When Jonathan Taylor signed his extension the Colts, it became a foregone conclusion that one day very soon he would be the Colts' feature back and Zack Moss would head to the sideline for the large majority of snaps. To this point that has not happened, a large reason why is that Zack Moss is playing fantastic football.
Moss ranks amongst the top 15 running backs in football in both yards before contact per attempt and yards after contact per attempt. Breece Hall, Khalil Herbert, and Jahmyr Gibbs are the only backs who measure better by both metrics. So while Taylor has become the 1A, the Colts are still giving Moss double digit touches every week. And against the Carolina Panthers that is more than enough.
Carolina has allowed the second-most Fantasy points to running backs this season and remarkably they have allowed multiple running backs to score touchdowns in three of their seven games. Considering how good Moss and Taylor have both been, they're a cinch as starters in a plus matchup in a good game script.
Emari Demercado is a good flex this week with only Keaontay Ingram backing him up.
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Numbers to know
3.95 -- Taylor leads all backs at 3.95 yards after contact per rush (minimum 40 attempts).
12 -- Moss leads the NFL with 12 rushes of at least 12 yards.
59% -- Zach Charbonnet played a season-high 59% of the snaps in Week 8, with Ken Walker playing a season-low 41%. That was probably related to injury, but we'll be watching closely this week to see.
It's a stretch to start Charbonnet this week, so he may belong in the stash section, but I want to stress how imperative it is to make sure he's rostered in your league. If Ken Walker misses a game Charbonnet is going to be a top-12 running back. Also, if we get another game where Charbonnet plays more than Walker in Week 9, we'll view the rookie as much more than a handcuff.
Freeman has turned 21 carries into 110 yards and a touchdown in two games with the Rams. In those same two games Darrell Henderson has 30 carries for 92 yards and a score. If the carries tilt towards Freeman, and they should, he'll be a low-end No. 2 running back. For now, plan on starting him as a flex.
Gus Edwards is getting a lot more carries than Hill, but Hill is still the better pass catcher and it is much easier to catch passes as a running back against Seattle than it is to run. They surrender a league-best 3.13 yards per carry to running backs but they give up more than 8.5 PPR FPPG to the position through the air.
Singletary outscored Pierce for the second straight week last week and the latter doesn't even have a target in their last two games. At any moment Singletary could take over as the starter, at the very least he's a touchdown-dependent flex until then.
With Raheem Mostert, Breece Hall, and Austin Ekeler all off the main slate, Swift ranks as my second-highest projected scorer at running back on FanDuel this week. The player projected to score more points is Alvin Kamara, who is priced $2,000 higher. Take the discount on Swift in cash games.
Moss is the contrarian play for the second straight week. While his price did go up, Taylor is still $1,300 more despite failing to pull away from Moss at all. This could be a game where the two backs combine for 35-plus touches, 250-plus yards and multiple scores.
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Heath's Projections
My full set of Week 9 Fantasy Football projections for every position are now available on SportsLine. 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 9. Projected stats for all starting running backs are available, so be sure to check out the full set of projections at SportsLine.
