Week 10 Hitchhiker's Guide to RB

And thoughts on the Panthers extending Chuba Hubbard

Hello folks!

We’re back with the Week 10 HHG — which as discussed in Monday’s column will be a once weekly endeavour going forward, accompanied by an early-week column on alternating topics. This coming week that will be on dynasty trade deadline strategy.

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STATISTICAL NOTE: utilization data is from Nathan Jahnke of PFF. All qualitative data is from the FantasyPoints Data Suite unless otherwise sourced with exception of the following: Rush Yards over Expected (RYOE) and Percentage of Rushes over Expectation (ROE%) are sourced from NFL Next Gen Stats. PFF Grades are from PFF. BAE Rating and Relative Success Rate (RSR) are from Noah Hills. Juke Rate is from PlayerProfiler.

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SEE: “Metrics Legend” at the bottom for an explanation of each stat and its acronym

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WEEK 9 STORYLINES

Carolina Panthers

The Panthers had two major developments in their backfield this week. The first is that Jonathon Brooks — the team’s round 2 pick — has finally been designated to return from I.R. and will debut this weekend.

The other piece of news however is that Chuba Hubbard signed a 4-year, $33.2 Million contract extension — paying him $8.3M per year, locking him in for at minimum 2 more years.

There are short-term and medium-long term fantasy ramifications to this, and some ‘real life football’ aspects worth discussing here as well.

In the short-term, expect Brooks to begin by taking Miles Sanders’ snaps, possibly as early as this week. However, the pre-season theory that he would eventually be a late-season workhorse is entirely dead barring a Hubbard injury.

Hubbard has played excellently all season and is now firmly part of the team’s future plans. At best, Brooks might be a startable flex play if he can push toward 40-50% of touches by the fantasy playoffs, but I’m not sure even that is the most likely option. My expectation is for him to receive 20-30% of touches in the next two-three weeks, and whether he can inch close to a true “1B” role will depend on how he performs in his return, as whether Hubbard continues his efficiency.

There’s no sugar-coating that the combination of Brooks’ slower-than-anticipated return, combined with Hubbard’s performance and eventual extension is a brutal run out for Brooks drafters.

As for Hubbard, you’ve already gotten more than you paid for if he doesn’t take another snap this season. But the extension is a great sign that if he keeps up his play he can keep up this role. I was worried he might get pushed into a full-blown timeshare regardless of his play if the team wanted to get a look at their RB1 of the future rather than a pending-UFA. Those worries are now un-founded.

From a dynasty perspective however, this extension is not ideal for either back. On one hand, the investment secures Hubbard’s floor as a big piece of an NFL backfield into the prime of his career. However, my hope was he could go somewhere with a better offensive environment and with a less exciting running mate than Jonathon Brooks. Unless Brooks is an outright bust, this likely caps him as a timeshare back in 2025 and beyond on an offense I’m not particularly excited about. It’s also of course quite bad for Brooks, who will drop a full tier at least in my next dynasty rankings update. He’s an exciting prospect, but not a strong enough one that I’m going to value him as a 1st-round rookie pick asset while projecting for a timeshare until the 4th year of his contract. He’ll need to show me that he’s dynamic enough to offer RB1 production on limited touches to hit that status for me.

These backs are rather similar in size, style and skillsets, so my guess is that their long term vision is a roughly 50-50 split with indiscriminate usage in all phases.

As for the real-life decision-making, I think it’s important to separate out each individual decision on its own merits, and then view the plan in context.

In a vacuum I have zero issue with this contract for Hubbard. And my general rule is that it’s sharp to prioritize good starters on second contracts at the RB position.

If you believe that “RBs Don’t Matter” has gone too far and that RBs are under-valued in the modern NFL, the best way to enforce that stance is in paying for second-contract RBs.

Cap space is important, but the highest opportunity cost of cap space comes when you are signing your own successful draft picks to premium second contracts. When it comes to outside free agents, you’re either looking at elite players at positions that are lower-valued or average starters at the highest-valued positions.

When you say a team shouldn’t spend big money at RB, what you’re often saying in actuality is that a team signing Derrick Henry or Saquon Barkley, would be better off using that cap space to sign 50% of Calvin Ridley or 80% of Gabe Davis.

From a market perspective, there are — generally speaking — four tiers of position:

1. Quarterback, Edge Rusher Offensive Tackle: If you want an elite one, you have to draft them. It’s rare one gets traded in their prime and you’re not typically not signing an elite option in free agency either unless they are either past their prime age or have yet to break out. Above-average starters are rarely available and demand substantial contracts.

2. Wide Receiver, Corner: If you want an elite one in their prime, you likely have to draft them, or possibly trade draft capital for them. It’s rare that elite WRs or CBs in their prime hit free agency. Above-average starters are rarely available and demand substantial contracts.

