Apex Hunting: Dynasty RB Floor Traps You Should Consider Selling Now
Mat Irby's 2026 Apex Hunting Series
Over recent weeks, I’ve been cruising through KeepTradeCut’s crowdsourced dynasty ranks, trying to extract value. But not just any value; I am on the hunt for big upside at small prices.
If you know me, you know that upside is all I look for until there is none left to find. As I’ve intimated many times, the most meaningful impacts are made by far fewer players than you may realize; at the apex of each position, there are exponential effects, and the players at the top of each distribution drastically outscore their cohorts, to a much greater degree than those further downstream.
Prioritizing safety is generally a fool’s errand. This is not to say that there is never any utility in owning, or even starting, a low-ceiling, high-floor player, but this should be a parachute, not a landing strip. Generally, there is little difference between a player we’ve drafted for their sturdy floor and a player we perceived to have a higher ceiling who didn’t come through. So, if we aim for upside and miss, it’s really not that different from aiming for safety and hitting.
I won’t belabor the point. If you want to know more, check out some of my past articles, which are more comprehensive on this specific topic:
- Stop Playing it Safe: Why Apex Drafting is the Key to Fantasy Success
- The Apex Drafting Strategy: Draft Sharks, Not Guppies
- Apex Drafting: How to Approach Keepers
- The NBA is Teaching Us A Lesson We Should Apply to Our Dynasty Leagues
I’m a disciple of RotoViz, and I’m firmly bought in to Shawn Siegele’s concept of perpetual reloading and the permanent championship window. But people like Shawn are so influential that they can shift entire subcultures. In many leagues, in fact, it has become the default to try to liquidate players before they hit their age cliff and lose all market value (as it should). However, as dynasty players get caught up in this, I feel like sometimes they can lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Swerving over to aim for an out-of-the-way tangent for a moment, some players are worth taking right to their graves. As market values for older players plummet and players grow desperate to unload the hot potato, they lose sight of the league-altering upside they may still possess. I wrote up Christian McCaffrey and Mike Evans as buys in this series because they could be had at fire-sale prices, but one very real outcome for either is that they finish at their positional apex this year and win leagues.
Of course, I digress. What we really want to do is liquidate players with higher price tags on the trade market but lower chances of hitting the positional apex. That’s my focus today, as I look at RBs. It is through this prism – high market value paired with limited upside potential – that I advise you to consider selling these players.
Honestly, advising sells is never fun. For starters, I don’t love being in any way negative about great football players, among the best in the world. Also, it somehow feels riskier to advise fantasy GMs to sell valuable assets than to buy depressed ones.
To be crystal clear, these players are really good. But they don’t profile as having the likeliest of ceiling outcomes. So, if we can use their elevated market value to convert them into more likely ceiling outcomes, that would be optimal. This time of year provides a unique opportunity to reshuffle the deck. Here are some pieces we can use as bargaining chips to access better upside.
RB Sells
JAMES COOK (RB7)
We kick things off with a particularly hard bet to make, the reigning and defending NFL rushing champion, James Cook.
Cook is a fluid runner with excellent vision and good explosiveness, and he’ll likely remain a force on the ground whenever healthy. He’s under contract for a long time after signing a four-year extension last year, and he should remain in the same role in 2026 after the Bills turned OC Joe Brady into their new HC and didn’t address the RB position in any meaningful way this offseason.
The bugaboo for Cook is that he’s not utilized as a receiver in the current offense, ranking 38th in receiving expected points per game (reEP/G) according to RotoViz (3.7). This significantly hampers the ultimate upside of any fantasy RB in PPR formats.
Based on his 2025 stats, Cook’s comps since 2000 are certainly notable names and quite fantasy-relevant. Among his cohorts (among which he has the lowest reEP/G), several have been in the positional apex (top-6 RB) in PPR, and some more than once. Of them, Jonathan Taylor has been the overall RB1 once. Ezekiel Elliott has finished as high as the RB2 once, and Derrick Henry and Clinton Portis have each been the RB3 once.
So, what gives? Those are apex results; isn’t that what we’re looking for?
The issue is found when we reverse-engineer upside. Since 2000, only two RBs have finished as the RB1 overall with a sub-60 reEP: Shaun Alexander and DeAngelo Williams.
In 2005, Alexander scored 27 rushing TDs, then an NFL record. Alexander’s 27 TDs were 11 more than he ever scored in any other year, an incredible anomaly.
More importantly, a TD total like this is from a different time. In four years from 2003 to 2006, Alexander, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Priest Holmes put up totals of 27 or more rushing TDs, but since 2006, no RB has scored more than 18 in a season. This is not to say it could never happen again (I’m annoyed by bold claims that feats – even rare ones – can’t be repeated, when it is obviously within human capacity, evidenced by its occurrence in the past). Still, it is rare for RBs to get the type of touch count that RBs of that era received.
Christian McCaffrey’s 413 touches were the most since DeMarco Murray in 2014. From 1978, when the NFL switched to a 16-game schedule, until 2006, the NFL touch leader had at least 413 touches in 14 out of 28 seasons (50%). Since 2007, only Murray finished with that many (6%) until McCaffrey hit the mark last year, and this is with the NFL schedule switching to 17 games in 2021.
Williams finished with 18 rushing TDs in 2008 in Carolina, when he was the RB1 overall, but importantly, his 306.9 PPR points that season represent the lowest total output by any RB1 overall since 1993.
And so you have it: In each case when an RB1 overall had worse reEP than Cook did in 2025, it took a very unusual anomaly to get there, and at least in one case, it took a different way of playing football that kind of no longer exists.
Moreover, the average for RB1s since 2000 has been 134.91 reEP per season, 77.81 more than Cook’s 57.1 in 2025, and the average for top-6 RBs is 107.94, 50.84 more than Cook’s mark. Cook also only had 24.2% of his total fantasy production come from receiving work, which is well below average.
Simply put, without meaningful receiving volume, no matter how good the player, it’s tough to hit the positional apex at RB, and results are usually somewhat unpredictable and volatile, tied to TD production. The most likely pathway for Cook is a changing role, where he earns more targets or scores a massive amount of TDs, each of which is capped by the presence of Josh Allen, one of the NFL’s premier rushing QBs. So, while it is certainly possible for Cook to hit the apex, it will remain an uphill battle throughout his tenure in Buffalo and make unlikely events a requirement.
QUINSHON JUDKINS (RB9)
Since the draft, you may have seen Quinshon Judkins on some dynasty “winners” lists, and through a traditional lens, that is probably correct. The Browns didn’t touch the RB position; they have a new offensive-oriented HC, and, by all accounts, they had a very solid, offensive-heavy draft. Looking beyond 2026, Judkins will probably be joined by some fresh-faced new QB – part of a 2027 class that many are quite excited about at present.
Through an upside lens, however, Judkins is still a sell at cost, in my opinion.
It is important to contextualize Judkins’ rookie season, as he came into the year with significant legal trouble, causing him to miss the off-season program, the first game entirely, and then be brought along slowly in Week 2, before playing the string out for the Browns, who finished 31st of 32 in offensive EPA per play.
