bell is down at only 3.2. Powell was mostly a backup a year ago, but in the four games he got double-digit carries, he ran for 93, 73, 60 and 59 yards.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a step back and remember that these are the Jets. They have a crappy offensive line. New York last week played at Cincinnati (the one team that ranks below in the Dolphins in run defense) and ran for only 62 yards on 17 carries (averaging only 3.6 per attempt).
Let’s also agree that it’s not a given Powell will be used in a heavy-duty. The Jets also have Ty Montgomery and added Josh Adams a few weeks back. It could be a two- or three-back committee. Montgomery was their 2nd-string back for most of the season, but Powell seemed to move past him on the depth chart a few weeks back.
When I put together my initial board, I had Bell as a top-15 back. That’s Powell’s top-end rating – the highest you might want to slot him. Maybe you’re a Louisville alum.
When I play around with the numbers, with Montgomery and Adams accounting for a third-plus of the production, I get Powell at 47 rushing yards, 20 receiving yards and almost half of a touchdown. That makes him (among running backs) 29th in standard scoring, 27th in PPR and 27th in TD-only.
Slight upgrades, I think, are in order for New York’s wide receivers. With Bell out, I think guys like Jamison Crowder, Robby Anderson, Demaryius Thomas and Ryan Griffin could see a few more balls.
—Ian Allan