After he missed two weeks with a calf injury, the Carolina Panthers are set to have their RB1 back for this weekend’s clash against the New York Jets. According to the Associated Press’ Steve Reed, Chuba Hubbard is expected to play on Sunday.
When he was healthy, he was the clear first choice running back over Rico Dowdle. Over the first four games of the season, Hubbard amassed 217 yards on 53 carries and adding another 13 catches for 94 yards and two scores, the best success rate of his career. He ranks as the league’s 20th-best qualified running back at Pro Football Focus, ahead of players such as Christian McCaffrey, Derrick Henry, and Saquon Barkley. On his own, he’s done nothing to lose his starting spot.
The issue is that while he was out, Dowdle put up truly special production. In those two games, he compiled 53 carries, 389 yards, and a score on the ground and an additional 84 yards and a touchdown through the air, the best two-game stretch in franchise history. Most crucially, Carolina even won both games. Dowdle had a solid 2024 season as the Dallas Cowboys RB1, averaging a solid 4.6 yards per carry and amassing more than 1,000 yards on the ground for the first time in his career, so his efficiency shouldn’t have come as a surprise. In those two games, Dowdle undoubtedly “earned the right to help this team”, as Panthers head coach Dave Canales said, but Canales didn’t reveal how he planned to use his two running backs on Sunday.
If I had to pick one Carolina running back to start in fantasy, I’d still pick Dowdle for this week. Though Hubbard had taken the lion’s share of the opportunities prior to his injury and been more efficient than Dowdle was on limited snaps, there’s something to be said for rolling with the hot hand, and Canales alluded to it by saying, “I don’t like to paint myself into a box to say a guy can’t lose his job to injury.”
Hubbard might be close to 100%, but there’s no reason to push a guy coming off of a calf injury on MetLife Stadium’s artificial turf, especially since Dowdle has proven himself to be trustworthy in a bigger role. It’s worth noting that Dowdle’s two performances came against the Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins, arguably the two worst defenses in football, but the Jets have allowed the ninth-most rushing yards this season, too.
It’s possible that the Panthers could chose to pass more against a weak New York secondary, but Carolina could have done so as well against Dallas or Miami, whose secondaries are even worse than the Jets’. Even if Bryce Young does drop back, though, it could still work in Dowdle’s favor; only two teams have allowed more receiving touchdowns to running backs than New York’s two. Neither Dowdle nor Hubbard are known for their prowess through the air, but Dowdle had historically been better at producing yards after the catch than Hubbard has.
