Fantasy football rankings 2015: Running backs for standard leagues, Week 12

The first point: Matt Forte might be back Thursday. But he might not. And he might seize the dominant role back, or he might split time with Jeremy Langford. Charcandrick West might be healthy for Sunday, or he could miss, and if he does play, how does the playing time break down between him and Spencer Ware? Marshawn Lynch might not play again; he could theoretically play this week. Devonta Freeman's concussion? Buck Allen with Matt Schaub at quarterback? Jeremy Hill/Giovani Bernard. Eddie Lacy/James Starks. The running back position, right now, can be called a mess, and the disparity in many of our rankings below show that.

But then the second point: We don't really need to. In Week 11, Alfred Blue put up 14 fantasy points. I don't think that's all out of the realm of possibility for him. If you are starting him in fantasy, maybe you aren't in the best possible shape for fantasy, but ... you're more or less fine. And yet, Blue is my No. 30 running back this week.

Running back, against all odds, is actually deep right now. Of the 32 teams, 24 of them have clear (or clear-ish) No. 1 backs. Of the eight holdouts, Cincinnati, Green Bay and Denver all have two guys who both at least have an argument for clear use. Only Detroit, San Francisco, Washington and the Giants are stay-away situations, and if Carlos Hyde comes back healthy, San Francisco can leap back up.

The zero-RB draft strategy has become more en vogue in recent years. It revolves around picking the surer things at wide receiver and such positions early, then loading up on question-mark running backs in the middle rounds, under the thinking that you might struggle at the position for a few weeks, but before too long, you'd have found a guy or two who will pop. No, you won't have Adrian Peterson. But this year, that could have yielded you Freeman, Todd Gurley, Doug Martin ... any number of guys who have been really strong this year.

Even if you didn't apply that strategy, right now, you're stuck in it, as the top-drafted at the position has been a mess. You might have Chris Ivory, Thomas Rawls and James Starks. Starks is a question with Lacy around, but Ivory and Rawls are strong. Or Lamar Miller, DeMarco Murray and Charcandrick West. West might be hurt, but you have Miller and Murray. Whatever it is, we're in a situation right now where we might not have a lot of running-back dominance, but we have a load of depth, and in a lot of ways, that matters even more.

(DK: Daniel Kelley; DC: Dan Ciarrocchi; AM: Andrew Miller; JD: John Daigle; SK: Scott Kaliska.)

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