Shawn Siegele uses the Advanced Team Stats Explorer to peek behind the curtain and provide a little texture to running back performances. He breaks down a few key late-week injury updates and looks ahead to find the next Saquon Barkley – for good or bad.
After a couple of thrilling weeks for RB acquisitions, the crickets are back out ahead of Week 14. Kenneth Walker went down a handful of plays into the Seahawks battle with Los Angeles, but fantasy managers aren’t exactly banging down the doors to add Travis Homer or DeeJay Dallas. The latter played 48% of the snaps last week but suffered an ankle injury and was given a doubtful tag in-game. When Tony Jones took a brutal hit, Dallas showed a lot of toughness to temporarily return, but he’s missed several practices in the run-up to Detroit.
Homer isn’t necessarily 100% himself after missing Week 13 with an illness and knee injury, although he reportedly looked good in practice Thursday. The space back has long been one of my favorite deep options, but it’s deep italicized. In four NFL seasons, he has a career high of 10 rushing attempts. Homer has posted three total RB2 performances, and has only two games where he’s played more than 50% of the snaps.
Despite his limited role, Homer already has three games this season with at least three targets. There’s receiving potential, but this situation doesn’t appear to offer the same type of upside or clarity that would make him the slam dunk that Samaje Perine and Zonovan Knight have been recently.
Saquon Barkley: Injury Concerns and On-Field Struggles
Barkley has been limited in practice with a neck injury, and Brian Daboll has said that he’s “hopeful” he’ll play. Despite these scary bread crumbs, the Giants’ star is expected to play as usual. Unfortunately, any additional limitations or loss of snaps would further lower a declining ceiling.
| PPG | Rush Yds/G | YCO/A | Evasion rate | Strength of Schedule | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-10 | 20 | 103 | 3.0 | 15% | 4th |
| Weeks 11-13 | 13.3 | 41 | 0.7 | 5% | 31st |
While Barkley was able to break numerous big plays over the first 10 weeks of the season, those have dried up recently. It’s shocking to think he’s gone on a three-game stretch only averaging 0.7 yards after contact per attempt, but the quality of opponent can amplify some of these small-sample results. After benefitting from a soft schedule most of the year, he’s faced the second-hardest RB schedule during this recent drought.
Even as his rushing totals declined, Barkley’s snap share didn’t. The 80% share was fourth-highest among RBs. This isn’t a good week to lose workload after the Eagles rushing defense rallied from a rough patch and shut down Derrick Henry in Week 13. The Game Level Similarity Projections rank Barkley as the overall RB7 for Week 14 with a 15-point average.
Although schedule isn’t the only factor in Barkley’s recent decline, you might wonder which RBs have the best and worst remaining matchups according to the Strength of Schedule Streaming tool.
