RB/WR Opportunity Breakdown For Week 9
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.
Quick Links
Running Backs
- As one would hope Travis Etienne was a full-fledged bell cow with James Robinson now in New York. Etienne played on 79% of snaps Sunday, while the only other running back to play on any snaps, JaMycal Hasty, lagged far behind with a 22% snap share. This snap domination also led to a career-high in rushing attempts, which subsequently led to him scoring a career-high 25.2 fantasy points on Sunday.
In his first game without James Robinson, Travis Etienne played 77% of Jacksonville’s snaps and had a career high 24 rush attempts. His previous career high came in Week 7 where he had 14 rush attempts.
— JJ Zachariason (@LateRoundQB) October 30, 2022
Etienne controlled an 85% rushing share opportunity, though Hasty did out-target him 4 to 3, we can live with that if Etienne is getting 20+ rushing attempts, and is the only running back with a rushing attempt inside the five, ten, and in the red-zone rushing attempts, as he was on Sunday with six attempts red-zone attempts. Even with the uptick in volume Etienne continues to be uber-efficient, and his 9.8% breakaway rate ranks fifth among running backs, and he has the most rushing attempts among those top five, and he ranks 15th overall with 3.46 yards created per rushing attempt. With volume, efficiency, and high-leverage touches Etienne could be the RB1 for the remainder of the 2022 season.
- Week 1 post-Breece Hall didn’t provide a ton of clarity on how the Jets are going to move forward with their backfield, but we can attempt to read into some of the peripherals. Though James Robinson only played on 22% of the snaps Sunday he still controlled a 33% share of all rushing attempts, while Michael Carter who lead the Jets running backs with a 55% snap share saw a 47% share of all rushing attempts. Considering that Robinson was just traded to the Jets less than a week prior it’s reasonable to assume that he will see an increase in snaps going forward and that he’s immediately a threat to see a majority of the rushing attempts once he is fully immersed in the Jets playbook. Carter’s grip on the receiving work is probably secure, and he saw a 20.6% target share on Sunday, his highest target share since Week 2, or before Breece Hall took over all three downs for the Jets. Don’t get comfortable with either Robinson or Cater though, because Ty Johnson also played on 32% of offensive snaps, and he siphoned off 10% of the rushing attempts and 5.9% of the target share. Johnson might not play enough or see enough volume to make himself fantasy viable, but he will see just enough work to ding both Carter and Robinson.
- Leonard Fournette has struggled to match his fantasy production from 2021, despite still being the lead back in Tampa Bay. Though Fournette still holds a lead in snap share % over Rachaad White, he’s losing some of his workloads to White, and he’s seeing fewer targets, even though targets aren’t necessarily going to White instead. This past week Fournette captured 60% of the rushing work, his third-lowest rate of the season, and a 7.4% target share, which was his second-lowest in 2022. White captured 37.5% of the rushing work, his second-highest rate on the season, but just a 7.1% target rate, his second-lowest on the season. Fournette is still the trusted back inside the five-yard line and he has all four of Tampa’s attempts in the past three games and it doesn’t appear that White is going to siphon off enough volume in between the 20s from Fournette to be fantasy viable at the moment.
- Suddenly the Chicago backfield has turned into a running back by committee, if not snap share, then certainly in workload split. David Montgomery had a 70% snap share on Sunday but he only captured 34.9% of the rushing work, while Khalil Herbert who played on 27.3% of snaps out worked him with a 37.2% share of rushing attempts. Herbert also split the rushing workload with Montgomery in the red zone and converted one of his three rushing attempts into a touchdown while Montgomery was unable to convert his three attempts into a score. Herbert was also the more effective runner on the day averaging 8.3 ypc in the red zone compared to Montgomery’s 4.0 ypc, and Herbert has been by far the more efficient runner all season averaging 6.2 ypc compared to Montgomery’s 3.9 ypc. Herbert has shown to be more elusive averaging 3.79 yards created per attempt on his 91 rushing attempts, with Monty checking in behind with (a still good) 3.41 yards created per attempt, but Herbert’s breakaway rate of 6.1% dwarfs Montgomery’s 1.1% breakaway rate, showing how much more explosive Herbert is compared to Montgomery. Montgomery is still the preferred back for receiving work but considering he hasn’t seen more than four targets in any game yet this season, that’s not really helping his fantasy value. As the Bears continue to develop their offense around Justin Fields, the plodding Montgomery could be in danger of losing even more snaps and usage.
