Five Stats to Know: 2024 Week 4

Week 4 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 Packers’ Pass-Catchers Just Got Interesting

Christian Watson left the game early on Sunday with what’s thought to be a high-ankle sprain. I feel like I should start by apologizing.

With Watson on the shelf, Dontayvion Wicks stepped into a full-time role. The two had been splitting snaps over the first three weeks of the season (leading to a 55.7% route share for Watson to 36.7% for Wicks entering the day), but with the routes consolidated, Wicks was free to lead the team in targets and nab two scores.

Here’s the less bullish news: Wicks had a couple of bad drops today. And the extreme negative game script undeniably contributed to his raw volume (13 targets). But let’s zoom out.

For the uninitiated, Wicks posted unbelievable advanced efficiency metrics on a part-time route share throughout his rookie season. He’s an ASS superstar. He was hyper-efficient by first downs per route run, a stat I wrote about at length this offseason that, much like yards per route run, can be predictive of future breakout seasons. Wicks was about as effective at generating first downs as Keenan Allen and Ja’Marr Chase last year. He was better than Rashee Rice on the outside.

At the very least, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Wicks has been more impressive with his opportunities so far in his career than a player like Jaxon Smith-Njigba. If Smith-Njigba were available on the waiver wire after his Week 2 performance, how much FAAB would you have spent on him?

Jayden Reed is awesome and will continue to be the new Deebo Samuel. He’s averaging 19.9 FPG over his last 10 games with Jordan Love, and I expect him to continue to lead Packers WRs in fantasy points. But Wicks essentially gets to audition for the Christian Watson role, which, before he came along and reduced its value by cutting into it, averaged the 3rd-most XFP per target over the past two seasons.

The worst-case scenario is that Wicks is a FLEX-worthy play while Watson is out, and goes back to splitting routes with him three or four weeks from now. But the best case? He plays well enough to not cede routes when Watson returns (or Watson simply has trouble returning), continues seeing comparable or better target volume than Reed, and becomes the third second-half fantasy hero this offense has produced in as many seasons. With waiver wire options becoming thinner with each passing week, I see that range of outcomes as more than worthy of your #1 waiver priority or a 30%+ FAAB bid.

Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive Us Insane, Week 4

As usual, several backfields could qualify for this section. I’m going to pick the one for which I have the most actionable advice, and for once, I suspect you’ll be happy to hear it.

I’m considering Aaron Jones on the cusp of borderline RB1 status going forward. Since Week 3, he’s hogged every carry inside the 10-yard line. (The Vikings throw a lot in the red zone under Kevin O’Connell, but they visit it often enough that Jones is tied for the 3rd-most carries inside the 10 over the past two weeks). In terms of weighted opportunities, Jones is leading all running backs since Week 3 (24.1 per game).

The Vikings have been succeeding this year and have yet to face a negative gamescript. But we have little reason to think that would even be a problem for Jones; his 17.9% target share this season (2nd-best among RBs) suggests he is gamescript-proof. (Though I’d expect that to come down a tad as Jordan Addison and eventually T.J. Hockenson get healthier).

More to the point, Jones’ workload over the past two weeks has not merely been a product of the offense’s success. Ty Chandler’s backfield opportunity share has shrunk from 39.6% over the first two weeks to just 17.5% over the past two weeks.

Jones is playing well and being rewarded with a bell-cow workload. He’s the ideal sort of buy on contending dynasty teams, making RB1-level production available for the cost of a 2nd-round rookie pick. Correspondingly, I’m viewing Chandler as a pure handcuff going forward, making him droppable in shallower redraft leagues.

Stat #3: The Backfields That Are Genuinely Terrifying Me

Unlike the prior section, I’m not sure anything actionable will come of this. But I feel the need to get my thoughts out there on this topic.

Breece Hall’s usage (or, really, Braelon Allen’s usage) over the past few weeks has started to scare me. Allen’s share of backfield opportunities has grown each week, starting at just 8.3% in Week 1 and progressing to 33.3%, 36.8%, and 37.5% over the past three.

Obviously, I do not expect Allen to overtake Hall or force anything close to a true 50-50 committee. What’s kept Hall in the RB1 range (in terms of opportunity and weekly projection — I’m not even talking about results) through this has been his monopoly on high-value touches — he’s handled every backfield carry inside the 10-yard line this year. But will that last? I’m not sure, as on Sunday, Allen played his first snaps inside the 10 since Week 1.

I still think Hall is easily a top-3 RB talent in the NFL. But Allen is a lot closer to his level than I believed before the season, and that’s shown in the utilization. I’m not necessarily selling for anything below that top-3 valuation, but I am losing conviction that Hall is going to pay off his draft slot this year.

I should mention that despite the usage numbers being tighter than they currently are on the Jets, I’m a bit less worried about Bijan Robinson. Tyler Allgeier just saw a season-high 47.6% backfield opportunity share, but Robinson had injured his shoulder during practice this week. This went somewhat overlooked in a week filled with practice injuries, but in hindsight, it makes some sense that this would have been the second game of Robinson’s career in which he saw fewer than 10.0 weighted opportunities (excluding Week 7 of 2023 when he famously played only 11 snaps due to a migraine). Robinson also had a receiving TD called back due to a penalty on Sunday — I haven’t materially changed my view of him after this week.

Stat #4: Is Travis Kelce Back?

Entering the week, we had some understanding that Travis Kelce likely wasn’t washed. He was still getting separation comparable to that of the league’s best WRs out of the slot. He just didn’t have the usage to back it up, running only a 69.2% route share (TE12) and seeing just a 14.5% first-read target share (TE18) through the first three weeks.

Before Rashee Rice became a full-time player after the Chiefs’ Week 10 bye last year, Kelce led all TEs with a 27.8% first-read target share. Our official charted stats are not in at the time of publishing, but it was pretty clear that Kelce essentially returned to his old role after Rice left the game early, ending the day with a 31.0% target share. He’s only hit that mark in two other games since the start of 2021.

If Kelce’s skillset truly isn’t diminished from last year, and he will now be used on all the quick slants and short throws Rice was, he is easily back in the conversation as a top-3 TE rest-of-season. With Rice believed to have torn his ACL, I’d inquire about Kelce’s price to see if his owner thinks they’re selling him high.

Stat #5: Rashid Shaheed’s New Role

Rashid Shaheed’s role seemed different in Week 4. He saw a career-high 11 targets (for a team-high 30.6% target share). But the type of targets is just as important: In 2023, his 14.2 average depth of target ranked 13th-highest among all WRs with 50+ targets. Through the first three weeks of this year, his aDOT was even more extreme at 19.3 (4th-highest).

From watching, Shaheed’s aDOT is going to come in significantly lower than that in Week 4. He was used on more short throws as well as on a pair of rush attempts — adding another dimension to his usual 2-5 deep shots downfield per week.

I wrote a ton of words about the value and volatility of deep targets this offseason, but what’s important for you to know is that on average, a target 20 or more yards downfield is only catchable 54% of the time. That compares to a 96% catchable target rate on throws at or behind the line of scrimmage. Just a few shorter throws each week will raise Shaheed’s floor significantly in managed formats.

As a caveat, there’s a chance Shaheed’s expanded role was a product of both Chris Olave and Alvin Kamara entering the weekend banged up, and also of Taysom Hill getting injured and leaving the game. But this is usage that makes sense for the type of player Shaheed is; why would you not want to give him a few layup opportunities to make something happen after the catch every game? I’m intrigued at the prospect of this continuing.