Gio-ing Deep: Notes from NFL Week 6 2024

With this week's post a touch later than usual, I'm going to keep it brief. You know the deal by this point of the season: fantasy data (PPR format) and standard stats are from ESPN and Pro-Football-Reference.com while snaps, routes run, average depth of target (aDOT), and positional alignment are from Pro Football Focus (PFF).

• Kenneth Walker III didn't have much success on the ground on TNF (just 32 yards on 14 carries), but he did add 37 yards through the air while setting a career-high with 8 catches. That continues a trend this year with the third-year running back now holding a 14.55% target share per game after that number was below 10% in each of the last two seasons.
  
  The new Seahawks coaching staff talked about over the offseason about using Walker in the passing game more, and that's come to fruition to give him a much higher floor than before with the 20.9 points last week a great example. Combine that with getting 75% of the RB carries, and you've got an elite RB role.
  
  
• In that same same, George Kittle continued to play like the best tight end in football by hauling in two more touchdowns to give him five on the season already. Scoring in four straight games has him tied for the most TDs in the league despite sitting out Week 3, and he's now averaging 17.26 points per game while the next closest is 13.77.
  
  This scoring rate may regress to the mean, but Kittle is also just seeing a ton of short-range opportunities with Christian McCaffrey still sidelined. His 7.7 aDOT is slightly below his 7.9 career average and way below last year's 9.9. That could help explain the jump from a 20.18% target share to 23.33% despite lower snap and route shares of 87.13% and 80%. Those are still high-end marks, of course; he's just been banged up a bit more to miss some time. Maybe things change in the second half of the season, but this gap atop the TE rankings had to be called out.

  Kittle's footwork 😮‍💨#SFvsSEA on Prime Video
  Also streaming on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/t7BgSL1A5z

  — NFL (@NFL) October 11, 2024

  
  
• Staying at the position and going in order of last week's games, Cole Kmet also scored twice to give him a second game of 24+ points. It's been a wild ride for him as he only had snap and route rates of 48.21% and 36.36% in Week 1 with a lone target for a 3.45% share. That went up to 77.14%/61.70%/3.45% for 6.7 points the next game before a Week 3 breakout of 25.7 points.
  
  New offensive coordinator Shane Waldron favored Gerald Everett in the preseason and season opener after they were together with the Rams and Seahawks, and 40 year old Marcedes Lewis still gets time as a blocker (he amusingly caught his first target of the season against his original team on Sunday). However, since that Week 3 explosion, Kmet's role has been undeniable with a 84.83% snap rate, 77.48% route participation, and 18.55% target share leading to 16.20 points per game. He could be a boom/bust top-10 TE the rest of the season.
  
  
• The Panthers are another team with a new offensive system, and as expected, Diontae Johnson has been thriving in it now that he has an experienced quarterback throwing to him. He's averaging 13.6 points with 81.38%/84.85%/27.23% rates on the season overall, but since Andy Dalton took over four games ago, Johnson is up to 18.3 points on 82.53%/87.73%/29.25% rates. Johnson gets banged up a lot, but head coach Dave Canales knows how to feature his elite separator.
  
  Rookie Xavier Legette profiled as an exciting but risky prospect, and he's starting to come on of late. He was only in on 59.46% of the snaps and 51.28% of the drop backs with an 8.11% target share for 6.2 in Dalton's first game, but that went up to 87.14%, 88.10%, and 25% for 19.6 points the next week after Adam Thielen was placed on IR. Legette got hurt himself in Week 5, but his playing time got back to 77.27% and 80% this last game with a touchdown scored, albeit on 10.81% of the targets. It's also worth noting that surprise 2023 2nd rounder Jonathan Mingo saw his snaps and routes go down to season-lows of 45.45% and 35% after they were 67.1% and 70.68% in the first five games while undrafted rookie Jalen Coker trending up from 10%/9.52% to 54.24%/64.29% to 65.15%/75%.
  
  
• Finally, the Eagles' stars are another pair of receivers I want to highlight. AJ Brown played for the first time since injuring his hamstring four weeks prior and immediately looked like his dominant self. In the opening game, he scored 22.9 points while playing 94.74% of the snaps, running a route on 100% of the drop backs, and seeing a 34.48% target share. Those numbers in his Week 6 return? 23.6, 91.94%, 96.3% and 37.5%.
  
  DeVonta Smith also had almost a carbon copy of Week 1 with exactly 15.4 points in both games while being in on 100% of the plays each time. In fact, his only game (out of four) without playing every snap was in Week 3 when he suffered a concussion. He did only see a 16.67% target share in his return from that injury (and with Brown's return) after it was 27.59% in their first game together and then 34.48% and 27.79% over the next two. That is likely to only be a blip on the radar, though, and this dynamic duo is in line for a big rest of the season with a lot of favorable matchups on the schedule.