NFL head coach just made his running back a must-draft in fantasy football

Most NFL head coaches spend August talking down workloads and hyping committee backfields. The training camp stories are about guys who put on 10 pounds of muscle or are in the best shape of their lives. The coachspeak is always there, and fantasy football managers can’t help but roll their eyes with every headline.

However, one first-year NFL coach did the opposite this week. He went live on a national sports talk show and promised to run his best player into the ground, quite literally, and fantasy football managers should be thrilled.

What Jeff Hafley said about De’Von Achane on the Rich Eisen Show

Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley appeared on the Rich Eisen Show and laid out a plan for De’Von Achane that sounds built for fantasy lineups. He said the running back got a warning that morning. “I just gave Achane a heads-up this morning and told him he better be in good shape. Because I told him there might be some games where I might have to pick him up and carry him back into the locker room because he’s going to be so tired.”

Then Hafley went further, adding that he doesn’t want Achane asking for a breather by tapping on his helmet. “And I told him, I don’t ever want to see one of these head taps all year. And he looked me right in the eye and said, ‘You’ll never get that head tap from me.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry, buddy. After you touch the ball 40, 45 times, I might have to pick you up, and I’ll carry you back in the locker room.'”

Hafley, who’s definitely just having fun in the moment and not talking about a serious strategy, also praised the 24-year-old back as a leader and a smart player. “I love the guy. I mean, you want to talk about a guy with some juice and a guy with personality starting to come out. A guy who’s starting to become a leader.” He added, “He’s one of the smarter players.”

Achane touched the ball 305 times last year. Hafley is talking about 40 to 45 touches in a single game; while impossible, it’s fun to think about. That would be over 700 touches in a single season. The NFL record is 492 by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back James Wilder (407 carries and 85 catches).

Why De’Von Achane could be a fantasy football league-winner in 2026

Start with what Achane already did. He ran for 1,350 yards and 8 touchdowns on 238 carries in 2025. The 5-foot-9 star caught 67 passes for 488 yards and 4 more scores, while leading the NFL at 5.7 yards per carry. The Texas A&M alumnus finished as a top-six fantasy running back in half-PPR scoring, and he did all of it while sharing the field with other weapons.

Those other weapons are gone now. Miami released Tyreek Hill after a serious knee injury, and the team traded Jaylen Waddle to the Broncos. Malik Willis is the projected quarterback with just six career starts. So the offense runs through Achane. He carries the ball, and he catches it, and there is almost no one else to feed in an offense seriously lacking in weapons. Malik Washington, Jalen Tolbert, Caleb Douglas and Tutu Atwell are the top four wideouts. The starting tight end is Greg Dulcich. If you don’t recognize any of those names, you’re not alone. This is Achane’s team.

Miami Dolphins running back De’Von Achane (28) will have the whole offense running through his hands in 2026 to the delight of many fantasy football managers.Seeing the truth in Hafley’s exaggeration

Achane could lead the Dolphins in both rushing and receiving yards this season and maybe lead the entire NFL in rushing. The last running back to do that was Jamaal Charles in 2013, when he ran for 1,287 yards and added 693 through the air for the Chiefs. He edged out Dwayne Bowe by 20 receiving yards. That performance was by a similarly speedy player with good hands in a similar situation where the pass-catching group wasn’t pulling their weight.

Miami looks like one of the worst teams in football, and bad teams usually scare fantasy managers off. Bad teams don’t score touchdowns, but it should do the opposite here. Bad teams trail, and trailing teams throw, and Achane catches passes out of the backfield. Win or lose for Miami, the ball will find him. When your coach jokingly promises 45 touches per game, we know it’s not true, but there’s also a grain of truth in every joke.