3. Interior Offensive Line, Interior Defensive Line: Top end options are occasionally available in free agency, but require substantial contracts. Above-average starters are typically available and available for reasonable contracts.

4. Safety, Running Back, Inside Linebacker: Top end options are occasionally available in free agency and are relatively affordable. Above-average starters are frequently available in free agency and are very affordable.

* TE doesn’t fit neatly into this matrix as there are very few great TEs compared to other positions and they don’t often move teams, however they are not paid comparably to the most premium positions

There are two ways to think about this: one is that if you hit on an elite WR with a draft pick, you’re generating a massive surplus value because you’re paying the rookie-scale wage for a $25-30M player. If you hit on an elite RB with a draft pick, you’re generate a far smaller surplus because you’re paying a rookie scale wage for a $12-15M player.

The more direct way to think about it is that your only chance to roster elite players at premium positions is to draft them, or trade draft picks for them. When you spend a draft pick on a different position, you’re forgoing that chance, and instead drafting a player who — even if he hits — you may be able to get the same production from in free agency.

My preferred team building approach would be to attack premium positions relentlessly in the draft, and then be quite willing to spend up in free agency on the rest of my roster as needed. Because it so rare to see elite QBs, edge rushers, WRs and CBs available, the only way to sign elite players in free agency is to sign players at less premium positions. And the only way there’s an opportunity cost of elite players at premium positions associated with those signings is I have drafted enough of them to pay top of the market second contracts to — a good problem to have.

Bringing this back to the Panthers, I have zero problem with them signing Hubbard. I wouldn’t call him an elite RB, but he’s a rock solid starter who is clearly a part of their team culture. Unfortunately, the Panthers don’t have many premium position players due for market topping extensions. So why not extent Hubbard? All it costs them is $8.3M that would otherwise be pocketed by David Tepper, or likely spent on non-needle movers.

What I don’t support is a team in the Panthers’ position trading two 5th-round picks to move up in the 2nd-round to draft a RB back in May. And no, I don’t care that this was a move “back up” having already pocketed a 2nd-round pick from the Rams in a previous trade. This team desperately needs to compound +EV transactions, not immediately skim off the top whenever they make a good deal.

It’s one thing to pick the “best player available” when you are a contending roster with few needs at premium positions. But a team in the Panthers situation simply could not afford to spend a mid-2nd and two 5ths on a running back, and the decision to extend Chuba Hubbard illustrates why. The $8.3M spent on Hubbard is a substantially lower opportunity cost to pay for good running back production than what they spent in picks on Brooks.

And if you tell me they just didn’t know what they had in Hubbard yet, fair enough — but then they should have added to their RB room via free agency with one of the several strong RBs available last off-season rather than in the draft.

If you tell me they need two strong RBs, I would first tell you that they probably don’t need to worry about covering all their bases in the RB room whilst they have gaping holes everywhere else on the roster. But then I would tell you that the better play would have been taking a flier on a day 3 RB, and if he didn’t hit this year, just spend on a second RB in the 2025 off-season (or two RBs if Hubbard didn’t elevate his game). It’s not as though Brooks was being drafted to make an impact in 2024 anyhow — he missed the first 9 games with an ACL injury everyone knew about at the time.

Now none of this criticism means I think it was bad to sign Hubbard this week. I don’t think you should restrain yourself from making reasonable decisions today because you made bad decisions six months ago. So I wouldn’t necessarily say they “compounded” a mistake with the Hubbard signing as much as they just illustrated why the Brooks pick (and trade) was poor process to begin with.

Cincinnati Bengals

It is Chase Brown’s world and we are all living in it. He saw every single RB touch in Week 9 with Zack Moss on injured reserve now with a neck injury. In that game, he split LDD work with Trayveon Williams.

Then the team traded for Khalil Herbert, who played 2 snaps in Week 10 — one of which he fumbled the handoff on. Brown played almost every other snap, and once again received every official touch. When he did sub off, it was for an occasional LDD snap and they just stuck a TE in the backfield to handle pass protection.

Once he gets up to speed on the offense, Herbert may see 25-30% of touches. But he’s not the pass protector Zack Moss is so I would be shocked if he ate up as many snaps. Brown received 12 targets this week and is the best pass-game back of those currently on the roster. Herbert is a similar back to Brown as an explosive, efficient runner, but Brown has scheme familiarity on his side, along with more versatility in the passing game, and a better history of holding up to volume dating back to college.

Herbert is a priority handcuff add, but Brown is an every-week RB1 until proven otherwise.

