Justin Jackson or Kalen Ballage: Which Chargers RB to play in fantasy in Week 10?

Week 10 is about to kick off, and fantasy football managers are still wondering which Los Angeles Chargers running back is the best fantasy football option. Will Austin Ekeler or Justin Jackson be available, or is Kalen Ballage the Chargers RB that needs to be started? Should any of them be played or trusted against an attackable Miami Dolphins defense in Week 10?

Update (November 14th, 2020): The Chargers have placed Justin Jackson (knee) on injured reserve.

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Eligible to come off the IR, will Austin Ekeler suit up Sunday for the Chargers?

The answer is probably not. 

Initially reported by Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Chargers’ RB Austin Ekeler suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain during the team’s Week 4 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It later came out by Ekeler himself during a live stream that part of the tendon essentially ripped off the bone, which is much closer to a Grade 3 injury. 

Initially, the diagnosis was 4-6 weeks for his recovery period, but head coach Anthony Lynn said that Ekeler’s return would come “later rather than sooner,” according to Daniel Popper of The Athletic a few weeks ago.

Recently posting a video on social media of himself jogging got fans excited, but we need to take a deep breath and realize that jogging on a field alone is much different than being ready to return to the field. 

Usually, these take several months to heal, and they have a very high risk for re-injury. The fact he is using a zero-gravity treadmill shows that he is nowhere near coming back in Week 10. 

The way things are looking right now, it seems Austin Ekeler is still a few weeks away from coming back if he is just now starting to run again. If that is the case, anything in the Week 12 window makes more sense, and fantasy managers should continue to look at other Chargers RBs for help in Week 10.

The Chargers have used several RBs in recent weeks, making them difficult to trust for fantasy, including Justin Jackson

Justin Jackson, Joshua Kelley, Troymaine Pope, and now even someone like Kalen Ballage is seeing work in this patchwork backfield.

It started off looking as if Justin Jackson was going to walk away with this job. In the three-game stretch from Week 5 to Week 8, Jackson rushed 37 times for 172 yards and added 13 receptions on 17 targets for an additional 119 yards. While he failed to score, he was the Chargers’ most productive RB and was the RB22 during this timeframe. Jackson’s downside has been his inability to stay on the field, which is currently plaguing the third-year pro.

Jackson was extremely limited in his team’s Week 9 matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders because of a knee injury, and his status for Week 10 is up in the air. The fact that Jackson has yet to practice this week makes it seem that the team is willing to keep him out against the Dolphins. 

“Probably gonna rest him this week and give that knee a chance to get well, but we’ll see,” Head Coach Anthony Lynn said of Jackson, according to Gilbert Manzano of the L.A. Daily News. “He’s a competitor, he wants to play. But I just didn’t like the way he looked last week when he came out the game early.”

Related | Can DeeJay Dallas be trusted to start in Week 10 fantasy football lineups?

If Jackson is ruled out for Week 10, which is the current trending direction, the backfield work will likely be split between Joshua Kelley, Troymaine Pope, and Kalen Ballage.

While the players that have stepped up have been surprising, it has done more to highlight how little trust the team has in UCLA rookie Joshua Kelley. Kelley has finished with less than 3.2 yards per carry in four of his last five games and hasn’t topped 32 rushing yards since back in Week 3. He saw five targets last week, though that was more to do with the fact that Ekeler, Justin Jackson, and Pope were out. 

Troymaine Pope will be back this week, but in what fashion remains to be seen. On Wednesday, it was announced that Pope cleared the NFL’s concussion protocol. He was a pleasant surprise in Week 8 against the Denver Broncos, rushing ten times for 67 yards and adding 28 more through the air on five receptions. 

The surprise name of the entire bunch has to be Chargers RB Kalen Ballage. Last week, Ballage led the team with 69 rushing yards and a touchdown on 15 carries against the Raiders. He also caught two passes for 15 yards.

With all of these Chargers running backs getting touches, how do you even start someone with confidence in fantasy?

Who, if anyone, should you start in fantasy out of the Chargers backfield with Justin Jackson and Ekeler out?

First, we can take out Justin Jackson since he isn’t playing. Next, I would look past Joshua Kelley. The little usage he has seen while Ekeler has been out shows the little faith Anthony Lynn has in his rookie RB. For someone with a lot of preseason hype, this is a disappointing outcome.

That leaves us with Troymaine Pope and Kalen Ballage as final options. 

This whole backfield screams “hot-hand approach” in terms of who will get the looks each week, and no one is “hotter” than Kalen Ballage, though that is a very mild temperature. Apparently, in his short time on the team, he has been able to impress Lynn.

“I think he’s taking the coaching,” Lynn said of Ballage. “I think he’s better than what he was when he was at those places (Dolphins and Jets). But it didn’t surprise me when he went into the game and had some success. The young man has a nice skillset.”

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You didn’t think I would forget about the revenge game narrative, right? Sorry, the start of the Kalen Ballage North American Revenge Tour is more accurate. After facing the Dolphins this week, the Chargers take on the New York Jets in Week 11. It’s a two-stop tour, but there will still be commemorative tee shirts made.

The Dolphins have faced 27 running back touches per game, allowing the sixth-most fantasy points per opportunity to running backs. No RB has more than 90 yards on the ground against them this year, but that’s because just two running backs have seen more than 11 carries against them. They have allowed the 14th-most rushing yards (791) and are 15th in rushing TDs given up (6). 

It would be a fine matchup in a normal week if the running back going against them wasn’t in a committee or named Kalen Ballage, whose biggest highlight before last week was a failed hurdle attempt. 

I just can’t recommend playing anyone. It feels like too much of a trap to think Ballage will strike twice, and I don’t see any Chargers RB getting enough touches to have any significant impact. The offense is built around Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen, and that will remain the focus until Austin Ekeler comes back and takes over the RB1 role.

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Tommy Garrett is a writer for PFN covering Fantasy Football. You can read more of his work here and follow him at @TommygarrettPFN on Twitter.