Shawn Siegele breaks down running back usage and efficiency from Week 9, previews the most important matchups in Week 10, and discusses the best moves you can make for rest-of-season fantasy dominance.
This week’s Zero RB Universe goes into the weeds with an in-depth look at opportunities and expected points via the NFL Weekly Stat Explorer. We’ll then dive into all of the advanced stats, using the Advanced Stats Explorer to break down their performances in the run and pass games. The fantasy matchups tab helps us preview the most important Week 10 games, while the Strength of Schedule Streamer allows us to chop up the season into relevant chunks for trade consideration.
This Is the Week to Be Aggressive
Last week I positioned Alvin Kamara as a sell based on his strikingly poor rushing peripherals, relatively strong competition (that includes Taysom Hill), and the unsustainability of his receiving numbers. In Week 9 several disturbing trends all came together.
The New Orleans backs just can’t gain any yards before contact. Kamara has been much better than Jamaal Williams and Kendre Miller on the full season, but finished with only (o.4) against a Bears defense that shuts down opposing RBs on the ground.
The bigger problem is in the green zone, where Kamara is now hemorrhaging touches to Hill at a level that torpedoes the rest of the offense from a fantasy perspective. In this game Hill threw a TD, caught a TD, and also carried twice inside the 10.
We might also be getting our first glimpse of Kamara’s herculean receiving workload fading. The New Orleans star had averaged 13 reEP/G in Weeks 4 through 8. He ran 121 routes in that span and caught 39 balls for 222 yards. In Week 9, he ran 16 routes and caught four passes for 44 yards. That’s still a strong receiving workload but not the epic totals of the previous month. Oddly, Kamara only outsnapped Williams 31-27 in this game, not the split you want with those green-zone and rushing concerns.
Let’s dive into the rest of the RB landscape and look at opportunities to tweak our rosters.
