Fantasy Football Outlook: AJ Dillon, Kenneth Walker III, James Cook, Zach Charbonnet

Hello and welcome to the Week 3 edition of Hoppen to Conclusions! This is where I, Sam Hoppen, will share some of my favorite charts, which are designed to give you an overview of the NFL landscape. These charts, along with the commentary that I provide, aim to help you make start or sit, DFS lineup construction, betting picks, or any other fantasy football decisions. There can be a lot of noise in fantasy football analysis, but these charts have been carefully selected to give you some of the most relevant and useful decision points. Here is the full article.

Each of the charts has been designed in a way that you want to target players and teams that are in the top-right quadrant of the chart as denoted by the dotted black lines, which signify the median value for the stat on either the x-axis or y-axis. Before getting to each of the charts and analyses, here are some brief descriptions of what you will find on each chart and how to interpret them.

Running Back Usage: Compares rushing expected fantasy points per game to his receiving expected fantasy points per game, with the size of the player’s point as his snap percentage. I use expected fantasy points as a measure of one’s workload in that specific area of the game, so it can help us discern which players are getting strong rushing or receiving workloads.

Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways

Running Back Usage

In this column, I typically try to rely on usage for my player takes, but AJ Dillon has forced my hand here as he has been one of the least efficient backs in the game. In the 24 games that Dillon has been given double-digit carries, he’s averaged at least five yards per carry in just six of them. Meanwhile, teammate Aaron Jones has a 5.1-yards-per-carry average on his career — across 1,000+ rushes, that’s particularly impressive. This year, AJ Dillon is averaging -1.22 rushing yards over expected per carry (via NextGenStats) on the 28 carries he’s been given, which ranks 25th out of 28 qualified running backs. Dillon didn’t face much competition in the way of touches against Atlanta with 80% of the running back touches, but managed only 6.8 half PPR points despite that workload. In games that Jones is playing, Dillon isn’t getting close to my starting lineup. In games that Jones is not playing, I’d have to not have one of the top 36 running backs that week to start him.
- Action: sit AJ Dillon
The Seattle Seahawks’ backfield belongs singlehandedly to Kenneth Walker, which is a shock considering the Seahawks spent a 2nd-round pick on Zach Charbonnet not five months ago. So far this season, Walker has handled 72% of Seattle’s running back touches and has 10 high-value touches (HVTs) compared to just four for the rest of Seattle’s backs. While he hasn’t been particularly efficient (just 3.1 yards per carry), averaging 17 touches per game will do just fine for his value right now. I’m still holding Charbonnet, who has only played on a quarter of the team’s snaps so far, but he’s no more than a handcuff until further notice.
- Action: buy Kenneth Walker, hold Zach Charbonnet
James Cook fantasy managers were distraught this past Sunday seeing Damien Harris and Latavius Murray rack up valuable goal-line touches. Murray led the way with five green-zone (inside the 10) touches (GZT) with Harris garnering three of his own. The positive, and why I’m buying Cook, is that he still finished with six HVTs (including two GZTs) and 21 total touches in the game for 159 total yards. Cook is the only Bills running back to be running a route on over 50% of the team’s dropbacks. So, though Cook has yet to find paydirt this year, Cook’s usage is as good as you could have hoped for when you drafted him, especially for a Bills running back. Plus, the Bills’ overall team HVT usage is extremely encouraging, we just need more of them to go to Cook.
- Action: buy James Cook