This week's Job Battles update will break down the latest developments with the Chargers backfield, the backup runners on the Bengals depth chart, and the tight end groups in Seattle, Chicago and Carolina.
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Elijah Arroyo vs. AJ Barner, TE, SEA
The Seahawks cut Noah Fant on Saturday, clearing the way for rookie second-round pick Elijah Arroyo and second-year fourth-round pick AJ Barner to take the vast majority of the tight end reps on the Seattle depth chart.
Arroyo is by far more interesting for fantasy purposes. Arroyo is a former blue-chip recruit and showed uncommon top-speed for a tight end at Miami (FL), but both of these guys figure to block often in a Seattle offense that needs to provide ground-game cover for Sam Darnold. The job battle between Barner and Arroyo might not be a zero-sum contest but rather one where the labor is divided based on task specialization.
Barner in particular will block often. New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak preferred a two-tight end base in New Orleans last year, and Barner (6-6, 251) pretty clearly profiles as the blocking specialist – Foster Moreau in the New Orleans example.
Arroyo is the one more likely to play the Juwan Johnson-type functions. Barner has 4.9 speed (4.86 pro day) and ran an ADOT of just 3.1 yards last year. Barner's
This week's Job Battles update will break down the latest developments with the Chargers backfield, the backup runners on the Bengals depth chart, and the tight end groups in Seattle, Chicago and Carolina.
Check out the industry-leading fantasy football live draft assistant to get custom rankings for your league and follow along with a live draft on most major platforms!
Elijah Arroyo vs. AJ Barner, TE, SEA
The Seahawks cut Noah Fant on Saturday, clearing the way for rookie second-round pick Elijah Arroyo and second-year fourth-round pick AJ Barner to take the vast majority of the tight end reps on the Seattle depth chart.
Arroyo is by far more interesting for fantasy purposes. Arroyo is a former blue-chip recruit and showed uncommon top-speed for a tight end at Miami (FL), but both of these guys figure to block often in a Seattle offense that needs to provide ground-game cover for Sam Darnold. The job battle between Barner and Arroyo might not be a zero-sum contest but rather one where the labor is divided based on task specialization.
Barner in particular will block often. New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak preferred a two-tight end base in New Orleans last year, and Barner (6-6, 251) pretty clearly profiles as the blocking specialist – Foster Moreau in the New Orleans example.
Arroyo is the one more likely to play the Juwan Johnson-type functions. Barner has 4.9 speed (4.86 pro day) and ran an ADOT of just 3.1 yards last year. Barner's four touchdowns were nice, and he might well remain a good red-zone target off the playaction, but Barner needs the defense to cut him loose on the run fake to create any separation.
If you look at the list of NFL tight ends who ran a 4.9 40 you won't find any fantasy-relevant names. The closest viable examples are John Carlson (4.88), Randy McMichael (4.88) and Dwayne Allen (4.89). That's going back to 2002.
Colston Loveland (shoulder) vs. Cole Kmet, TE, CHI
Some good news here: Colston Loveland appears ready to participate in training camp despite recovering from offseason shoulder injury – one that kept him on the shelf all offseason to this point. While Loveland probably won't be full-go right off the bat, he appears to be on a sound track to ramp up his activity to a three-down extent by the conclusion of the preseason.
Cole Kmet is at least an average starting NFL tight end and notably projects better than Loveland on blocking tasks. Particularly as a rookie it will be difficult for Loveland to push aside a player like Kmet.
Just the same, the Bears selected Loveland 10th overall to chase his rare pass-catching upside. This is an important training camp battle, yet the Bears have a clear interest in getting both of them on the field as much as possible. This is one of the rare training camp battles where the team wants both guys to win.
Check out our fantasy football ADP report for a comprehensive tool with live-updated ADP data for multiple league formats and sites.
Ja'Tavion Sanders vs. Tommy Tremble (back), TE, CAR
Coach Dave Canales loves Tommy Tremble (back), going as far to identify him along with Derrick Brown and Chuba Hubbard as the team leaders in 2024. When healthy, Tremble will have some role in the Carolina offense.
