James Robinson Week 4 Outlook - Saints at Lions

By Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros), Mon, Sep 28th 2020, 12:58pm EDT

This is just a feel-good story all around, as Robinson was an undrafted free agent who earned the starting job in training camp and it led the Jaguars to cutting Leonard Fournette. Through three games, he's rushed for three touchdowns, which is the same number Fournette had the entire 2019 season on 265 carries on this same team. Robinson has now totaled 43 of the team's 47 carries and racked up a career-high six targets in Week 2. Meanwhile, Thompson has touched the ball just 14 times through three games. The pending return of Ryquell Armstead is worrisome to Robinson's insane workload, but he's earned the majority of work. Similar to last year, the Bengals are a team to run the ball against. Through three games, they've allowed the third-most fantasy points on the ground to running backs (23.5 points per game on the ground alone), behind only the Panthers and Raiders. Of the flip side of that, they've allowed just 39 yards through the air to running backs through three games, which is the fewest in the league. The Bengals also faced the sixth-fewest targets to running backs in 2019, so teams just don't feel the need to attack underneath. The 14.0 percent of targets that have gone to running backs through three weeks is the second-lowest percentage. Knowing Robinson has totaled 91.5 percent of the team's carries to this point, this matchup suits him well. He should be started as an RB2 this week against a team whose opponents are averaging 71.7 plays per game.