With more NFL teams using committee backfields every year, consistent running back fantasy football production is a very rare commodity. Goal-line backs will score two touchdowns one week and finish with 4.8 points the next. Third-down backs rack up targets in trailing game scripts, then turn up on milk cartons when their teams are ahead.
Can fantasy managers trust any running backs to provide consistent scoring in this post-workhorse world? That’s what we’re here to find out. This article will look back at 2024’s data to find the most (and least) consistent fantasy football running backs. Let’s get right into it.
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Fantasy Football Consistency: Running Backs
Methodology
Compared to our previous article on the most consistent fantasy quarterbacks, running backs immediately present a new conundrum. Since quarterbacks essentially always either play all or none of their team’s snaps, I filtered my sample for each signal-caller to only games where they played at least 70% of team snaps. That won’t work here, as the whole issue with running back consistency is that plenty of fantasy-relevant backs play only part-time roles.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to simply do away with any minimum snap rate for these calculations. This has the downside of including games in which backs exited very early due to injury, which does feel harsh. But those games impact a player’s consistency, too, so I don’t feel too bad about including them. Plus, simply including every game gives us the largest sample to work with.
With that out of the way, I want to calculate the variance for each running back who had at least 10 qualifying games in 2024. Variance isn’t a perfect metric, but it’s a solid single-number representation of how consistent each back’s scoring was (a lower variance means more consistency).
Of course, consistency on its own isn’t valuable — we want consistent points. With that in mind, I’ve added a few extra columns to the upcoming table. The first is simple: Good old-fashioned half-PPR points per game.
For the remaining three columns, I wanted to see how often each back provided a truly elite score, an RB1-level score and an RB2-level score. To set thresholds for each category, I calculated the average score of the player who finished as the RB6, the RB12 and the RB24 in every given week of the regular season.
That provided thresholds of 20.6, 16.1 and 10.2 half-PPR points. Then, I found the rate at which every back cleared each of those thresholds. This shows how often each back provided an elite week, an RB1-level week and an RB2-level week.
If you’re not following, don’t worry, this should get clearer once we look at the table. Without further ado, here it is:
| Rank | Player | Games Played | Variance | PPG (Rank) | Elite Game Rate | RB1 Game Rate | RB2 Game Rate |
| 1 | Travis Etienne Jr. | 15 | 11.5 | 7.4 (38) | 0% | 0% | 27% |
| 2 | Jaylen Warren | 15 | 17.4 | 7 (40) | 0% | 0% | 20% |
| 3 | Alexander Mattison | 14 | 19.9 | 8.5 (33) | 0% | 0% | 36% |
| 4 | Austin Ekeler | 12 | 22.8 | 9.6 (30) | 0% | 8% | 42% |
| 5 | David Montgomery | 14 | 23.5 | 14.6 (13) | 7% | 29% | 86% |
| 6 | Najee Harris | 17 | 25.1 | 11 (25) | 6% | 18% | 53% |
| 7 | Aaron Jones Sr. | 17 | 27.9 | 12.7 (20) | 6% | 29% | 65% |
| 8 | Rico Dowdle | 16 | 28.0 | 11.1 (23) | 0% | 19% | 44% |
| 9 | Tony Pollard | 16 | 28.1 | 11.3 (22) | 0% | 31% | 50% |
| 10 | Justice Hill | 15 | 29.9 | 7.1 (39) | 0% | 7% | 27% |
| 11 | Brian Robinson Jr. | 14 | 32.4 | 10.7 (27) | 0% | 21% | 64% |
| 12 | Kyren Williams | 16 | 34.0 | 15.9 (8) | 13% | 44% | 81% |
| 13 | Kareem Hunt | 13 | 36.1 | 11.1 (23) | 8% | 23% | 54% |
| 14 | J.K. Dobbins | 13 | 37.2 | 13.5 (17) | 15% | 38% | 54% |
| 15 | Javonte Williams | 17 | 38.1 | 7.8 (36) | 6% | 12% | 18% |
| 16 | Jerome Ford | 14 | 39.3 | 8.3 (34) | 7% | 14% | 29% |
| 17 | D’Andre Swift | 17 | 39.8 | 11.4 (21) | 6% | 24% | 41% |
| 18 | Josh Jacobs | 17 | 41.2 | 16.2 (7) | 24% | 47% | 88% |
| 19 | Tyrone Tracy Jr. | 17 | 43.5 | 9.6 (30) | 6% | 18% | 41% |
| 20 | Bijan Robinson | 17 | 44.3 | 18.3 (4) | 41% | 59% | 82% |
| 21 | Chase Brown | 16 | 48.0 | 14.3 (16) | 25% | 44% | 75% |
| 22 | Rachaad White | 16 | 48.6 | 10.9 (26) | 13% | 13% | 50% |
| 23 | Breece Hall | 16 | 50.1 | 13.3 (18) | 19% | 38% | 63% |
| 24 | Bucky Irving | 17 | 50.8 | 13 (19) | 18% | 35% | 65% |
| 25 | Rhamondre Stevenson | 15 | 52.1 | 10.6 (28) | 7% | 27% | 53% |
| 26 | Tyjae Spears | 12 | 55.4 | 8.2 (35) | 8% | 17% | 33% |
| 27 | Kenneth Walker III | 11 | 56.4 | 14.4 (14) | 18% | 36% | 73% |
| 28 | James Conner | 16 | 57.8 | 14.4 (14) | 13% | 50% | 69% |
| 29 | Tank Bigsby | 16 | 58.5 | 7.8 (36) | 13% | 13% | 25% |
| 30 | Jordan Mason | 12 | 59.9 | 9.1 (32) | 17% | 25% | 25% |
| 31 | James Cook | 16 | 60.6 | 15.7 (10) | 25% | 50% | 69% |
| 32 | Derrick Henry | 17 | 64.0 | 19.2 (3) | 41% | 59% | 94% |
| 33 | Jahmyr Gibbs | 17 | 69.7 | 19.8 (2) | 35% | 65% | 94% |
| 34 | Chuba Hubbard | 15 | 70.3 | 14.7 (12) | 20% | 40% | 67% |
| 35 | De’Von Achane | 17 | 71.1 | 15.3 (11) | 24% | 53% | 65% |
| 36 | Zach Charbonnet | 17 | 76.8 | 9.8 (29) | 12% | 12% | 35% |
| 37 | Alvin Kamara | 14 | 82.1 | 16.5 (6) | 21% | 29% | 86% |
| 38 | Joe Mixon | 14 | 95.9 | 15.9 (8) | 36% | 50% | 57% |
| 39 | Jonathan Taylor | 14 | 96.2 | 16.8 (5) | 29% | 50% | 71% |
| 40 | Saquon Barkley | 16 | 124.1 | 21.2 (1) | 44% | 56% | 81% |
Most Consistent Fantasy Running Backs
Immediately, this table shows the flaw with using variance as the only measure of consistency. The names at the top of this list (with the least variance) are uninspiring, while the bottom of the list includes some of the season’s best backs.
