Many leagues shoot for the end of the preseason to have their fantasy drafts so there’s less confusion about who teams plan to start. Not every league has the patience or availability to hold out, and even if they do, some teams will leave their true depth charts a mystery until Week 1. Predicting opening depth charts is also a different task from projecting season-long roles. Pay attention to the capital used to acquire each player, as that often indicates the team’s intentions regarding usage.

Most of the position battles I covered involve guys trying to break out, but one of them is a first-round pick who could be unstoppable given his slight change of scenery. The life of a pro athlete is a constant battle to prove you’re better than the guy next to you. Which one of these players can do so and help win your league?

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Steelers Number Two WR (James Washington vs. Donte Moncrief)
This battle will likely determine the NFL’s most valuable number-two receiver role. Ben Roethlisberger is becoming more of a gunslinger and less risk-averse with every passing season. This style carries pros and cons for the Steelers, but fantasy owners are now drooling over an offense with a lot of points up for grabs. Antonio Brown is gone, which opens a void of 168 targets.

The Steelers used a second-round pick on Washington last year after he won the Biletnikoff Award for the nation’s best WR and left college ranked seventh on the all-time receiving list. His strengths mesh perfectly with the Steelers’ offense and Big Ben’s passing tendencies. Washington led his draft class with 690 deep receiving yards, a 20-YPR career average, and a 133.8 passer rating on contested catches. He’s a bit undersized, but he’s a strong and deceptively fast deep threat who has a knack for boxing out defenders and making acrobatic catches.

Moncrief has had opportunities to break out in years past but could never quite get over that hurdle and become more than an average WR. He has some of the similar strengths that fit in a Pittsburgh offense. He’s strong with downfield speed and the ability to make contested catches, but in a bigger body that fits the prototypical size for this role. Reports out of Pittsburgh so far have Moncrief running as the number two alongside JuJu Smith-Schuster. Going into year six, Moncrief has yet to do anything to really wow the league, so this battle is far from over and may carry deep into the regular season.

Eagles Starting RB (Miles Sanders vs. Jordan Howard)
This competition isn’t gaining the attention it deserves for one of the NFL’s more valuable roles. After Jay Ajayi and Darren Sproles went down, head coach Doug Pederson was left with Wendell Smallwood, Josh Adams, and Corey Clement to carry the load. Nobody stepped up, and the running game was a disaster all year, but don’t chalk that up to how Pederson runs an offense. The Eagles were 20th in carries last year despite ranking 30th in YPC. The year prior, with LeGarrette Blount and Ajayi running the show, they were fourth in YPC, sixth in carries, and 13th in pass attempts. Look for that type of balance this year.

There’s a chance Sanders and Howard evenly split the touches, but if one significantly outplays the other, they immediately transform into a top fantasy back. Arguably the best offensive line in the league, one of the top defenses, and dangerous weapons to worry about on the outside are enough reasons to want shares of this backfield. Howard has been a good pro for several years, but his efficiency has been declining at a worrisome rate. As a strong early-down runner not known for his receiving ability, Sanders has similar strengths to Howard. Considering the Eagles invested a second-round pick on him, there is little chance he is worked out of the rotation.

The safest bet in this battle is that they each receive 40-60% of a 1,400-1,600-yard rushing output. Sanders has the higher ceiling and floor, but monitor this competition because it wouldn’t be surprising to see the veteran Howard come away the victor.

Saints Early-Down & Short- Yardage Carries (Alvin Kamara vs. Latavius Murray)
Listing this as a position battle may surprise some people, but their roles aren’t as defined as projected. The assumption is that Murray takes over Mark Ingram’s role and Kamara continues to receive 12-13 carries and five-six catches per game. What some are failing to mention is that Murray is not as good as Ingram. While brought to New Orleans to essentially replace Ingram, don’t project the same number of touches for Murray, who has a career YPC of 4.1. Giving him a pass for running behind a terrible Minnesota offensive line doesn’t explain his two straight seasons of 4.0 YPC behind a superior Oakland line.

Over the past six seasons, Ingram is first in YPC, second in yards after contact per carry, and second in TDs. He always ate into Kamara’s output because he was such a tough runner. Murray just doesn’t compare. He averaged just 2.3 YPC on red-zone carries with an 18% TD rate to Kamara’s 3.4 YPC and 25% TD rate. Don’t pencil Murray in for an easy 600-yard season. The talent discrepancy is too wide for Sean Payton to ignore, and training camp will display the truth. Murray won’t carry independent value the way Ingram did unless Kamara goes down. If he’s healthy, Kamara could be in contention for the overall RB1 this year.

Washington Go-To RB (Derrius Guice vs. Adrian Peterson vs. Chris Thompson vs. Bryce Love)
There may not be a more confusing unit of players across the league heading into 2019. Thompson is the only proven receiving back out of this group, but scouts agree that Love and Guice have the tools to one day develop into useful pass-catchers. The entire league thought that Peterson’s career was over until the 33-year-old rushed for 1,042 yards in place of the injured Guice last season.

Guice was a star at LSU, where he ran for 2,638 yards and 26 TDs over his final two collegiate seasons. Washington used a second-round pick to grab Guice, which is why he is projected to start. The club, however, used another fourth-round pick this year on Love, who also reached stardom during his historic junior season at Stanford. There’s a lot of talent in this RB room. While most are projecting Guice to run away with the job, we’ve yet to see him play after tearing his ACL, and all these names can do damage. I project this backfield to be too much of a mess to reasonably project at the moment, which is why it needs to be monitored closely over the next several months. Can Guice break out, or will there be too many mouths to feed?

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