The return of running back duo Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle is getting closer, but Pittsburgh elevated running back Lew Nichols from the practice squad for their Week 5 game against the Indianapolis Colts, which is probably a bad sign for the status of veteran running back Rico Dowdle.
Warren had 296 total yards the last 2 weeks without Dowdle in the lineup and played over 87% of snaps in both games. In week 1 Dowdle led the RB room with a 57% snap share, but he appears to be on the wrong side of questionable heading to the Steelers’ Week 5 contest vs. Indianapolis.
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Rico Dowdle missed all practice sessions before getting ruled out for Thursday night. Jaylen Warren will command another elite opportunity share after ringing up 17 carries and three catches in Week 3. Lock in Warren as a high-end RB2 against Cleveland.
There is more to this story than just football skills. Despite bringing an 89th-percentile 103.9 Speed Score and a 99th-percentile 48.9-percent College Dominator Rating to Pittsburgh, Kaleb Johnson saw five snaps in the preseason opener. The coaching staff pushed the third-round pick down to sixth in the running back rotation during Sunday’s full-pads practice.
A cut candidate at the start of preseason, Johnson was already undraftable in seasonal formats. A tumble to RB6 signals a further eroded second-year opportunity share that demands an immediate valuation downgrade in fantasy football dynasty formats. Johnson is PlayerProfiler’s Dynasty RB85, a historical decline for a college workhorse with Day 2 draft capital.
