Week 11 Hitchhiker's Guide to RB

A Changing of the Guard at Mile High

We’re back with the Week 11 HHG. This is now a one-stop shop for the RB content on this stack. The early-week column this week on trade deadline buying strategy.

Let’s roll.

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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 10 RB STORYLINES

Denver Broncos

The biggest development of the week was with the Denver backfield, where for the first time Sean Payton actually told the truth about wanting to get one of his young players more involved.

Javonte Williams had been locked into a 35-40-snap role all season long as the primary ball carrier and passing down back. However, his lack of efficiency was definitely disappointing to me as someone who thought he could recapture some of the talent upside we saw in college and his rookie year before his devastating year-2 multi-ligament tear. Sadly, it’s probably just over for Williams at this point. Going back to that year-1 profile, his tackle evasion figures were always elite but he gave back a lot of what he gained with a poor success rate.

The hope at the time was he’d be able to improve his feel for the game and take advantage of his impressive physical traits to become a top back in the league. Sadly, it seems those physical attributes have still not recovered from his injury, and he hasn’t fleshed out the rest of his game either. The metrics aren’t pretty for Williams and while I have plenty of criticisms about the Sean Payton run scheme and his personnel usage, there’s no sugar coating that I haven’t seen anything out of Javonte this year that suggests he’s much more than a replacement level back.

He had pedigree, size, soft hands, and plenty of pass protection experience so the best case scenario for him now is probably getting an all-purpose backup gig on a good offense somewhere that gives him Zach Charbonnet-esque contingent upside.

As for Audric Estime, the discussion around our expectations for him should mirror our discussion around Tank Bigsby from earlier this year. He’s a good rushing prospect, but Estime has zero pass-catching pedigree from college, though he was trusted on a couple passing downs including (what should have been) the game-deciding 3rd-and-6 conversion. Maybe that’s a sign of things to come for him. For now however, we should continue to expect Williams to cosplay the D’Ernest Johnson role in this backfield with Jaleel McLaughlin continuing to mix in for a package of snaps.

If you recall back in the early off-season, I had a lot of excitement for Estime (along with Williams) on the basis that I was very excited about the pass-catching potential for backs in this offense, and bearish on McLaughlin’s role ceiling. The latter concern has born out, but the RB pass-catching usage hasn’t been as exciting as I’d expected which I largely attribute to Bo Nix scrambling more frequently than checking down. And the brutal rushing efficiency of the unit has cratered any ceiling I envisioned.

I liked Estime as a pure-runner out of college and I do expect him to show better vision and timing of his runs than Williams, though he also lacks top-end juice. I don’t think he’ll provide much explosiveness, but perhaps he can more consistently generate chunks.

I’m definitely less excited for Estime than I would have been if you told me he was getting this type of run pre-season, but we shouldn’t totally discount the possibility that the guy losing his job is part of why so few fantasy points have come from this backfield. Maybe Estime can add a new element.

San Francisco 49ers

Christian McCaffrey made his triumphant return and to nobody’s surprise he instantly played 56 of 64 snaps. Kyle Shanahan simply cannot resist. McCaffrey was right back to his old tricks, running 35 routes and drawing 7 targets, including an impressive down-field look.

I won’t pretend to be a doctor so I have no idea what the re-injury risk is for his achilles tendonitis. But based on this usage profile, he should project as the RB1 every week he’s healthy.

There is no other back in fantasy who combines his complete stranglehold over carries, TD equity, and adds the upside he does in the receiving game.

I’ve bought in up to my base-1st dynasty valuation in a couple spots while he was hurt, but if this performance causes a rush of enthusiasm that lifts his price near pre-season levels, I would definitely look to sell.

McCaffrey is a musical chairs proposition in dynasty where there may be no more valuable asset for as long as he’s healthy and in his prime, but he’s recently been valued in a tier that strikes me as irresponsible considering his age and the downside risk of putting 2 -1sts level roster value into such a fragile asset with no value-based upside.

My advice on McCaffrey would be to always be willing to spend up to — and only up to — the amount you’re willing to let go to zero in the context of a given roster. That should mean being more inclined to buy in the early-off-season when points are de-valued or any time he’s injured, while being willing to sell in most spots when he’s active and producing at his peak.

Almost every team I plan to hold McCaffrey on is a high-value contender.

