Week 5 Sunday Drive

Hello folks and welcome to the Sunday Drive — Week 5 edition.

This was a crazy week of running back scoring, particularly from several late-round picks and/or backups: some of which were in line with our expectations and some of which were… not!

Before hopping in I’ll just note that there will be a dynasty rankings update this week (and likely Tuesday night). I’ll also do a very brief rankings mailbag post when I do the update so if there is a player you think is placed in the wrong spot, ask me about it!

Because of that plan I’m going to skip on the big introduction today and get right to the regularly-scheduled programming.

Lastly, I included my rest-of-season Top-36 at running back last week at the end of the column since I was putting together rest-of-season rankings as part of my new series with The Athletic.

I’m not going to promise to make that an every week feature but I decided to keep it this week (with post-Week 5 adjustments).

Metrics Legend:

From Pro Football Focus

PFF Grade / PFF Rushing Grade = Qualitative Film Grade assigned by Pro Football Focus

Snaps, Routes, and Carries data provided by Nathan Jahnke

From NFL NextGen Stats

RYOE/A = Rush Yards over Expectation per Attempt (NFL Next Gen Stats)

ROE% = Percentage of Rushes over Expectation (NFL Next Gen Stats)

From the FantasyPoints Data Suite

YAC/A = Yards After Contact per Attempt

YBC/A = Yards Before Contact per Attempt

MTF/A = Missed Tackles Forced per Attempt

EXP%: Percentage of rushes of 15+ yards

YPRR: Yards per Route Run [from PFF in previous seasons]

TPRR: Targets per Route Run [from PFF in previous seasons]

Other Terminology

HVT: High Value Touches (receptions and carries inside the 10)

LDD: Long Down and Distance situations — 3rd and 5+

2MD: Two-Minute Drill

Part 1 — Injuries, Returns and Fallout

Los Angeles Chargers

Alright let’s start in with the most impactful (and devastating if you drafted off my rankings) injury of the year.

Before diving into the impact of this let me just zoom out and make a general point that you may or may not find interesting.

Our game is really freakin’ random and our conclusions are based on really small samples in which small coincidences of sequencing drastically shape how we feel about players.

Omarion Hampton drafters have felt the full spectrum of emotions this year. He started the year in an elite role but was playing objectively poorly. Then it appeared he might be stuck in a committee (at least short-term) due to those struggles. But Najee Harris suffered a season-ending injury and it almost felt like Hampton felt the pressure lift from his shoulders because he started to play lights out ball almost immediately thereafter.

Over the last three weeks, Hampton has been impressively efficient, very involved in the passing game, and popped off the screen consistently. He was my rest-of-season RB8 entering Sunday.

Now he’s suffered an unknown ankle injury which sends him to I.R. for at least four weeks. The timing of the announcement makes me fairly concerned it’s fractured fibula (which may keep him out longer than four weeks) because I’m not sure what other ankle injury would send someone to I.R. this quickly — presumably right after imaging was done.

I’m going down memory lane here because let’s imagine instead the opposite sequencing of these injuries. What if Omarion Hampton suffered this ankle injury in the middle of Week 3 while Najee Harris played two weeks more before suffering a torn achilles. Our degree of confidence in Hampton’s talent would worlds different than it is right now.

I don’t have anything actionable to attach to all that (though I do think you should try to trade for Hampton in dynasty or on 4-1 / 5-0 redraft teams if you can do so at a commensurate discount). It’s just one of several reminders that this game requires us to make educated guesses on very limited information. If you — like me — drafted a lot of Hampton this year, this injury will almost certainly cost you some teams. But at least now we can rest assured that if and when Hampton returns, there is upside of a late-season superstar out there for us.

In the near-term, this is getting ugly. It’s an ironic twist this season that after a very healthy start to the season for starting running backs, the back ups behind the two most significantly injured starters have also been hurt.

This leaves us with another backfield set to be split between backs who were never selected in best ball, might be on dynasty waivers, and likely were never part of the team’s plans for this season.

As such, the error bars are extremely wide and the split will likely be determined more by how the players perform in the coming weeks than by the staff’s current preference.

For what it’s worth, Hassan Haskins has played more snaps both on the season and in Week 5 than Kimani Vidal as Omarion Hampton’s breather back. But the fact Hampton has played nearly every snap and yet they still split snaps behind him suggests they don’t feel particularly strongly about either option.

After Hampton left the game, Haskins was the initial replacement and started the following drive before giving way to Vidal. Then Vidal played with Trey Lance while Haskins exited.

Based on that context, Haskins is most likely to “start” in Week 6. Notably however, Kimani Vidal typically played over Haskins last year as the fill-in RB2 when Gus Edwards or J.K. Dobbins missed time.

2024 subscribers will recall that I was a fan of Vidal’s coming out of college — along with every other hipster fantasy analyst on the internet. (We will always have that wheel route in Denver)

My level of conviction on Vidal’s talent at this point is quite low. Whatever optimism I had for him based on his metrics and tape at Troy has mostly been overcome by the evidence we gained last season — that he was unable to carve out a meaningful role behind two low-investment veterans, one of whom is no longer in the NFL (though you have to speculate that the Gus Bus will be making a drive to L.A. this week don’t you?)

To be honest, I think the most likely scenario is that no Chargers back is worth starting until Omarion Hampton returns. We haven’t seen much of either back in the NFL so I supposed we can’t rule anything out, but we shouldn’t expect either to be particularly talented. We should also expect the workload to be divided at least initially. Greg Roman offenses historically do not throw to the running back position, and that was holding to form over the first two weeks of the season. Was the barrage of targets sent Hampton’s way since Week 3 due to a desire to get Hampton involved in an area of the game he thrives in or was it due to the major pass protection issues facing this offense after being down multiple star linemen? My sense is a bit of both, so I would expect the total running back target share to decline with Hampton out.

And I’ll note again that this team opened the year with a league-high pass rate even with their top-two running backs active. With a battered offensive line and running back room, this team’s best chance to move the ball is likely to let Herbert sit back in the gun and try to win in the quick passing game as much as possible relying on their strength at quarterback and receiver.

Oh and the Gus Edwards things is not a joke. I don’t see any reason why Greg Roman wouldn’t sign him at this point, and if the team did add him he’s just as likely to lead the room in touches as either Vidal or Haskins.

With all that being said, we’re coming off a week in which Rico Dowdle looked like prime Adrian Peterson, Javonte Williams continued his resurgence after being the worst starter in the league for two years, Michael Carter was an RB1, and Rachaad White found the end zone twice. It’s fair to say that at least in the short-run opportunity matters more than talent and we can’t be too certain of how talented or un-talented Vidal or Haskins are. They’re worth a stab if nothing else.

In terms of projecting the initial split, I suspect Haskins gets the nominal start and would be the early favourite for goal-line work. Haskins has been trusted in pass protection on occasion this season, but Vidal played more often in passing situations last season, and has a better receiving profile from college compared to Haskins’ — which is nearly non-existent. Overall I bet the team plans on a roughly 50-50 split to open the game and rides the hot hand from there (assuming no new additions).