Backfield Breakdown: RB Usage Report + Week 2 Waivers Preview

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Published on September 10, 2024

Week 1 was brutal for WR and TE production with teams across the league averaging just 203.5 passing yards per game* , while running backs (and dual-threat QBs) fared much better en route to 121.5 rushing yards and 1.1 TDs per team on 4.4 YPC. Seven running backs reached 80 percent snap share, with five others hitting 70 percent and another seven in the 60s.

All of the RBs that reached 60 percent snap share had double-digit touches, and there were also players like De'Von Achane, Najee Harris, Brian Robinson, Aaron Jones, David Montgomery, Jahmyr Gibbs and Alvin Kamara who got 15-plus touches while playing closer to half of their respective teams' snaps. All in all, 25 RBs reached the 15-touch mark, which is usually a decent indicator of a workload that's fantasy-starter worthy, though some (like Achane) need less than that to be viable, and others may require more.

Injury Report 🚑

New Injuries

SEA Kenneth Walker (abdomen)

MIA De'Von Achane (ankle) & Raheem Mostert (chest)

BUF Ty Johnson (hamstring)

Walker missed the end of a 26-20 win over Denver on Sunday, but only after taking 22 touches for 109 yards and a TD. He played 80 percent of Seattle's snaps prior to the final 10 minutes and didn't sound too worried about his abdomen injury after the game.

Achane also missed the final portion of his Week 1 contest, although in his case no injury was announced. With the Dolphins playing Buffalo on Thursday, we have the benefit of official injury reports early int the week. Both Achane and Mostert were listed as non-participants on Monday's practice estimate and then for Tuesday's walkthrough. While there's no indication either injury is serious, it's a situation that bears close watching on a short week, potentially setting the stage for Jeff Wilson and Jaylen Wright to take on larger roles.

Johnson is by far the least important player here, but he did get more playing time than Ray Davis before exiting with a hamstring injury in the fourth quarter of Sunday's win over Arizona. An absence Thursday would give Davis a boost for single-game DFS contests and deep leagues... and it might also lead to James Cook getting a few extra snaps in passing situations.

Missed Week 1

Christian McCaffrey (calf)

MarShawn Lloyd (hamstring)

It was a light opening week in terms of the quantity of RB absences, apart from guys on injured reserve or PUP like Nick Chubb (knee), Jonathon Brooks (knee), Kendre Miller (hamstring), Keaton Mitchell (knee) and Clyde Edwards-Helaire (illness). The one missing starter not on an injury list was a whopper, however, and his absence ended up swinging even more fantasy matchups than it should've because most signs suggested McCaffrey would play until it was reported otherwise Monday evening. Jordan Mason stepped in with 81 percent snap share and a 28-147-1 rushing line, making him the top waiver add by a country mile in any leagues where he's still available.

Stock Report 📊

A lot of what you'll see here is building on my work from Box Score Breakdown, the weekly recap article with stat tables for every team that include snaps, routes, and carry/target shares, in addition to all the basic stats like targets, yards and TDs. I also discuss role specifics and make note of various circumstances that could cause numbers to be misleading.

Key observations from Week 1 included Derrick Henry playing 62 percent of snaps that weren't inside the two-minute warning of either half (which makes his overall 49% snap share look slightly better... but still not good), Kenneth Walker getting 80 percent of Seattle's snaps before the final 10 minutes, Ezekiel Elliott having a 56/41 snap advantage and 9-4 touch advantage over Rico Dowdle before halftime, and Jerome Ford taking 82% of snaps prior to the fourth quarter.

Those were all cases where blowouts/injuries/script led to a RB's final usage shares looking less encouraging than the reality of his role throughout the game. Below we'll stick to the final numbers, but I'll make note of any of those extenuating circumstances (and highly recommend you give Box Score Breakdown a look... it even has the major points in bold lettering if you'd rather skim than read the entire beast).

