Hide your kids, hide your wife, push those real-life responsibilities back another week: NFL free agency is HERE, baby!

Today, we'll celebrate the upcoming mid-March holiday by breaking down the top running backs set to hit the open market.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Previewing The Best RB Free Agents for 2026 Fantasy Football

Main character: Kenneth Walker

• 2025 key numbers: The Super Bowl MVP posted quality 221-1,027-5 rushing and 31-282-0 receiving lines during the regular season despite operating in an evenly split committee.
• Wild but true: Walker has finished inside the position's top two performers in terms of tackles avoided per carry in each of the past three seasons.
• Most fun landing spot: Always seems pretty easy to say the Chiefs in situations like this.

The artist known as K9 is among the league's most skilled players at making something out of nothing.

While the ability to break tackles at a high rate is objectively good, the one flaw with Walker's game is his tendency to forgo singles in the pursuit of home runs. This can be seen by looking at success rate, which measures how often an RB successfully picks up ample yardage depending on the down-and-distance:

• 2022: 39.9% success rate (33rd among 33 qualified RBs)
• 2023: 46.6% (24/35)
• 2024: 44.4% (26/31)
• 2025: 43.9% (30/33)

Still, Walker hasn't exactly been operating behind world-class offensive lines in Seattle, and his big-play ability makes the occasional annoying stuff worthwhile. Throw in solid demonstrated pass-catching ability, and it's easy to talk yourself into Walker (26 in October) still having the most productive years of his career in front of him.

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2025 Was A Helluva Drug: Travis Etienne

• 2025 key numbers: 260-1,107-7 rushing, 36-292-6 receiving
• A little love from the Injury Gods goes a long way: ETN has racked up 1,441, 1,484 and 1,399 total yards with an average of 10 touchdowns in three seasons when he was healthy enough to suit up for all 17 games.
• Most fun landing spot: Staying put probably feels like the best move for ETN's fantasy value, although taking over as THE running back, y'all, in Denver could also be a good time.

Etienne finished 2025 as the RB14 in PPR points per game and is still just 27 years young. He deserves credit for proving capable of functioning across all three downs, even earning PFF's second-highest pass blocking grade among RBs last season. The man made some great plays!

And yet, I have concerns:

• There was a noticeable dip in efficiency here throughout last season: Etienne averaged a robust 5 yards per carry in Weeks 1-9 compared to just 3.6 the rest of the way.
• Kudos to Etienne for executing the plays, but man, a LOT of his receiving success sure seemed to be of the schemed variety. Not to suggest he's a bad receiver; it's just tough to point to a massive skill improvement as the reason for him catching six touchdowns in 2025 after having just one during the first three seasons of his career.
• The once diabolical home-run speed is pretty much gone. Guys like J.K. Dobbins, Chris Rodriguez, Chuba Hubbard and Blake Corum all posted a faster top-ball-carrier speed than Etienne last season (Next-Gen Stats).

Etienne is going to start somewhere in 2026, but personally, I'd comfortably put him a tier below Mr. Walker.

The Other Guys

Just chill out, Injury Gods: Broncos RB J.K. Dobbins has largely done nothing but efficiently rack up yardage during his career … when healthy enough to be on the field. Overall, he's ranked second, fourth, 16th, and most recently fourth in Next-Gen Stats' rush yards over expected per carry in his four career healthy seasons. The troubling injury history will probably prevent a big-money deal from coming his way, but Dobbins is still someone capable of making the most out of his opportunities as an early-down specialist.

What part of 2025 was real?: The bull case for Rico Dowdle: The 27-year-old veteran is capable of working across all three downs, has racked up 1,300-plus total yards in back-to-back seasons, and has minimal overall wear-and-tear after spending the first four years of his career as a distant backup. The bear case for Dowdle: He was one of the NFL's worst RBs during the second half of 2025, AKA our most recent sample of performance.

Potential cap casualties: The fine folks at Over The Cap have identified the following RBs as potential cap casualties. I'd be pretty shocked if Jacobs actually does wind up being released—the man is a great football player after all—although his contract at least makes it possible. Meanwhile, Mixon stands out as likely the most obvious upcoming release.

