Week 18 Fantasy Football: Running Back rankings
For those of you still competing in fantasy leagues through Week 18, below you'll find our analysts' positional rankings. Obviously fantasy football seems particularly inconsequential right now, however. Our thoughts are still very much with Buffalo's Damar Hamlin as well as his family, friends and teammates. Everything else related to football (and certainly to fantasy) is far less important today.
At one point this season, Cam Akers' future with the Los Angeles Rams was uncertain. Now, he's a bright spot in the offense and came through for fantasy managers in the playoffs. From nearly being traded (or even released) ahead of the NFL's deadline to putting up career-best production, Akers' turnaround has been something to behold.
After a 19-carry, 123-yard performance against the Chargers in Week 17, Akers has strung together back-to-back 100-yard rushing games for the first time in his career. It also gave him 100-plus yards from scrimmage for the third consecutive week (65 rushing, 35 receiving at Green Bay in Week 15).
[Week 17 and 18 fantasy football status updates]
Akers finished as the RB14 last week after being kept out of the end zone — he lost a touchdown to Malcolm Brown on his only carry — and was fantasy's RB1 the week prior. His timing couldn't be better for managers who held on to him, as Scott Pianowski points out:
Austin Ekeler and Christian McCaffrey were the two best running backs of the fantasy playoff stretch (Weeks 15-17), no surprise there. But plenty of timing stars fell into relevance over this stretch. Jerick McKinnon sits as RB3 (four receiving touchdowns have been divine), Akers is RB4 ... Akers forged his way to projectable volume and goal-line equity, which will always lead to fantasy relevance.
Akers' future with the Rams has looked brighter and brighter coming down the stretch, and he gets the chance to close the season on a high note against a Seattle Seahawks defense that ranks among the league's worst against the run (150.5 yards allowed per game) and surrenders the third-most fantasy points to the running back position (25.1 per game).
That could be music to the ears of those with Akers who are still vying for a fantasy championship. Here's the running back position — check out where Akers and the rest of the RBs landed in our analysts' rankings for Week 18:
2022 Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyProsECR ™ - Expert Consensus Rankings
