And just like that, the 2023-24 NFL regular season is done. I'm going to wrap up this series with just a few observations that cover both the fantasy season (with most finals in Week 17) and overall season. As I've written throughout, 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.
- CeeDee Lamb won a lot of fantasy championships with his monstrous 40.2 points from 13 catches for 227 yards and touchdown, and the crazy thing is that it could've been an even bigger night if he hadn't lost a fumble reaching for the pylon. As if that's not enough, he had another 13 catch performance in the regular season finale for 35.5 points. Overall on the season, he finished with the most total PPR points among wide receivers and an average of 23.72 while playing 83.70% of the Cowboys' snaps, running a route on 91.42% of the dropbacks, and seeing 29.92% of the targets.
Those are absolutely alpha receiver numbers, and they're even better when you isolate them from Week 6 on, which is when Lamb had a conversation with Mike McCarthy about how he's being used following their embarrassing loss to the 49ers. He proceeded to go on an insane 12 game stretch averaging 27.69 points with 87.84%, 92.49%, and 32.88% rates. It helped that McCarthy reverted the offense back to their pass-heavy ways instead of forcing a run-heavy game plan, and practically running the offense through Lamb resulted in them finishing the season 9-3. 108 catches for 1,391 yards and 11 TDs with 11 carries for another 92 yards and 2 scores would make for an awesome season let alone 12 game stretch, so I can't wait to see what he does for an encore next season. - Another change for Dallas started after their Week 7 bye: using Michael Gallup less. In that aforementioned Week 6 change fo philosophy, the long-time X-receiver saw 10 targets (a 33.33% share) yet only turned them into 3 catches for 24 yards. Through that game, he was in on 68.46% of the snaps and 78.64% of the dropbacks with a 16.75% target share, but after the bye that steadily dropped to the tune of 42.84%, 47.22%, and 6.04%. That culminated in just 30.77% and 27.78% snap rates to close the season.
- If not for Lamb's insane finish to the season, DJ Moore might be getting more love for his second half of the season. Once Justin Fields returned to full health in Week 11, Moore averaged 19.45 points with a 87.53% snap rate, 93.86% route participation, and 34.10% target share through Week 17 with 30.9 points in the fantasy finals. While the offense was hardly on the field with just 48 total plays in the season finale, he kept up his strong peripherals en route to 4 catches for 64 yards, and his numbers are quite encouraging when you isolate the 12 games that Fields played in full. 19.77 points, 89.56% of the snaps, 94.99% of the routes, and 30.00% of the targets in that sample makes for some strong usage, so it will be fascinating to see what Chicago decides to do with the #1 pick and quarterback position.
- The last two WRs I'll be looking at are the Rams' stars, Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp, and specifically, the 11 games they played in full together. Besides the 4 games to start the season with a hamstring injury, Kupp also hurt his ankle in the first half in Week 11 and sat out Week 18, which Nacua also left early after he set the NFL rookie records with 105 catches and 1,486 receiving yards. In these 11 games, Nacua averaged 15.47 points, a 90.64% snap rate, 91.65% route participation, and a 27.49% target share compared to 14.75, 96.65%, 98.48%, and 27.49% for Kupp.
The points go up to 16.4 and 15.55 if you want to take out the game that Brett Rypien started in place of Matthew Stafford when they had nearly identical numbers, but in any case, the theme is the same: they can both thrive together with very similar splits. As I wrote about with Demarcus Robinson, who put up another 13.2 after pointing out his recent 13.46 average, Sean McVay has very consistent usage of his starters with a pretty narrow target tree. With a gunslinger like Matthew Stafford feeding his guys, you don't have to worry too much about Nacua and Kupp taking away looks from each other. - At running back, Breece Hall's finish to the season has to be noted, even if his 190 total yards and 29 points in Week 18 didn't count towards the fantasy playoffs. Looking at his overall season numbers first, he averaged 17.09 points while playing 60.58% of the snaps, seeing 69.25% of the RB carries, and earning a 16.87% target share. More than solid numbers. However, you have to remember that he was coming off of a torn ACL last year and eased in the first month, during which he never played over half of the snaps thanks to the presence of a washed up Dalvin Cook. That changed in Week 5 when Hall exploded for 28.4 points in 52.31% of the snaps. Breaking the season up into sections, the second year back went from averaging 7.55 with 40.36%/47.76%/9.09% splits the first four games to 18.10 and 62.46%/78.13%/13.48% over the next five.
Things really took off once Michael Carter was released in Week 11, though, since he was stealing some passing down work. Hall averaged 21.23 points over the final eight games with a 67.78% snap rate, 72.96% RB carries share, and a huge 22.18% target share. The last number is inflated a bit from Trevor Siemian checking down to his 'backs at an obscene rate during his three starts to end the season: Hall had a 25.23% in those three games compared to 20.24% the previous five. That is still awesome usage and definitely exciting to think about for next season with Aaron Rodgers presumably ready to return under center.
plenty more @BreeceH highlights coming in 2024 pic.twitter.com/j5UlGhsinc
— New York Jets (@nyjets) January 1, 2024
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