A lot of Langford owners bought in with him "carrying the bulk of the load" in mind. Here are the snap count %s for first 3 weeks:
Wk1 96% pretty much the full load
Wk2 60% Kadeem was taking significant portion until injured
Wk3 23% (injured but was giving up a large chunk of the snaps to Howard even before going down)
So where was Langford being drafted at the start of the season? He was early in the 5th round around RB24 iirc. Partly because the only serious threat was a rookie and everybody "knows" Fox doesn't play rookies much. Langford never was drafted based upon talent or astounding skills. Even as a starter getting the bulk of the load he was borderline RB2.No it was based upon opportunity. He would have been ranked RB36+ if he was perceived to be in a time split situation with Vareen in NY or with Yeldon in JAX. Most of his value was based upon his opportunity and the lion share of the carries in CHI.
At a minimum, now Howard is going to get that opportunity, actually he will get a longer leash/look than Langford's one game to prove himself by shear fact that nobody else is left standing in CHI. Langford really only got one game as the bell cow and Fox had already seen enough to take a large portion of the carries from him in game two and three even before he went down to injury.
So even if you think Howard is a JAG, there is no doubt opportunity, a greater opportunity than Langford got for the next 4 weeks. Getting a borderline RB2 off the waiver wire is a pretty good thing. Now if he can run with the opportunity, and can show he has more talent than Langford, there is possibility he could perform as a solid RB2 or even borderline RB1 in value for the ROS. We know two things. He wont get pulled from the goal line opps (and he runs with effective power/leverage to be effective at the goal line, much more so than Langford) and he can catch passes in catchup mode where most people thin CHI will be spending their 2nd half in games. Howard has shown he can catch passes so there is no need for a 3rd down back (which would have limited his upside). That gives him a pretty good floor aside from the line problems CHI might have, much like other 3 down pass catching backs around the league.
So yeah getting that kind of value off the WW with that kind of potential upside and floor should excite most FFB players in spite of grumpy Langford owners who state, "If my guy couldn't produce, then your guy won't either" type mantra. It comes off as sour grapes. Some people saw this coming after game two and picked him up last week. They could not have possibly known Langford would get injured like he did, but we did see a trend in snap counts that indicated Howard was going to eventually start pressing for action. And now that Langford is out of the picture entirely, who isn't going to get excited about a highly graded rookie prospect that is going to get handed the full load where he was on the waiver wire last week? Of course he will get hyped a bit.