Saturday, December 6, 2025

Gio-ing Deep: Notes from NFL Weeks 10-13 in 2025

This is now the home stretch of the NFL season with fantasy players going into the final week of the regular season and the real life teams fighting for playoff positioning. The trade deadline is now firmly in the rearview mirror, so we have an idea of how any arrivals or departures changed the outlook of teams' usage. I try to keep an eye out for anything notable in that department for these posts, and as usual,  fantasy data (PPR scoring) and standard stats come from ESPN and Pro-Football-Reference.com while snaps, routes run, and positional alignment come from Pro Football Focus (PFF).

  • Thanksgiving weekend threw off my cadence of writing these every three weeks, and funnily enough that impacted the numbers for a player I've been planning to write about for a while: De'Von Achane. I've featured him in past years, but his consistency this season has been remarkable with 16.5+ points in 11 of 12 games (and still 12.8 in the outlier).

    Being a dual-threat is always helpful in raising running backs' floors, and Achane's 74.32% route participation and 21.18% target share both trail only Christian McCaffrey (82.04% and 24.88%) at the position. This last game is the first time all year that the Dolphins star didn't record a catch, and even that included a wide open screen in the red zone that Tua Tagovailoa missed him on. Achane still finished with 19.4 points thanks to another big day on the ground with 22 carries for 134 yards, and a TD, which made it three straight games with 120+ rushing yards. He is the engine to the offense with 79.17% of the snaps and 71.81% of the RB carries in addition to the passing work, leading to 21.20 points per game for the season.
  • Like Miami, Seattle's offense is run by a former 49ers assistant, Klint Kubiak, but they are completely different with their RB deployment. Kenneth Walker has played just 47.36% of the snaps, run a route on 37.11% of the drop backs, been given 50.79% of the RB carries, and seen a 7.44% target share resulting in 11.23 points while Zach Charbonnet's numbers in those same categories are 46.77%, 36.45%, 44.01%, 3.46%, and 9.76. Even then, Walker's numbers are slightly inflated by the Week 3 game that Charbonnet missed, but things look a little different if you look at the splits before and after the team's Week 8 bye.

    In only the first 6 games when both 'backs played: 41.62% snap rate, 30.37% route participation, 52.32% carry share, 4.91% target share, 9.52 points for Walker compared to 54.32%, 43.46%, 47.68%, 4.29%, and 10.02 for Charbonnet.

    In the 5 games since the bye: 53.21%, 44.68%, 48.87%, 11.11%, and 11.94 for Walker versus 37.82%, 26.95%, 39.85%, 2.38%, and 9.46 for Charbonnet. Those aren't gamebreaking numbers for Walker, but it's an encouraging sign, especially with the passing game usage after neither RB were getting practically any work through the air to start the season. These last two games set his season-highs for target share with 16% and 17.39%, and the work was even more in his favor this past week before Charbonnet salted the game away.


  • Jakobi Meyers is another player with a clear split in production following a change, and in his case it was thanks to a trade to the Jaguars. After a strong start to the season, he ended up only averaging 9.74 points in his 7 games in the dysfunctional Raiders offense despite strong usage: 92.12% of the snaps, a route on 95.67% of the drop backs, and a 22.27% target share.

    Meyers is averaging 13.70 through 4 games with the Jaguars with 70.93%, 79.67%, and 21.00% market shares. If you take away the first game when he was still adjusting to the team, those go up even more to 15.90, 79.59%, 90.11%, and 23.38%. Having turned 29 on the day of his first game with Jacksonville, the pending free agent could be setting himself up for one more strong contract.


  • Sticking in the AFC South, Alec Pierce is another wide receiver who could be in line for a nice free agency if he keeps up this career year. After leading the league in yards per reception (22.3) and yards per target (11.9) last season, he is again leading in the former category with 20.9 but also winning on more than just big plays. Overall on the season, Pierce is averaging 11.39 points with a 85.47% snap rate, 89.14% route participation, and a career-high 19.22% target share.

    When Josh Downs missed Week 7, though, Pierce had something of a breakout game with 10 targets resulting in 5 catches for 98 yards, and he hasn't looked back since. The former 2nd round pick is averaging 13.50 points behind 91.15%, 92.54%, and 22.11% market shares in the 6 games since then, and his 3.7 catches for 78.3 yards, and 0.3 TDs in that span extrapolate out to 62.3 catches for 1,331.7 yards, and 5.7 yards across a full 17 game season.

    The touchdown number is notable because both of Pierce's scores have come in the past three weeks, and even then 2 is a low total for having 689 receiving yards. Hopefully that can balance out even more for the deep ball machine down the stretch, and then we'll see whether another team signs him this offseason to have a more featured role.
  • Stefon Diggs was one of the top free agent WRs of this past offseason and was looking to be in a featured role, but that's oddly changed in recent weeks. Coming off of a torn ACL, it was understandable that he was eased in with just 53.66% of the snaps, a route on 61.83% of the drop backs, and a 14.42% target share for 8.07 points over the first three weeks. Then over the next 8 weeks they still took it easy on running downs for just a 58.40% snap rate, but his route participation jumped up to 74.26% with a 27.67% target share resulting in 14.84 points.

    Now over the last two weeks he's only had snap rates of 47.89% and 47.69%, route participation rates of just 53.85% and 61.11%, target shares of 9.09% and 13.33%, and only 4.0 and 5.6 points. Perhaps it was due to game script and holding double-digit leads in the second halves of both games, but it's still something I'm keeping an eye on.


  • So maybe Trey McBride's "touchdown problem" really was a "Kyler Murray problem" after all. Since Murray returned from injury midway through the 2023 season, they've played 29 games together, and McBride's caught just 5 TDs (and scored 7 total) despite averaging 6.7 catches for 67.6 yards per game. In just 7 games with Jacoby Brissett at quarterback, the star tight end has already caught 7 TDs and averaged 8.4 catches for 86.3 yards.

    Looking just at the usage this season, McBride averaged 12.50 points in the five Murray games with great peripherals: a 92.24% snap rate, 93.88% route participation rate, and 26.58% target share. Those market shares aren't much different in the 7 games with Brissett (87.79%, 90.43%, 26.67%), and yet his scoring has jumped up to 23.06 in this span thanks to the more dynamic QB play. Facing the Bengals aka the ultimate TE matchup in the fantasy championship week, McBride could be deciding a lot of leagues.


  • One more TE who has been looking good is Harold Fannin Jr., and I'm a little surprised at myself for not writing about him sooner after I raved about his college production in my rookie TE rankings. The presence of a good veteran like David Njoku is the only reason why I didn't have Fannin even higher, but things have shifted in the rookie's favor since their bye week. In Weeks 10-13, Fannin has averaged 8.18 points while playing 79.01% of the snaps, run a route on 75.78% of the drop backs, and earned a 23.47% target share compared to Njoku's 3.55, 59.26%, 47.66%, and 6.12%.

    Overall on the season, Fannin's actually averaged a touch more points but with lower peripherals: 9.88, 76.14%, 69.43%, and 19.37%. Poor play among the carousel of Browns QBs will likely make his production a bit of a roller coaster, but being trusted with this kind of usage over the pending free agent is encouraging going forward.
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