At this point, if your local high school were to face the New Orleans Saints, you'd want to use the high school's running back in fantasy. In the last five games, starting running backs have averaged 22.2 fantasy points a game. It's one thing to be impressed be Le'Veon Bell and Justin Forsett, but Sunday it was Carolina Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart's turn, and Stewart ran wild against the Saints in the Panthers' 41-10 win.
Fantasy football waiver wire, Week 15: Jonathan Stewart has biggest game of the year
Running backs against the Saints do ridiculously well. We break down the fantasy implications.
Stacy Revere/Getty Images
Stewart ran the ball 20 times Sunday for 155 yards and a touchdown, scoring on a 69-yard run early in the third quarter. With DeAngelo Williams out, Stewart and quarterback Cam Newton had 32 of the Panthers' 40 carries in the game, and averaged 7.4 yards per carry on that workload.
Fantasy impact: The opposing defenses don’t get significantly better going forward -- Stewart gets Tampa Bay, Cleveland and Atlanta to finish the season. Still, this is almost certainly his high-water mark for the season. Stewart hadn’t gone for more than 11 fantasy points in a game before Sunday. Assuming Williams returns from injury and/or Newton’s running Sunday shows he’s healthy again, Stewart’s touches could fade a little.
Still, a running back who was basically an afterthought as recently as a month ago now has three double-digit fantasy games in his last four, with 11.3 points a game in that time. That’s worth at a minimum flex consideration.
