Bucky Irving’s career is currently a tale of two seasons. He burst onto the scene as a rookie and looked like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ RB of the future. His sophomore season was marred by injury and poor performance, leaving more questions than answers. What should fantasy football managers do with the young running back this season?
Should You Draft Buccaneers RB Bucky Irving in Fantasy Football?From a 20,000-foot view, Irving’s first two seasons look pretty similar. He averaged 14.4 fantasy points per game as a rookie and 13.8 PPG as a sophomore. He’s been a mid-RB2 both seasons. Of course, that was a tremendous value in 2024, while being a net loss for fantasy managers in 2025. But the underlying data shows a more glaring discrepancy.
Irving didn’t really average 13.8 PPG in his first season. He also didn’t truly average 14.4 PPG last season. Let’s break this down to get a better picture of how he performed.
- 2024 Weeks 1-5: 8.3 PPG
- 2024 Weeks 6-18: 16.9 PPG
Why the split? Irving played sub-50% of the snaps over the first five weeks as a Day 3 rookie backing up Rachaad White. It wasn’t until Week 6 that he started to take over the backfield. Once he became the main back, he was a fantasy RB1. Now, let’s do 2025.
- 2025 Weeks 1-4: 18.0 PPG
- 2025 Weeks 13-18: 11.1 PPG
I chose to split Irving’s season up by the injury to be fair. However, if you break it up this way, it’s even more concerning.
- 2025 Weeks 1-4, 13-14: 17.4 PPG
- 2025 Weeks 15-18: 8.6 PPG
Essentially, beginning in Week 6 of his rookie season and continuing through his Week 4 shoulder injury, Irving was a fantasy RB1. Since the injury, Irving has pretty much been unstartable in fantasy.
The natural inclination is to blame the injury. He was never fully healthy last season even after returning in Week 13. We know that because he had offseason shoulder surgery that kept him out of the start of training camp.
Obviously, his on-field performance took a sizable downturn last season in a number of metrics. But, again, we can blame the injury, right? Maybe.
Per Ian Hartitz, here are some glaring splits from Irving’s two seasons:
2024 (among 31 RB):
- 5.4 yards per carry (4th)
- 4 yards after contact per carry (1st)
- 9.7% explosive rush rate (6th)
- 25.6% tackles avoided per carry (4th)
2025 (among 33 RBs):
- 3.4 yards per carry (33rd)
- 2.3 yards after contact per carry (33rd)
- 4.6% explosive rush rate (32nd)
- 17.9% tackles avoided per carry (19th)
To be clear, Irving was running poorly even before he got hurt. We already have serious questions about the talent, and we haven’t even touched on the situation and opportunity yet.
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As a rookie, Irving saw 13 carries from inside the five-yard line. He was the feature back. He was the goal line back. He caught passes. Liam Coen designed pass plays for Irving out of the backfield.
As a sophomore, things started the same. Irving caught at least four passes in each of his first four games. That all changed after the injury, though. While he did have five receptions in Week 17, that was an outlier. In his other five games after returning, Irving caught no more than two passes in any of them. In three instances, he caught one or zero.
So, we have a back who clearly lost his receiving role. Therefore, he needs to score touchdowns to produce. Well, remember those 13 carries he had from inside the five as a rookie? Care to guess how many he had as a sophomore? The answer is zero.
In fantasy, the best type of running back does it all. He catches passes and scores touchdowns. Of course, there are seldom few of these. Thus, we have to settle for guys who excel as receivers or who are touchdown dependent. But there is one type of back we absolutely never should draft: the two-down back who doesn’t catch passes and doesn’t get goal-line carries. Sadly, Irving looks like the latter.
Irving’s Redraft Fantasy Football ValueIrving’s ADP is around RB20. The fantasy community is pricing him pretty much exactly where he’s finished overall the past two seasons. It’s a spot where he has plenty of room to provide a positive return on investment. It’s also a spot where he can end up as one of the biggest busts in fantasy if what we saw over the final four weeks of last season continues this year.
Our consensus rankings have Irving at RB26, which is right at consensus. However, that is an average of our two analysts, who disagree on Irving, with Soppe ranking him RB23 and Katz ranking him RB29. The choice is up to you. But consider this.
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The Bucs made a conscious decision to reduce Irving’s workload last season. They pulled him off the field in obvious passing situations for White. They pulled him at the goal line for Sean Tucker.
Was that a product of the injury? Perhaps it was at first. But as Irving got re-acclimated to football after his return, it’s hard to continue to make excuses. Then, we have their offseason moves.
White moved on, signing with the Commanders. Tucker was a restricted free agent. The Bucs easily could have let both walk and merely brought in depth pieces to replace them. Instead, they signed Kenneth Gainwell, one of the best pass-catching backs in the league last season, who just earned a 16.3% target share in Pittsburgh. They also brought back Tucker.
These moves send a clear signal that they intend to deploy their backs the same way in 2026 as they did in the latter portion of 2025. Irving will start, and he may very well average 18+ carries a game. Health permitting, the rushing volume should be there. But if Gainwell is taking the passing down snaps and Tucker is coming in not just at the goal line, but inside the 10-yard line, how is Irving going to score fantasy points?
Irving’s Dynasty Fantasy Football ValueThe situation is even more crucial in dynasty. Irving’s value certainly took a hit from last year to this year, but it’s still pretty solid. Given that he’s only 24 years old and in just his third season, he remains RB16 in our dynasty RB rankings. But that spot is tenuous.
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Irving won’t be RB16 after this season. He will either catapult into the top 12 or he will plummet, perhaps outside the top 36.
Is Irving a feature back or just a piece of a committee? We are going to find out this year.
As a reminder, as talented as Irving looked as a rookie, he’s still a Day 3 running back, and a late fourth-rounder at that. There are plenty of examples throughout history of Day 3/UDFA running backs popping early in their careers before fading into obscurity. Fantasy managers should give serious thought to cashing out on Irving ahead of this season.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.
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