Bhayshul Tuten was an exciting late-round dart throw in last year’s fantasy football drafts. The potential for him to overtake a very suspect (at the time) Travis Etienne made him quite intriguing. Obviously, that never happened. This year, the Jacksonville Jaguars have seemingly cleared the way for Tuten to be their lead back, which has spiked Tuten’s price despite very little production in his rookie year. Should fantasy football managers buy in?
Should You Draft Jaguars RB Bhayshul Tuten in Fantasy Football?
Of course, speed matters in a game that requires as much athleticism as professional football. It’s only logical to want players who are fast. Tuten is fast. But sometimes, analysts and fantasy managers overrate speed. It’s a great attribute to have, but merely being fast doesn’t make a player necessarily good at football.
This is the challenge in valuing Tuten this season. We have one year of NFL data on him, but we really don’t know if he’s good at football.
Tuten’s athleticism is off the charts. H’s 4.32 40-time puts his speed score in the 98th percentile. He also has 97th-percentile burst. At 5’9″, 206 pounds, he’s only slightly undersized for a lead back. It’s certainly nothing that would cause me to not believe in him. Physically, everything is there.
In college, Tuten displayed strong receiving ability. His 12.1% best season college target share makes him suited for a pass-catching role. However, that did not manifest at all last season with Tuten earning just a 2.9% target share. He was supposed to be the receiving back behind Etienne, but instead that job went to LeQuint Allen. Not ideal.
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Tuten was essentially Etienne’s backup. He had no specialty. His job was to enter the game when Etienne needed a breather. That limited Tuten to just 93 touches. Somehow, he scored seven times, which resulted in roughly 3-4 usable weeks for fantasy. But he was mostly a nothing as a rookie and didn’t see nearly enough to volume to draw any conclusions based on his efficiency metrics, although 3.7 yards per carry is not all that encouraging, especially for such a small sample size.
Tuten’s Redraft Fantasy Football Value
Based purely on what he did last season, Tuten’s 2026 price tag is ludicrous. This is a player who averaged 5.9 fantasy points per game. He couldn’t take any meaningful touches away from Etienne and couldn’t even secure the passing-down role from a seventh-round rookie.
Based on the runway in front of Tuten for this season, his 2026 price tag is a crazy good value. The Jaguars were the No. 6 scoring offense last season. Etienne is gone. The stage is set for Tuten to be the lead back in a Trevor Lawrence/Liam Coen offense.
The fantasy community seems to have settled in on a pretty reasonable valuation of Tuten. His RB25 price tag splits the difference in his upside and floor.
The upside case is obvious. Etienne averaged 14.9 PPG last season and finished as the overall RB13. I don’t believe Etienne is any sort of special talent. Rather, he was the guy who got the job and performed well enough to keep it. Tuten is younger, faster, and more explosive. Does he have the talent to match or exceed Etienne’s production? That remains to be seen. But that’s the upside case.
The downside case is also obvious. Tuten is a Day 3 running back who did next to nothing as a rookie outside of fall in the end zone more than he should. Etienne commanded a 69.2% opportunity share last season. It seems doubtful Tuten will see that much volume.
Allen is the favorite for obvious passing-down work, which may prevent Tuten from doing any better than matching Etienne’s 9.5% target share. Additionally, Jacksonville signed Chris Rodriguez over from Washington.
Rodriguez might have the worst receiving profile of any running back in the NFL, but he was quite effective in the two-down grinder and short-yardage role last year. He legitimately took the RB1 job away from Jacory Croskey-Merritt and averaged 4.5 yards per carry on 112 attempts, scoring six times.
Ultimately, whether Tuten is a good pick in fantasy drafts will come down to performance. Coen doesn’t really have allegiance to any of these backs. The one who performs the best will play the most. In theory, that should be Tuten. But if C-Rod runs like he did last year, there’s a world where he and Tuten share early down work while Rodriguez is the short yardage/goal line back and Allen is the passing down back. That would present very challenging circumstances for Tuten to return any real fantasy value.
There’s also a world where Tuten is just a better player than Rodriguez, and he ends up being closer to a three-down back. Coen did tell reporters during OTAs that he likes to be unpredictable. Rodriguez being on the field makes them predictable because they’re probably running, given that he has a total of seven targets in his career.
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I do not have a strong take on Tuten. It does neither fantasy managers nor me any good if I claim I know something I don’t. Whether to draft Tuten comes down to a value proposition.
I have Tuten ranked as my RB23, two spots above his ADP. However, that ranking is not a ringing endorsement of him. Rather, it is a product of me strongly fading a couple of guys that go ahead of him (Bucky Irving and TreVeyon Henderson). He is not someone I am actively looking to draft, but the upside is good enough that I’ll take him if he falls below ADP and I need a running back.
Tuten’s Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
Tuten’s dynasty outlook is tied significantly to his redraft value. There isn’t really a scenario where Tuten plays poorly this season and sustains any sort of dynasty value. If he doesn’t break free from Rodriguez as the Jaguars’ lead back, his dynasty value will take a hit.
Currently, we have Tuten at RB26 in our consensus dynasty rankings. That is similarly in line with his redraft value.
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The bull case is Tuten establishes himself as the clear RB1. If that happens, he will almost certainly take that job into next year. I can definitely see a scenario where we’re drafting Tuten at the 2/3 turn next season.
The bear case is Tuten isn’t good enough to be a lead back and ends up mired in a three-way timeshare with Rodriguez and Allen. He ends up being a middling RB3 and the Jaguars look to free agency or the draft for a new lead runner in 2027.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.