Fantasy Football: Broncos RB Royce Freeman Ready For Big Week 9

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The over/under for Cleveland-Denver is 39.5 right now, the second-lowest total of the week behind the Bills-Redskins (37). Cleveland is a 2.5-point favorite, indicating this could be a low-scoring game featuring a recently-sloppy Baker Mayfield and Brandon Allen, who has never taken a regular-season snap and is filling in for an injured Joe Flacco.

If Broncos running back Royce Freeman is going to break out, this is the week.

The Freeman/Lindsay power struggle has brought fantasy owners through a gauntlet of emotions. Freeman was a hot name prior to his rookie season. The Broncos invested a third-round pick in him only to let undrafted rookie Phillip Lindsay run wild and finish the season with 1,278 yards from scrimmage and 10 total touchdowns. 

This season is a different story.

  • Freeman is averaging 4.7 yards per touch on 114 touches.
  • Lindsay has 134 touches, averaging 4.9 per.

Despite Lindsay’s higher fantasy stock, this could be the week the momentum swings to Freeman. Freeman has totaled more snaps than Lindsay five weeks in a row, and is a significantly better pass blocker than Lindsay, according to Pro Football Focus.

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With Brandon Allen set to take his first NFL snaps, the Broncos will almost surely emphasize running football. When they pass, if they want to give Allen as much protection as possible en route to minimizing potential mistakes, Freeman will be in there blocking, which almost always lends itself to dump-off passes to the running back. 

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Don’t go crazy and start Royce Freeman over your bonafide fantasy starters, but if you’re debating between him and, say, Ronald Jones, Jordan Howard or Devin Singletary, Freeman gives you a solid workload with plenty of upside.

Featured Image: KA Sports Photos [CC BY-SA 2.0], from Flickr