RB53 per game as a rookie, priced RB25 on a featured role he's still competing for. His one trait, touchdowns, is the least repeatable thing in the game.
Bhayshul Tuten 2026 Season Preview — paying for a job he hasn't won
Show notes & transcript▾
Bhayshul Tuten finished his rookie year as the fifty-third running back in fantasy points per game. He's the twenty-fifth back off the board. That gap is one of the widest on the board — and it's built entirely on a job he hasn't won yet. The Muffed 2026 preview.
The rookie season was a deep-reserve role behind Travis Etienne: eighty-three carries, three hundred seven yards, five touchdowns, ten catches across fifteen games — five-nine points a game, RB53 per game. The signature was a modest Week 2 against Cincinnati, fifteen points, his rookie high. He flashed the speed that made him a draft pick, but he never had the volume to qualify among the league's tracked runners — eighty-three carries isn't a workload, it's a rotation.
The arc is a single low-usage season, so the RB25 price isn't paying for what he did — it's a pure bet on a role increase. And here's the production flag: his touchdown share was forty-seven percent, the most touchdown-dependent profile of any back we cover. Five of his handful of scoring plays came on the ground in limited work, and that rate does not survive contact with a real sample. Strip it out and the rookie tape is a change-of-pace back, not a starter.
What the data can and can't say: we don't license year-two leaps for running backs — that pattern failed our testing — so the speculative upside isn't something we'll underwrite. What the price needs is a near-total transformation of his role, and the only evidence for that is off the field.
The situation, per the reports, is the entire bull case — and it's real: Travis Etienne signed with New Orleans, vacating the lead job, and Jacksonville's brass has said the backfield is Tuten's to lose. But they also signed Chris Rodriguez to a two-year deal and project the two to split carries, with passing-down backs behind them. So the job isn't handed to him — it's a committee he has to win, at a price that already assumes he won it.
The price: pick sixty and a half, the twenty-fifth back. Verdict: LEAN — overpriced. His proven production is a deep reserve's, his one fantasy-relevant trait — touchdowns — is the least repeatable thing in the game, and the RB25 tag is paying for a featured role he's competing for, not holding. The counter, and it's legitimate: the lane is genuinely open with Etienne gone, the speed is real, and if he wins the job outright this price looks smart in October. But you're paying for the job before training camp's settled it — and there's a veteran in the room to beat.
September watch: the carry split with Chris Rodriguez — the whole bet; and whether the explosive runs translate to a real per-touch role. Your guys, every week. That closes batch one of the next fifty — the countdown rolls on.
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2025: 307 rushing yards on 83 carries, 5 rushing TDs; 10 catches for 79 yards, 2 receiving TDs on 14 targets (15 games)
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2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Bhayshul Tuten 2025 Season in Review
RB53 on the season — 15 games, 5.9 PPR/game
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Bhayshul Tuten 2025 Season in Review
RB53 on the season — 15 games, 5.9 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Bhayshul Tuten closed his 2025 rookie campaign as the number 53 running back in total PPR scoring — and the number 53 running back in PPR per game. Same rank, both columns. That tells you exactly what this year was: a complementary, change-of-pace role behind Travis Etienne on a 13-and-4 Jaguars team that won the AFC South, with Tuten as the short-yardage and goal-line specialist. Etienne was the engine — 260 carries, 1,107 yards. Tuten was the closer they trusted to punch it in. He played 15 games, so this wasn't an injury story. It was a workload story, and the workload simply wasn't there for week-to-week fantasy relevance.
Now let's dig into the numbers. Tuten finished with 83 carries for 307 yards and 5 rushing touchdowns, plus 10 catches on 14 targets for 79 yards and 2 more scores through the air — 7 total touchdowns in a part-time role. His average target share was 3 percent, barely a blip in the passing game, and 80 yards after the catch on those 10 receptions tells you the receiving work was mostly check-downs and screens. He averaged just 5.9 PPR per game on a pure boom-or-bust profile. Tuten cleared 8 PPR in six games — including a 15.4 outing at Cincinnati and a 13.4 against the Chargers — but he also posted six games of 3.2 PPR or less, and finished with a negative score in Week 14 against the Colts on a 2-carry, 5-yard night. When you average under 6 PPR a week and half your games are under 4, you're a touchdown-dependent dart throw. The real-football silver lining: 7 touchdowns on 97 total touches is genuinely efficient finishing for a rookie.
The play that captures Tuten's 2025 came in overtime in Las Vegas, Week 9. Third and 1, ball at the Raiders' 1-yard line, Jaguars down 13-16, season on the line. Tuten up the middle. Touchdown. Game. That's the job description — Etienne moves the ball, Tuten finishes drives — and it's why his touchdown total outran his yardage total. But finishing drives without the volume behind it is exactly how you end up as the number 53 running back.
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