Chris Brooks

Chris Brooks — RB, GB — 2026

Verdict

HOLD (low confidence), judged against a free/undrafted price. Brooks is the post-minicamp RB2 in Green Bay (ran ahead of MarShawn Lloyd all spring — SI, 6/2026) on a 2-yr/$4.85M deal, sitting behind the single most volatile lead-back situation in the league: Josh Jacobs is 28, past 2,100 career touches, and under an open Brown County DA investigation with possible NFL discipline (ESPN/NFL.com 6/2026; totalpackers 7/2026). That is 2 of 3 handcuff factors (fragile starter ✓, good offense ✓) — but the third, clean succession, fails: the team profile's own read is that a Jacobs absence produces an "ugly Lloyd/Brooks/Martinez committee with no lead-back claim," and Brooks' blocking-back archetype caps his slice of it at the passing downs of a flat, low-RB-target-share tree. Per rb.md §7, a handcuff who'd split three ways has no bankable contingent value, so he is not worth a draft pick in a 12-team/6-bench league — but he is priced at exactly zero, and zero is roughly right, so profile and price agree. He is the #1 GB-backfield watchlist name: if the Jacobs tripwire fires, this flips to TARGET the same day.

Projection & comps

Bottom-up (GB team volume from data/team-profiles/GB.md: ~27.5 rush att/g, ~30 pass att/g, RB target share 17% of a bottom-third-volume tree; Jacobs owns goal line — 13 rush TD in 2025):

The true blow-up branch (Jacobs out long-term AND Lloyd re-injured AND Brooks holds off Martinez for early downs) is a low-probability tail excluded from the p80. Note the ceiling's shape: nearly all of its value is concentrated in the specific weeks Jacobs misses (~9–11 PPG those weeks) — as a season-long roster piece he is droppable in every other week.

• Games-played risk: low — 17/17 REG games in 2025, 15 in 2024, core special-teamer (50–80% ST snaps most weeks, snap_counts.csv); roster spot is safe (carried as one of only three RBs in SI's post-minicamp 53 projection, 6/2026; 2-yr contract).
• Comps: Emanuel Wilson GB 2025 (94.5 PPR on 142 opportunities — the "full RB2 + Jacobs misses 2 games" ceiling shape, same offense); Emanuel Wilson GB 2024 (96.0 PPR, 103-502-4); Chris Brooks 2024 (42.2 PPR) and 2025 (32.7 PPR) — the status-quo shape; Ty Johnson BUF 2023–24 (veteran pass-pro/passing-down RB3 shape; season totals UNVERIFIED).
• No external projections available (data/projections/ directory absent as of 2026-07-08).

Usage profile (rb.md §2 table)

2025, GB, 17 REG games: 27-106-0 rushing (3.93 YPC), 17 tgt–13 rec–91–0 receiving, 32.7 PPR (1.92 PPG). All from data/stats/2025/ (nflverse, pulled 2026-07-07).

The 2×2 read (rb.md §2): high-ish snap trust (pass-pro, ST, two-minute) with a badly lagging opportunity share — normally a "touches follow" buy signal, but here the trust is *as a blocker*, which is a playing-time floor, not a touch-forecast. Live contingency sample: in the two games Jacobs missed (Wks 12, 18), Brooks played 44–45% of snaps but split roughly evenly with Emanuel Wilson (8 and 13 carries; Wilson led the committee) — empirical confirmation that a Jacobs absence makes Brooks a committee piece, not a lead.

Receiving profile (§3): 17 targets (3.7% team share), 13 rec, 91 yds — checkdown-tier leakage, no designed usage on record. TPRR UNVERIFIED (routes unavailable). His passing-down presence is protection-first; the §9 pass-pro gate is emphatically passed (0 sacks allowed on 157 pass plays — SI 3/2026), which is exactly why he, and not Lloyd, holds the passing-down/two-minute package.

Efficiency (§5): 3.93 YPC on 27 carries (2025), 5.08 on 36 (2024), career ~4.8 on 82 NFL carries — all sub-sample noise. NGS RYOE: only one qualifying week (Wk 18 2025: +0.55/att on 13 att, ngs_rushing.csv) — noise. MTF/touch, YAC/att, success rate, breakaway rate: UNVERIFIED. Per §5 this barely matters: he has no volume, and we never pay for efficiency without volume — but nothing here argues he'd hold a lead role if handed one.

