Our read
Written Oct 19, from his facts through last season
The week 1 of 2026 explosion, 32.4 points, is the outlier, not the profile. Weeks 2 through 4 of 2026 went 12.9, 10.8 and 7.4, and even the 17.3 in week 5 of 2026 leaves him at 16.2 a game, comfortably ahead of our preseason pace of 10.9. The reason he is still producing on quiet weeks is the role Ben Johnson built him: 30% of the team's red-zone carries and targets in his games through week 5 of 2026, against a 15.1% red-zone share of his own touches in 2025, plus 36% of the carries and targets inside the ten. This is also the third straight season he has landed RB15 to RB20 among qualifying backs, 228.6 points in 2025, 212.5 in 2024 and 199.3 in 2023, so the production is a track record, not a fluke. And Kyle Monangai sits second behind him on the CHI depth chart, with Roschon Johnson third, so nobody in that building is positioned to take the job from him.
The real downside is the ground game. He is at minus 0.1 rushing yards over expected a carry, RB20 among 36 backs with 25 or more tracked carries, and that kind of negative efficiency shaves the payoff on every carry he gets. His 2.0 yards after contact a carry says he is creating what he can. If the line play stays soft, those red-zone touches become the whole account.
He has played all five weeks, no designation since before week 5 of 2026, and the bye does not land until week 10 of 2026. Our number was 164 for the season, and he is tracking past it. Hold him in your RB2 spot and keep an eye on whether the rushing efficiency climbs back toward zero.