Early Fantasy RB Rankings 2023: Running back rankings for standard, PPR leagues

For many fantasy football enthusiasts, the grind never stops — not even now that the smoke has cleared from Super Bowl 57 and standard season-long leagues won't draft again until at least six months from now. Fantasy owners will always have research to do, prospects to evaluate, NFL acquisitions to ponder, and of course, positional rankings to compile. In that spirit, today we will take a fresh look at the crop of running backs for the 2023 season, a way-too-early glimpse at what order we expect to draft RBs ahead of Week 1. 

Just like the 32 NFL teams, every day presents an opportunity for us to prepare for the upcoming season. While we may not actually think about fantasy football every day for the next 200-plus days, assembling our rankings now and occasionally revising them could pay off handsomely in the long run. 

Of course, countless variables will come into play between now and the fall. Free agent signings, trades, the NFL Draft, and even coaching changes account for just some of the tidal changes that impact positional landscapes. Just like every game has ebbs and flows, every player's offseason contains a plethora of situational events that can positively or negatively affect their short-term and long-term fantasy value. 

2023 FANTASY RANKINGS: QBs | WRs | TEs

One thing seems certain: Christian McCaffrey will be the top pick, regardless of what happens around him in San Francisco. He has clearly returned to the greatness that earned him multiple consensus No. 1 rankings while he was a Panther. Between the week after McCaffrey landed in Santa Clara (Week 8) and the week of most fantasy championships (Week 17), CMC easily led all RBs in per-game standard scoring (18.5) and PPR scoring (23.7).

The second-ranked players in PPR and standard formats during that 10-week stretch, Austin Ekeler and Derrick Henry also come in second on our respective look-ahead lists. Ekeler has clearly established himself as the best (and most TD-hungry) pass-catching back not named McCaffrey, while two-time rushing king Henry continues to dominate on the ground with his unprecedented size and strength. Nick Chubb has also clearly earned his spot among the current Mount Rushmore of backs after finishing third in rushing yards despite 11 weeks without starting QB Deshaun Watson. 

From there, we see a lot of the youth movement starting to take over. Of course, we love Jonathan Taylor to bounce back. The 2021 rushing champ is way too good to have two down years in a row (he wasn't even bad, by most mortal's standards), and we expect Indy to improve its coaching, QB play, and offensive line next season. Kenneth Walker III and Breece Hall both look to pick up where they left off before injuries impacted their respective rookie campaigns, and Travis Etienne Jr. will build off his late-season emergence for Jacksonville and become a hot commodity in 2023.

Don't forget about presumptive first-round pick Bijan Robinson and stud free agents Saquon Barkley, Tony Pollard, and Josh Jacobs. Robinson fits the bill for a back that immediately serves as a difference-maker, but we stayed relatively conservative with both his standard and PPR rankings. Pollar could easily replicate his incredible breakout campaign in the right situation, but he could also take a step back behind the wrong o-line and/or with the wrong QB. Barkley and Jacobs, meanwhile, hit second-half walls after exploding out of the gates — can they handle full seasons as workhorse backs with new teams?

Perhaps more interesting than the risers, the fallers include veterans Joe Mixon and Dalvin Cook (and both Ezekiel Elliott and Aaron Jones fail to even crack either of our top 20s). These developments will surely ruffle the feathers of a few fans, but we have never compiled rankings based on what we think fantasy owners want to hear. Each of these players endured injuries and/or wear and tear throughout the 2022 campaign and clearly took steps back by the season's end. Combining those factors with the anticipated personnel changes to their teams' rosters, we simply don't have them as high as many other sites' way-too-early rankings.

As we said, many things will change between now and the Sept. 7 kickoff of the 2023 season. Be sure to check back into Sporting News Fantasy regularly for news, updates, and revised positional rankings between now and fantasy draft season! 

Early 2023 Fantasy RB PPR Rankings

Early 2023 Fantasy RB Rankings for Standard leagues