As I sat down and settled in to watch football on Sunday night, I enjoyed a comfortable 20-point lead in my league of record and needless to say, I felt pretty confident that things would go my way. After all, we both had one player left to play and they were both running backs. What could possibly go wrong? I smugly sat there and waited to watch my promising waiver-wire pickup go to work and lead me to a victory which, between you and I, have been a rarity this season, at least in this league. Always remember that there is never a guarantee in fantasy football.
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I sat there for 60 minutes and watched Devontae Booker underperform and underwhelm while Latavius Murray, whom my opponent started, delivered a historic night for his career. As the minutes passed, I could feel the five stages of grief coursing through me from denial to acceptance. Needless to say, I lost the matchup by an overwhelming margin, but I left a little wiser and humbler. But, I digress.
You didn’t click on this article to read my sob story about my failing season. You want to know if Latavius Murray is legitimate and whether you should attempt to invest in him, right? You want to know what his status is for the rest of the season (ROS), right? You want me to stop asking you questions and just tell you what I think, right? Fair enough.
The answer is yes. Murray will be an RB1 for the rest of the season IF he continues to receive the majority of the work for the Oakland RBs. Throughout the beginning of this season and even the preseason, the prevailing thought was that Murray could be a great RB1 if Oakland would just give him the attempts and the opportunities. Well, it appears that they listened.
Last week against Denver, Murray had 20 attempts for 114 yards and THREE TDs. Now, don’t expect Murray to do this again because Denver had too many pass interference penalties that routinely set Oakland up for 1st and goal on the one-yard line. However, Murray still displayed the skills and talent level that is associated with being a top-tier RB.
If you want more proof, Murray is actually tied for third place amongst RBs for total TDs so far this season. In case you were wondering, Murray has eight TDs and he’s tied with none other than David Johnson. Murray has also done all of this while missing two games with injury and averaging just under 10 touches per game. I repeat, Murray is averaging 10 touches per game! In spite of this, Murray is still the 12th-ranked fantasy RB and is averaging 13.9 points per game (standard scoring).
Still not sure about him being an RB1 for ROS? The Oakland Raiders have the 11th-easiest remaining schedule for RBs including matchups against San Diego in Week 15 and Denver in Week 17. As a matter of fact, Oakland only has one matchup in their remaining schedule that is a top-8 defense against the run and that is their Week 12 matchup against Carolina. Oh, and Oakland also has the highest rate of play where they utilize six offensive linemen which is an RB’s dream.
So there you have it. Murray is a top-tier RB for ROS and I will go ahead and claim that he will finish the year as a Top-10 RB among the likes of David Johnson, Melvin Gordon, and Ezekiel Elliott. It will be very difficult to trade for him after a monster performance like last week, but he is on a bye week so you can maybe catch the Murray owner in your league in a desperate situation. If you own Murray then keep him and hope the Raiders continue to feed him.
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Jonathan Stone is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Jonathan, check out his archive or follow him @JEStone904.