As I’ve mentioned plenty of times this past year, the running back has returned to fantasy football. After a brief sabbatical in 2015, running backs proved once again their value in fantasy football.

But if you pick a bust — I’m looking at you Todd Gurley, Adrian Peterson, Eddie Lacy and Jamaal Charles — then your fantasy team is in major trouble.

Injuries are generally the reason for a bust, so it’s not always the easiest to predict who will have a letdown year. However, I’m looking at three running backs that should have bust squarely pegged on their jersey for the 2017 season.

DeMarco Murray, Tennessee Titans

There was no better value running back than Murray this past season. His underwhelming 2015 sent him down many fantasy football rankings, putting him as the 19th ranked running back heading into 2016. By the end of the season, he was a top-five running back in terms of fantasy football.

So, naturally, I’m fading him in 2017.

When he’s good, he’s really good. But when he’s bad, he’s really bad. And injuries have been a major concern in recent years, and he finished 2016 with a torn plantar plate, which may require surgery. Offseason surgery isn’t a big deal for most players, but it throws up a major red flag when dealing with Murray, who has spent several games on the sideline with injuries.

He finished the season with more single digit fantasy days than double-digit ones, going for three efforts of less than 10 points in the final five games. Derrick Henry is breathing down his neck for carries and it wouldn’t surprise me if Henry gets plenty of the goal-line action in 2017.

Tennessee’s offense should still be a solid unit in 2017, but I’m not booking Murray in my fantasy football lineup. His injuries make him a liability and Henry’s presence doesn’t sit well with me if I’m in line to draft Murray. This is a situation where I could easily see Henry as the featured back by the end of the season’s first month.

LeSean McCoy had a standout year in 2016, but 2017 may not be the same. Flickr/Keith Allison

LeSean McCoy, Buffalo Bills

Here’s another top-five running back from 2016 that I’m just not favoring as a top-level performer in 2017.

The coaching change hurts his chances at another big season. Rex Ryan loved to run the football so much, that he employed a quarterback who couldn’t pass. The Bills ran the ball better than any team in the NFL, but still couldn’t make the playoffs.

That was addressed with the coaching change, and I have to believe that more passing will be in the future. So that will limit McCoy’s carries, thus pushing him down the chart as a top-level RB1.

But I’m also concerned with the amount of work that McCoy has endured during his years as a professional running back. Among active players, McCoy is sixth in career carries. The only people ahead of him who started more than a handful of games in 2016 were Frank Gore and Matt Forte. The rest were either injured (Adrian Peterson), or sit on the bench (Steven Jackson and Chris Johnson).

In fact, of the top-10 of active players with the most carries, only five were regular starters in 2016 — Gore, Forte, McCoy, Jonathan Stewart and Murray — with injury issues plaguing Stewart and Forte during the year.

In addition, Arian Foster, Murray and McCoy are the only players listed in the top-10 among active players in career carries who started their careers after 2008.

That should be a concern for any fantasy owner who risks a top-10 pick on McCoy in 2017. He’s good, but running backs’ careers are short for a reason, and McCoy has taken as much punishment as any active running back in the game in a short amount of time.

LeGarrette Blount, New England Patriots

I faded Blount the entire 2016, so maybe I’m off on him. But I’ll go all in on my perception that he can’t possibly keep up this pace.

He had the most rushing touchdowns of any player in the NFL with 18 in 2016. He also totaled more than 1,100 yards rushing.

However, he doesn’t produce anything out of the backfield in the receiving department, and New England’s personnel offerings have always been anti-fantasy, making me believe that Blount will be used more as a decoy in 2017 than how he was utilized in 2016.

I always get a little worried about people who only score touchdowns, and down the stretch, that’s pretty much all Blount did. From weeks 8 to 17, he tallied one game of more than 100 yards rushing, but he had at least one touchdown in seven of those final nine games.

That can’t possibly be replicated. The Patriots will have a full complement of running backs in the backfield again, limiting Blount’s touches. He could be a solid back-end RB2/Flex, but I don’t see him as a top flight RB2/low-end RB1.

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