I am watching an ESPN fantasy football show, and they mentioned the 3 down back (RB). Guys, this concept is an extinct species in the making. Now that we are going to 17 games, soon to be 18 games, this idea is going away. The only way we see a 3 down back is if the RB is utilized much more in the passing game during earlier downs. This will be a team-by-team specific situation. The Derrick Henry’s of the NFL are dinosaurs destroyed by the meteorite of the passing game.
This is absolutely true. The handful of actual workhorse RBs remaining in the league (Mixon, Taylor, Henry, Harris, Barkley, maybe a couple more, arguably) are definitely the MVPs of fantasy football.
It’s not been a sudden break, however; RBBC’s have been on the rise for years, actually providing more legitimate rosterable/startable RBs than there are in pure standard-scoring leagues.
But pointwise, the RBBC’s are significantly less than their bellcow brothers.
Of the ones you mentioned, even Taylor was only made a bellcow by the fact of Carson Wentz’s ineptitude and a few Nyheim Hines injuries . Don’t be surprised if JT goes back to being a 2 down back this season.
Once you take out JT, that leaves 4 bellcow RB’s out of 32 teams. Even if you add some to that, you are still in the minority of NFL teams. As I said, bellcows are dinosaurs.