Luckily, we’re not using variance as our only measure of consistency. This is where those extra columns come in. We can see that, while they were consistent, backs like Travis Etienne, Jaylen Warren and Alexander Mattison were consistently bad (or at least mediocre). Each of those three backs provided RB2-level production at least 20% of the time, but they combined for exactly zero RB1-level weeks. Austin Ekeler ranks fourth-lowest in variance and did provide an RB1 week, but it came while Brian Robinson Jr. was sidelined by an injury.
The most consistent running back who was a truly reliable fantasy asset was David Montgomery. With just one outing above the 20.6-point threshold in his 14 games, Montgomery has by far the lowest elite game rate of the top 19 backs in points per game. But he provided RB2-level production at an excellent 86% rate, a number that would be at home among the top five backs in points per game. This consistent, solid-but-not-elite production was likely a function of how Montgomery split work in the Lions’ backfield with Jahmyr Gibbs, so it will be interesting to see if he can replicate this result under a new offensive coordinator in 2025.
While no other top-20 scoring backs can touch Montgomery for pure consistency, Josh Jacobs and Kyren Williams both also stand out as backs with impressive floors but fewer elite games than you would expect given their overall productivity. Outside the top 20, Brian Robinson looks like Montgomery-lite. He finished above the RB2 threshold an impressive 64% of the time, by far the most of any non-top-20 back, but provided zero elite spike weeks.
Least Consistent Fantasy Running Backs
At first glance, Saquon Barkley being labeled the most inconsistent back in the league is utterly ridiculous. At second glance… it’s still pretty silly, but it at least makes more sense. For one, Barkley provided five of the top 15 individual fantasy weeks of the 2024 season. That stat is absurdly impressive, but those high peaks are far from his average, thus increasing his variance.
Despite his utter dominance over the season as a whole, Barkley did have a few more duds than you might remember. As a result, he ranks just seventh with an 81% RB2 game rate, as he finished with single-digit points in three of his 16 games. I’m not saying this is a reason to fade Barkley heading into 2025, but it is the downside of relying on long rushing touchdowns to rack up fantasy points.
After Barkley, the next three backs in terms of variance are Alvin Kamara, Joe Mixon and Jonathan Taylor. While they might seem like a random grouping at first glance, this trio of backs has one key thing in common that could explain their inconsistency: They all were workhorse backs who played on bad teams in 2024. All three had at least one top-10 outing, but they also all had some down games in contests where their teams failed to get much going.
Kamara, likely thanks to his pass-catching role, did the best of this trio in terms of avoiding pure duds, with just two games below the RB2 threshold. But, given that he finished as the RB6 in points per game, his 29% rate of finishing above the weekly RB1 threshold is absurdly low. We have to go all the way down to D’Andre Swift at RB21 in points per game to find a lower rate of RB1 scoring. In general, this grouping provides a lesson that even elite bell-cow backs will likely have some inconsistency if their team’s offense is lackluster.
Next up, we have Zach Charbonnet with the fifth-highest variance of the 40 qualified backs. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t rank higher, given how dependent his production was on Kenneth Walker‘s availability.
Beyond Charbonnet, it’s hard to identify a trend in the remaining high-variance backs. I’m tempted to say that they are mostly run-first backs without much receiving usage, but the presences of De’Von Achane, Chuba Hubbard and Jahmyr Gibbs throw a sizable wrench into that theory.
The most noticeable trend among the backs with high variances is that they, perhaps counterintuitively, tend to be some of the better fantasy producers of the year. The 10 backs with the highest variances have an average points per game of 16.5. The bottom 10? That number is 10. A similar trend can be found by splitting the sample of 40 backs into two groups of 20: The 20 “consistent” backs averaged 11.2 points compared to 14 for the “inconsistent” backs.
This may be partially a coincidence, and it’s partially because high scorers tend to provide more massive games, which increase variance. But maybe there’s a signal here that “consistency” (at least as defined by low variance) isn’t actually a desirable quality in a fantasy running back.
I apologize if that conclusion makes you feel as though this entire article was a pointless exercise. Sometimes it’s all about the journey and the friends (and trends) we find along the way.
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Ted Chmyz is a fantasy football contributor for FantasyPros.com. Find him on Twitter and Bluesky @Tchmyz for more fantasy content or to ask questions.