Trending Up 📈

ATL Bijan Robinson - 90% snaps / 75% routes / 23 of 26 RB opps. (88%)

NYJ Breece Hall - 84% snaps / 77% routes / 22 of 24 RB opps. (92%)

IND Jonathan Taylor - 95% snaps / 86% routes / all 16 RB opps. (100%)

PHI Saquon Barkley - 81% snaps / 58% routes / 26 of 28 RB opps. (93%) / 3 TDs

LAR Kyren Williams - 91% snaps / 73% routes / 21 of 23 RB opps. (91%)

HOU Joe Mixon - 72% snaps / 53% routes / 33 of 37 RB opps. (89%)

SEA Kenneth Walker - 67% snaps / 48% routes / 23 of 34 RB opps. (68%)

Josh Jacobs - 72% snaps / 54% routes / 19 of 26 RB opps.. (73%)

ARI James Conner - 67% snaps / 49% routes / 20 of 28 RB opps. (71%)

Rhamondre Stevenson - 80% snaps / 60% routes / 28 of 35 RB opps. (80%)

BUF James Cook - 60% snaps / 56% routes / 22 of 29 RB opps. (76%)

TEN Tony Pollard - 62% snaps / 40% routes / 20 of 28 RB opps. (71%)

CIN Zack Moss - 67% snaps / 44% routes / 13 of 19 RB opps. (68%)

LAC J.K. Dobbins - 59% snaps / 48% routes / 13 of 25 RB opps. (52%)

CLE Jerome Ford - 73% snaps / 59% routes / 19 of 24 RB opps. (79)

WAS Brian Robinson - 57% snaps / 27% routes / 16 of 22 RB opps. (73%)

DAL Ezekiel Elliott - 50% snaps / 31% routes / 12 of 21 RB opps. (57%)

Jordan Mason - 84% snaps / 52% routes / 28 of 28 RB opps. (100%)

Bucky Irving - 33% snaps / 23% routes / 12 of 33 RB opps. (36%)

DEN Jaleel McLaughlin - 36% snaps / 27% routes / 15 of 27 RB opps. (56%)

Alexander Mattison - 59% snaps / 60% routes / 11 of 26 RB opps. (42%)

Jamaal Williams - 36% snaps / 32% routes / 12 of 36 RB opps. (33%)

MIA Jeff Wilson - 15% snaps / five of 31 RB opps. (16%) / teammate injuries

CAR Miles Sanders - 36% snaps / 17% routes / 7 of 17 RB opps. (41%)

LAR Ronnie Rivers - 10% snaps / two touches / worked ahead of Blake Corum

I've listed these guys in about the order I'd put them for rest-of-season rankings. It was generally an encouraging opening week for players drafted as RB1s or RB2s and a rough week for those drafted as RB3s or RB4s. We'll see that even out some as injuries start to take a toll, but there's no denying that a lot of starting RBs had best-case-scenario roles Week 1.

For guys like Bijan Robinson, Rhamondre Stevenson and Josh Jacobs, the final stats reflect dominance of their respective backfield. That's less true for Walker, Robinson and Dobbins, but I'd still say their Week 1 roles were as good as anyone reasonably could've hoped for.

In Walker's case, the aforementioned injury allowed Zach Charbonnet to get a bunch of fourth-quarter work after Walker had monopolized snaps and touches up to that point (apart from Charbonnet's safety and TD catch... odd day for him). Robinson also had a near-dominant role before the fourth quarter, taking 67% of snaps and 15 of 17 RB opportunities before Austin Ekeler started eating in comeback mode / garbage time.

Dobbins was in more of a true 50/50 split, but in his case that's pretty much as good as it gets, considering he was in his first game back from an Achilles tear and sharing a backfield with Gus Edwards. Even better that Dobbins had two individual carries go for more yardage than Edwards' total for the game, i.e., the workload could shift more toward Dobbins in coming weeks.

Trending Down 📉

BAL Derrick Henry - 49% snaps / 15 of 24 RB opps. (63%)

JAX Travis Etienne - 68% snaps / 58% routes / 15 of 27 RB opps. (55%)

DEN Javonte Williams - 52% snaps / 41% routes / 10 of 27 RB opps. (37%)

MIA Raheem Mostert (chest) - 45% snaps / 35% routes / nine of 31 RB opps. (29%)

TEN Tyjae Spears - 44% snaps / 43% routes / eight of 28 RB opps. (29%)

CIN Chase Brown - 35% snaps / 38% routes / six of 19 RB opps. (32%)

WAS Austin Ekeler - 50% snaps / 39% routes / six of 22 RB opps. (27%)

PIT Jaylen Warren - 29% snaps / 36% routes / four of 30 RB opps. (13%)

Zamir White - 39% snaps / 24% routes / 15 of 26 RB opps. (58%)

LAR Blake Corum - one snap, no touches

CAR Chuba Hubbard - 55% snaps / 40% routes / six of 17 RB opps. (35%)

LAC Gus Edwards - 41% snaps / 19% routes / 12 of 25 RB opps. (48%)

One thing you may notice here is that I don't list a lot of backups whose Week 1 roles were less than what many expected, e.g., Khalil Herbert, Antonio Gibson, Tyler Allgeier. That's because almost nobody was drafting them for stand-alone value anyway; we knew they'd only be startable if the guy ahead of them suffered an injury or got demoted. Larger workloads equate to increased injury risk, which means the scenario needed for a Gibson or Allgeier to have fantasy value is more likely to occur than it would be if those guys were taking, say, one-third of their team's backfield touches. (We may have already seen this come to pass with Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet, pending further updates on Walker's abdomen injury.)

