Projecting Montgomery's fantasy impact with Texans
Jay Croucher, Connor Rogers, and Matthew Berry evaluate David Montgomery's fantasy ceiling in the Houston Texans offense following his trade from the Detroit Lions.
Video Transcript
More AFC skill-related news here, Jay.
The Texans acquired David Montgomery from the Lions in exchange for Juce Scruggs and draft capital.
So David Montgomery, assumingly now elevated out of a not even committee, 'cause Gibbs got so much more volume last year.
And for the Texans, a team we could really never figure out the first 12 weeks of the year who the heck was gonna be playing running back, maybe at least, you know, them solidifying that position after we have no idea where Joe Mixon has been.
Yeah, I think this is huge for Montgomery's fantasy valuable-- value going forward, just the fact that the Texans were willing to give up what they did is a clear indicator of how much they intend to give David Montgomery the ball.
We've seen Montgomery before take on, you know, RB1 workhorse usage, in Chicago, in 2020.
He had 247 carries.
I think that just the nature of, how he plays, his build, he'll be able to take on, a more significant workload than he had in Detroit.
And even though DeMeco Ryans is obviously on the defensive side of the ball, this team is kind of built in his image, and I think that combined with, C.J.
Stroud's struggles in the playoffs are going to make this a team that does really want to run the ball and have that be an identity.
And I think that, you know, David Montgomery with Woody Marks behind him, that is going to be, how this team, wants to play, and leaning on them.
So yeah, this is- I think David Montgomery is a, you know, hugely, hugely appealing fantasy option now just because of the goal line equity that he's gonna have and the workload that he's gonna have.
There's gonna be games where David Montgomery gets 24 carries this year, which just was never gonna be possible with Jahmyr Gibbs.
I, I would, I would agree with that.
I mean, I think Woody Marks is still gonna cut into it.
I think I had, I had Montgomery I put out a video on spo- on social and rotoworld.com about, I think he's a touchdown-dependent flex.
So I think you're probably a little bit more optimistic than I am, but I certainly see a scenario where he could be that guy, where he could just be that guy.
What's interesting is, is that the pa- the Texans last year, 13th in the NFL in rushing attempts, but 29th in yards per carry, 32nd in yards after contact.
So the Texans actually in run blocking weren't terrible.
They were like middle of the pack in terms of yards before first contact, but dead last in the league in yards after the contact.
They just didn't-- between Woody Marks and Nick Chubb, they just didn't have any guys that, you know, could get more than what was blocked.
And, and so when David Montgomery, who is obviously, he's a bruiser, he's great in yards after contact, he's somebody who's very solid, I don't know, like feels like it's 800 yards and eight touchdowns, kinda, you know, David Montgomery.
But I think he is-- I think he will be a viable touchdown-dependent flex.
And opportunity for him to, to your point, if the Texans defense plays the way we expect next year that they did lis- this year, you could see games where like, "We just ain't gonna let C.J.
Strou- Stroud throw it.
We're gonna ru- we're gonna play good defense and we're gonna run it 25 times.
We don't care if we get three yards a carry.
We're just gonna like We're gonna grind out a bunch of 17, 13 wins."
