Week 2 HHG — The Sunday Drive

A First Look at the Biggest Stories Emerging from Sunday's Games

Hello hitchhikers, this will be the first week of how this column will roughly look for the rest of the season. In my early column — which will typically come out on Tuesday morning — I’m going to cover the top headliners to prepare you for a week of waiver claims, trade offers, or whatever else you need to get to urgently in the week.

Then, in my second column I’ll spotlight a couple backfields I find particularly interesting as a conversation piece, a player I’ve shifted my mind heavily on, or someone I’ve identified as a clear buy target or sell target. This will be a deeper dive blending stats with a thorough re-watch.

Today, we’re covering the following backfields which should feature heavily in waiver and/or spot start trade discussions:

• Cleveland Browns: Built Ford Tough

• New Orleans Saints: Miller Audition incoming?

• Los Angeles Rams: Kyren Williams bell cow SZN?

• Baltimore Ravens: First game without JK Dobbins

• New York Giants: Is there any life in a post-Saquon backfield?

• Detroit Lions: Jahmyr Gibbs’ elevated role, and Montgomery injury

I have not had a chance yet to fully review each of these games, so I’m going off a limited eye test, and adding in a statistical perspective as I go.

Cleveland Browns

It’s already been a relentless injury season, and yet tonight’s season-ending injury to Nick Chubb is possibly the most devastating. Chubb is in my personal opinion one of the five best backs to play NFL football since I’ve been watching it (Roughly two decades). At the time I’m writing this I don’t know the full extent of the injury, so I can’t speculate on its ramifications beyond this season. But I feel strongly that Chubb should be a hall of famer.

I feel similarly about Jamaal Charles of course. Given the similarity in where it happened on the field and their shared status as backs whose stardom has seen increased appreciation due to the dawn of advanced analytics in running back analysis, my head immediately went to his own season-ending, and ultimately career derailing injury. Jamaal Charles is the RB whom I credit most for my own dive into the RB position from an analytics perspective. But Chubb is the RB who made me truly fall in love with the position, and motivated me to blend an analytical perspective with film, in part because I found him so exhilarating to watch play. I rostered him in my home dynasty league at the outset of his career and considered his games appointment viewing every Sunday. While I’ve often found myself fading him in recent years due to pass-catching concerns and my philosophical stances on draft strategy, getting the chance to do this type of work gives my opportunities to watch and appreciate him nonetheless. Ever since coming into the league, he’s blended explosiveness, power, vision, contact balance… everything you could every possibly want in a rusher. He’s a one of a kind, special talent. If you found yourself evaluating any metric for utility in RB analysis over the past half-decade, the easiest way to tell if it might have value is to see if Nick Chubb ranks at the top or not.

We can only hope Chubb is able to recover and flash the greatness he’s dazzled us with for so many years once again. But regardless of what happens, I hope he enjoys a rich life ahead, and I’m extremely grateful for the privilege of watching Nick Chubb play football.

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If there is any positive news coming from this backfield, it’s that Jerome Ford was a shining star in his opportunity. He caught a touchdown immediately following Chubb’s injury, and then offered the best run of the season so far on a field-reversing cut back that he popped all the way down to the one-yard line.

I have been equally entertained and perplexed at why fantasy football twitter personalities think teams should be signing guys like Leonard Fournette and Kareem Hunt instead of giving reserve opportunities to young, athletic players under team control like Jerome Ford. I promise you Fournette is never making that play.

The Browns are an analytically-forward organization and made the correct choice this off-season to let their draft pick have a legitimate chance to show something behind Nick Chubb. I’m sure they will look to add a veteran to the mix at this point, but Ford deserves every opportunity to hold this job outright for the rest of the year if he can keep up the play he showed tonight both rushing and in the receiving game.

He’s an intriguing prospect as a size-speed specimen who had impressive production his final year at Cincinnati after failing to seize control of a loaded Alabama backfield. We have virtually no NFL sample, so he’ll need to sustain this level of play. But he has obvious juice, and acquitted himself nicely working behind a strong run-blocking offensive line. He’s a fragile play season-long, but for the moment I legitimately prefer him over backs of equally questionable talent and pedigree such as Alexander Mattison and Rachaad White for the remainder of the season given the friendly fantasy environment for RBs in this offense.

In dynasty, I would be willing to send anything below an early-second to acquire him if a rebuilding manager is looking to cash out, or his manager is concerned about a veteran signing. If you have no luck initially, hope that they do sign a veteran to bring the cost down.

The other option in this backfield is Pierre Strong Jr. He’s also a juiced-up second year back who could provide an explosive element especially on outside runs. He played well behind Ford, and also has nearly no NFL sample. Tonight he was the primary pass-down back, and that may stick going forward. Between Ford last week, D’Ernest Johnson, and now Pierre Strong, the Browns criteria for LDD back seems to be more “not our main rusher,” than any specific skillset requirement, since none of these backs profiled as proficient pass-catchers. {#ComparativeAdvantageTheory}

He’s worth an add in every dynasty league and a low dollar FAAB bid in seasonal formats. There’s a chance he gets bumped to RB3 by a veteran signing, but also a chance he works in for a 30-35% snap share while Ford plays Chubb’s former role. This makes him a desperation flex play, but more importantly gives him a chance to make his case to be the lead back over a player I do like, but has a ton of fragility.

TAKEAWAYS: Jerome Ford is a high-end RB2 with RB1 upside but a fragile floor. Pierre Strong is a dart throw who should be rostered across the board. If a high-profile veteran signs here, de-prioritize them in favour of Ford.