If you want to win your fantasy league this year, you can't just draft the obvious running back.

So today I've got four running backs who are flying under the radar and could be on the brink of massive workloads in 2025. Now, if you don't know, I'm Sal Vetri. I've been helping people win their fantasy leagues for over eight years now, and I like to do the same for you right now in this video. And let's start off with the Buffalo Bill's second year running back, their former fourth-round pick in Ray Davis. I want to talk about him because this is a player who coming out of college

last year into the NFL, he was known as like a pro ready running back. He basically just did everything in college. Let's look at it right now on player profile. The stats from here from college is final two years at Kentucky. He goes out there. He's having a thousand yards per season. he was a little bit of an older prospect, but with that came a lot of just experience and a lot of abilities to contribute in different ways. He averaged 5.7 yards per carry, his final year of college. He had 20 touchdowns. Everything you look at. He caught 28 balls. He was really good in the short areas of the field as well as a pass catcher, good in the red zone, reliable as well. Everything clicked for him.

And the bills saw that back, who was kind of just totally different than James Cook. James Cook, the smaller type of back, an explosive player, sure, but kind of a home run hitter, a boom or bust in some ways and said, let's get Ray Davis and kind of diversify this backfield. So that's what the bills did. They spent a fourth round pick on Ray Davis, and as a rookie, he had some pretty impressive stats.

He averaged five yards per touch.

He was top 15 in broken tackle rate, and he ranked 11th overall against stacked boxes, which basically means when the defense was bringing an extra man in the box, Ray Davis was still finding success. And even though he was a backup he was producing, he actually had six different games of at least 10 fantasy points while splitting a backfield. You could see in his one start right here, right? You could see this game. This was against the Jets in, I believe, week six of the season. There was no James Cook. He was kind of ruled out last second on a Monday night game. Ray Davis goes out there, sees 20 carries compared to the veteran, Ty Johnson's just four, and he just explodes. He has 97 yards, five yards per touch. Not only that, but the rookie Ray Davis in his first ever start in prime time, also goes out there and he has three catches, 55 yards, leads the team in both rushing and receiving, puts up nearly 150 total yards. He didn't find the end zone, but every time the guy was touching the ball, he was averaging like 10 plus yards. But this wasn't the only time that he got extended run.

We saw this in the final game of the year in week 18 when some of the starters started to sit, and that includes James Cook, who although we got 10 carries in this game, he didn't play the whole game. Ray Davis, they gave more shine to. He gets 15 carries. He's more efficient than James Cook in this game with 64 receiving yards. You scroll down to what he did as a receiver.

He adds two receptions as well.

So this is a guy who win his two opportunities where he got accepted. than James Cook in this game with 64 receiving yards. You scroll down to what he did as a receiver.

He adds two receptions as well.

So this is a guy who win his two opportunities where he got extended run, he looked good. There was other games where he was the only guy. He caught a five-yard screen. He took it for a long touchdown in a game where the bills needed a touchdown late. He was the player doing that, not James Cook. But now let's be honest, James Cook is a good NFL player.

That's why he goes as like a third round pick or maybe even an early fourth round pick in fantasy drafts. He scored 18 touchdowns last year. This is a good player, right? We're talking about a solid player. But it's also a player that we can't expect to kind of have an 18 touchdown profile. Really nobody was. It would, especially the workload that we saw from James Cook. And as you can see right here, James Cook and the bills are not

close on a contract extension. Now, James Cook did show up to minicamp overall, mandatory minicamp because he didn't want to get fined. There's a chance that he kind of plays around with training camp and he shows up and he's kind of holding in maybe a phantom injury or something along those lines. Because all the quotes out of James Cook is that he still wants a contract extension. He should after an 18 touchdown season, but his contract's just not up yet, so there's no reason to go out

and do that, especially when you have other backs on this roster who can contribute. And as you can see right here on Fantasy Draft's tweet, a whopping 40% of James Cook's fantasy points last year came from touchdowns. Nobody else was higher than this. Terry McClurens was kind of up there as well across different positions. But 40% that's probably going to drop this year. There's even a chance that Ray Davis gets more involved in the Red Zone like he was in limited action as a rookie last year. They trust him more, maybe heading into year two. And when I look at this backfield, I see James Cook and explosive players who doesn't really get a lot of work inside the Red Zone or Green Zone. when You see Ty Johnson who actually had more receiving production than James Cook. Yes, receiving yards than James Cook, despite playing significantly less snaps. And there's Ray Davis who every single time they seem to give him the ball, whether it was in the games where we started against the Jets like we were talked about, or whether it was some of these games where he only saw 46 touches but created one to two big plays. he changed the dynamic of that drive and the game for the bills. I think he's only going to get more work this year entering year two. Especially if the bills want to make a statement like, hey, James Cook, your contract isn't up. We don't owe you anything. You scored 18 touchdowns. Cool. We're going to give a lot more work to Ray Davis and let you walk next year. and that's just kind of something that is a business, the NFL, the end of the day. So Ray Davis right now, as like a 12th round pick, 13th round pick

and some fantasy drafts, heck a 15th round pick if you're in a 10th-teen format, that feels really good. If we talk about the handcuff running backs, and we're going to talk about some of them in this one quote unquote handcuffs you want the guys that if the starter was to go down or just

start to fade away that once that player comes in they would basically get the whole backfield and now

although in this situation, Ty Johnson is still there who the bills brought back this year, Ty Johnson, we saw it last year in two games where they gave the other backups more run. It was Ray Davis seeing significantly more touches in both of those outings. It was Ray Davis see 15 carries to just two for Ty Johnson. It was Ray Davis seeing 20 carries to just four for Ty Johnson. Again, these are small samples of just two games, but it's all that we have to go off of. They seem to be liking Ray Davis more than Ty Johnson, and that makes sense. Now, the next player you should be drafting more is Tyler Al's year because this guy just does not get the credit that he deserves. And I want to talk about this a little bit. Sure, he's stuck behind Bijon Robinson, who is a top five overall pick. Some people think the number one overall pick and fantasy, and there is good reason behind that Bijon Robinson was great last year. But Tyler Al Jir has still shown that he could play. Let's just look back at this past year. Al Jazeer goes out there and as he has basically every year of his career so far he plays all 17 games he goes out there

last year he has basically every year of his career so far, he plays all 17 games. He goes out there last year. He has 644 yards, averaging nearly five yards per carry being efficient. In his first year with B. John Robinson, he still earned 186 rush attempts. So he was still splitting the backfield. Of course, that was a different offensive coordinator, different coaching staff now, but we still got to see him highly involved last year for 137 rush attempts. Now, as the season went on, we saw Bejohn Robinson start to break away with their new offensive coordinator, Zach Robinson there and really not give as much touches per game to Tyler Algear, but that's okay. For a couple of reasons. And the biggest reason is we're not drafting Tyler Al Jir to start him every single week. We're drafting him because you can probably get him in round 15 and he's maybe the best

handcuff in all fantasy. If Bijon Robinson goes down, there's nobody else on this team. We saw it in week seven last year. Tyler Al Jir, while splitting the backfield with Bijon, Bichon wasn't even out, still puts up 18 carries over 100 yards, a touchdown averaging nearly six yards per carry this

is a guy who can still get it done even on limited touches but if something happened to be john he's

going to come in and he has the ability to see 20 plus carries a game an efficiency stat here which is

pretty cool on from twitter from archeret he says most yards after contact per attempt last year minimum

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