• Packers RB Josh Jacobs ($3.1M in dead money, $11.4M in cap savings)
• Saints RB Alvin Kamara ($10.1M dead, $8.5M savings)
• Texans RB Joe Mixon ($2M dead, $8M savings)
• Vikings RB Aaron Jones ($6.8M dead, $7.8M savings)
• Cardinals RB James Conner ($2.3M dead, $7.6M savings)
• Bears RB D'Andre Swift ($1.3M dead, $7.5M savings)
• Titans RB Tony Pollard ($2M dead, $7.3M savings)
• Lions RB David Montgomery ($2.4M dead, $6M savings)
• Giants RB Devin Singletary ($1.3M dead, $5.3M savings)
• Ravens RB Justice Hill ($666,668 dead, $3.15M savings)
• Patriots RB Antonio Gibson ($1M dead, $3.1M savings)

Could be a fun 1B in the right offense: The clear-cut top-two headliners here, at least in terms of early-down grinder types, are Tyler Allgeier and Brian Robinson:

• Allgeier is still only 25 and currently is the NFL's all-time leader for most career touches without a single fumble (737)! PFF's highest-graded pass blocking RB of 2025, Allgeier offers a very useful combination of being able to protect his team's QB while also being a bull in short-yardage situations.
• Robinson only got 92 carries in 2025, and a good chunk were in mop-up duty, but man, credit to the ex-Commander for leading all RBs in percentage of carries to gain at least three yards after contact. This is a tough man to get to the ground—there's potential for something similar to second-contract David Montgomery here should Robinson land as the primary early-down/short-yardage option in a great offense (Broncos?).

Catching passes in fun in fantasy land: And Kenneth Gainwell caught 73 of them while also averaging 4.7 yards per carry last season! The only RBs with more PPR points from receiving than Gainwell in 2025: Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson, Jahmyr Gibbs, Chase Brown and De'Von Achane. Pretty great company! The smoothest fit here would be a return to Pittsburgh, where Gainwell could (again) be the security blanket for old man Aaron Rodgers.

Three-down back if you squint: Would go to Rachaad White, who worked as the RB10 and RB23 in PPR points per game as recently as 2023 and 2024. White has caught 205 passes in his four-year career and can do everything pretty well, even if he doesn't exactly possess a singular elite trait.

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed: And Keaton Mitchell has plenty of it. Now, he hasn't quite gotten back to looking like the same demon we saw pre-injury in 2023, but Mitchell's average of 5.8 yards per carry last season reflects the reality that we still have something here. Small-sample be damned: Mitchell's career average of 6.3 yards per carry ranks second among all backs with 100-plus career rushes in the Super Bowl era! First is … Emari Demercado, who is a restricted free agent.

Unc still got it?: This mostly applies to Kareem Hunt, Nick Chubb and Raheem Mostert. Hunt profiles as the most likely man to get a shot somewhere, perhaps simply back in Kansas City as a short-yardage specialist. No RB had a better first-down rate than Hunt (82.2%!) on third- or fourth-down carries with three or fewer yards to go in 2025.

What if last year's injury wasn't that big of a deal?: That'd certainly be good news for Austin Ekeler (Achilles), Miles Sanders (knee), Najee Harris (Achilles) and Antonio Gibson (knee), although Father Time isn't exactly on any of their sides at this point–particularly Ekeler, who turns 31 in May.

Great future answers to "name a random running back": Include guys like Isiah Pacheco, Sean Tucker, AJ Dillon and Dameon Pierce. Tucker would be the one guy I'd keep a candle on for, but then again, he went from second in yards per touch in 2024 (7.1!) to … third worst at 3.8 in 2025.

Other guys: Some other notable names include Jeremy McNichols, Emanuel Wilson (RFA), Jerome Ford and Chris Rodriguez. The departure of the two Commanders would be good news for Jacory Croskey-Merritt, although it seems inevitable that Washington adds more to the position regardless.

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