Tremble has his limitations as a receiver, however, and his current back injury has no specific timeline for return. There are snaps to gain for Ja'Tavion Sanders in this position battle, and Sanders could pose an uncommon pass-catching threat in the NFL if given enough snaps.
In college Tremble was sort of a tight end-fullback hybrid, and one more known for blocking than pass-catching upside (Michael Mayer was by far the more active receiver of the two at the time). Sanders, by contrast, is known more as a pass-catching specialist.
Even while playing alongside a crowded target rotation, Sanders raked as a receiver at Texas. He more or less functioned as their WR3 after Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, ahead of Jordan Whittington and 2025 fourth-round pick Gunnar Helm. Still just 22 years old, Sanders' rookie season box score was more encouraging than not. His games against Washington (six catches for 61 yards on six targets) and New Orleans (four catches for 87 yards on five targets) were particularly promising.
If Sanders can poach around 250 of Tremble's 500 snaps from 2024 then it could be enough to catapult Sanders from fantasy TE3 territory up to the higher TE2 range, making this one of the league's subtly important fantasy football training camp battles.
Samaje Perine vs. Zack Moss vs. Tahj Brooks, RB, CIN
Chase Brown is a candidate to play over 700 snaps for Cincinnati in 2025, so there generally won't be much meat left on the bone by the time Brown takes his rest snaps. If Brown were to miss any time, though, it would blast a major usage void into the Bengals offense, and his replacement(s) could provide significant fantasy utility with increased playing time.
Zack Moss was expected to be Cincinnati's starting running back last year, yet he was clearly outplayed by Brown even before suffering a season-ending neck injury. Moss opened training camp on the NFI list, indicating that he still isn't fully recovered despite sitting out since Week 8 last year. It would be reasonable enough to presume Moss is the favorite for the RB2 role if healthy, but there's no certainty there.
Samaje Perine returned to Cincinnati in the offseason as well, and he has proven himself to be one of the league's best passing-down specialists in recent years. It would be easy for the Bengals to cut Perine – he was given only $400,000 in guarantees on his two-year deal – but if healthy Perine sooner looks like a good value for the Bengals. It's possible that Moss and Perine are battling for the same roster spot.
With all of that said, it's the rookie sixth-round pick Tahj Brooks who's easily the most interesting fantasy prospect of these three. Perine probably can't scale up beyond passing-down snaps, and Moss might not be able to do much of anything in general, especially if he's still hurt.
The odds are somewhat objectively against Brooks after falling to the middle of the sixth round, but plenty of running backs make impacts despite going late in the draft or undrafted entirely. The league is simply very bad at evaluating running backs, and Brooks might be one of the next glaring examples of this. Brooks has exceptional anchor at around 5-foot-9, 215 pounds, and he was an automatic high-volume producer for Texas Tech. The fantasy football world should want Brooks to win this training camp battle as Brown's top backup.
Omarion Hampton vs. Najee Harris (eye), RB, LAC
A grim update: Jim Harbaugh said he does not know whether Najee Harris (eye) will be available at any point in training camp, which would seem to invite the suggestion that the Chargers straight up have no idea when Harris might be available. Missed time beyond training camp has to eventually present as a possibility the longer Harris' status remains uncertain.
The signing of free agent Nyheim Hines (knee) probably doesn't have much to do with the training camp battle for Chargers running back snaps in 2025 – even if he makes the team Hines will be at the bottom of the Chargers depth chart – but if Harris keeps missing time then the Chargers have little choice but to hand the keys of the offense to 22nd overall pick Omarion Hampton.
Once one of the most volatile picks in the fourth-round range of the ADP, Hampton appears to be on the verge of consolidating most of the Chargers backfield usage for himself at the expense of Harris. If Hampton claims a true three-down role out of camp then he'll be a Rookie of the Year candidate.
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