Week 9 Streamer Stock Watch

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Chase Brown nipping at your nose

Hi folks,

Welcome back for another edition of the Streamer Stock Watch ahead of your Week 9 start / sit decisions.

Let’s get into it!

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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

THE STREAMER STOCK WATCH

To count as a “streamer” for the purposes of this section, you must have been drafted outside the top-100 picks (underdog ADP), and be a plausible fantasy starter and/or RB1 on their team. The idea here is to give you start/sit advice in the near term for teams relying on these backs, along with a longer-view dynasty stance. The backs are ranked in order of my preference in starting them in the coming week.

The categorizations are taken from my those I used for my pre-season annotated RB tiers. Refer to the legend below for what each mean: (or ask in the comments if you need more clarification)

Tiers ranked in order.

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TIER 1 — STREAMERS TURNED STARS

None.

TIER 2 — STREAMERS TURNED STARTERS

Chase Brown

• Production Class: Low-end starter

• Contingent Class: A

• Asset Class: Speculative

• This week: Low-end RB2

• Matchup: Average

• Dynasty Value: Base 2

Zack Moss is doubtful this week which means we are all set up for a Chase Brown breakout game.

Brown has already, steadily claimed the RB1 role — at least in terms of touches — but Moss limits his ceiling by still playing about half the snaps and the majority of passing downs.

This week we will find out the extent to which Brown’s role is held back by Moss’s strengths as opposed to his own weaknesses. Moss still mixes in for about a third of the early-down RB touches and I suspect almost all of those go to Brown in his absence. The question is whether some of the LDD / 2-min work Moss has shouldered goes to Brown as well, or if Trayveon Williams shoulders that load.

We don’t need RBs taking 100% of snaps, so I’ll hardly complain if Brown comes off the field on 3rd and 10. But in order to project as a mid-range RB1, we’d like him to be live for work in the 2-minute drill and especially to game script proof in comeback mode.

Basically, we hope he is Joe Mixon — only ceding the most obvious pass downs when RBs are unlikely to get a touch anyhow, but not Brian Robinson or Tank Bigsby (though his role improve to some extent last week).

For this week however, we need not be too concerned. The Bengals are massive favourites against the Raiders and should be able to generate plenty of RB-touches. Even if Brown’s role isn’t as strong as we hope, I suspect he gets there this week, and his upside is through the roof.

Kareem Hunt

• Production Class: Starter

• Contingent Class: N/A

• Asset Class: N/A

• Matchup: Average

• This week: Fringe-RB1

• Dynasty Value: Early 3

Hunt is not far off the Joe Mixon role we described above: he doesn’t play on 3rd and long, he doesn’t play in the 2-minute drill, and he takes 1-2 series off per game, but he’s a mortal lock for 15-20 touches, especially given the Cheifs are uniquely unlikely to play from behind.

You’re not getting any explosiveness from Hunt, which hurts the ceiling, but the goal-line equity remains elite. Fire him up as a high-end RB2 on the fringe of RB1 status once again on Monday Night Football.

Tyrone Tracy

• Production Class: Starter

• Contingent Class: N/A

• Asset Class: Upside

• This week: High-end RB2

• Matchup: Strong

• Dynasty Value: Early 2

Any hesitation we had in declaring that Tracy’s coup of the New York Giants’ backfield during Devin Singletary’s absence was permanent can now be put to rest. In Singletary’s second game back, Tracy retained workhorse duties and had by far his most impressive performance of the season.

We can lock him in to 75-80% of the rushing work, and while Singletary will continue to mix in on a proportion of passing downs, they’ve been active in getting the ball to Tracy in space on early downs.

He’s a strong dynasty buy up to early-2 prices and is a weekly starter rest of season.

JK Dobbins

• Production Class: Starter

• Contingent Class: N/A

• This Week: High-end RB2

• Matchup: Poor

• Asset Class: Speculative

• Dynasty Value: Base 2

At this point I’m pretty skeptical of Dobbins’ talent for the remainder of 2024. He was phenomenal early on, but the medical community seemed in consensus that quality of play in return from an achilles injury gets worse over time not better, and he has lost a lot of explosiveness over the course of the year.

I think this is a reason to be bullish on Kimani Vidal as a possible late-season hammer, but at least in the short term it’s of little consequence. Rushing efficiency matters on a week-to-week level, but it’s more of a tiebreaker than anything else. Until or unless the Chargers start shifting Dobbins’ workload down, you keep starting him.

I’ll also note that the Chargers’ increased PROE has been great for Dobbins. His workload management this year has been more related to touches than snaps, so if the team runs less he tends to just have a higher share of the attempts. But he’s now seeing legitimate passing game work which helps increase the floor and gives him outs to a ceiling that don’t rely on explosive runs.

Brian Robinson Jr. (if Active)

• Production Class: Starter

• Contingent Class: B

• Asset Class: N/A

• This Week: Mid-range RB2

• Matchup: Elite

• Dynasty Value: Base 2

Alexander Mattison

• Production Class: Starter

• Contingent Class: N/A

• Asset Class: N/A

• Matchup: Strong

• This week: Floor-based RB2

• Dynasty Value: Base 3

Antonio Pierce confirmed this week that Mattison will remain the starter, though he pledged to get Zamir White more work. I buy the former more than the latter at this point, so Mattison projects as a relatively safe play. He’s still not very good, and Ameer Abdullah will get a lot of run in games they fall too far behind, but he’s a strong bet for touches in a very good matchup.

Chuba Hubbard

• Production Class: Low-end Starter (with Young)

• Contingent Class: N/A

• Asset Class: N/A

• This Week: Volume-based RB2

• Matchup: Poor

• Dynasty Value: Late 2

Nick Chubb

• Production Class: Low-end Starter

• Contingent Class: N/A

• Asset Class: Speculative

• Matchup: Average

• This Week: Low-end RB2

• Dynasty Value: Late 2

Chubb has been ramped up to where he’s not far off his pre-2023 role. 50-60% snap rates with 75-80% carry shares is how Nick Chubb churned out RB1 performances for years. This may not be the same Chubb of course, and his efficiency has been tough to stomach so far. But the offensive improvement under Winston will spill over to him, and unlike Dobbins we would expect Chubb to look marginally better with each passing week.