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Pat Mayo Experience

2026 Fantasy Football RB Rankings: Tiers, Sleepers, Busts & Dead Zone Strategy: Part 2

Pat Mayo Experience

Mayo Media Network

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4.95.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2026

⏱️ 88 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

⁠Pat Mayo⁠ is joined by Jake Ciely (The Athletic) and Ian Hartitz (RotoWire) to wrap up their 2026 fantasy football running back rankings! In Part 2, the guys dive deep into the highly contested mid-round "dead zone" running backs, debate their favorite late-round sleepers, and call out the players carrying major risk. They breakdown why they are fading "Bad Vibes" Bucky Irving, whether Bhayshul Tuten (aka King Tuten) has a top-10 ceiling, and how to value backfield splits in Seattle, Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Washington.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Wait, Gainwell or Stevenson?

0:01.2

Yeah.

0:03.0

As of today, I have Gamewell over Bucky, too, but that's, I admittedly have put the note in

0:07.0

there that, yeah, well, it's because it's going to shift.

0:09.2

We, we, we're, all this positive news on Judkins, all this positive news on Skadaboo, where's the positive news on Bucky Irving's health? That's just, I'm saying, like, this can, this can move in a month or even a few weeks, but I need to hear something good about Bucky Irving's recovery.

0:22.0

Bucky Irving is the only guy ever who gets the quote, worst shape of his life somehow. I got weird. I will say I don't want to be Ian Schafter here, but I did get a DM from an unnamed source saying they knew someone in the Buccaneers facility. There was just Bucky apparently really not responding well last season, the injuries,

0:40.3

and having some outbursts and stuff like that.

0:41.9

There's just been a lot of weird vibes around Bucky Irving over the course of the last 12 months, man.

0:45.6

Bad vibes, Bucky?

0:47.1

At Mayo Experience. Welcome to the Pat Mayo experience presented by Underdog right now.

1:05.5

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1:09.3

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1:12.9

best ball season. Go check it out. Quick download code mail. You're on your way. We are continuing

1:17.9

our discussion of the running back rankings from the last show. If you missed part one,

1:22.4

where we did the top 15, top 20 or so, along with the rankings down there in the show notes, which you can find in this show as well. You can just click the link down there. You can watch the first part, come back to the second part. Just jump in right here because Jake Sealy, Ian Hartett's. This is where the sleepers are going to be this year. This is where I don't know. This is also an argument for the dead zone of running backs. Maybe we need to get a little bit further for the true sleepers.

1:45.7

Well, we're doing that and further.

1:47.5

We're doing the rest of the running backs. There's going to be some. Whether we pick the sleepers or not, I don't know. But they'll be in here somewhere, Ian. I don't know, man. calling like an RV 23 a sleeper is like that meme from inglorious bastards where you know he gets

2:01.1

busted for holding up the wrong uh three fingers so i think we got a little bit of our ways to go with the sleepers uh pat but still plenty of big names here for sure i i kind of disagree with that and we don't even need to name players here like if you have someone who is a sixth round running back running back number 23 off the board if you

2:18.6

can identify them as a top 10 value i would say that's a sleeper that that's a fair way to look at

2:24.7

it i'd say in the fact like i think maybe if we actually change the terminology called underrated

2:30.4

yeah but no one's going to click on that no no one's going to i know i I know. I know. You're chasing this. Although are you doing the AEO these days, Pat, and chasing the AI engine optimization instead of the SEO as well, because that's a whole other thing we have to worry about. Well, it depends on the YouTube videos versus Apple versus Spotify. Each have their own things that they want to identify. Do I care to change it? No, I do not. That's not what I'm here for. I'm here to do the running back rankings.

2:50.8

That's what the people are. each had their own things that they want to identify. Do I care to change it? No, I do not.

...

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