Spears and Warren, on the other hand, were drafted to be low-end RB2s or FLEX starters in a lot of leagues, so it's a hit to their value when Week 1 usage suggests they may be nothing more than handcuffs. Warren's role is especially concerning, as Cordarrelle Patterson's involvement in the Pittsburgh offense (four carries) hints at a possible timeshare even if Najee Harris were to be injured.

In terms of the clear starters listed above, the alarm bells for Etienne and Henry aren't quite as bad as some of their worst states/shares might seem to suggest. Tank Bigsby took half of Jacksonville's carries, sure, but his snap share was 34% and he ran just four routes (compared to Etienne's 14). Etienne got 14 touches on a day when the Jags ran only 50 plays, which equates to a 28% usage rate, only slightly below his 30% mark last year (325 touches on 1,078 team plays).

And for Henry, as mentioned previously, his rate numbers look worse than the reality of his role because the Ravens ran 20 of their 74 plays (27%) inside the two-minute warnings of either half. Henry played 62% of snaps otherwise, and even got a good bit of playing time after the Ravens fell behind by 10 points in the third quarter (and again in the fourth). The two-minute drills hurt Henry more than the negative game script did (although the two factors are somewhat related, to be fair). Long story short, I don't recommend benching Henry or Etienne.

The same can't be said for Spears, Williams, Warren, Brown, Mostert, White, Edwards and Hubbard — all of them should be benched (but not dropped) if you've got other reasonable options, e.g., Jerome Ford, Tony Pollard Zack Moss and Ezekiel Elliott. In Mostert's case, that's obviously less certain because there's perhaps some chance he plays and Achane doesn't, in which case Mostert would be ranked as a high-end RB2 or low-end RB1 for the week.

Unsettled Backfields 🎲

These are the backfields that need to be monitored closely, where role changes could be imminent or we aren't sure about the team's depth chart moving forward. Backfield with a clear hierarchy/order won't be included unless there's a long-term injury to the starter and the backup situation is uncertain or confusing.

We have a manageable list to start the season, as some of the backfield that had potential to be messy instead featured crystal-clear roles Week 1, e.g., Tony Pollard getting 80 percent of Tennessee's carries (but only 13 percent of the third-down snaps).

Messy Backfields

Las Vegas Raiders
Carolina Panthers
Dallas Cowboys
Denver Broncos

Zamir White got 13 of the Raiders' 18 RB carries, but he played much less (39% snaps) than the people that drafted him were hoping, with Mattison stealing snaps on first/second down in addition to dominating the obvious passing situations. White didn't help his cause with just 46 yards on 15 touches and a lost fumble, and while Mattison was held to 19 rushing yards, his 31-yard TD reception in the first quarter (on a first-down snap) was the Raiders' play of the day. The only good news for White was Ameer Abdullah being limited to special teams and rookie Dylan Laube being a healthy scratch, which meant only two RBs took snaps for the Raiders.

Things were kind of reversed for the Panthers, with Chuba Hubbard playing 60% of snaps before the fourth quarter (55% overall) but taking only five of the 10 RB touches (Miles Sanders got the other five while playing 40% of snaps). Mike Boone also got four carries, but that was strictly in garbage time. Prior to the fourth quarter, Carolina's backfield was a fairly even split between Hubbard and Sanders, which means the former probably won't be the competent Week 1-4 fantasy starter many drafters had hoped for.

For Dallas, it was an encouraging day for Ezekiel Elliott but not necessarily too discouraging for Rico Dowdle. FB Hunter Luepke was the only other Dallas back to get touches before garbage time, allowing Dowdle to get 41% of first-half snaps while Zeke took 56%. The touches went 9-4 in Zeke's favor in the first half but then 5-3 in Dowdle's favor after halftime. Elliott crucially got the lone goal-line carry and punched it in for a TD, confirming that he's the Dallas back worth starting Week 2, albeit with no guarantee of more than 8-12 touches. For now, Elliott looks like an RB3 or FLEX, with Dowdle more of an RB4, a.k.a., a pure desperation play.

