RB/WR Opportunity Breakdown For Week 11

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Running Backs

• Jeff Wilson has quickly established himself as the lead back in the Miami offense. In just his second game with the Dolphins since being traded to them, he controlled 60% of the running back rushing share on Sunday, compared to Raheem Mostert who captured just 28.5% of the rushing work. This comes a week after the rushing work was split evenly between Mostert and Wilson in Wilson’s first game with the Dolphins. Receiving work is fairly evenly split between the two, but Wilson also holds the edge. He saw five targets to Mostert’s four Sunday, after leading three targets to two the previous week. Wilson was also the preferred option, if only slightly, in the red zone with three rushing attempts this week (one of which he converted into a rushing touchdown), compared to Mostert’s two tries in the red zone. Continuing the theme the red zone rushing attempts broke down exactly the same the week prior, though Mostert did get the only rushing attempt from within the five-yard line last week. Assuming health, never a given with Jeff Wilson, he could be in line to provide high-end RB2 production the rest of the season. 
• Eno Benjamin played just one snap during the Cardinals’ victory over the Rams on Sunday and then was released on Monday. Benjamin is a cautionary tale for late-round running backs that fall into an opportunity they don’t earn. When given the chance you need to sell high on players in this category. Benjamin saw his three highest snap shares of the season in the three games that James Conner was out due to injury, during weeks 6 through 8, then saw his snap share plummet to 27% in Week 9, and just 1.5% in Week 10. If there was any doubt at all about James Conner’s role entering this week, even without Benjamin being released (which was at least partially based on his complaints about usage), those can be put to rest. Conner played on 95.6% of offensive snaps Sunday and had a 96% opportunity share of running back work with 21 or 22 rushing attempts, and all three running back targets. Conner is locked and loaded as an RB1 for the rest of the season, assuming he can stay healthy. 

From Kyle Odegard on Eno Benjamin’s release:
“The decision was made because of Benjamin’s vocal displeasure with a diminishing role in the offense”

— Chuck Harris (@chuckh3) November 15, 2022

• Though Najee Harris had his best day of the season as a pure runner this past week, there are multiple reasons to be concerned that he’s now entered a full-blown time-share. His 59.5% snap share was his third lowest of the season while Jaylen Warren’s 42.9% snap share was his second-highest this season. Harris also ceded 31% of the running back rushing attempts and 75% of running back targets to Warren on Sunday, so even with his season-high 99 rushing yards he was only able to produce 9.9 fantasy points on the day. He was actually outscored by Warren, who put up 10.7 fantasy points. Harris did still maintain a four-to-one rushing attempt edge from within the red zone, but there’s no reason at all to expect that Harris is going to ever reach RB1 status again this season.
• David Montgomery could end up being a league winner out of the running back position. Khalil Herbert landed on the IR this week with a hip pointer which should help increase both Montgomery’s snaps 63.3% which ranks 14th highest for running backs, as well as 55% opportunity share, which currently ranks 25th for running backs. Though it’s not guaranteed that Montgomery can reach last year’s levels of snap share (74.8%), or opportunity share (80%), with his main competition for touches being 6th round rookie Trestan Ebner, we should expect at least a modest increase to Montgomery’s workload for at least the next four games. Just last season Montgomery was able to score 15 PPG and in 2020 he averaged 17.7 PPG it’s reasonable to assume his fantasy scoring picks up from its current 9.3 PPG pace.

Receiving Options 

• If you play in redraft leagues, then you shouldn’t hold out much hope that things will improve for Drake London or Kyle Pitts this year. Marcus Mariota is just terrible as a passer. Usually, the Falcons try to hide Mariota and rely on their rushing attack, but in negative game scripts, they can’t do that, as was the case last Thursday. Mariota’s 30 pass attempts were his second most of the season but he only averaged a woeful 6.2 yards per attempt, and could only muster a 62.2% completion percentage. This goes a long way to explaining how Kyle Pitts could see eight targets (26.6% target share), but somehow only score 4.8 fantasy points, the second week in a row he had at least seven targets and less than 4.7 fantasy points. London controlled a 20% target share, which is a little lower than we’d like, but he at least converted one of his six targets into a touchdown. Otherwise, he would have had a disappointing night with 38 receiving yards on five receptions. If you own either player in a dynasty league, you just have to hold and pray that the Falcons continue to lose out so that they can get a decent pick and draft a quarterback (or sign Lamar Jackson). 
• Treylon Burks‘ return from injury after missing the previous five games was a quiet return just looking at his 5.4 fantasy points on Sunday. Though his production was modest there were positive signs from Burks first game action in over a month. His 56.5% snap share was his third highest this season and he did control a 17% target share, and his six targets were just one fewer than Robert Woods and Austin Hooper, though significantly behind Nicholas Westbrook-Ikene’s team-leading 11 targets. Burks has a 16.2% target share on the season, which might not be elite compared to other rookie wide receivers like Drake London (27.7%), Chris Olave (23.5%), or Garrett Wilson (22.7%), but is still better than Jahan Dotson (12.0%), and George Pickens (15.1%). Burks still has time to turn in a productive rookie season, or at least one productive enough to believe that he can be a viable fantasy option in the future.
• There were 13 wide receivers who were targeted 10 or more times this week, including Terry McLaurin. McLaurin has now seen at least eight targets in four straight weeks, after only seeing that many targets twice during his first six games. So what has changed to allow McLaurin to overtake Curtis Samuel as the Commanders primary receiving target? It just so happens Carson Wentz was injured five weeks ago and Taylor Heinicke has started the last four weeks for the Commanders. During this four-game run, McLaurin has had fantasy scoring weeks of 18.3, 16.6, 10.6, and 20.8 (16.5 PPG) to raise his fantasy points per game to 13.3 PPG, while monopolizing 29.7% of Commanders pass attempts. Wentz is eligible to return from the I.R. this week, but as someone that rosters McLaurin in many leagues, the hope is that Heinicke remains the starter so that McLaurin can continue to produce as a high-end WR2.   
• Just how good has Jaylen Waddle been in his sophomore season? Very good. His 11.86 yards per target ranks second among wide receivers, and among the top five at the position, he’s the only receiver with 50 or more targets (74). and ranks fourth in yards per route run. Waddle has scored double-digit fantasy points in 8 of 10 games this year, finishing as a WR2 or better in 5 of 10 games, and as a WR1 on three occasions. Despite sharing the field with superstar Tyreek Hill who has been a target hog with a 29% target share Waddle has still been able to maintain a 22.3% target share and his 17.4 PPG ranks ninth highest at the WR position. If you were able to draft Waddle at a discounted rate, or parlayed concerns about how he would fare with Hill joining the roster into acquiring him at a discount in dynasty leagues kudos to you.