Anomaly or New Norm? What to Make of RB Outliers for 2026 (Fantasy Football)
In this article series, I am looking back at outlier statistics from the 2025 season and attempting to answer the question: “Was it an anomaly, or is this the new norm for the player moving forward?” In the first edition, I took a look at QB stats. This time, I’ll be examining RBs, arguably the most important position in fantasy football.
2025 Recap
Last season’s RB edition of this article had mixed results. While Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley both regressed, Barkley’s regression was more extreme. James Cook predictably scored fewer TDs, but he surprisingly made up for it with a huge volume increase. Jahmyr Gibbs thrived, as expected, while David Montgomery had the worst year of his career. And finally, Jaylen Warren surprised by scoring eight total TDs, more than his first three seasons combined.
Let’s get on to 2026.
The Stats
I am primarily using efficiency stats in this series. Looking at per-game or per-attempt stats gives us a better understanding of a player’s talent than pure volume. Given an RB’s dependence on blocking, game flow, check-downs, and other team-level attributes, they can be more difficult to isolate, but the stats can still be revealing.
RBs rack up fantasy points with yardage and TDs, both on the ground and through the air. While not perfect, the stats I am primarily examining in this article are based on efficiency and not end-of-season counting stats. The table below shows the league average in those metrics among RBs who carried the ball at least 100 times in each of the last three seasons.
| Stat | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 3-Year Avg. |
| Yds/Attempt | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.4 |
| Att/TD | 46.7 | 27.1 | 42.8 | 38.9 |
| Yards/TD | 189.0 | 123.1 | 178.4 | 163.5 |
| Tgt/Game | 3.1 | 2.8 | 2.8 | 2.9 |
| Yds/Tgt | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.7 |
| Total TDs/Game | 0.48 | 0.53 | 0.53 | 0.51 |
After a banner year for fantasy RBs in 2024, the efficiency stats regressed a bit in 2025. Still, there are always outliers in both directions. Let’s dive into the extreme RB stats from the 2025 season.
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Jonathan Taylor: 1.2 TD/Game
Taylor finished as the overall RB2 in 2025, and his insane TD efficiency was a huge reason why. His 18 TDs on the ground and another two through the air tied his career highs from 2021. He was the only player to score 20 TDs on the season, with Jahmyr Gibbs checking in with 18 and Christian McCaffrey with 17. McCaffrey surpassed Taylor as the RB1 on the season, primarily because of his 102 receptions for 924 receiving yards.
Anomaly or New Norm?
It is worth noting that Taylor was even better when Daniel Jones was healthy and under center for the Colts. He scored 18 of his 20 total TDs with Daniel Jones under center, and only two more over the last four without Jones. With Jones apparently healthy heading into the 2026 season, and no reason to believe Taylor has slowed down, there is little reason to expect a dramatic drop in his TD production.
Taylor has been an elite TD scorer throughout his six-year NFL career. His 2025 output was just 28% higher than his career average of 0.94 TDs/game. He should remain one of the best TD scorers in the NFL. Scoring TDs at a high rate is the norm for JTT.
De’Von Achane: 5.7 Yards/Attempt
Achane was the most efficient RB in 2025, leading the league with his 5.7 yards/attempt. That efficiency came on a career-high 238 carries, which he turned into 1,350 rushing yards. Combine that with another 488 yards through the air and 12 total TDs, and you get the RB6 overall from last season, even on a Miami team that went 7-10.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Achane made this article series after his rookie season, when he once again led the league with an unsustainable 7.8 yards/attempt. That number predictably regressed in 2024, down to 4.5 yards/attempt. Now, after three full campaigns, Achane has the highest yards/attempt average for any RB through their first three years who had at least 500 carries. You can see the top five in the table below.
| Player | Years | Att | Y/A |
| De’Von Achane | 2023-25 | 544 | 5.6 |
| Jahmyr Gibbs | 2023-25 | 675 | 5.3 |
| Nick Chubb | 2018-20 | 680 | 5.2 |
| Gale Sayers | 1965-67 | 581 | 5.1 |
| Jonathan Taylor | 2020-22 | 756 | 5.1 |
You can see that his 5.7 yards/attempt in 2025 is right on par with his career average through three seasons. The Dolphins may look different with a new QB and head coach in 2026, but Achane’s three-year sample size should be enough for us to believe that he will still be one of the most efficient RBs in the game.
