Breece Hall, Jonathan Taylor, and Chase Brown Impacting Week 14 Rankings

It’s always a challenge to navigate through injuries in fantasy football. The RB position has several players dealing with issues. The time to set Week 14 lineups is near. What are the latest injury updates on Breece Hall, Jonathan Taylor, and Chase Brown?

Latest News and Injury Updates Impacting Fantasy

Breece Hall, RB, New York Jets

Analysis last updated Wednesday, December 6 at 6 p.m. ET

Following last week’s game, we didn’t hear anything about a potential Breece Hall injury. However, something clearly happened as Hall was absent from Wednesday’s practice with an ankle issue.

Without any clear indicator of what happened or when, it will be difficult to predict Hall’s status. This might just be routine Wednesday maintenance for an established player late in the season.

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Given that the beat reporters did not ask head coach Robert Saleh anything about Hall at Wednesday’s press conference, it seems no one knew about this injury beforehand. As a result, we will have to wait and see what Hall’s participation level is on Thursday, if any.

Last week, Dalvin Cook saw his highest carry count since Week 1. If Hall doesn’t practice on Thursday, that would put Cook in line to make his first start of the season. Given Cook’s history as a lead back, despite his ineffectiveness this season, we can reasonably project him for the bulk of the touches with rookie Israel Abanikanda mixing in behind him.

Hall has been completely ineffective from a fantasy standpoint, and he’s young and talented. Fantasy managers should consider Cook nothing more than a desperation volume-based RB3 Hail Mary play. He is not a recommended start.

Jonathan Taylor, RB, Indianapolis Colts

Analysis last updated Wednesday, December 6 at 6 p.m. ET

Last week, the Indianapolis Colts revealed that Jonathan Taylor played the second half of the Colts’ Week 12 game with a thumb injury that required surgery, sidelining Taylor for multiple weeks.

Taylor is now one week removed from thumb surgery. The Colts are hopeful Taylor can return in another week or two, thus they declined to place the running back on injured reserve (IR). As a result, he must be listed on the team’s daily practice report.

To no surprise, Taylor did not practice Wednesday. For some reason, head coach Shane Steichen was a bit cryptic when asked about Taylor’s status for Sunday, saying, “We’ll see.” But according to Kevin Bowen, he also said he doesn’t know when Taylor might return.

While Taylor won’t be fully ruled out until Friday, he is not going to play this week. A return in Week 15 would be a best-case scenario. The more likely target date would be Week 16, if all goes well. But that’s a problem for next week or the week after.

For this week, fantasy managers just need to know that Zack Moss will be carrying the load again. Although he wasn’t his usual efficient self last week, Moss saw 19 carries, three targets, and played 94% of the snaps. He is a must-start high-end RB2 at worst for as long as JT is sidelined.

Chase Brown, RB, Cincinnati Bengals

Analysis last updated Wednesday, December 6 at 6 p.m. ET

The Bengals had been without rookie fifth-rounder RB Chase Brown since a Week 6 hamstring strain sent him to IR. The team activated Brown ahead of last week’s game and immediately gave him a somewhat prominent role.

Brown took the field on the Bengals’ second offensive play. Although he only played 11 total snaps, he handled a carry on nine of them, amassing an impressive 60 yards.

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Joe Mixon remains the clear lead back, but if last week was any indication, the Bengals want Brown in the RB2 role. As long as he can stay healthy and continue to perform well, he should assume complete control of that role soon enough.

Brown was listed as limited on the Bengals’ Wednesday practice report with a hamstring issue. Given that there were no reports of a new injury, we can reasonably infer this is just maintenance on the same injury that cost him five weeks earlier in the season.

Unless Brown shows up as a DNP on Thursday or Friday, there’s no reason to think he won’t play on Sunday. Fantasy managers cannot start Brown, but he deserves to be rostered as the likely handcuff to Mixon with the fantasy playoffs right around the corner.

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