Age/workload (§8): age 26 (DOB 2000-01-11 — rosters.csv, Sleeper 2026-07-07), NFL year 4, ~110 career pro touches (19 car MIA 2023; 47 touches 2024; 40 touches 2025) — ultra-low mileage, no cliff concern, but age-without-production, not youth.

Pedigree (prospect-pedigree.md): UDFA 2023 (Miami; waived 8/2024, claimed by GB — Wikipedia/Deseret via search 2026-07-08). College (Cal 2018–21, BYU 2022): 52 g, 512-2,551-20 (5.0 YPC), 60 career receptions for 443 yds (packers.com bio, fetched 2026-07-08) — the 60 receptions technically clear the ≥40 three-down screen but were spread over five seasons (~12/yr, weak signal); best season came as a 22-year-old grad transfer (817 yds at BYU) — late, not a young dominator. No combine invite; pro day 4.58 forty at ~230 lbs, 21 bench (Vanquish The Foe, 4/2023); RAS UNVERIFIED. Year-4 UDFA → per the decay rule, the NFL usage record (RB3, ~110 touches) is the operative truth, and it is a closed, modest case.

Context (from data/team-profiles/GB.md, built 2026-07-07)

• Offense: LaFleur (8th year calling plays) wide-zone/Shanahan tree; good offense, capped volume — win total 9.5–10.5 (FanDuel/DK, 7/2026), positive script lean, but bottom-third pace and 25th-rank PROE; ~27.5 rush att/g. Positive scripts feed the lead back's clock-killing carries — i.e., Jacobs, not the RB2.
• Backfield: Jacobs every-down (234-929-13 + 44 tgt in 15 g, 2025) → Brooks RB2 (post-minicamp; ran ahead of Lloyd all spring — SI 6/2026) → MarShawn Lloyd (2024 R3 #88; two seasons effectively lost to injury, 1 career game, RES in 2025 — rosters.csv) → Damien Martinez (2025 SEA R7, 0 NFL games) ⟷ Pierre Strong (bubble) → Jaden Nixon (UDFA). Emanuel Wilson's 142-opportunity RB2 role departed to SEA with zero RB draft capital added (defense-heavy 2026 class) — a genuine green flag that landed on Brooks.
• Contract: 2-yr/$4.85M (~$2.4M AAV), signed 2026-03-04 in lieu of the $3.52M RFA tender (packersnews/NBC/APC 3/2026) — insurance/committee tier per rb.md §9, but a deliberate two-year choice, and SI graded the re-signing "incredibly vital" specifically for his third-down protection.
• Jacobs legal flag: arrested 2026-05-26 on five domestic-battery-related counts incl. felony strangulation; released 5/27 without formal charges; Brown County DA investigation still pending as of early July 2026; back at team practice; NFL discipline possible but none indicated (ESPN/NFL.com 6/2026; totalpackers 7/2026). Jacobs also enters his age-28 season past 1,840 career carries / 2,100+ touches (PFR via search 2026-07-08) — the §8 cliff profile.
• Game script (§4, explicit): moot at 4.1 weighted opps/g — his snaps are score-state-insensitive (protection/ST) but his touches are near-zero in every script. The projection is driven entirely by Jacobs availability, not by GB's win distribution.
• O-line: preseason unit rank ~27th, 2-of-5 returning starters at the same position — mildly negative for whoever inherits carries.

Tripwires (re-run this eval if any fire)

• Jacobs charged / NFL suspension announced (Brown County DA decision or league discipline) — re-run the whole GB backfield same-day; Brooks likely upgrades to TARGET as the free PPR piece; this is the claim trigger.
• Lloyd injured, traded, or cut in camp — succession cleans up to Brooks/Martinez; upgrade toward TARGET at a free price.
• Camp/preseason role loss: Lloyd or Martinez taking two-minute/passing-down reps with the 1s, or out-repping Brooks at RB2 — drop to AVOID (pure roster clog).
• Preseason first-team carries: Brooks getting first-crack early-down work with Jacobs resting (beat reports) — upgrades the contingent share; re-run.
• ADP appears inside the top ~200 on FFC/Sleeper — the price is no longer free and the thesis ("zero cost") dies; re-run (likely FADE at any real pick).