Week 6 Hitchhikers' Guide Deluxe

Everything you need to know about the RB position in Week 6

Hi Folks,

As Tuesday readers know, I had to shift around the schedule this week due to some work obligations, which resulted in only the Waiver Wire priority list going out on Tuesday. At that time I focused mainly on Tank Bigsby, Ty Chandler, and Tyrone Tracy. Since that time we’ve gotten some more news on injured players I wasn’t aware of at the time — pushing Antonio Gibson and Ty Johnson up your streamer priority list, and that will be discussed toward the end of this column.

So here’s what we have in store today:

I’m going to run through the Hitchhiker’s Guide column you’d typically get on Tuesday: injuries, utilization changes etc. Only exception is that I’m not going to discuss the Jaguars, Giants or Vikings backfields since I covered those sufficiently in the waiver wire column. Then I’m going to run through the Streamer Stock Watch at the end.

Also — the Dynasty Rankings are updated. Paid subscribers should have the link book-marked, or can click it from any previous update article.

But first — because I suppose this column isn’t long enough already, I wanted to touch on a couple items in the introduction.

The “Downfall” of Zero-RB

I’ll keep this fairly short because I suspect many of you could write this for me. But I’ve seen a lot of commentary about how this is a poor year for ZeroRB, or — more gratingly in my opinion — that it was a poor process strategy this year.

First off, if you’ve read me the past two years with this substack you know that it’s not like I draft every team or even anywhere near half my teams as a true ‘ZeroRB.’

In fact, I wrote a whole column this year based on the premise that we might have pushed it too far with WR-inflation and trying to identify the best parts of the draft to target backs: (Shout out Kenneth Walker and James Cook)

But I do apply 'ZeroRB Prnciples’ in my analysis at a fairly universal level, including most prominently in this column.

So I’m going to pick on Jeff Bell who so happened to post one of several similar tweets I’ve seen in the last couple weeks. For what it’s worth, I like Jeff, he does great stuff, but this tweet aggravated me and I think is endemic of a common misunderstanding of ZeroRB — or at least how myself and a lot of other likeminded drafters percieve of ZeroRB — so I’ll use it as my jumping off point.

First of all, I’m just not sure I agree with his last point. In fact, we only have one RB (Saquon Barkley) currently pacing above Pat Kerrane’s “Legendary RB” threshold, and given he’s averaging 3 targets per game I’d personally bet against him getting there. If the NFL didn’t have so many committees I would write about 2,000 fewer words each week in this column. I welcome the trend toward bell cow usage.

More importantly, the notion that WR injures = bad year for ZeroRB is in my opinion quite simplistic, and incorrect. I’m admittedly not sure what “ZeroRB principles” Bell is referring to in his tweet, but if I were to emphasize the single most important principle of ZeroRB it’s this:

WR production is more a function of talent, and RB production is more a function of opportunity.

What this means is that the impact of injuries at each position is different. People often simplify ZeroRB down to the proposition that RBs suffer injuries at a higher rate. While this is true, it’s only marginally so, and it’s of limited importance to the strategy. The more important factor is that RB injuries more commonly result in plug-n-play starters while that’s hardly the case at WR.

Yes — at least for one week Darius Slayton was a plug-n-play option for Malik Nabers. But these weeks are less predictable and less often started than say, Trey Sermon or Tyrone Tracy. Nobody is running to dump all their FAAB this week on Xavier Hutchinson, while it’s quite likely that Ty Chandler provides starting value for however long Aaron Jones is out.

The corresponding element to this is that when WR injuries happen, the pool of playable WRs just shrinks — rather than allocating to other options.

We’re far from perfect, but we can do a reasonable job of identifying the WR profiles with the capacity to be every-week starts pre-season. And by this point of the season we can be even more confident who is in that pool. It’s not likely to meaningfully expand.

So when a WR get injured, of course it’s going to hurt when that WR is on your team. I can say for me personally that my teams have been disproportionately hurt by the succession of injuries to Nico Collins, Malik Nabers, and Rashee Rice. But setting aside which WRs — as a ZeroRB drafter I’m generally comfortable with WR injuries occurring, and betting on my teams to emerge from the war of attrition with the sufficient depth to survive at that position.

The idea behind a ZeroRB construction is that your team is getting stronger relative to your league because you can access contingencies at RB — where they are more common — and you’re better able to withstand the inevitable depression in the WR position.

I’ll surely reflect on what the optimal draft strategy was by year’s end in both ways we should or could have seen coming, and try to sort that from merely “describing the variance.” Thus far, I think the most significant wind at the sails of early-RB drafters is the fact we’ve gotten a few genuine hits out of “post-window WRs” in Khalil Shakir, Jameson Williams and Rashid Shaheed — profiles I was not targeting and where myself and a lot of likeminded drafters were very focused on RBs. If ZeroRB takes a bath this year, I suspect that’s going to be a big reason why.

