It was nice to see Drake London and Jakobi Meyers have nice games following last week's post, and Zach Evans might even be the Rams' new starting running back now after I gave him a shout, as well.
Now here are some other observations from this past week with the usual citation that snap counts are from Pro-Football-Reference.com; targets, carries, and PPR fantasy points data are from ESPN; and routes run and average depth of target (aDOT) are from PFF as listed on FantasyLife.com.
- Week 6 started on TNF with the most frustrating game yet for rookie wide receiver Marvin Mims, who had a season-low snap rate of 23.08% and failed to see a target for the first time in his young career. Journeyman Lil'Jordan Humphrey was cut during the week and still played more snaps than Mims (after being re-signed to the practice squad and elevated for the game) despite the rookie being the team's most explosive playmaker. He's had catches of 60 yards (a touchdown), 53 yards, 48 yards, 38 yards, and 30 yards along with a 99 yard kickoff return TD and punt returns of 45 yards and 25 yards. Despite this, Mims has played only 27.32% of the snaps and run routes on 26.48% of the team's dropbacks, resulting in just a 7.06% target share. Consistently putting Brandon Johnson and sometimes Humphrey out there instead is some criminal coaching by Sean Payton for the 1-5 Broncos, especially after they traded up to get Mims in the 2nd round as the first selection of his tenure. It does feel like only a matter of time before Jerry Jeudy gets traded, so maybe then the rookie will finally be unleashed.
- The week essentially ended on MNF when Justin Herbert threw an interception under pressure on a ball intended for another rookie WR, Quentin Johnston. I was eagerly anticipating how this offense would look with Austin Ekeler back and the potential for the 1st rounder to get more involved coming out of the bye, but things mostly held to the status quo. In his first game since Week 1, Ekeler played 68.49% of the snaps, got 87.5% of the RB carries (14, after 15 in the opener when he got injured), and saw a 16.22% target share much like the 16.13% mark in his previous game. Meanwhile, Johnston's 47.95% snap rate was similar to his 50.77% before the bye, but his route participation dropped from 70.97% to 47.73% this game. Just a 5.41% target share resulted in two looks, and he's been between 2 and 3 targets in every game so far.
It's looking like Joshua Palmer's role is secure as a result, and his 10 PPR points this week could've been more if not for a couple of nice gains, including a TD, called back by penalty. Starting in Week 3 when Mike Williams tore his ACL, Palmer has seen 7, 8, and 7 targets and averaged 11.8 points. In the two full games as the #2 WR, he's played 92.03% of the snaps and ran routes on 98.67% of the dropbacks to earn a 24.59% target share in this high-powered offense. Last year, Palmer averaged 13.3 points with a 21.66% target share in the 10 games from Weeks 2 through 13 when either Williams or Keenan Allen missed time, and it was 18.07 with a 23.14% target share in the final three of those games when playing with Allen and no Williams for all but 6 snaps. The former could be the baseline for the rest of this season with Johnston off to such a slow start while the latter provides an enticing upside with the same kind of setup going forward. - Another offense that had a lot of interest coming into the week was Arizona's due to the injury to James Conner, but unfortunately, it ended having a three-headed committee. Rookie free agent Emari Demercado was the waiver wire darling coming into the game since he was already seeing an increase in snap rate (4.84% to 12.31% to 18.03% to 35.21%), culminating in 77.19% and turning 10 carries and 3 targets into 12.7 points when Conner was injured after 12 snaps the previous game. He did lead the way with 43.42% of the snaps this time...but it only resulted in two carries, 1 target, and 2.7 points. Second year back Keaontay Ingram had missed the previous two games with a neck injury but stepped in to play 36.84% of the snaps, lead the way with 10 carries, and even get 2 targets. Perhaps most surprisingly, veteran Damien Williams even got 8 carries and 1 target despite playing just 13 snaps (17.11%) after being elevated from the practice squad. Conner will miss at least three more games while on Injured Reserve, so it will be fascinating to see how the opportunities go moving forward after the incongruent split between snaps and usage.
- Another curious change in opportunities came in the Vikings' backfield. Cam Akers had played exactly 29.17% of the snaps with 5 carries and 2 targets in each of his first two games with the team, but that dropped to just 15.79% of the snaps, 1 carry, and 1 target in Week 6. Consequentially, Alexander Mattison went from seeing 58.33% of the snaps in those two games back to a 78.95% rate that is in line with the 76.96% from the first three games of the season before Akers debuted. Overall, Mattison has a somewhat surprisingly strong 12.23% target share on the season that has helped him to a 11.73 point average despite his inefficiencies. Some drops have led to a mediocre 3.7 yards per target while he averages only 3.9 yards per carry with a 46.3% success rate. On a much smaller sample, Akers sits at 5.7 yards per carry with a 63.6% success rate and a similarly low 4.2 yards per target, though he has at least caught all 5 of his looks. Perhaps the team was simply leaning on the back they're more familiar in a low scoring, divisional game that was their first without Justin Jefferson. We'll see if this gap in playing time narrows again going forward along with the team's huge outlier in TD splits. All 14 of their offensive scores have come through the air with ZERO on the ground, so that will regress to at least some degree eventually.
- Lastly, I don't really write about quarterbacks since this is a column about the usage of players, but Sam Howell deserves a shoutout. A top-12 fantasy QB (so a starter in standard leagues) typically averages about 18 points per game, and after scoring another 18.34 this past week, Howell has now hit that mark in four out of six contests. He had an absolute dud of 0.6 points in bad weather when Buffalo completely overwhelmed Washington, but averaging 19.96 points in the other five games shouldn't be overlooked. New offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy trying to bring over the Chiefs' scheme has led the Commanders to average the second-most dropbacks in the league, and while Howell has taken sacks at a historical rate, this is some strong production that's worth noting.
No comments:
Post a Comment