As expected, the Houston Texans will be without running back David Montgomery due to a groin injury. He is expected to miss multiple weeks and didn’t even make the trip to London with the team.
Fantasy owners should be prepared to be without Montgomery for a while, and it’s still possible they place him on injured reserve. As long as he survives past tomorrow without landing on IR, we wouldn’t expect him to miss more than three games.
However, a lot could change in that Texans’ backfield. It will be interesting to see how Woody Marks looks as the lead back. There is a chance he runs away with the starting job and never looks back. Marks has consistently outplayed Montgomery this season.
Fantasy Impact
RB David Montgomery, Houston Texans
Montgomery has not been very good this season from a real-life or fantasy perspective, outside of his inefficient three-touchdown performance in Week 1. He is averaging just 2.7 yards per carry this season and hasn’t once topped 3.0 yards per carry. Through five games, he has rushed for just 138 yards and added 67 yards through the air.
It has been really bad since that opening game. Montgomery hasn’t scored a touchdown since Week 1 and hasn’t seen a target since Week 3.
Since that first game, he hasn’t topped 33 rushing yards or 15 receiving yards in any game. In Week 1, he saw 20 carries and three targets. Since then, he’s carried the ball 32 times with four targets.
These should be significant concerns that, when Montgomery returns, he will end up taking a back seat to Marks. Marks has been much more efficient this season and is visibly much more explosive than Montgomery.
RB Woody Marks, Houston Texans
Marks is the better rusher and pass-catcher, and has matched Montgomery with two rushing touchdowns this season. He has averaged 3.5 yards per carry with 13 targets and has actually played more snaps than Montgomery this season. However, the snaps are heavily skewed by Montgomery leaving early due to injury in Week 5.
While Marks has a tough matchup in Week 5, making him a risky fantasy start, we expect him to look good enough over the next few weeks to take over that starting job. If you can get your hands on Marks, we would suggest you try to acquire him. He has legitimate league-winning upside if he does earn the lead-back role in Houston.
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