Fantasy Football Player Notes

Joe Mixon and Rachaad White were the Spiderman GIF last season. Both were exceptionally inefficient runners who survived on volume and passing game work. Mixon was the RB11 last season, ranking eighth in snap share, third in opportunity share, and seventh in weighted opportunities. He was whopping fifth in carries and 13th in targets as Cincinnati worked in Chase Brown only sparingly. He has the opportunity to reprise that same workload in Houston. With only Dameon Pierce, Dare Ogunbowale, and Cam Akers behind Mixon, he should be the unquestioned bellcow for the Texans in 2024. Last season, Mixon's per-touch efficiency was horrendous. He was 36th in yards per touch, 35th in yards created per touch, and 41st in breakaway run rate. That didn't stop him from being an RB1 last year, and it likely won't this season.

The expectations for Dameon Pierce to follow his stellar rookie season with a bang were palpable last summer. Sadly, that's now how Pierce's sophomore season panned out. In Weeks 1-8, he averaged 16.9 touches, producing only 58.7 total yards. He was running behind an offensive line that was beaten up and struggling in those first seven games as Houston ranked dead last in adjusted yards before contact per attempt (Weeks 9-18, 12th-best). Pierce sprained his ankle in Week 9, and when he returned from injury, he found himself replaced by Devin Singletary as the starter. With Joe Mixon in town, Pierce's hopes of reclaiming the starting role have essentially been snuffed out. He falls into middling handcuff status for 2024.