2017 fantasy football rankings, pre-draft: Running backs for PPR leagues

In 2016, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell was third in the NFL with 1,884 yards from scrimmage, more than 200 yards better than the guy behind him and just 230 yards shy of the league leader. Bell ranked fourth in total touches (336), just 37 behind the leader. He was one of just two running backs to average over 100 yards rushing per game.

Now imagine what the guy could do if he actually played an entire season!

Amazingly, Bell has played 16 games just once in his first four seasons in the NFL. In 2016, Bell was suspended for the first three games and was held out of Week 17 with the Steelers having locked into their playoff position. And yet, despite missing 25 percent of the campaign, there he was, right at the top of the leaderboard in virtually every metric one covets in a pass-catching back.

And this is why Bell is not just SBNation’s top running back target in 2017 in PPR leagues, he should be the No. 1 pick overall.

In our initial preseason rankings, released in advance of the NFL draft, Bell edges out Arizona’s David Johnson as the preferred choice as top PPR running back. Rounding out our top five were Ezekiel Elliott, who lived up to all the hype and dominated in his rookie season in Dallas, Buffalo’s LeSean McCoy, another back who struggles to play 16 games but is as dangerous an all-purpose back as there is when he’s healthy, and Devonta Freeman, who despite the presence of Tevin Coleman still produced at a high level in 2016 and should be expected to do more of the same in ’17.

Not only will Bell, barring injury, play a full season in 2017, he will have Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown alongside him to keep defenses from selling out to stop him. But a quick glance at the Steelers opponents reveals that not only does he get to feast on the second-worst run defense in 2016 (Cleveland Browns) twice (!), the Steelers draw Chicago, Kansas City, and Indianapolis, which all ranked in the bottom 25 percent of the league at stopping the run.

This is not to take anything away from Johnson, who was the leader in total yards from scrimmage (2,118) and touches (373) cited in the opening paragraph of this story. Johnson also led the league in combined touchdowns with 20.

And while Johnson averaged a pedestrian 77 yards per game rushing, his 80 catches for 879 yards made him PPR gold. But here again, Bell’s abbreviated season cannot be ignored. Despite playing in four fewer games, Bell had just five fewer receptions than Johnson, despite Johnson out-targeting Bell 120-96.

Elliott was not quite as prolific a pass catcher with 32 receptions as a rookie, but his 1,994 yards from scrimmage were second only to Johnson and his 16 touchdowns ranked third in the league. As ubiquitous as Zeke was in the Cowboys offense last season, we expect even more from him in 2017.

Shady McCoy appeared in 15 games last season but was seemingly banged up all year. Still, he was fifth in yards from scrimmage and fourth in touchdowns, catching 50 of 57 targets. Freeman was seventh in yards from scrimmage and fifth in touchdowns and was targeted 65 times, catching 54 passes for 462 yards.

Two other rookies who made huge impacts in PPR leagues in 2016 and will be top draft targets were Melvin Gordon and Jordan Howard. Howard, in particular, made a Bell-esque impression, not taking over lead back duties until Week 3, yet ending the season sixth in combined rushing-receiving yards and third in rushing yards per game. He caught only 29 of 50 targets, but that number could improve in 2017 as Mike Glennon’s top check-down target.

The other backs rounding out the top 10 of our preseason PPR list are Jay Ajayi, DeMarco Murray, and Mark Ingram.

(SK: Scott Kaliska, JG: Jeff Goldberg, DG: Derek Gordon, JM: Jason Marcum)