The Texans head into the season with Montgomery and Marks as the team’s top-two backs. Currently for Best Ball drafts on DraftKings, Montgomery carries an ADP of 47.8 while Marks is going way later at 134.1. Based on these ADPs, who is the better fantasy value of these backs for the upcoming season?
Montgomery vs. Marks
After relying on Marks for most of last season, the Texans went out and traded for Montgomery this spring, giving up a fourth-round pick, a seventh-round pick and offensive lineman Juice Scruggs in the deal.
Then, Houston quickly inked Montgomery to a two-year, $16.5 million contract extension, which is a pretty strong indicator that the Texans view Montgomery as their starter for this upcoming season.
Montgomery now officially sits atop the depth chart and sat out the entire preseason along with many of the other Texans’ starters. Meanwhile, Marks played in one of the exhibitions with the backups.
Marks was a fourth-round pick by Houston last season and while he eventually was given the lead back job with Joe Mixon out for the year, Marks did struggle to produce. The 25-year-old only averaged 3.6 YPC, which ranked 56th of the 65 backs who saw 50+ carries.
Marks never rushed for more than 74 yards in a game in the regular season and he only found the paydirt twice with his legs, despite seeing 33 redzone carries. As a receiver, Marks only caught 66.7% of his targets, which tied for dead last among the running backs who saw 20+ targets. He did, however, rank 13th among those players in yard per reception (8.7) and he caught three touchdown passes.
While Marks is only entering his second season, the Texans bringing in Montgomery and making him their lead back makes sense after Marks’ struggles a year ago. While Montgomery is entering his eighth season, he is still only 29-years-old and is coming off a strong campaign with the Lions.
Playing behind Jahmyr Gibbs, Montgomery averaged 4.5 YPC, which is the second-best mark of his career and ranked 24th of the backs who saw 50+ carries. Montgomery scored eight touchdowns despite playing a secondary role to Gibbs and Montgomery hauled in 24 of his 26 targets, ranking him fifth in catch rate among the backs who saw 20+ targets.
Overall, Montgomery finished 26th at his position in FPTS per snap (0.41), whereas Marks finished 48th (0.25).
Playing together this season, it’s safe to expect Montgomery to be the primary rusher and redzone option, who also sees some passing down work. Meanwhile, Marks should operate behind Montgomery with some carries and action on passing plays.
This feels likely to be a 70/30 split in favor of Montgomery and while he is a far more expensive option for fantasy drafts, Montgomery is the better value over Marks and a compelling pick around the fifth round. Marks has merit his late ADP, but he shouldn’t be viewed as more than a high-end handcuff that may have some solid games here and there.
