Who Should I Start? Chuba Hubbard or Jaylen Warren

Thursday, January 8, 1:08 PM

Carolina Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard opened the 2025 season with double-digit carries in his first six games. Since then, he's seen double-digit carries just once in nine games as Rico Dowdle has pretty much taken over as Carolina's lead back. The 26-year-old has 134 carries for 511 yards (3.8 yards per carry) and only one touchdown, adding 30 receptions for 223 yards and three receiving touchdowns on 39 targets. Fantasy managers probably won't have much confidence in Hubbard as an RB2 going into the Wild-Card playoff matchup on Saturday against the Los Angeles Rams. In the last four games, Hubbard has just 23 carries for 78 yards (3.4 yards per tote) and seven catches for 29 yards. He'll be stuck in a timeshare with Dowdle again this weekend against a Rams defense that allowed just six rushing TDs to RBs during the regular season, the third-fewest in the NFL.

Thursday, January 8, 5:13 PM

Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jaylen Warren (illness) did not practice with the team on Thursday due to an illness, according to Brooke Pryor of ESPN. Warren's status is worth monitoring going into Monday night's Wild-Card playoff matchup against the visiting Houston Texans, but the 27-year-old should be good to go by then. However, if he's still feeling under the weather by then and sees a smaller workload, it would benefit backfield mate Kenneth Gainwell, albeit in a very tough matchup against the No. 1 defense in the league. Warren has seen double-digit carries in all but one of his 16 games played this year, but Gainwell has taken on a bigger role in Pittsburgh's backfield late in the season. He ranked as the RB19 with 12.3 half-PPR points per game, while Houston's defense allowed the eighth-fewest half-PPR points per week to the position. Warren sets up as a low-end RB1 in fantasy playoff formats.