Dallas CowboysOur read
Written Oct 17, from his facts through last season
The touchdown volume is real and it is not an accident. Through week 5 of 2026 he owns 48% of Dallas' red-zone carries and targets (24 of 50) and 58% of the work inside the ten, both RB7 among backs with 20 or more touches. Seven scores in five games at 19.2 points a game, and he has played every week without an injury designation. When the coaching staff keeps both the offensive play caller and the head coach in place, as Brian Schottenheimer and Klayton Adams have, that funnel does not change on its own.
But the engine underneath is wobbling. He is minus 0.1 yards a carry over expected over 74 tracked carries, RB21 among 36 qualifying backs, and 1.5 yards after contact a carry, RB41 among 53. That is a profile being carried by goal-line touches, and history says it wobbles: backs with a 32.1% touchdown-points share lose 9.6 points a game the next season on average, and those with a 21.8% red-zone touch share lose 6.4. Our preseason number of 161 points already shaded him down from the 15.2 he averaged across 16 games in 2025, when he finished RB12 and topped the weekly median all 16 weeks.
So the read is: this is the peak, not the new normal. The touchdown load alone has docked players in his spot 9.6 points a game the following year on average, and that cost is what stands between 19.2 a game and where we had him. Start him every week while the touchdowns land, especially with weeks 15 to 17 of 2026 shaping up soft, and hold rather than dealing him at what looks like his ceiling week.