Fantasy: Sharing is Caring

Football is the ultimate team sport. While it may boil down to individual matchups, football, unlike any other game, depends so much upon a group of players working in unison to execute. Often times, such execution implies sacrifice. Sacrifice like, say, giving up one’s body to create a hole, or, much to our collective fantasy chagrin, giving up one’s spot on the field for a fresher set of legs.

Having multiple weapons on offense has become necessity rather than luxury for successful offenses in today’s NFL. That means there’s a severe scarcity in the NFL of players we can count on to receive a previously-standard “full complement” of touches. Last season, only Chris Johnson carried the ball 334 or more times; in 2004, SEVEN different backs were counted on to do so. As fantasy owners, it’s important to identify which backs are getting the most opportunities. From there, unless you drafted one of the precious few primary, 300+ carry-type players, you must be cognizant of backs that make the most of their touches. Fortunately, PFF’s exclusive game analysis gives us a means by which to gauge how well the backs have performed, regardless of workload.

First, let’s take a look at the players getting the most chances, through 6 weeks of the regular season. In addition to purely observing touches, as a fantasy owner, I want to know who is getting on the field. Below are the top 43 backs in terms of total snaps. They are sorted first by snaps per game (since byes and some injuries have taken effect), then by attempts per game. The “FP Rank” column highlights their fantasy worth relative to the other top 43 utilized backs. Phew. Here it goes:

By identifying which players take part in the sheer highest number of snaps per game, we are able to get an idea of what that player’s value is relative to his team’s fellow running backs. It is fairly obvious to decipher from this information that the more a player is on the field, the more likely he is to get us precious fantasy points; in fact, of the top 19 active backs by snap count per game, only Maurice Jones-Drew (9.33) and Cadillac Williams (5.20) do NOT currently average double digit fantasy points per game. This is not surprising, though it is interesting to note which players are getting such high volumes of carries (seemingly unlikely candidates include Williams, Darren McFadden, Joe Addai, Peyton Hillis, and Correll Buckhalter). This discovery raises some interesting questions regarding the other side of the backfield realm- instances of running-backs-by-committee. Who is getting on the field? And who has been making the most of their time when given the opportunity?

For the answers, let’s look at the leaders in fantasy points per snap amongst running backs.

There certainly seems to be less of a correlation between fantasy points per snap and fantasy points per game. These are the guys who, given the opportunity, are the ones who do the most for our fantasy squads. Interestingly, of the top twelve backs in fantasy points/snap, only one, Arian Foster, is in the top 9 in snaps/game. This chart can be extremely valuable for fantasy purposes. For example, now that pesky Jerome Harrison is out of town, I know Peyton Hillis has a good chance of being on the field more once his injury is fully healed. Assuming newly-acquired Mike Bell doesn’t cut into his playing time, just how valuable is Hillis? According to this information, incredibly, every 2.5-3 times he is on the field, Hillis gets you a fantasy point. In other words, when Hillis is in the game, Mangini is going to feed him. Still, exercise caution; for instance, Darren McFadden might look good in terms of his snap count, but continue to keep an eye on Mike Bush, who has been pretty solid in Run-DMC’s wake, and actually has a better FP/Snap rating. Knowshon Moreno is another case worth keeping tabs on- he's always banged up, and the Broncos did trade for Laurence Maroney, but Moreno's stellar 0.408 FP/Snap rating ranks #4 on this list, which bodes well should he do the unthinkable and actually stay on the field.

To come full circle on the sharing bit, let’s look at some timeshare situations for more insight. In addition to McFadden/Bush, we have Barber or Felix in Dallas, Jackson or Kuhn in GB, Charles and Jones in KC, Williams or Brown for Miami, and Matthews vs. Tolbert in SD. Often, decisions on one or the other can make or break your week. It makes sense that the head coaches will begin to give touches to the more efficient back as the season reaches the second half.  Who makes the most of these maddening split-carry scenarios?

Perhaps to some surprise, Mike Tolbert has been the best fantasy performer on a snap-by-snap basis amongst any of the timeshare candidates- including infamous fantasy victim Jamaal Charles. While the two back sets in Dallas and Green Bay have both been near-identically inadequate thus far, in each of the other four well-known timeshare situations, there appears to be one player that has clearly taken advantage of their respective snaps, however limited they may have been- Charles, Williams, Tolbert and Bush each average at least .06 more fantasy points per snap than their backfield cohorts. Note, in each case, that it is the player that has taken fewer snaps/game that has looked better; beware of inconclusive sample size here.

In any case, with this information handy, hopefully you are able to make good running back decisions, and build steam as the second half of the fantasy regular season begins in earnest. Remember, timeshares can be a good thing, as long as you make educated decisions on the ball-carriers who play nice with their backfield playmates.