Tyrone Tracy Jr. wound up being a really solid late-round selection last season. It’s rare for fifth-round rookies to make an impact, but Tracy took over the New York Giants RB1 role from Devin Singletary. This year, Tracy is the incumbent facing a challenge from another rookie. Is Tracy someone fantasy football managers should be avoiding?
Tyrone Tracy Jr. Fantasy Outlook
Every year, I mostly dismiss any hype about Day 3 rookies, especially guys who went in Round 5 and later. The fantasy community loves to hype up college darlings who rarely pan out. Remember DeWayne McBride, Evan Hull, Zach Evans, and Jermar Jefferson? No? Exactly.
That’s not to say every later Day 3 running back is useless. Isiah Pacheco, Elijah Mitchell, Aaron Jones, and Chris Carson do exist. It’s more that the hits should all be considered outliers. No one should ever expect anything from later Day 3 running backs.
Last year, Tracy joined a Giants roster featuring Devin Singletary and Eric Gray as primary competition. It was a wide-open backfield. But even with the favorable situation, it took a Singletary injury to truly open the door for Tracy to take over.
To his credit, though, Tracy would not have been able to hold the job even after Singletary returned if he weren’t good at football. Tracy averaged 4.9 yards per touch, 23rd in the league, and 3.59 yards created per touch, 24th. Both are very solid numbers for a fifth-round rookie.
Follow Tyrone Tracy Jr step for step on all six of his 20 yard runs from 2024 pic.twitter.com/z1jrYyzK9C
— Talkin’ Giants (@TalkinGiants) June 30, 2025
Where Tracy offered the most upside was as a pass catcher. A former wide receiver, Tracy earned a 9.6% target share and wound up 12th in the league in routes run. This was despite playing fewer than 30% of the snaps and averaging single-digit routes run per game for the first month of the season.
Tracy wound up averaging 10.7Â fantasy points per game on the season. However, if you remove the first four games of the season when he was a seldom-used backup, we get 13.1 PPG, which would have put him at RB21 over a full season.
Fantasy managers should naturally expect improvement for Tracy in his second season. Yet, the excitement has waned due to the Giants selecting Cam Skattebo in the early fourth round. While Skattebo is also a Day 3 pick, he has earlier draft capital than Tracy. Plus, Singletary is still there. Suddenly, there’s a whole lot more competition for touches in this backfield.
With both Skattebo and Tracy present, fantasy managers are understandably not particularly confident in who will be the lead back. Therefore, both running backs have ADPs in the 30s, with Tracy slightly ahead of the rookie at RB31 vs. RB37.
Tracy had fumbling issues last season, but head coach Brian Daboll always went back to him. It would be a major surprise if Tracy didn’t start and operate as the primary pass-catching back. The concern is if Skattebo eats too much into Tracy’s rushing role, plus steals goal line work.
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If Tracy were some boring veteran, I would be more excited about Skattebo. However, Tracy, being just a sophomore, I don’t see him losing his job that easily. Even if he’s not quite the 13 PPG player he was as the lead back last season, a drop outside of RB3 territory seems unlikely.
I have Tracy ranked at RB32, but I am a bit more bullish on him than that ranking would suggest. I believe Tracy is being undervalued due to the excitement about a rookie who I don’t think is anything special. If these ADPs hold, I will be targeting Tracy a lot as my RB3 or RB4.
Cameron Sheath’s Tyrone Tracy Jr. Projection
Tyrone Tracy Jr. turned heads in 2024 as the then-rookie won the Giants’ starting running back role from veteran Devin Singletary. Tracy took on a lead role from Week 5 and was the RB22 in fantasy points per game from that week on.
The rookie’s usage dropped following the team’s Week 11 bye, but a boost in receiving work kept his fantasy value afloat. After recording over 100 rushing yards in three of his first six starts, Tracy failed to reach 60 rushing yards in any of the following seven.
The arrival of do-it-all back Cam Skattebo in the fourth round of April’s draft threatens to relegate Tracy to a support role in 2025, but he could retain his pass-catching work.
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That could be important with Russell Wilson under center. Since leaving Seattle, Wilson has targeted running backs at a rate of 22.2% (2022), 29.5% (2023), and 22.3% (2024). All three numbers rank in the top 12 over those three years; no other quarterback appears in the top 12 more than once.
If Tracy can hold on to at least half of the rushing work, he could be a valuable PPR asset this season. However, his inconsistent numbers from Week 12 onward give Skattebo a strong chance to take over, and New York’s schedule is atrocious this year. Managers who have already drafted a safe floor can take a shot at Tracy’s upside, but far safer assets are being drafted in the same area.
