RB/WR Opportunity Breakdown For Week 8
The most important thing when it comes to fantasy football is how many fantasy points a player scores. But that’s not the end of the story, not by a long stretch. The peripheral statistics also tell an important story. Looking at snaps played, snap share, targets, and target share gives you a complete picture of a player’s usage during football games. If a player isn’t producing but they are getting snaps and opportunities, then your concerns can be tempered because they are still part of the game plan. Conversely, if they are scoring points but on minimal usage, you also might want to temper your expectations for them going forward. As a FantasyData subscriber, you have access to several tools, including statistics, advanced metrics, and efficiency metrics, to help you navigate the fantasy football map.
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Running Backs
- in two games since Rashaad Penny was lost for the season Ken Walker III has had elite snap shares both weeks, with a 69% share two weeks ago and a 73% this past Sunday against the Chargers. Not content with monopolizing snaps Walker also captured a 70% work share of rushing opportunities, though disappointingly he saw a 0% target share after a respectable 6.4% target share the week prior. Part of this can be blamed on the game script as the Seahawks lead most of the way against the Chargers, primarily due to Walker’s 168 rushing yards and two touchdowns, which negated the need for a pass-heavy game script with the Seahawks attempting just 27 passes, with Deejay Dallas capturing all two of the running back targets this week. With or without targets, Walker is still producing as is wont to occur when seeing 20+ rushing attempts, seeing all of the usage inside the 10 yards line (even if he’s yet to convert this into touchdowns), and scoring from distance as Walker has done the past two weeks. As Mr. Barfield below notes Walker has been transcendent since he’s taken over the starting role. Despite missing Week 1, and just taking over as the starter three weeks ago, Walker now ranks 4th in total breakaway runs, 6th in total evaded tackles, and 10th in total yards created on the season.
Ken Walker’s 2.5 games as the lead RB:
49 carries
348 yards
7.1 YPC
5 TDsUnstoppable.
— Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) October 23, 2022
- Joe Mixon continues to see all the goal-line rushing attempts for the Bengals, adding another two attempts this week upping his season total to 12, no other Bengal running back has a single rushing attempt from within the five-yard line. Mixon was able to convert on one of these attempts this week, and now has two touchdowns from within the five this year, again the only Bengal running back to do so. Mixon is up to a 70% opportunity share of all Bengal rushing attempts and has seen a 13.5% target share. His snap share is up to 73.1% on the season, and he’s locked and loaded as an RB1. As I noted last week, any touchdown regression is going to be a boon for his fantasy scoring, which came to pass with 18.1 fantasy points on the week.
- The return of Gus Edwards and the departure of J.K. Dobbins from the Baltimore backfield could have been an opportunity for either Edwards or Kenyan Drake to stake claim to a significant role. Through one week it would appear that Edwards is the better option of the two, as he led the running back room with a 36% snap share, compared to a 31% share for Justice Hill, and a 26.6% share for Drake. Edwards had more rushing attempts than Drake with a 16 (36%) to 11 attempts (25%) edge, while each player saw a single target. Both Edwards (2) and Drake (1) had rushing attempts from inside the 10 as did Lamar Jackson (1), and from inside the five (1 each). But just because Edwards is the better of the options, it doesn’t make him an appealing option. Edwards scored two touchdowns this week on his way to 18.6 fantasy points, but without one of those touchdowns he would have fallen from the RB9 to the RB22 on the week, and if he didn’t score both touchdowns he would have been the RB38. Yes I know you can’t take away touchdowns, and they certainly count, but when a player is capturing sub-40 % of the rushing work and has just one target it’s hard to count on them for future production. For now, this is a backfield to avoid.
- Even with Damien Harris back, Rhamondre Stevenson still dropped a 20+ fantasy point week, his second week in a row hitting the 20-point threshold, and the third time this year. He’s now scored at least 19.5 fantasy points in four of seven games this year. This past week Stevenson captured a 28.6% target share of all New England targets, not just running back targets but all total pass targets, and his 14.9% share on the season ranks fourth highest among running backs. Stevenson also ranks in the league with 12 rushing attempts on third down, and despite sharing the backfield with Harris most of the year his eight rushing attempts from within the 10-yard line is good enough for the 12th highest in the league. Stevenson is one of my highest-targeted running backs in dynasty leagues this week.
Receiving Options
- With the Chicago Bears passing the ball more often the last few weeks the primary beneficiary has been Darnell Mooney, who has 23 targets over the past three weeks and has captured a 33.8% share over those three games. This has helped moved Mooney into the top seven in wide receiver target share with 29.5%. Though Mooney has yet to break out it is encouraging that he’s seen 7.7 targets per game after seeing just 4.0 targets through the first four weeks of the season. He is averaging 9.8 fantasy points per game this season, though he has scored at least 13.8 fantasy points in two of his last four games, and has climbed to 23rd overall at the wide receiver position in air yards. Mooney is someone I would like to add, considering his cost, with his raw targets, target share, and air yards increasing week over week and pointing to upcoming fantasy success.
- George Pickens might be the third or fourth option in the Steelers passing attack, but he is by far the most efficient and explosive option in the offense. While his 16.7% target share trails both Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool he leads the team with 23.2 air yards per reception. This is more impressive considering that Johnson is averaging a full 14 air yards per game over Pickens, indicating that Pickens is the better of the two in converting air yards into actual production. Pickens three end-zone targets also lead the Steelers wide receivers, so not only is he getting chunk yardage opportunities he’s also the preferred wide receiver near the goal line. If Johnson or Claypool were to miss time with injury or be traded in Claypool’s case, Pickens would see an uptick in volume and easily become a WR2.
- Seven wide receivers saw at least 12 targets last week, and if you guessed that Parris Campbell was one of those seven then kudos to you. Last week wasn’t just a one-off anomaly either, as it marked the second consecutive week that Campbell saw double-digit targets after being targeted 11 times the prior week. Campbell has a 19.5% target share over the past three weeks and has lept over Alec Pierce as the Colts WR2 with a 13.4% share for the season. Of course, this sudden fantasy relevancy has come with Matt Ryan under center and he’s been benched for Sam Ehlinger so there is a chance that Campbell won’t see the same type of share he has the past two weeks going forward. But if you believe, as I do, that targets are earned and not given, then Campbell is a worthy waiver wire pick-up in redraft leagues and may make a decent bye-week replacement in Week 8.
- If you’re looking for another under-the-radar wide receiver to target on waiver wires or in trades in your dynasty leagues, I present to you Donovan Peoples-Jones. DPJ has scored at least 11.1 fantasy points in four of seven weeks this season, including three of the four weeks, and could see some increased volume with the injury to David Njoku. Njoku leads all Browns with five red-zone receptions, and his absence could open up some scoring opportunities for DPJ since he’s a big-bodied target, and he already excels in contested catch situations, with his 10 such receptions being second most in the league. With the Browns set to face a Bengals defense that gives up the 9th most fantasy points per game to the wide receiver position, at worst DPJ is a strong streaming option in your flex position this week.
