- Zach Charbonnet was among the league’s top first-half running backs, albeit in a split backfield: Charbonnet earned an elite 90.2 PFF rushing grade in first halves in 2025 but fell off some in second halves.
- James Cook was the ultimate first-half producer: He produced an elite PFF rushing grade on 150 first-half carries, although his numbers heavily dropped in second halves.
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Every fantasy manager has been there. It’s midway through the second quarter, and you check your lineup to see who is off to a hot start and who is playing their way to the bench next week.
It can be more than a little upsetting to discover an NFL head coach or offensive coordinator doesn’t share your interest in feeding touches to your WR4 or RB3. Sometimes the game plan gets you off to a hot start, and sometimes the guys on your roster are closers and will jump from 3.9 points through the first three and a half quarters to 19.2 points when the game clock strikes double zeros.
That swing can be most volatile in the run game. Running backs are often rotated in and out of the lineup, and teams lean on the ground game differently than the pass game.
So which running backs are getting off to hot starts and which ones are making you sweat until the final 15 minutes of action?
Across the 2025 regular season, three running backs registered elite PFF rushing grades in the first half. They are, in order:
- De’Von Achane (91.9), Miami Dolphins
- James Cook (90.4), Buffalo Bills
- Zach Charbonnet (90.2), Seattle Seahawks
Cook’s elite PFF rushing grade in the first two quarters is especially impressive, considering he did it on 150 carries. Being able to maintain that level of production while being given the ball at that rate is impressive.
As a team, the Bills ran the ball 243 times in the first halves of games. That means Cook accounted for a whopping 62% of Buffalo’s ground attempts across quarters one and two. He also notched seven of the 13 rushing scores in that same period.
Cook finished as the RB6 in standard-scoring PPR formats, with only his lack of receiving production (33 catches for 291 yards and two touchdowns) relative to the other five names keeping him from a better rank.
And while the 2025 NFL rushing champion was certainly the 1B to Josh Allen’s 1A and had an excellent overall season, his second-half production often took a hit.
In first halves, Cook averaged 6.3 yards per carry, second only to Achane among qualifying running backs (minimum 65 attempts in the first half). In quarters three and four, that dropped to 4.3 yards per carry (23rd among qualifying backs) and his PFF rushing grade fell to 67.1 (33rd among 39 qualified backs).
The same volume that Cook impressed with in the first half could explain his production dip across the board in the second half. No back handled more than Cook’s 165 carries in the second half.
Perhaps the most interesting backfield in this regard — and the one that gave fantasy managers several headaches and sleepless nights — is the Seattle Seahawks‘ tandem of Charbonnet and Kenneth Walker III.
While the former posted an elite PFF rushing grade in quarters one and two of games, with Walker logging a very solid 75.6 PFF rushing grade in that same span, it was Walker who dominated the latter stages of games.
The 2022 second-round pick earned the highest PFF rushing grade in the NFL among qualifying runners, an elite 91.0 mark, while Charbonnet notched a more-than-impressive 80.0 figure.
This is how the pair stacks up in the first and second halves of games.
| Walker | Charbonnet | |
| First-Half Carries | 110 | 85 |
| Second-Half Carries | 121 | 99 |
| First-Half Yards/Carry | 3.9 | 4.2 |
| Second-Half Yards/Carry | 5.6 | 3.7 |
| First-Half TDs | 2 | 6 |
| Second-Half TDs | 3 | 6 |
Looking at this data, it is clear why both backs infuriated fantasy managers. Walker finished as the RB22 overall, and Charbonnet was the RB25, just 12.5 points behind his running mate.
Walker was often rostered as an RB2 with RB1 upside, while Charbonnet was a useful handcuff with his own RB2 potential. That both effectively cancelled each other out means nobody is truly happy here. Not angry. But not happy either. And there are more questions than answers heading into the offseason.
Achane was one of the kings of the first half. To go along with his elite PFF rushing grade, only Cook and Bijan Robinson surpassed Achane’s 857 first-half rushing yards. Nobody bettered his 6.8 yards per carry.
The Dolphins’ lightning bolt was also one of only eight running backs to earn at least 35 targets in the first half of games, and he converted those into 290 yards (fourth most among the eight backs), three touchdowns (tied for second most) and a 74.6 PFF receiving grade (third).
His rushing numbers plummeted in the second half, however. With a 74.8 PFF rushing grade (18th among 39 qualified runners) and 4.4 yards per carry, leading to 494 rushing yards — a huge 2.4 yards-per-carry drop-off — it’s better to expect Achane to produce early rather than late.
And yet, perhaps the most egregious back when it comes to starting slow and saving their weekly points total until the fourth quarter is the Packers‘ Josh Jacobs.
Jacobs recorded just two touchdowns in the first halves of games during the regular season. He had eight in the fourth quarter alone.
Jacobs and the Green Bay run game were inconsistent in 2025, as the former Raiders running back dropped from the RB6 in 2024 to the RB13 in 2025. It’s still a strong RB2 finish, and Jacobs had seven top-10 weekly finishes. But the large swings in production from game to game, and even quarter to quarter, left fantasy managers furrowing their brow in disgruntlement.
His 234 carries were split almost equally across the season, too (115 in the first half versus 124 in the second). His yards after contact per carry average was almost identical — 3.0 in the first half and 3.1 in the second. So there is no indication that Jacobs starts slow and gets stronger as defenses tire, or that his fresh legs carry him through contact before slowing down as the game grinds on.
That good-but-not-great production in both halves of football resulted in a good-but-not-great season. Jacobs didn’t have one 100-plus-yard rushing game in 2025, a fall-off from the three he notched in 2024. The Packers also scaled down his volume in the run game to the tune of 67 fewer carries, although Jacobs did miss two games this season.
In fantasy football, considering the split of a backfield is always important. But in addition to that, managers need to get under the hood of how each back is being used to set expectations for the season ahead.
True bell-cows such as Jacobs will always log enough volume to produce a solid fantasy season. But backs who are spelling each other in halves and matching their production stride for stride will only serve to infuriate, especially if they both excel in the role and give a head coach no reason to change the pattern.