But most importantly, I want to stress that almost anyone playing fantasy football in a thoughtful manner — in particular tournament-based fantasy football — is building their strategies, and each team, around optimizing for the playoff weeks. It’s simply far too early to state whether any draft strategy has been successful or unsuccessful 5 weeks in — especially as it relates to a strategy very intentionally designed to start slow and finish strong.

Panic Button on Bijan Robinson and Breece Hall?

In a mildly ironic swerve from discussing the supposed downfall of ZeroRB, let’s discuss some extremely disappointing Round 1 RBs.

Bijan Robinson and Breece Hall have been joined at the hip in analysis all summer. They were heavily debated as Dynasty RB1 and Redraft RB2, and each had a lot of similar environmental factors: new QB coming off an achilles injury, elite prospects with workhorse profiles, talented backup RB. Now, they also share in common a disappointing start. Hall sits at RB19 with 14.5 PPG, and Robinson is RB23 with 13.5.

As you’ll see in the latest dynasty rankings, I’ve moved both down from their pre-season rankings, but I now have Robinson one tier above Hall. I don’t think it requires much explanation why I’ve moved them down: the appeal of these players coming into 2024 was they had a far better path to a true 80-90% opportunity share — inclusive of robust pass-catching roles, and elite efficiency — than other young contemporaries such as Jahmyr Gibbs, De’Von Achane or Kenneth Walker. However, that hasn’t played out, and the gap has now narrowed — in fact you could argue that the best two roles among this group belong to Walker and Achane (at least once Tua Tagovailoa returns).

Perhaps even more concerning is that it looked in Week 1 that they would have this role. Breece Hall played all but one snap before garbage time in the first week, and Bijan Robinson played nearly 90% of snaps. After that week, it seemed these two were set up to duel for RB1 overall all season long.

Since then, Robinson has ceded roughly 30% of opportunities each week to Tyler Allgeier, and Hall has ceded a similar amount to Braelon Allen.

I wouldn’t say I’m panicked about either back, and with the right manager I’m trying to acquire both in all formats. But here’s where I stand on each, and why I wind up more concerned about Hall.

*I’m going to briefly pretend to be a ball-knower in this section, please skip to the next heading if you don’t care*

I’ve watched nearly every touch of each this year in preparation for this article.

I’ve seen a lot of folks comment that Robinson doesn’t look as talented as we anticipated and I mostly disagree. He’s consistently making the first tackler miss, and we’ve seen the burst on the rare occasions he gets into the open field, such as his 28 yard run in Week 5 — in which he gained the majority after evading an open-field tackle — or several of his chunk runs and receptions against the Eagles in Week 2.

His statistical profile is definitely worse than his eye-test, or at least my eye-test (you may disagree). He’s at a very middle of the pack 0.04 RYOE/att and 2.49 YAC/att, and a 0.22 MTF/att which ranks 15th of 50 qualifiers. One note in support of his talent case however is that Allgeier — who has posted strong peripherals in the past and who most analysts agree is a starter-quality player — is no better. His RYOE/att figure is better — 0.55 — but his YAC and MTF numbers are worse.

To me, the larger issue with Atlanta’s scheme right now is an over-reliance on outside zone. They’re running OZ 67% of the time — by far the highest in the league. And it’s made their run-game quite predictable.

Adding to this predictability is the fact they’re often running out of 11-personnel, due to a desire to maintain universal formations. This means Ray-Ray McCloud — who is 5-9 on a good day — is often on the field for run plays. (He played 85 of 87 snaps in Week 5)

We saw Sean McVay substitute DeMarcus Robinson for Tutu Atwell last season to address this exact issue.

The other elephant in the room for Falcons personnel issues is of course Kyle Pitts.

In Week 5 the Falcons played 2 snaps in 21-personnel, and 85 in 11-personnel. This means playing only one of Pitts or backup TE Charlie Woerner. Pitts is clearly the preferred option in a pass-play, while Woerner is the far superior blocker. But the defense of course knows this, which means every time you want to call a run play, you either suggest to the defense it’s going to be a run play by playing Woerner, or play a far inferior block in Pitts in hopes of disguising your intentions. Neither is a great option, compared to say — having a Dallas Goedert or Cole Kmet type at TE — who is passable in all facets.

Telling the defense exactly what your play call is going to be based on the TE you have in the game is non-viable. But I’m not sure it’s less viable than running 67% outside zone when your primary TE and slot WR are serious blocking liabilities.

More perplexing to me is that the Falcons have arguably the best run-blocking guard in the league in Chris Lindstrom. No matter what run you call, the entire unit needs to step up. But I’d be quite tempted to run more pin and pull or power concepts to use Lindstrom as a weapon to plough Robinson into space, or — if you’re tipping play calls anyhow — just get in 12-personel (wihtout Pitts) and ram some good old fashioned duo until morale improves. We’ve seen Sean McVay make this adjustment when needed so I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibilities for Zac Robinson.

