David Montgomery

David Montgomery finished the 2025 season as the number 27 running back in total PPR scoring and the number 33 running back in points per game. That gap tells you the shape of the year — 17 games played, but a three-way Houston backfield that never settled on a lead. Woody Marks actually out-touched him on the ground with 196 carries. Nick Chubb chipped in another 122. Montgomery's 158 carries were the smallest slice of a committee that never crowned a true lead back. He was efficient when he ran — he just didn't run enough, and every Texans red-zone trip felt like a coin flip.

Now let's dig into the numbers. Montgomery averaged 9.8 PPR per game on 158 carries for 716 yards and 8 rushing touchdowns, plus 24 catches for 192 yards on a five percent target share — replacement-level pass-game work for a starting back. The efficiency was genuinely good: plus 125.5 rushing yards over expected, plus 0.8 per attempt, 11th among qualified backs, and he did it while seeing eight or more defenders in the box on 34 percent of his carries. The per-touch work was there. Volume and consistency weren't — this was boom-or-bust in miniature. A 29.4-point explosion against the Jaguars in Week 3, an 18.2 in the Baltimore blowout, but seven games under 10 PPR and three games under 2 points. Weeks 4, 16, and 18: 1.2, 1.4, and 6.5. No floor — just a touchdown-dependent scoring pattern in an offense that converted only 50.7 percent of red-zone trips into touchdowns, second-worst in the league. Houston's run game as a whole posted minus 44.9 rushing expected points added, 30th in football. Even with Montgomery running above expectation, the unit around him was dragging him down.

The identity of Montgomery's season lives in that touchdown share. Eight scores tied him for 15th in the league in rushing touchdowns despite the part-time workload — he was the guy Houston trusted near the goal line when they got there. The catch: they didn't get there enough, and when they did, they kicked field goals more than any team in football. That's the Montgomery 2025 portrait — a back running above his blocking, finishing drives at a starter's clip, stuck in a committee on a team that turned touchdowns into three-pointers.