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Zach Charbonnet: 60.8 Yards/TD, 15.3 Att/TD
Charbonnet scored eight fewer TDs than Jonathan Taylor in 2025, but he did so at a much higher rate. His 12 TDs came on just 184 carries and 730 rushing yards. Those totals didn’t even lead his own team, as Kenneth Walker put up 297 more rushing yards on 37 more carries. However, Charbonnet dominated when Seattle neared the end zone, converting for nine TDs on 18 carries from inside the five-yard line.
Anomaly or New Norm?
For his career, Charbonnet has averaged a TD for every 83.9 rushing yards and 20.3 attempts, both of which are noticeably higher than his 2025 season. While this feels mostly anomalous, the unfortunate truth is that we are not likely to get a clear answer in 2026. After suffering a torn ACL in the NFL playoffs, it is uncertain when he will even make his season debut, let alone when he will return to full strength.
Whenever he does, the backfield will look completely different with the departure of Kenneth Walker to Kansas City and the arrival of Jadarian Price via the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. If you have an IR spot in your league to stash him, Charbonnet and his nose for the end zone may be worth a late-round draft pick, but it is difficult to envision him repeating his scoring efficiency.
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Bucky Irving: 3.4 Yards/Attempt, 588 Yards/TD, 173 Att/TD
Irving was one of the biggest busts of the 2025 season. No qualified RB combined lower rushing efficiency with fewer rushing TDs despite a meaningful workload. After breaking out in the second half of 2024 as a rookie, he fell off a cliff as one of the least efficient RBs of 2025. His 3.4 yards/attempt was dead last among RBs with at least 100 carries, and he scored just one rushing TD. His season would have been even worse if he had not scored three TDs through the air.
Anomaly or New Norm?
Irving’s season was ravaged by foot and shoulder injuries that cost him seven games in the middle of the season. Though he did eventually return, the nagging shoulder injury persisted and eventually required offseason surgery. While the injuries certainly didn’t help, it’s important to note that he was only averaging 3.3 yards/attempt and failed to score a rushing TD through his first four games while healthy. His one and only rushing TD came in his first game back, but he still averaged just 3.4 yards/attempt the rest of the season.
Irving is unlikely to remain one of the league’s least efficient runners after averaging 5.4 yards/attempt as a rookie. He is most likely to settle somewhere between the extremes of his first two seasons. He faces some new competition in the backfield, with pass-catching specialist Kenneth Gainwell joining the Bucs. With his current average draft position (ADP) of RB19, he doesn’t carry massive risk, but it is enough of a draft investment to make fantasy managers hope that 2025 was an anomaly for Irving.
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Javonte Williams: 2.7 Yards/Target
Williams was arguably the biggest bounce-back player of 2025, finishing as the RB11 with career highs in nearly every category on the ground. However, he didn’t do himself any favors through the air, where his 2.7 yards/target were the second-lowest since the stat has been tracked. The only player with a lower average was Randy McMillan, a FB for the Colts who averaged 2.3 yards/target in 1985.
Anomaly or New Norm?
That comparison illustrates just how historically poor Williams’ receiving efficiency was. While pass catching has never been a feature of his game, he averaged a much more respectable 4.8 yards/target on 203 targets over the first 54 games of his career. If he repeats his 2025 success on the ground and positively regresses to his career average efficiency through the air, he could be one of the best RBs to draft again in 2026.
Christian McCaffrey: 3.9 Yards/Attempt, 7.6 Targets/Game
We will finish at the top with last year’s overall RB1. McCaffrey posted the second-most fantasy points of his legendary career, and he did so on insane volume. He saw a career-high 440 opportunities, which included a league-leading 7.6 targets/game. His efficiency, however, left something to be desired, as he averaged below 4.0 yards/carry for the third time in his career.
Anomaly or New Norm?
With nine seasons under his belt, we have a large sample size on McCaffrey. His 4.6 yards/attempt on 1,658 career carries would suggest his low efficiency is more of an anomaly. His return to a high target rate in 2025 is more intriguing.
He averaged over seven targets per game in both 2018 and 2019 before dipping below that mark for five consecutive seasons. His return to elite receiving volume in 2025 suggests his role in the passing game may have evolved back toward what made him the fantasy RB1 earlier in his career.
However, as usual with CMC, health may be more of a concern. The fact that he is coming off a career-high 440 opportunities in his ninth season makes clicking the draft button on him as your first-round pick more nerve-racking. He has been a top-two fantasy RB in three of the last four seasons, but injuries have essentially erased him from fantasy lineups in three of the last six.