Dallas Cowboys

Ezekiel Elliott missed this game for “disciplinary reasons” and it made a larger impact on Rico Dowdle’s snaps than I anticipated. Dalvin Cook played on 6 snaps the whole game, which is far fewer than Elliott had ever played even though he was commonly 3rd on the team in snaps. Hunter Luepke continued to have a role, but it’s been scaled back in the last 3 weeks to pure pass-protection situations.

This cleared the way for Dowdle to play over 70% of snaps and see 12 carries and 6 targets. This team doesn’t use the RB much (or at least didn’t with Dak Prescott) and they frequently run into negative script due to their defensive issues, so you really do need this high of a snap rate to generate even mid-RB2 usage.

The switch to Cooper Rush is bad, but it might not be a death sentence. While their scoring equity and total play volume likely comes down, their PROE will almost certainly come down as well giving Dowdle a more secure floor of volume. If this role sticks, he’s playing more in catch up mode than he did previously which should help him rack of PPR points in the second half of games even if the offense sputters early.

He’s a viable every-week streamer and borderline RB2.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Travis Etienne returned, and the Jaguars devolved into a #RBB3 that was equal parts baffling and predictable, given what we’ve come to expect from this staff.

Etienne played a majority of snaps in the 1st half, but on one of those he volley-balled a short pass for an INT in a play that felt like an homage to 2023 Tank Bigbsy.

He had a 16-yard carry on the drive immediately after this play, but hardly played in the 2nd half. It’s hard to say whether that was a result of his misplay, his hamstring, or a purely tactical choice.

The result was that Tank Bigsby — who led the team with 8 carries — played a lot more in the 2nd half than I’d have expected given the trail script, with D’Ernest Johnson once again being the primary complement.

I just don’t think it’s worth reading too far into this backfield, in part due to how transitory the usage and health status has been for each back involved. And because on a first and 10 from the 11-yard line in the 3rd quarter after a T.V. timeout, they had D’Ernest Johnson on the field. There’s just no chance that’s the best use of your personnel.

This team makes indecipherable decisions at all times, which makes it hard to apply logic or predictive value to anything else they do.

Washington Commanders

Brian Robinson Jr. missed Week 9 with a hamstring injury despite an expectation that he would play prior to his pre-game warmup. He practiced in a limited fashion again this week, but will once again miss. It’s unfortunate for Robinson who will now have missed 3 games due to injury and been limited in at least two others.

He looked like a massive win early in the season, and hopefully he’s able to come back at full strength for the stretch run.

Austin Ekeler had a productive outing and is definitely a viable RB2 play in Week 10, but I am downgrading him based on his usage. He started the game as the clear lead back, but ceded the majority of 2nd half carries to Jeremy McNichols and HHG-favourite Chris Rodriguez. In the end, Ekeler handled only 11 of 30 RB carries. This was a departure from his last spot start when Rodriguez was not a factor and McNichols saw only two touches, and it may speak to the fact they played from ahead for the whole of this game compared to the previous game Robinson missed where they had to chase points vs. the Ravens.

Ekeler did get a goal-line TD which is much less likely to occur when Robinson plays, and continued to dominate passing down work. But he was not on the field for two other goal-line sequences in the second half. Rather than being a true workhorse, his Robinson-less role now looks more like an extra 4-6 carries and a 50% chance at goal-line TDs compared to more like a 20% chance with Robinson.

Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals made an active effort to get Trey Benson involved in the first half of this game. He played 18 snaps total, 7 of which came in the opening half including a series of 3 touches on one drive that he capped off with a TD.

It was the best he’s looked this year by far, as we saw him show off his speed in space for a chunk gain, and then get rewarded at the goal line for his effort.

From an outside perspective this felt a little out of nowhere, but he did have a strong drive in the Green Bay game a couple weeks ago while James Conner was battling a mild injury. It reads to me like the rookie built on that in practice the last two weeks and the coaching staff made it a point to give him real run while the game was in doubt. He played well enough to continue to earn a role in this offense.

James Conner has been phenomenal in both years in this offense so his job is at zero risk. But it’s a slight downgrade for him if Benson starts taking a couple full drives each game, and it’s a nice sign for the rookie’s dynasty value that we’re seeing him look more comfortable on the field.

I would say it’s roughly 50/50 whether the team lets Benson have a real shot at leading the backfield in 2025 or signs Conner to an extension.

Minnesota Vikings

Cam Akers is now the RB2 in Minnesota which caps off a fall from grace from late-season 2023 league winner Ty Chandler.

Chandler was effective last year — especially compared to Alexander Mattison — but his numbers have fallen off a cliff in 2024 and clearly the team has seen enough.

Akers should — in theory — be a strong handcuff, but we’ve already seen him fumble a golden opportunity earlier this year in Houston.