The Most Slept on Fantasy Player is Not Who it Seems..

What if I told you that 2025's RB10 in PPR formats was priced 9 position spots cheaper the following year? You would probably assume something got worse for the player. In this case, something got better.

Running back is a volatile position when it comes to fantasy football. Take away pure skill sets, and you'll find a plethora of factors that still largely impact a player's production. Maybe it's who is behind him in the depth chart and the situations they are used for (we ALL remember Tyler Allgeier, Zach Charbonnet, etc.). Maybe it's a running back that is on an absolutely terrible team that will feast in PPR formats due to his team always trying to pass their way back into a game? Would Devon Achane still be the fantasy stud we all know him to be if he was not in an almost exclusive wide zone run scheme? Maybe. The point is, there are so many factors that could drop our mystery RB10 to RB15, and we have found ourselves in a unique situation where there seems to be an inefficient price associated with this fantasy running back

Not only did this player leave a situation where running backs were cycled in and out depending on the game situation (luckily not as bad as everyone's villan Zach Charbonnet though), he is now in a situation where he is the only notable running back in the room currently! His veteran backup is now hurt, the next man up after that is now hurt, and this player has yet to make any meaningful moves in peoples rankings.

The player is... Travis Etienne.

Etienne departs from Jacksonville and from his National Championship teammate Trevor Lawrence and signs a massive 4 year 48 million dollar contract with the New Orleans Saints. An offensive operation headed by Kellen Moore who led the NFL as an OC in Yards Per Game twice in 2019 and 2021 with the Dallas Cowboys, where he also finished top 10 in scoring offense 3 out of 4 years; He then heads to LA to be the OC of an injury riddled Justin Herbert led Chargers team where it was bleak.. and then immediately becomes the playcaller of one of the most explosive rushing attacks of the decade with the Philadelphia Eagles. With the Eagles, Moore directed the leagues 8th scoring offense and 2nd ranked rushing attack. Saquan Barkley became the 9th player to rush for over 2000 yards in NFL history under Moore. To say Moore is a downgrade is simply not true

Travis Etienne left a team that drafted his replacement Bhayshul Tuten in their new head coach and GM's first year. That Jacksonville backfield was loaded prior to the Eagles trading for Tank Bigsby. Tuten carried the ball 83 times during Etienne's tenure, which is not a ton but still notable.

What about Travis Etienne's new situation in New Orleans is worse than his situation was in Jacksonville? Alvin Kamara is coming up on his 10th season in the NFL and sadly appears to be losing some juice after posting his worst fantasy season and finishing as the RB46 across the 11 games he played. So is it Kamara that is driving Etienne's price down? It should not be, especially as Kamara is currently battling a knee injury in camp. Not to mention Kendre Miller left practice Tuesday with trainers.

At the end of the day, Etienne is mis-priced in my book. There is nothing he is dealing with in New Orleans that he was not dealing with in Jacksonville. Competition is gone, the system he is in has produced consistent, sometimes record results, and at the end of the day he is an amazing athlete at the running back position. In the NFL, we have seen teams play a player because they paid a player. Well, if Kamara makes a great recovery, his 1 year 6 million dollar contract is definetly smaller than Etienne's 4 year 48 million dollar contract. When you see the running backs ahead of Etienne, do you think his price is cheap for the output you are getting? We are going to use Sleeper's ADP to find out ourselves.

Here are Sleeper's top ranked RB's in PPR formats

Jahmyr Gibbs

Bijan Robinson

Christian McCaffrey

Jonathan Taylor

James Cook III

Ashton Jeanty

Saquan Barkley

Omarion Hampton

Chase Brown

De'Von Achane

Derrick Henry

Kenneth Walker III

Jeremiyah Love

Kyren Williams

Josh Jacobs

Breece Hall

Javonte Williams

Cam Skattebo

Our guy, Travis Etienne

Look, I'm not saying he is a must draft, that he is going to win you your league, or that he is going to finish as RB1. I am simply posing the question of "would you rather stress about Blake Corum overtaking Kyren Williams or Travis Etienne in a good offense with no competition.

To me, the choice is clear. I am much more content with waiting on Etienne than worrying about Cam Skattebo's leg injury, than Jeremiyah Love being good in a terrible offense (also with our arch nemesis Tyler Allgeier lurking, though it is a completely different offense that he is in compared to when he was Bijan's TD vulture), or than Josh Jacobs even playing football this year to begin with. Kenneth Walker has never even handled a work load or had a better fantasy season than RB18 and is being drafted 7 running backs ahead of Etienne

Regardless of what happens, because we all know that in fantasy that when you make plans the fantasy gods laugh, I do think Travis Etienne is going to have a productive year. Whether you want to draft him where he is going is ultimately up to you. To me, he is pretty underpriced leading up to the 2026 fantasy football season.