The one big fantasy issue I see based on how this offense functions right now is the while Robinson is the clear cut LDD back, he’s more commonly being used in protection than as an outliet. If you had told me before the season that Kirk Cousins would have uncorked 58 passes in a game, I’d have suspected Robinson had 8 catches. To see him so sparsely involved in the passing game is tough.

However, this may be an element of the Rams scheme carry over we just didn’t properly account for. They do throw screens and swings to Robinson — and he’s been unlucky on these: two in the last game were counted as runs because they travelled backward, and he had a screen-pass TD wiped out by a very questionable hold in Week 4. But he’s rarely a check-down option. That’s often because he’s pass-protecting, and often because this passing game is already focused on short area targets to Drake London and McCloud. They are running a ton of choice routes and quick outs, which means fewer opportunities to get to a RB check down.

OK Back to Fantasy

If that’s too far down the rabbit hole for you folks, here is the TLDR: Bijan Robinson is playing a lot better than his stats, and has also been on the injury report lately managing a hamstring injury. While he’s not getting goal-line touches, that’s more due to the Falcons throwing at the goal-line and/or scoring from distance. He’s not ceding goal-line snaps to Allgeier at a systemic rate as he did in 2023. He mostly just needs to score better, and I think to an extent he will — even if that’s more like 16-18 PPG and less like 20-22 PPG.

Hall on the other hand is more troubling. Early this season I was more bullish on Hall — even after Allen emerged in Weeks 2 and 3 — because Hall at that time was still averaging 19 PPG, and seeing elite adjusted opportunities each game. The throw-rate to the backs was very high, and they were quite run-heavy, which allowed for enough HVTs to go to Hall, even if Allen was taking some.

However, I’m now getting more concerned. Mike Williams is becoming more of a factor in this offense, and Aaron Rodgers seems intent on making Allen Lazard a thing. Tyler Conklin has been playing a ‘check and release’ role which makes him a direct competitor for RB targets. Not to mention that Davante Adams is probably above 50% likely to be a Jet this season. The ideal fantasy distribution for this offense was “Wilson or the RBs” — much like the late-Packers offenses which largely orbited around Adams, Aaron Jones, and the RB2.

Breece Hall has caught a lot of passes with a lot of different Quarterbacks so I assure you that 6-8 catch days are coming. He’s still the clear LDD back. But the rest of season expectation may look somewhere in between the first 3 weeks and the last two from a targets perspective.

More concerning is that Hall… looks kind of bad.

This the hardest situation to parse for me, where it’s not a case of simple regression — i.e. score better — but a case where to score better Hall really does need to play better. For the season his numbers are slightly below middle of the pack: -0.05 RYOE/att, 0.14 MTF/att, 2.68 YAC/att. However, unlike in Robinson’s case — his backup Braelon Allen leads him in each of those metrics.

Additionally, Hall’s metrics are largely buoyed by two good weeks to start the season, and he’s graded out far more poorly recently.

I thought he passed the eye-test early, with an elite TD grab in Week 2, and several impressive plays in space in the receiving game in Week 3. But lately that’s not been the case.

Hall is a bit of a boom/bust runner a la Saquon Barkley or Kenneth Walker. He’s going to probe the line for space, hoping to find a lane to hit a home run. It’s a style that will naturally lead to more negative runs, and an un-even distribution of efficiency. He’ll have a few games at 2 yards per carry before breaking out with a 10+ yards per carry game eventually. I’m fine with this as long as the Jets are. In 2023, he had several poor efficiency rushing games, but on net he graded out as one of the most efficient backs in the NFL, in year one post-ACL.

What’s concerning to me lately is that on the rare occasions he’s had space to maneuver I’ve felt he’s gone down rather easily, run un-creatively, and lacked immediate acceleration. This is a concerning combination when you have a backup as talented as Allen, and a team that’s struggling and looking for things to change — especially under a new Head Coach and play caller. One change that’s already occurred was Allen subbing in for short-yardage opportunities in Week 5. They largely passes out of these looks so it went un-reported, but Hall came off the field on his own drive for Allen twice when they got inside the 2-yard line.

I still have a lot of confidence in Hall as a player, and I’m trusting the longview here that he will look more like the back we’ve watched on the Jets and in college the last 5 years in the coming weeks than the back we’ve watched early-season. However, he’s burned through some insulation and Allen is an extremely challenging alternative.

I do think 16-18 PPG is still plausible and even likely rest-of-season, but I’m less confident of that than I am with Bijan Robinson, and I think 20+ is now off the table without an Allen injury. I also have a lot more faith in the Falcons offense to self-scout and improve under Zac Robinson than the Jets under Todd Downing and Nathaniel Hackett.

Lastly, I need to note that the FantasyPoints Data Suite is where I get the bulk of my info for this column. If you want access to the single best database of key metrics for every fantasy format, use JAKOB25 at checkout for 25% off, and join the data suite!