David Montgomery — Week 2: Six Carries, None After Halftime
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 21
Montgomery carried 6 times for 10 yards, all before halftime, a week after 20 carries and three touchdowns. His fourth-and-one run at the Cincinnati 18 lost a yard with 6:58 left in a scoreless second quarter, the largest win-probability loss of any play in the game. He added two catches for 14 yards; Woody Marks had 13 touches to his 8, in a 20–6 loss to the Bengals.
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20 carries in Week 1. Six on Sunday, and none after halftime. That is the fact of David Montgomery's week, and the play at the center of it came with six 58 left in the second quarter, nothing to nothing, fourth and one at the Cincinnati 18. Houston had an extra player report as eligible, Montgomery went off right tackle, and he was stopped for a loss of one. −4.4 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and −9.9 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. No play by either team cost more. Cincinnati took over at its own 19 and went 81 yards for the game's first touchdown.
The fourth down was his own near miss made worse. On third and nine he had caught a short throw for eight, a yard short after a measurement. The snap before that, second and nine at the 26, was a carry for nothing.
The line: six carries, 10 yards, no touchdown, no first downs, none of the six worth positive expected points, −6.4 on the carries in total. They went two, four, one, four, nothing, −1. Two targets, two catches, 14 yards, +0.4. The second catch, six yards on first and 10 with two 39 left in the third, was his only touch after halftime.
Houston called 15 designed runs: Woody Marks eight, Montgomery six, Jaylin Noel one. 11 came before halftime and four after, all four to Marks, as Houston threw on 35 second-half pass plays while trailing. Marks finished with 13 touches to Montgomery's eight. The play-by-play records no injury to Montgomery and gives no other reason for the split.
Back in June the preview put Montgomery on the watchlist: an efficient back traded from Detroit into Houston's lead role, with Marks expected to handle more of the passing downs. Week 1 looked like the lead role — 20 carries, 23 touches, three touchdowns, and every carry Houston ran inside the five. Sunday contradicted it. The carries were nearly even before halftime and entirely Marks's after it, and neither back found room: 14 carries between them for 18 yards. One game each way. The script, trailing from the second quarter on, explains some of it and not the first-half split. Houston is at the Colts on Sunday the 20-seventh.
_Data via nflverse._
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