Receiving Options
- Sometimes change is good. In Terry McLaurin’s case, a quarterback change has certainly been good for his NFL and fantasy production. This is just a two-game sample, so there is a chance that McLaurin will see his stats regress to pre-Heinicke totals, but since Heinicke has taken over as the starter in Washington for an injured Carson Wentz, McLaurin has gone from a WR5 (11.08 PPG), into to a WR1 (17.55 PPG). With Wentz on the IR for at least two more weeks, and the Commanders going 2-0 so far in his absence, if you roster McLaurin you can only hope that the Commanders decide to move forward with Heinicke as the starter and McLaurin continues to produce at these levels.
Terry McLaurin per game averages (6 games) with Carson Wentz:
6 targets
3.6 receptions
61.6 receiving yards
11.08 PPGTerry Mclaurin per game averages (2) with Taylor Heinicke:
8 targets
5.5 receptions
93 receiving yards
17.55 PPG— Shane says (@ShaneIsTheWorst) October 31, 2022
- DeAndre Hopkins has been a bit of a target hog since he returned from suspension two weeks ago. He’s been targeted 27 times, which would be the ninth most at wide receiver, even though he’s only played the last two weeks. While Hopkins has been a stud since his return don’t let that distract you from the fact that Rondale Moore is having himself a nice bounce-back sophomore season this year. Since returning from an injury that caused him to miss the first three weeks of the season Moore has played on no less than 85% of the offensive snaps and has had two weeks with a 98%+ snap share. Over the past three weeks, Moore has seen 20 targets, to rank second among all Cardinals in targets, behind Hopkins. On the season he’s been targeted at least eight or more times in three of his last four weeks. Moore might not be suited for a WR1 role in an offense but he seems to slide in seamlessly as the WR2. And it’s a role he should have secured for at least four more weeks as Marquise Brown recovers from a broken foot.
- D.J. Moore has been, by far, P.J. Walker’s favorite target since Walker has taken over as the starting quarterback in Carolina. In those three games, Moore has seen a target share of 35.9%, which is third most in the league during that span behind Tyreek Hill and A.J. Brown. Though Moore was only able to convert a high target share into 3.7 fantasy points three weeks ago, in the last two weeks Moore has scored 19.6, and 27.5 fantasy points setting season highs in consecutive weeks, with those 27.5 fantasy points being the most Moore has scored since Week 4 in the 2021 season. Moore’s season target share of 28.1% now ranks ninth highest among wide receivers, even if his overall raw targets, 65, lag a little behind (11th most).
- If there is one receiver I’m looking to buy in dynasty right now it’s Michael Pittman. Pittman might not have taken a giant leap in year three as most of us hoped he would but he has still improved over 2021 and is averaging 1.4 more fantasy points per game than last year, despite abysmal quarterback play. He’s currently the WR15 with 15.4 fantasy points per game, which is even more impressive when you see that he’s scored just one touchdown on the season. I’d say you should expect touchdown regression this year, but the Colts only score 1.5 touchdowns per game, the third-lowest rate in the league, so we’re more likely looking to next year for any touchdown regression, assuming Sam Ehlinger isn’t the long term answer at quarterback. Pittman ranks fourth in the league with a route run on 40.3% of his snaps played and is on the field for 96.7% of offensive snaps (also fourth highest in the league). Though his target rate of 22.9% is a little lower than we want out of a WR1, his 10.0 targets per game are elite ranking eighth highest among wide receivers.
