Will Irving start Week 1 as a RB1 in fantasy?
Patrick Daugherty and Kyle Dvorchak discuss Bucky Irving's role with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season as he enters training camp with the expectation of being a full participant despite a shoulder injury.
Video Transcript
One of the biggest busts of the 2025 fantasy season has been one of the bigger discussion points of the 2026 off-season, Kyle Dvorkchick.
We had not been able to get a firm grasp on Bucky Irving's health or lack thereof.
Now local media though, reporting he's gonna be good to go for training camp.
Most comments and reports have been trending that way for the past few months.
Even if he's not maybe 100% for the first day, he's gonna be going strong early on in camp.
The bigger question is gonna be the backload split, the workload split, in this Tampa Bay backfield.
Sean Tucker there on early downs.
A free agent addition, Kenneth Gainwell, now there to steal passing game work.
What is it going to look like in this Bucs backfield in 2026?
I think it's possible it ends up looking like Bucky Irving's rookie year in which right out of the gates we're saying, "I want to see Bucky get more work."
As fantasy managers, we want the more explosive, more exciting guy to see more work.
And in that year it was Rashad White who persisted till maybe midway through the year.
And I absolutely think they have a plan for Sean Tucker and for Kenneth Gainwell.
But in Bucky's rookie year, talent won out.
By the end of the season, you were getting him in your lineups as a clear RB1.
And I don't think he starts the year as a clear RB1 in 2026, but he is by far the most talented player of the bunch.
And right now he barely goes as an RB2, RB24 to be specific.
And we were drafting him as a top 10 fantasy running back last year.
Like I said, I don't know if he gets there right away, but we wanna be betting on talent and especially when talent is cheap.
So I do think by the end of the year, we're excited to have Bucky Irving in our lineups.
That is the good news to Bucky Irving.
The talent is not a question.
It's just everything else that is a question.
There's gonna be a lot of twists and turns, between now and then, week one.
We'll keep you updated on Bucky Irving every- almost every day at rotoworld.com.
