After four years in Washington, Antonio Gibson will now continue his career with the New England Patriots. Rhamondre Stevenson is locked into the RB1 role, but it’s unclear how the new coaching staff will divide touches in this backfield. Is there potential for Gibson to be a value in fantasy football this season?
Antonio Gibson’s 2024 Fantasy Forecast
Back in 2021, Gibson was one of my favorite running back targets. He was coming off a scorching finish to the 2020 season and primed for a breakout entering his sophomore year. Unfortunately, no such breakout occurred.
Gibson’s production stagnated. He still averaged 14.3 fantasy points per game, but for a guy going at the 1/2 turn, it wasn’t nearly good enough. Since then, things have only gotten worse.
Gibson saw his role significantly decline in 2022, resulting in him averaging 11.1 points per game. In 2023, it got even worse, with his opportunity share dropping to just 33.4% and averaging 8.0 fantasy ppg, a career low.
It certainly didn’t help that Gibson never got to play on a good offense. The change of scenery can only benefit him, but going to New England isn’t exactly the prime offensive situation we like our running backs to be in.
If we’re drafting RBs on bad offenses, at the very least, we want the ones who are going to touch the ball a lot. But with Stevenson around, that’s not going to happen for Gibson.
In Stevenson’s best season, he was a Rhamonster in the passing game (you see what I did there). But the coaching staff didn’t exactly want to use him in a three-down role.
The best hope for Gibson is that he fully takes over the passing-down role. After all, he is a former collegiate wide receiver with excellent receiving skills.
As ineffective as Gibson was from a fantasy perspective last season, he still saw a solid 10.6% target share and, most notably, was actually quite good when he got the ball in his hands.
Gibson averaged 5.8 yards per touch, fourth in the league. His 5.11 yards created per touch was second, and his 23% evaded tackles per touch rate was 12th.
Now, to be fair, Gibson had the benefit of facing light boxes on 64.6% of his carries, the second-highest rate in the NFL. That often happens with backup running backs, yet he didn’t perform any better in this situation than others.
Regardless, any standalone fantasy value Gibson may have stems from his role as a receiver. His upside is based on taking over as the lead back if Stevenson gets hurt.
Taking backup RBs behind established starters on bad offenses is not exactly the best way to draft. However, Gibson is going off the board as the RB49 (No. 171 overall). There aren’t many backs around him that are overly exciting. At the very least, Gibson’s path to fantasy relevance is clear, even if his ceiling isn’t all that high.
I have Gibson ranked as my RB46, which is a negligible difference at this stage of fantasy drafts. He’s fine to put on your bench as roster depth. If you plug him into your lineup, he’s probably good for 4-6 points. In certain games where the Patriots end up throwing a lot and checking it down, he could reach double digits.
If there are running backs available with more potential, be sure to prioritize them over Gibson. But once you get past any of the guys with plausible upside, he’s not a bad guy to swing at.