Jerome Ford Week 1 Outlook - Cowboys at Browns

By Derek Brown (FantasyPros), Wed, Sep 4th 2024, 8:38pm EDT

Ford should be the every-down do-it-all back for Cleveland to open the season. Last season, in Weeks 3-17, when Ford was the starter, he averaged 14.9 touches and 66.6 total yards as the RB20 in fantasy. Ford played well, ranking 13th in missed tackles forced per attempt and 16th in yards after contact per attempt. He faces a confounding Dallas Cowboys run defense, depending on what metric you look at from last year. On one hand, they allowed the second-lowest missed tackles per attempt and the 10th-lowest yards after contact per attempt. Those are frightening stats, but this run defense also had the 12th-lowest stuff rate while allowing the fourth-highest success rate to gap runs and ranking 17th in yards per carry permitted to gap runs (Ford 56.9% gap). Ford is best viewed as a volume-based RB2/3.