For the sake of time and space (not to mention my sanity), not every player that has scored a point appears below. My qualifications at running back: at least five games played and one top-30 finish. (I kept a non-qualifier such as Christian McCaffrey on the table below for the sake of reference.) "Best" refers to the player's highest weekly fantasy finish, while "worst" obviously refers to his lowest. "Aver" is the player's average weekly finish. Squares were left blank when the player was active but failed to register a fantasy point. Got it? Good.

Just over a month ago, it would have seemed ridiculous to think Ezekiel Elliott could be considered an RB2. He hasn't even come all that close to being more than a mid-level flex play recently though. After finishing inside the top 18 in each of the first six games, he has placed no better than RB30 since. Even though the overwhelming percentage of fantasy owners understand why it is happening, it is still a shock to the system. Zeke has scored fewer than nine PPR points in three straight weeks after failing to reach double digits only once in each of the previous two seasons.

How ironic is it that two Wisconsin running backs by themselves next to each other on this list? (And no, I'm not trying to poke fun at the former Badgers.) Melvin Gordon entered the season was expected to be part of a committee - even though his ADP largely reflected an expectation he would eventually push Phillip Lindsay into more of a true backup role. In the four games the two have played together, Gordon has generally been a low-end RB2 (average finish of 18.7, not including Week 9). In three games without Lindsay around, his average weekly finish was 19.7.

Jonathan Taylor was also expected to enter the season in a committee, although it was considered a given he would eventually beat out Marlon Mack. His timetable was sped up exponentially when Mack was lost for the season in Week 1. While his fantasy efforts were generally slightly disappointing for a player many expected to be an RB1 as soon as he was named the starter, his average weekly finish was still a respectable 19.2 through six games. The Colts' response since their Week 7 bye: feed him less and resort to a system in which running backs coach Tom Rathman determines which running back plays after head coach Frank Reich makes the call on personnel on his first 15 scripted plays. The last time Rathman spoke to the media (sometime around the bye week), he said Taylor had done everything the team has asked him to do and the only thing he needed was a little more experience. So the response is giving him less opportunity to gain experience now? His snaps have dropped from roughly 50 percent before the bye to 32.4 percent in the two games since. The result: a back-end RB4 finish followed by a high-end RB3 finish since the bye. It appears Taylor's path to fantasy relevancy at the moment depends on his ability to make a big play while Reich is working off his script.

It took nearly half of the season for Zack Moss to reward the patience of his fantasy owners after suffering a toe injury in Week 2, but he's starting to justify the faith many in the industry had in him (myself included). Just as most of us expected, he's getting the money touches (near the goal line) and mostly sharing the work with Devin Singletary everywhere else. The result has been top-30 finishes in each of the last three weeks, including two inside the top 15. Meanwhile, Singletary has posted an RB3 finish or worst in five straight.

J.D. McKissic was generally considered a nuisance for fantasy owners in September - one more hurdle (albeit an easy one) to keep rookie Antonio Gibson from reaching his fantasy ceiling. While Gibson continues to hang around low-end RB2/high-end flex territory, McKissic has emerged as something of a poor man's James White. A negative game script running back for a team that is unlikely to win more than one or two more times this year and now operating with a quarterback known for checking down, McKissic is a viable flex starter moving forward with decent upside. While he may not see 14 targets in a game ever again, we need to ask ourselves how many running backs not named Christian McCaffrey or Alvin Kamara have that kind of opportunity in the passing game to begin with. McKissic's snaps have held steady all season long, so playing time should not be an issue. It's a real possibility Washington finds itself in negative game scripts in each of its games from now until Week 16. If we need a reminder of what that means for McKissic, he has totaled eight fantasy points in Washington's two wins. In the WFT's other six games, he is averaging 10.9 points (with two RB1 efforts over his last three games).

Of note: In three games with Leonard Fournette sidelined, Ronald Jones' average weekly rank was 11.7 and his worst finish was RB17. In five games with Fournette around, Jones' average weekly rank is 34.3 and his best finish is RB23 (with five finishes of RB30 or worse). … Fantasy owners can make whatever excuse they want about Sean McVay's running back usage, but Darrell Henderson has finished inside RB1 range (the top 12) three times and outside flex range (RB25 or lower) in his other five games. … As hard as it may be to believe, the lead back for the Bengals (Joe Mixon in Weeks 4-6 and Giovani Bernard in Weeks 7-8) has finished as an RB1 in four of the team's last five contests.