David Montgomery 2026 Season Preview — a decline, a trade, a new lead role | Muffed

David Montgomery just posted the worst fantasy season of his recent career as the small slice of a three-man Detroit committee — and then got traded to Houston, where he's the lead back. So you're betting that a bigger role reverses an age-and-usage decline. That's a watch. The Muffed 2026 preview.

The 2025 season was a part-time line: a hundred fifty-eight carries for seven hundred sixteen yards, eight touchdowns, RB32 per game — the smallest share of a backfield where Woody Marks and Nick Chubb ate into the work. But the efficiency held up: plus one hundred twenty-five rushing yards over expected, eleventh among backs, facing stacked boxes on a third of his carries. He could still run; he just didn't get the volume. Seven games under ten points tell the committee story.

The arc is a clean decline: fourteen-two, fourteen-six, then nine-one. The touchdowns that propped up his earlier seasons faded, and the committee shrank his touches. He's a career-year-seven back.

What the data says: the efficiency is genuinely still there — rank-eleven over expected isn't a washed back. What's gone is the volume and the touchdown rate. The question 2026 answers is whether a lead role restores the touches enough to matter, on legs that are seven years in.

[[SITUATION]]

The situation is the entire bet, per the reports: Houston traded a package including offensive lineman Juice Scruggs to Detroit to acquire him, and he enters as the number-one back after Joe Mixon's release in March — Nick Chubb also left in free agency. Woody Marks, who started as a rookie last year, sticks around in more of a pass-catching role; offensive coordinator Nick Caley has talked about using the two of them together in split-back sets. An efficient back with a real lead role is a genuine value; an aging back inheriting a new offense's question marks is a real risk. Both are true.

The price: pick fifty, the twenty-first back. [pause] Verdict: WATCHLIST — the efficiency and the new lead role argue up, the age and the 2025 collapse argue down, and the Houston backfield isn't fully settled with Marks still in the mix. The counter for him: proven efficiency plus a feature role at RB21 is how value is found. Against: year-seven backs coming off a down year don't always get the volume back, and a coordinator who wants to split the work is still a coordinator who wants to split the work.

September watch: the carry share in Houston — lead role or a real split with Marks; and the touchdown rate, where eight on part-time work could climb with volume. [[CLOSE]] He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.