Melvin Gordon III Week 2 Outlook -

By Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros), Thu, Sep 17th 2020, 9:10am EDT

After hearing about Phillip Lindsay's injury, it appears this backfield will be solely Gordon's moving forward, though they'll use Royce Freeman to give him breaks from time-to-time. Gordon looked good on Monday night against a tough Titans defense outside of his fumble, totaling 86 yards and a touchdown on 18 touches. Unfortunately, he's going into an even tougher matchup this week. The Steelers were continually thrashing into the backfield, hitting Saquon Barkley for a loss last week. He ended that game with six yards on 15 carries. No, I'm not kidding. It was a very similar story last year, as the Steelers were among the best in the league at slowing the run. Just how good were they? Well, Barkley's six rushing yards and six catches for 60 yards would've been the 10th-best performance they allowed to a running back last year. There was one running back who topped 14.2 PPR points against them, and that was Kareem Hunt who totaled just 65 total yards but scored a touchdown. Gordon played against this defense this defense last year with the Chargers where he totaled just 18 yards on eight carries. Given the Broncos inability to move the ball very efficiently against the Titans, it's tough to see them move the ball into scoring position very often while in Pittsburgh. Gordon should be a low-end RB2 on volume, but this isn't a week to be excited about playing him.