Five Stats to Know: 2024 Week 9

Week 9 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.

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

Stat #1: The Dolphins’ Inside-Out Offense

Tyreek Hill has played four games this season with Tua Tagovailoa starting. He’s averaged just a 21.8% target share (~WR31) and 14.5 FPG (~WR20) over that span. Jaylen Waddle has fared even worse, commanding just a 12.0% target share and 10.2 FPG, with no games above 46 yards since Week 1.

What is going on? I quickly tested a couple of theories using the Fantasy Points Data Suite.

As you can see, the Dolphins are throwing to RBs and TEs at shockingly high rates. Tagovailoa entered Week 9 with the NFL’s fastest average time to throw (2.20 seconds); perhaps a function of HC Mike McDaniel scheming up quick screens to prevent him from taking dangerous hits. That’s definitely happening, but it’s also not new: Tagovailoa’s average time to throw was nearly identical in 2023 (2.22 seconds) when Hill led the league in receiving yards and finished as the WR2. So what else could explain it?

I think it’s more likely that what we’re seeing is matchup-based. Two of Tagovailoa’s four starts have come against the Bills, who I’ve called out nearly every week for their tendency to funnel targets to opposing RBs and slot receivers. Hill’s target share in Tagovailoa’s two non-Bills starts is 26.7% (to De’Von Achane’s 18.7%, Waddle’s 14.7%, and Jonnu Smith’s 10.7%). Aside from Achane leapfrogging Waddle in the pecking order, that’s closer to what we’d have expected pre-season.

So yes, Hill is going to be fine, and should return high-end WR1 value the rest of the way (he averaged 19.6 FPG in those two non-Bills games). Waddle, on the other hand, might be cooked; Achane has out-targeted him in five of their seven healthy games together and in all of their games with Tagovailoa. Waddle has enough of a track record of hyper-efficiency for me to still believe he’s very good, but competing with Hill and Achane is one of the most brutal target squeezes imaginable.

Think about it; if you want to push the ball downfield, why would you ever throw to someone who isn’t Tyreek Hill? And if you want a quick screen to pick up yards after the catch, why throw to anyone other than De’Von Achane, the “Tyreek Hill of RBs”? This is obviously an oversimplification, but in the context of this offense, Waddle is a “master of none.” He could likely step in to do 85% of what either of the other two can, but again, why?

I won’t belabor this point, but while we’re on the Dolphins, I have to mention that Achane received both of the team’s carries inside the 10-yard line this week after Raheem Mostert lost a fumble in the 3rd quarter and was mostly benched for Jaylen Wright for the remainder of the game. If the goal-line work sticks, Achane is an obvious top-3 RB for the rest-of-season. I hope you listened when I recommended you buy high in this space a couple of weeks ago.

Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive Us Insane, Week 9

With Brian Robinson a surprise inactive, the Commanders’ backfield was more of a split than I anticipated. On the surface, the backfield carry shares broke down as:

• Austin Ekeler: 36.7%

• Chris Rodriguez: 36.7%

• Jeremy McNichols: 26.7%

Rodriguez had no touches in the first half and saw 8 of his 11 carries on the final two drives, but it was a technically competitive one-possession game that entire time. Ekeler still ranked 2nd on the team with an 18.2% target share, but Rodriguez stole away 3 of 7 carries inside-the-10. Unless we hear about a previously unannounced injury to Ekeler (which is definitely possible), I would no longer ride with the narrative that Kliff Kingsbury will feature a single RB when one-half of his main duo is injured.

After I declared James Cook’s role safe (and even improved!) in this space last week, he posted just a 58.8% backfield carry share, after being above 70% each of his past three games. Ray Davis took a dump off 63 yards to the house nearly untouched, but more concerning to me is that he poached a goal-line carry in the 4th quarter of a one-score game. I’d also previously warned that Cook is a glaring negative TD regression candidate, which will only become more true should he continue to be squeezed in the red zone going forward. He’s a clear sell to me.

Stat #3: The Greatness Of The Ravens

I didn’t have a chance to give any extended thoughts in writing on the Diontae Johnson trade last week. The Ravens (somewhat expectedly) eased Johnson in slowly, as he wasn’t targeted all day. But watching Zay Flowers and Derrick Henry stunt all over an opposing defense yet again is causing me to wonder, “Does this offense need to change at all?”

If I’m thinking that, the Ravens likely are, too. In fact, that’s essentially what Josina Anderson reported last week, suggesting the team has no plans to put Johnson on the field over Flowers or Rashod Bateman. That’s a problem for Johnson’s fantasy value on a team that ranked dead-last in rate of 3+ WR personnel on their dropbacks (41.5%) entering Week 9.

Of course, if Johnson will truly only be in the Nelson Agholor role, Flowers won’t have to compete with a player who’s earned a 22%-25% target share everywhere he’s gone on most of his routes. I’m kicking myself for not buying more aggressively in dynasty leagues after the trade was announced.

Stat #4: My Attempt At A JSN Take

In three career games without DK Metcalf, Jaxon Smith-Njigba averages a gargantuan 9.0 targets, 104.0 receiving YPG, and 22.1 FPG. In all of his other career games, his averages fall to just 6.1 targets, 38.4 receiving YPG, and 9.1 FPG. Lessened target competition is one obvious factor in JSN’s success without Metcalf, but it isn’t the only thing going on.

In those three games without Metcalf, Smith-Njigba has seen air yardage shares of 30.7%, 50.0%, and 67.2%. For comparison, he averaged a 12.9% air yards share across the rest of his rookie season, and a 21.7% air yards share in games with Metcalf this year. Under two separate coaching staffs, Smith-Njigba has rarely been used downfield whenever Metcalf has been available.

Metcalf was leading the NFL in deep targets (20) and air yards (887) entering Week 9, despite having missed Week 8. I’m unsure if OC Ryan Grubb will allow Smith-Njigba to continue running deeper routes once Metcalf is back healthy — I was pretty confident that would happen after Week 2, to no avail.

My bigger takeaway is that I am confident that Smith-Njigba has shown enough to maintain his dynasty value for at least one more offseason, even if he does little downfield the rest of the year. The glimpses we’ve gotten are likely just enough to keep dynasty managers dreaming of what a Lockett-less or Metcalf-less season could look like — making him a safer buy/hold than I’d previously given him credit for.

Stat #5: Buying High On Tyrone Tracy

In a “home” redraft league where player trade values are determined primarily by how many fantasy points they’ve scored over the past few weeks, Tyrone Tracy is my favorite buy target at the moment. He’s averaged just 12.4 FPG since Devin Singletary returned (with just one game above 8.0 fantasy points), but the underlying usage is very encouraging.

In fact, this is likely your final chance to move in — Tracy’s next opponent (the Panthers) entered Week 9 as the single-best schedule-adjusted matchup for opposing RBs, just allowed 27.5 fantasy points to Alvin Kamara, and have little hope of getting out to a lead and trapping Tracy in a negative game script, as the Commanders and Eagles have recently done. I believe he’ll widely be viewed as a top-18 RB after next week’s game.