HOU · RB
David Montgomery Fantasy Outlook 2026: Houston Trusts Him More Than Your Draft Room Does
Montgomery is being drafted at 107.6 against a board rank of 46, a gap of 62 picks on a back the Texans re-signed and projected for 8.5 rushing touchdowns.
The gap, stated as numbers
Our board ranks David Montgomery 46 overall with 189.0 implied PPR points. ESPN has him 57. The draft room waits until 107.6 to take him, making this one of the widest position-adjusted gaps on the board at running back.
That is 62 picks of theoretical surplus, which our value model grades as one of the cleaner edges available in the middle rounds. His fair pick is 52, which would put him in the fourth round rather than the seventh.
The disagreement is not about what Montgomery does. Everybody agrees he is a touchdown-dependent back with declining yardage totals in an offense that throws more than it runs. The disagreement is about whether Houston's willingness to re-sign him and the posted 8.5 rushing touchdown line mean something the draft room is ignoring.
The entire case hinges on one number: if the 8.5 rushing touchdown line is right, he finishes as a top-15 back. If it is wrong, he is droppable by midseason.
What he actually did in year one with Houston
He finished as the 27th running back in fantasy with 166.9 PPR points, scoring eight rushing touchdowns on 716 yards and 24 receptions. That was a step back from his 2024 season in Detroit, where he posted 12 total touchdowns, but it came on nearly identical efficiency: 4.5 yards per carry in Houston versus 4.8 the year before.
The sportsbooks had him at 725.5 rushing yards and 8.5 rushing touchdowns going into 2025. He finished three yards under the yardage line but hit the touchdown number exactly, which is worth noting because touchdown props are the hardest to price and the ones that create the most draft-room skepticism.