Five Stats to Know: 2024 Week 2

Week 2 is (mostly) in the books! In case you aren’t an insane person like me who likes to spend his Sunday night digging through usage data, I’ve curated five stats that will help you make better decisions in all fantasy football formats for the coming weeks.

I’ll also do my best to provide buy, sell, and waiver recommendations for managed leagues where applicable based on my findings. For a broader (if slightly less detailed) overview of usage across the league, I recommend this Twitter thread.

Stat #1: The Saints’ Offense Is Legit

This is not a drill, guys. At halftime yesterday:

As Scott Barrett predicted in his 2024 Playcallers Overview, Shanahan disciple and new Saints OC Klint Kubiak has transformed this offense from a stagnant one that ranked bottom-5 in play action and motion use into a unit that has averaged 405.5 scrimmage yards per game (4th-best) and the 3rd-most EPA/play.

It’s already self-evident that this is great for Alvin Kamara (44.0 fantasy points in Week 2, the most he’s had in a single game since he dropped 56.2 during fantasy championship week in 2020). From Scott’s article: “In 13 seasons as an offensive coordinator, Gary Kubiak’s (Klint’s father) offense has ranked top-12 in rushing yards 13 times. And top-5 10 times.”

Rashid Shaheed just scored a 50+ yard touchdown for the second consecutive week, and now ranks between Cooper Kupp and Deebo Samuel in YPRR since entering the NFL. That one is also pretty obvious at this point.

But if there’s still a “buy-low” you can take advantage of here, it is Chris Olave (stop me if you’ve heard this one before). Olave led the Saints with a 37.5% target share in Week 2 (the 5th-highest mark of the week through the Sunday afternoon games) and would have had a much better fantasy day had he not fallen down at the 1-yard line. His skill at gaining separation on crossing routes is ideal for a Shanahan-style offense. Buy now and thank me later.

Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive Us Insane, Week 2

If I were any more than minimally invested in the Broncos’ backfield, I would be losing my mind.

Week 1:

• McLaughlin: 50% backfield carry share, 11.9% target share

• Williams: 40% backfield carry share, 4.8% target share

Week 2:

• McLaughlin: 20% backfield carry share, no targets

• Williams: 73% backfield carry share, 14.3% target share

Williams also received the only carry inside the 10-yard line this week. McLaughlin had been trending toward startable in managed leagues after Week 1, but the entire backfield is rapidly turning into an unpredictable headache.

Checking in with our friends in Tennessee, Brian Callahan had expressed a desire to get Tyjae Spears more involved heading into Week 2. He mostly made good on that promise until Spears left with an injury. During the game’s first half:

Pollard operated as an uncontested every-down bell cow for the entire second half, ultimately finishing with 20.6 weighted opportunities (5th-best on the week through the Sunday afternoon games). The Titans have no other serious backfield competition on the roster (RB3 Julius Chestnut has 9 career carries), so barring a transaction, Pollard would likely project as a top-10 RB if Spears were to miss more time.

Stat #3: Malik Nabers Makes History

After some frustrating usage in Week 1 (only 12.5% of his routes coming from the slot while Wan’Dale Robinson vacuumed up short targets), Malik Nabers put any concerns I might have had to rest with 18 targets (on a 64.3% target share, the most in Fantasy Points Data history!) and 127 receiving yards in Week 2. Nabers is now in elite company through the first two games of his career:

As far as actionable fantasy advice goes, Nabers is quickly approaching elite status as a dynasty asset. I was asked Sunday night whether I would tier down from Ja’Marr Chase to Nabers for a 2025 1st, and I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Buy high if you can.

Stat #4: Bell-cow RBs Are Back On The Menu

If it’s felt like the RB position has been better through the first two weeks of 2024 than in years past, that’s because it has. Through the Sunday afternoon games, we have more bell-cow RBs averaging at least 17.0 weighted opportunities per game (WO/G) than through the first two weeks of any of the past three seasons. (Bijan Robinson and Saquon Barkley seem likely to join the list after Monday night as well.)

17.0 WO/G is an (arbitrary) minimum threshold to call an RB a bell cow — for reference, only Christian McCaffrey, Kyren Williams, Alvin Kamara, Josh Jacobs, and Saquon Barkley reached it over the full season last year (and Jacobs and Barkley scored well below-expectation due to poor offensive environments). Here’s who has seen that usage so far this year:

Will every one of these players remain as bellcows throughout all of 2024? Probably not, but the early results being comparable to 2021 is a very good sign for the position as a whole. 2021 happens to be the last time there were more league-winning RBs than WRs (measured by players being on >55% of ESPN playoff rosters, a method of analysis I expanded on here during the offseason).

I’m not sure why this is happening yet. (Plausible explanations: several talented RBs like De’Von Achane, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Bijan Robinson all entering Year 2, more running against increased two-high usage, more teams wanting an RB who can operate in all phases to avoid tipping the play like one would with a pair of passing down/early down specialists, or just plain variance.) But I do think we could look back on 2024 as the year the pendulum swung back toward RBs, and that’s pretty exciting.

Stat #5: TE Production Is Suddenly Easy To Find

After Week 1’s elite TE apocalypse, no fewer than 10 TEs saw 5+ targets in Week 2. But 60% of them were rostered in fewer than 10.1% of ESPN leagues as of Sunday night.

With Jake Ferguson out, Luke Schoonmaker did a near-perfect Ferguson impression. His 14.3% target share and 10.3 fantasy points were almost exactly in line with Ferguson’s numbers from last year (15.8% target share / 10.3 FPG). This somewhat advances the argument that Jake Ferguson is more a product of Dak Prescott than an above-replacement-level target earner in and of himself, but for redraft leagues, the important takeaway is that Schoonmaker could be a low-end TE1 if Ferguson continues to miss time.

Similarly, Jaguars TE Brenton Strange finished 2nd on the team with a 20% target share and 65 receiving yards after Evan Engram was hurt during pre-game warmups. We know little about the injury's severity at this point, but we could get a couple of solid streaming weeks from Strange as well.

Greg Dulcich lit up the box score the least of these options, but he does have the most career production. He appeared on track for a Year 2 breakout before injuries derailed him last season — if he can still earn 8 targets (even on this disaster of an offense), I’m still somewhat interested in him as a streamer.

I will not be partaking in Mike Gesicki (who last earned a 25% target share in a game with the Miami Dolphins in Week 15 of 2021), but the apparent wealth of options heading into Week 3 is yet another feather in the cap of early-round TE faders.