Quinshon Judkins Has the Fantasy Football Workload, But Needs the Browns to Help

Quinshon Judkins’ rookie season was about as clean as a running back profile can be on a broken offense. The Browns immediately treated him like their Nick Chubb replacement, feeding him one of the league’s heaviest early-down workloads while rarely asking him to do much in obvious passing situations. That gave him enough volume to finish as a usable fantasy RB2/3, but Cleveland’s dead-last offensive environment kept the ceiling low.

Now, with Todd Monken taking over and Jerome Ford out of town, Judkins has a path to even more work in Year 2, but he still needs the Browns’ offense to give him something worth working with.

Click here for more 2026 Player Profiles!

Quinshon Judkins’ Rookie Season

With the 36th-overall selection in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns made Quinshon Judkins the first running back off the board in an attempt to breathe some life back into a rushing attack that finished 29th in yardage the year prior. While splitting time between Ole Miss (two seasons) and Ohio State (one season), Judkins had racked up 4,200+ scrimmage yards before becoming the first 220-plus-pound RB to ever post an 11-foot broad jump at the NFL Combine.

By logging only a 4.4% target rate (2022) and a 6.6% target rate (2023) before ceding a ton of passing-down work to teammate TreVeyon Henderson in his final collegiate season, there were some questions about how much receiving work he would get as a rookie, but his early-down Nick Chubb-replacement role seemed inevitable.

Things went just about as planned, if even a little better than expected. Judkins had an easy hold over the early-down work and would finish behind only Jonathan Taylor and fellow rookie Ashton Jeanty in rush attempt share, but predictably, his grasp faltered in the two-minute drill and on third/fourth down. He didn’t log a carry all season in the two-minute drill, and handled less than half of Cleveland’s third- and fourth-down rushing attempts (48.9%).

His work in the passing game followed suit: Judkins’ season-long target rate (7.3%) fell just behind Dylan Sampson’s (7.7%), but he didn’t log a target with under two minutes on the clock to end a half, and he ran only 11 routes on third and fourth downs, also without a target.

Regardless of those nitpicks, the rookie was proficient with the ball in his hands, given the circumstances. The offense as a whole ranked dead last in yards per drive (22.61) and points per drive (1.31), yet a running back with nominal passing-game usage finished the season as fantasy’s RB23.

On the rare drives that reached the opponents’ five-yard line, Judkins turned 11 attempts into 5 touchdowns, and his 17th-ranked 3.20 yards created after contact were made all the more impressive when considering how bad of an offensive line he was playing behind. Among 49 backs with 100+ carries, Judkins finished sixth-highest in hit-at-line rate (49.1%) while the team’s running back room finished dead last in yards before contact (0.65).

Judkins ended up being a pretty decent floor play in Year 1, but we’re going to need some life injected into this offense before we can confidently project a Year 2 leap.

The Browns’ Offense in 2026

Say what you want about Kevin Stefanski’s Browns tenure, but the guy did win NFL Coach of the Year on two occasions. Sure, they went below .500 in the other four seasons and combined for 8 wins over these last two years, but he got some hardware in the process. Replacing him is former Ravens head coach Todd Monken, with Travis Switzer, who spent nine seasons in Baltimore, serving as offensive coordinator.

Monken was instrumental in revitalizing Lamar Jackson’s career —nearly helping him stack back-to-back MVP wins— and he did so by leaning into the quarterback’s arm. While he obviously still took to the ground when necessary, Monken’s offense would push the ball down the field more than Jackson ever had; throwing for new career highs in completed air yards (1,929, 2,087) in both 2023 and 2024.

The problem is that no one on this Browns roster can reasonably imitate Lamar Jackson, even if we’re only talking about arm talent. And beyond that, does the rest of the roster have the means to replicate some of the Ravens' successes over the last three years? From 2023-2025, Baltimore has ranked second (37.78%), ninth (33.8%), and fifth (35.77%) in the percentage of passing yardage that comes on play-action, a major part of the team's attack in moving the ball toward the goal line. In 2025, Shedeur Sanders (6.1, 40th) and Dillon Gabriel (5.9, 41st) ranked in the bottom-four among 43 qualifying quarterbacks in YPA on play-action, with Sanders’ 62.0% on-target rate ranking 40th.

Now, a lot of Baltimore’s success in that realm was helped by the threat of Derrick Henry. If Monken wants to recreate those easy-button play-action throws in Cleveland, he needs Judkins and the offensive line to force defenses to respect the run on early downs. Otherwise, the Browns are simply asking Sanders or Gabriel (or Deshaun Watson) to win from the pocket in obvious passing situations, which would put a hard cap on the entire offense and Judkins’ Year 2 ceiling.

Projecting the Browns’ Backfield in Fantasy

How much Monken puts on the sophomore running back’s shoulders is (obviously) the biggest piece of the fantasy puzzle, potentially the biggest variable in the entire offense’s success. There are a couple of things working in Judkins’ favor here: the addition of a fullback (Michael Burton), and the odds that this will be a two-headed backfield with Jerome Ford out of town. Former 2025 UDFAs Ahmani Marshall and Raheim Sanders have combined for 27 rushing attempts, further strengthening the idea that this will be nearly 100% Judkins/Sampson.

That projection looked far shakier back in December, when Judkins dislocated his ankle and fractured his fibula in Week 16, but his offseason progress has been encouraging. He was already participating in OTAs and mandatory minicamp, which doesn’t completely erase the injury concern, but does make it much easier to project him for a normal early-season role.

This doesn’t necessarily guarantee that Judkins is shoehorned into a larger receiving role, but it should go a long way in locking him into one of the heavier early-down usages in the league. We just need the offensive line, quarterback, and drive sustainability to do some more lifting. Judkins ranked fourth in first- and second-down rushing share last season (69.8%), but with so many drives stalling short, he only ranked 18th in raw attempts (206) on those downs.

A sophomore breakout —and a boost to his overall usage— is very much in play, but there are enough red flags here (including a potential injury-related setback and a questionable offensive line) to keep us from getting too comfortable. No one should be surprised if it takes a year to mold this offense into Todd Monken’s vision, least of all sportsbooks, where Cleveland has the third-worst implied win total in the league. Players on “bad offenses” can still be good for fantasy football, and Judkins fits the archetype of a back who can slide into our lineups. But the ceiling here is obviously capped unless the offense takes a big step forward. He should be treated as a fringe RB2/3 due to that early-down prowess, while Dylan Sampson should be considered an RB4 dart throw, with more validity in full PPR leagues.

Bottom Line

• Quinshon Judkins already flashed the part of the profile we usually have to chase: early-down volume. He finished third in team rushing attempt share as a rookie, handled the goal-line work when Cleveland actually reached scoring range, and produced a usable fantasy season despite playing in the league’s worst offense by yards and points per drive.
• The problem is that the role still has clear limitations. Judkins was not trusted in the two-minute drill, did very little on third and fourth down, and will likely need the Browns’ offensive line and quarterback play to take significant steps forward before his workload turns into bankable weekly ceiling.
• According to 4for4’s Multi-Site ADP, Judkins is coming off boards as the RB22 at the beginning of the fifth round. It’s…fine. I see him as a fringe RB2/3, but things do admittedly get shaky immediately after him (Bucky Irving, Bhayshul Tuten, Jadarian Price, etc.). Todd Monken’s arrival and Jerome Ford’s departure help the case, but this is still a volume bet attached to a questionable offense. He can absolutely slide into fantasy lineups, especially when game scripts cooperate, but the true breakout requires Cleveland to create more drives, more red-zone trips, and more scoring chances than it did a season ago.