Tennessee Titans

Tyjae Spears returned to action and the Titans backfield largely returned to what we saw early-season, with Tony Pollard handling a clear majority of the touches but Spears mixing in for some passing downs and getting sustained run on a few drives. The snaps (29-25) and touches (13-10) wind up looking quite close here, but from watching this game, my impression was that game script was largely the cause. If the Titans play a competitive game Spears definitely has a role but Pollard is the guy.

Any chance Spears had of taking over the RB1 job this season was dashed by his own injuries, and Pollard playing genuinely well. He’s been the lone consistent bright spot on this offense all year.

Unfortunately, this offense is rather dreadful, so even Pollard is tough to rely on as more than a low-end RB2 when Spears plays and he’s no longer locked into 90%+ touch shares.

Anyhow I’m definitely not tilting that in a year every RB stays healthy, two of the most constantly injured RBs are Spears and Jaylen Warren. I think it’s great actually.

Miami Dolphins

Raheem Mostert played zero (0) early-down snaps in a must-win Monday Night game that signalled a clear shift of intent from the coaching staff. This is precisely what I’ve been calling for the team to do the last few weeks so it was nice to see.

Mostert shifted to a pure-LDD only role while De’Von Achane dominated early-down snaps and Jaylen Wright mixed in as the early-down complement (yes haters and losers, I spelt complement right this time, please compliment me in the comments).

This backfield is now somewhat similar to the Bills. Achane is James Cook on steroids with a higher snap share and a far more consistent pass-game role, while Wright is the Ray Davis and Mostert has been reduced to Ty Johnson — albeit in a lower-snap role.

Assuming this holds, Achane would be my RB2 rest-of-season behind only McCaffrey, as he’s now held up a lead in first-read target share across five games with each of Tua Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill, and Jaylen Waddle all active.

We caught a floor game on Monday Night of course, but the role is incredible and we will be back to boom games soon.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Tank Bigsby is out this week with an ankle injury he apparently suffered in-game but was not discussed to my recollection on the broadcast. (He was evaluated and cleared for a concussion)

Travis Etienne dominated D’Ernest Johnson in snaps 30-4 in largely neutral game script, which is why I prefer his single game ceiling to Bigsby’s. But with Mac Jones at the helm and a matchup vs. Detroit’s elite run-defense on tap I’m not sure anyone can be excited to start Etienne this week. He’s a volume-based RB2.

Pittsburgh Steelers

Jaylen Warren was in the middle of his best game of the season, working in throughout but monopolizing a 4th-quarter drive while Najee Harris sat out with a minor ankle injury he later returned from. However, he fumbled at the one-yard line, almost costing the Steelers the game but for a late Mike Williams TD.

The more concerning development is that Warren suffered a back injury at some point which kept him out of practice Thursday and limited Friday.

It’s a poor running back matchup vs. Baltimore but Najee Harris would be a high-end RB2 if Warren misses. He’s played a lot better of late and I suspect his role would be stronger as a result than it was early-season when he was splitting significant work with Cordarrelle Patterson and Aaron Shampklin.

Los Angeles Chargers

Gus Edwards was activated off I.R. and legitimately looked good Sunday. This was a complete 180 from early in the season when he looked like a player on his last legs in the league. It seems clear in hindsight that whatever was bothering him in the off-season lingered into the season, and he should have been held out longer in the first place. But he’s back to health now and is causing some problems for a couple of HHG favourites.

Snap-wise JK Dobbins still dominated 39-14, but Edwards saw 10 touches to Dobbins’ 18. This is a reversal from the Dobbins-Vidal split, in which Vidal would play Dobbins closer in snaps than in touches.

15 carries and a complete monopoly on pass-routes is a plenty good role for Dobbins, but given his efficiency has been up and down this year, you’d prefer he not share a backfield with another back the team actually wants to hand it off to. Edwards becomes someone worth adding, and Kimani Vidal — who was scratched in this game — is sadly worth dropping in any non-dynasty format. We’ll always have that wheel route.

New England Patriots

I’m not sure if anyone cares much, but JaMychal Hasty entered the game earlier than Antonio Gibson. Should Rhamondre Stevenson miss time, Gibson is the better bet for carries, but it may be even more of a split than it was in the early-season. Stevenson is the only Patriots back worth rostering.

WEEK 11 STREAMER STOCK WATCH