Hello and welcome to the Week 5 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 are all of my takeaways and actions ahead of Week 5. Below we dive into a few notable players.

• Waiver Wire Advice
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• Fantasy Football Start/Sit Advice
• Fantasy Football Trade Tools

Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways

Running Back Usage

• Alvin Kamara returned to action for the New Orleans Saints on Sunday and his usage was interesting, to say the least. For the sixth time in his career, Kamara recorded at least 10 receptions (he finished with 13 catches on 14 targets), but it only resulted in a mere 33 yards. He added to that 11 carries for 51 rushing yards and, most notably, handled 92.3% of the running back touches for the Saints. With Jamaal Williams out, both Kendre Miller (two touches on a 7.6% snap share) and Tony Jones (zero touches on a 16.7% snap share) were relegated to irrelevance. The Saints recorded just one offensive play in the red zone on Sunday (a four-yard catch by, who else, Kamara), so it remains to be seen how the Saints use their backs near the goal line. While I don’t expect the volume of the workload to continue for Kamara, I do think the Saints will continue to give him the vast majority of the touches. Even if most of the touches are receptions, that’s valuable enough to be a fringe RB1 the rest of the way.
  • Action: buy Alvin Kamara
• Philadelphia’s backfield was one of the more oft-discussed backfields of the offseason as they brought in both D’Andre Swift and Rashaad Penny after letting Miles Sanders walk in free agency. With Penny a healthy scratch in Week 1, Kenneth Gainwell was given 82% of the running back touches. Then he got hurt and missed Week 2, opening the door for Swift. Since then, it’s been Swift’s backfield as he has earned 31, 18, and 18 opportunities in the last three games. Gainwell has still been involved with 38% of the backfield touches in the past two weeks, but this is pretty clearly Swift’s backfield for now. Swift’s 4.75 HVTs per game ranks ninth among running backs with at least two games played this season. That said, it’s pretty evenly split between Swift and Gainwell in the receiving game as they have run a route on 48% and 42% of dropbacks, respectively, over the past two games that they’ve played together. In the end, this is currently a two-man backfield on an offense that should continue to be near the top of the league in scoring, making each of them worth a roster spot (and worth a starting spot in Swift’s case).
  • Action: buy D’Andre Swift and hold Kenneth Gainwell
• They were supposed to be better than this. They were the chosen ones. The Lions talked all offseason about how the ways in which they used Jahmyr Gibbs would shock the world. And that just…hasn’t been the case. It’s frustrating to see the Atlanta Falcons, notorious for ignoring draft capital in player usage, treat Bijan Robinson like a workhorse and the key engine of their offense. Granted, that’s the Falcons’ dream game flow (running the hell out of the ball) and he was a much better prospect coming out, but Atlanta has consistently used Robinson in passing situations (he’s tied for the team lead in targets so far). Using lookahead betting lines, Detroit is more than a three-point (or more) underdog in just three of their remaining 13 games. Gibbs’ value proposition (in both fantasy and to the Lions) is as a pass catcher. While he’s run a route on 44.5% of the team’s dropbacks, David Montgomery (known much less so as a receiving back) is at a 44.7% rate – make it make sense. All this to say, if you can find someone who still believes in Gibbs’ preseason prospects and hype, try to sell.
  • Action: sell Jahmyr Gibbs

-Sam Hoppen

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