The Houston Texans surprised many on Sunday morning by releasing running back D’Onta Foreman. Foreman battled his way back from a 2017 Achilles injury and appeared ready to challenge Lamar Miller for the starting role. However, with Foreman out of the way, let’s take a look at Lamar Miller’s updated fantasy football value for the 2019 season.

Update: The Houston Texans have traded for Duke Johnson since this posting. For Lamar Miller’s updated fantasy outlook, click here

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How the D’Onta Foreman Release Affects Lamar Miller

As of this posting, Houston’s running back depth chart consists of Buddy Howell, Josh Ferguson, Taiwan Jones, and a series of undrafted free agents. This is a pretty underwhelming cast, so the Texans very well might add somebody like Jay Ajayi in the coming weeks. If they do that, this article becomes null and void. However, if Houston didn’t trust Miller to handle the load, they would’ve added another running back at some point in the 2018 or 2019 off-seasons. For now, let’s assume Houston doesn’t make any significant changes to their depth chart between now and the regular season. [They made a significant change]

D’Onta Foreman was on the roster in 2018, but Lamar Miller essentially had the backfield to himself. Foreman suffered an Achilles injury in 2017 and only recorded seven carries in his second season. He hardly made those carries count, as he actually lost one yard on his seven attempts. Miller was the primary guy, recording 210 carries while seeing 56.6% of the offensive snaps. Alfred Blue was the clear backup, finishing the year with 150 carries and 42.1% of the snaps. It’s worth noting that 24 of Blue’s carries came in the two games Miller missed.

Miller ended the year as the RB22 in half-point scoring, and his 11.4 points-per-game was the 23rd-best among running backs. He only had two games in which either didn’t record a touchdown or failed to reach 49 combined yards, and he got hurt midway through one of those games. He never had a week-winning performance, but he was rarely the reason you lost.

2019 Projection

Lamar Miller’s stock has never been higher. The Texans let Alfred Blue walk in free agency, presumably because they thought Foreman could push Miller for the starting job. That obviously didn’t happen, and now Miller is the unquestioned star in Houston’s backfield. While there is a chance that one of Houston’s undrafted running backs turns into a solid player, it doesn’t appear likely at this time. Nobody’s stood out in training camp, and head coach Bill O’Brien said that Miller was easily atop the depth chart.

With 157 vacated carries, Miller is a lock to do better in 2019 than he did in 2018. He’s in one of the most high-powered offenses in the league and doesn’t have any real competition. Howell, Ferguson, and Jones have combined for a whopping 60 carries and pose no real threat to Miller.

The one downside to Miller is that he’s still not a touchdown threat. The Texans love to throw when inside the red zone, which is bad news for Miller. It’s hard to blame them, as DeAndre Hopkins is one of the most unstoppable redzone weapons in football. Miller doesn’t have the explosiveness to score on huge runs, so he comes with a bit of a ceiling. However, Miller has one of the best opportunities in all of fantasy football and will probably be a high-end RB2. You should feel comfortable taking him in the fifth or sixth round.

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