Fantasy football rankings 2015: Running backs for standard leagues, Week 7

Last week, the list of byes includes the St. Louis Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In the two weeks leading up to those byes, the Rams' Todd Gurley took over his team's primary running back role, while the Bucs' Doug Martin started to re-realize the potential he showed as a rookie three years ago. The Week 6 byes for both players but a kibosh on that two-week momentum, and while momentum isn't really killable for real players, there are plenty of fantasy owners who might have sat on Gurley and Martin until they proved themselves, and as soon as they did, *poof*, week off.

• In Green Bay, have we had a changing of the guard? Eddie Lacy was supposed to be the team's top running back, maybe the league's. Instead, he's struggled through injury since Week 2. Until Sunday, it wasn't like James Starks had done much, either, but all of a sudden, Starks drew the Week 6 start and scored two touchdowns, putting up 23 fantasy points. Lacy, meanwhile, had one little old point. On the one hand, the extra week off should help Lacy get fully healthy, but on the other, we're going to have to wait until Week 8 (at least) to figure out what's going on here? Frustrating.
• At this point, maybe the answer out of Denver is just "avoid the running backs." Ronnie Hillman has done more than C.J. Anderson, though all told, Hillman has one definitely promising game this season compared to zero for Anderson (that was Week 6; his Week 4 16-point day was one 72-yard run and a bunch of unhelpfulness). So maybe you just don't touch them. The flip side is that the Denver offense should be so much more productive than it is, and the starting Denver running back should be so much fantasy gold. The starter there is someone you'd want to use in a vacuum, so we just sit and watch and keep running one or both of them out there every week. And now it'll be at least Week 8 before we have some clarity?
• Giovani Bernard has outscored Jeremy Hill in four of the Bengals' six games. He's had at least seven fantasy points in every game. Hill, meanwhile, has two two-point games and one in the negative. The flip side, though, is that Bernard hasn't gone over 13 fantasy points in a game all season, while Hill has an 18- and a 24-point game. Maybe it's as simple as "Bernard is safer, Hill is higher-risk, higher-reward," except for the fact that that flies completely in the face of who those guys are. Hill is supposed to be the bellcow, getting a lot of carries, while Bernard is the pass-catching back, and those guys should be much more variable. I don't even know how to forecast the two of them, and a week away from it doesn't look to provide any clarity at all.
• Matt Forte is also off this week. That's frustrating only inasmuch as he's good and you don't like not having your good players, but I felt obligated to mention it.

(DK: Daniel Kelley; DC: Dan Ciarrocchi; AM: Andrew Miller; SK: Scott Kaliska. John Daigle has the week off. Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver and Green Bay are on bye)

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