Ian Cummings named Cam Skattebo the most overvalued player in fantasy football drafts on PFN’s Football Debate Club, and the strongest part of his case has nothing to do with analytics. It’s that Skattebo’s own head coach keeps volunteering the reason.
Why Cam Skattebo’s Fantasy ADP Outruns the Giants’ Backfield Plan
Cummings opened with the price. “He’s ranked 49th in terms of ADP right now, but PFSN fantasy football analyst Kyle Soppe has him ranked 67th, a full 1.5 rounds later in 12-team leagues.” The gap has only grown since. Consensus PPR ADP put Skattebo 43rd overall as RB19 on Aug. 3, and at least one platform has him as high as 35th, with the number still climbing.
The competition is the first problem. “In 2026, he’s going to be sharing touches with Tyrone Tracy and the volume vulture himself, Devin Singletary, both of whom had over 130 total touches the last two seasons.”
Check it and the math holds. Tracy turned 176 carries and 36 catches into 1,028 scrimmage yards last season, the third player in franchise history to open a Giants career with back-to-back 1,000-yard scrimmage seasons. Singletary added 137 touches of his own. Neither disappeared when Skattebo was healthy.
Then John Harbaugh said it himself after the fourth practice of camp. “To me, both those guys are going to be together back there playing a lot of football,” the coach said of Skattebo and Tracy. “You can’t play with one back anyway, and they’re both competing for everything at this point in time. Both those guys are going to play a lot.”
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Camp reporting still favors Skattebo on early downs. SNY’s Connor Hughes noted he’s first up in almost every running drill, with Tracy and Singletary preferred in passing situations. That’s the tension. Skattebo averaged 19.1 fantasy points per game across his six full games last season, a sixth-place pace over a full year, but he got there with three-down usage. The early-down job looks secure. The three-down job doesn’t, and RB2 pricing assumes the second one.
The Contact Numbers Behind the Cam Skattebo Fantasy Debate
Cummings leaned on PFSN’s charting for the efficiency case. Skattebo posted a 70.9 RB Impact score, 40th in the league. His 2.2 yards before contact ranked 30th among qualifying runners, and his 1.9 yards after contact ranked 28th.
Half of that is contested. SumerSports credited Skattebo with 283 yards after contact on 101 carries, roughly 2.8 per attempt, and another charting service graded him fourth in the league in both yards after contact per rush and missed tackle rate. Providers set the contact point differently, so treat that split as a methodology argument rather than a settled number. The before-contact figure, which says more about the blocking than the back, is the sturdier half.
The availability concern needs no model. “[Skattebo] is coming off a major leg injury and he’s doing backflips with that injury, and his play style is pretty much akin to diving headfirst into contact. Let’s face it, this guy has the self-preservation skills of a mountain goat.”
He isn’t exaggerating the backflip. Skattebo failed to land one at Fanatics Fest in July and came down awkwardly on the surgically repaired right ankle. Harbaugh and general manager Joe Schoen have since talked to him about it, and Skattebo called the stunt a mistake after a camp practice at The Greenbrier. “My coach talked to me, told me how he felt, and I learned from it. And will I go do that backflip again? Probably not.”
The injury cuts both ways. The ankle was dislocated with an accompanying fracture in Week 8 at Philadelphia, but it happened on a hip-drop tackle by Zack Baun, a technique the league bans. That ended a rookie year worth 617 scrimmage yards and seven touchdowns in eight games.
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Cummings left the door open. “So Scat, I love you. I want to believe, I want you to prove me wrong. But right now at this current evaluation with the questions surrounding his volume and his sustained availability, I personally need to see a little bit more before I take him that high.”
The efficiency half of that case may not survive better data, and the backflip habit looks retired. The Harbaugh sentence will survive Week 1, and it’s the one that decides whether this pick pays.
