The Tennessee Titans‘ decision to sign Tony Pollard in free agency after letting Derrick Henry walk has created a potential split backfield with second-year running back Tyjae Spears entering the 2024 NFL season.
Should you start Pollard or Spears in fantasy football for their Week 1 matchup against the Chicago Bears?
Should You Start Tony Pollard or Tyjae Spears This Week?
In the Pro Football Network Start/Sit Optimizer, PFN’s Consensus Rankings say that Pollard is the player to start. His projected 9.2 points include 40 rushing yards and two receptions for 15 yards.
That doesn’t seem like a big stat line, but it outperforms the consensus projection for Spears by a small margin (9.0 points).
These two players are incredibly close in my Week 1 rankings entering their matchup against Chicago. Both are outside the top 30 at running back due to a matchup against a Bears defense that allowed the fewest rushing yards in the league in 2023.
Both players have shown exciting moments as complementary pieces during their time in the NFL, but we really have no data to suggest either player is an elite option if one truly emerges as a bellcow back for Tennessee.
Pollard was in a perfect situation last season as the leading ball carrier of the league’s top-scoring offense, and he still finished in the top 12 at the position with a career-low 3.99 yards per carry. Pollard finished 2023 with 1,316 total yards and six scores on 307 total touches.
Pollard’s 2023 campaign may have been disappointing, but at least we have seen him operate as a serviceable back in a leading role. We simply haven’t had the chance to see Spears in this capacity as he was working behind Henry during his rookie year.
Yet, the encouraging signs were definitely present for the second-year player. Spears was highly efficient, averaging 5.5 yards per touch, which ranked sixth among RBs. He also matched Bijan Robinson’s rookie numbers with 2.7 yards before contact and 1.9 yards after contact per attempt, despite playing behind a poor offensive line.
In another world, these efficiency numbers would suggest a potential breakout candidate with a potentially expanded role. Unfortunately for Spears, that seems unlikely as he’s set to split work with Pollard, who the Titans gave a market-value contract to. Additionally, Tennessee is projected to be amongst the lowest-scoring units in the league.
The Titans did manage to add some talent up front this offseason by selecting offensive tackle JC Latham at No. 7 overall in the 2024 NFL Draft and signing Lloyd Cushenberry III in free agency. Those additions could help both backs produce when their number is called in 2024. I’m just not sure I see that being the case in Week 1 against Chicago.
If you are forced to choose between these two options for a Flex spot in your Week 1 starting lineup, I will say you should start Pollard because it’s hard to imagine Spears seeing more work than the veteran back, especially considering the Titans just paid him this offseason, and it’s his first game with his new team.
Kyle Soppe’s Fantasy Outlook for Spears and Pollard in Week 1
Tony Pollard: Was limited health to blame for Pollard falling flat in 2023? It’s either a Space Jam situation where the MonStars drained him of his talent, or he is destined for a complementary role.
I’m not sure which of those three options is most likely, but we do know that this franchise thought highly enough of Tyjae Spears to take Derrick Henry off the field at times last season in favor of him. This leaves us with plenty of questions when trying to label Pollard’s true ceiling outcome.
The Bears were terrible in the red zone last season (31st), but so was Pollard, making it very possible that Spears gets the first crack inside the 20. Chicago did round into form down the stretch of 2023 and finished with the fifth-lowest mark in opposing running back yards per carry after first contact.
The concern here is obvious: volume. Henry was handed the ball on an absurd 52.5% of his snaps last season, and that is how he paid off fantasy managers. The league average for a running back hovers around 34% and if we give Pollard that rate along with Henry’s snap share, the mean projection comes out to 10.7 carries.
Is that enough? Is that enough behind an offensive line that was one of just six that failed to clear, on average, even three FEET of room for their running backs before contact? I don’t feel great about the Tennessee RB role as a whole being all that valuable this week and my confidence only dips further if we are looking at 10-14 touches apiece.
Tyjae Spears: As a rookie, Spears showed well for himself in the passing game, hauling in 52 of 70 targets and threatening defenses in space. Pollard can do some of that too, but considering that this franchise saw Spears do it, I think it’s reasonable to make him the favorite in the passing game, and that role could see some value against a Bears defense that had the fourth-lowest opponent aDOT a season ago.
I don’t have either Titans RB inside my top-30 at the position this week, but I do have Spears a few pots higher based almost entirely on the idea that this team put him on the field for the majority of their offensive snaps 12 times last season with Henry on the roster.
I’d wager that this backfield will have an alpha by the middle of October — I’m just not jumping the gun and assuming I can project who that’ll be in Week 1 against an improving defense.