Denver's backfield was perhaps the most confusing of Week 1, with Javonte Williams comfortably getting the most snaps (52%) and routes (41%) yet finishing with six fewer touches than Jaleel McLaughlin (who was targeted on five of 12 routes and touched the ball on 60% of his snaps). The Broncos also gave Audric Estime three snaps and two carries, and the rookie's role could grow throughout the season (especially if Williams and McLaughlin continue to do so little with their touches). Each of these three guys should be rostered, but none is a good start Week 2 against a tough Pittsburgh defense.

On the Brink

Chicago Bears
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Los Angeles Chargers

It's perhaps harsh/exaggerated to say Chicago's backfield is 'on the brink' after just one poor outing from D'Andre Swift on an afternoon when the entire offense struggled. Swift got 68% of snaps, 61% route share and 11 of the 15 RB opportunities, but I'm not too optimistic about his role because Khalil Herbert's two carries came on 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1, which suggests Herbert may take the goal-line carries. And while Herbert took only 13% of snaps, passing-down back Travis Homer got 20%. This could end up like the second half of last year in Philadelphia, i.e., Swift getting plenty of carries but not many targets or goal-line touches.

Tampa is another one that might be a slight stretch to include here, but it's at least worth discussing given that we didn't get a ton of other material to work with this week. Rachaad White took 73% of snaps in the first half, getting nine of the 12 RB carries and four of the five targets, before Bucky Irving came on strong after halftime and got more playing time. White took just six of the 12 RB carries and one of the three targets in the second half. Granted, this was extreme positive game script, and the Bucs probably aren't good enough to have that happen often.

Still, White's strength lies in the passing game, so it wouldn't be shocking if Irving took on about half the carries (or even more?) at some point. The rookie gained 62 yards on his nine totes Sunday, whereas White managed just 31 yards from 14 carries. White is still startable as an RB2 for now, but I'd put him more at the low end of that spectrum for a Week 2 game at the Lions (who had a top run defense last year.

The Chargers featured a 50/50-type split between Dobbins and Edwards in Week 1, but it's fair to wonder if that will hold up after the former massively outproduced the latter. Dobbins certainly benefited from better blocking, but it's still hard to ignore a 135-to-26 advantage in rushing yards, especially when he's also the better receiver of the two. Dobbins finished with 59% snap share, 10 carries and three targets, compared to 41%, 11 and one for Edwards.

While Dobbins did most of his damage late in the game, the fourth quarter was actually the only quarter in which he didn't out-snap Edwards. Edwards had a 5-4 touch advantage in Q4, plus a failed two-point try, although that might not have been the case if Dobbins hadn't needed to rest after a 61-yard run (Dobbins had a 4-3 edge at the conclusion of that play).

Waivers Look-Ahead ±

If you're looking for a more comprehensive waivers article, RW's Kevin Payne has you covered. Here we're just taking a quick look at some RBs to target based on the work contained in this article and Monday's Box Score Breakdown.

In order to qualify, the RB needs to be rostered in no more than 60 percent of Yahoo leagues.

Potential Short-Term Starters

Jordan Mason - 59%

LAC J.K. Dobbins - 51%

SEA Zach Charbonnet - 48%

DEN Jaleel McLaughlin - 37%

MIA Jeff Wilson - 0%

MIA Jaylen Wright - 21%

Alexander Mattison - 5%

JAX Tank Bigsby - 6%

BAL Justice Hill - 4%

Jamaal Williams - 4%

Emanuel Wilson - 2%

CAR Miles Sanders - 3%

Mason, Dobbins and Charbonnet are already rostered in most competitive leagues, and McLaughlin and Wright almost certainly won't be available in deep/medium-ish formats. Anyone desperately in need of a Week 2 starter can consider adding Wilson, in case Mostert and/or Achane don't play Thursday against the Bills, but we'd probably need both teammates inactive to start Wilson with confidence.

Mattison and Bigsby are backups that got more work than expected Week 1. While Bigsby is younger and might therefore seem exciting, the obstacle between him and a lead role is Travis Etienne, a far more intimidating presence than Zamir White. It's Mattison who has a real chance to become his team's lead runner without the assistance of an injury.

The two guys listed after them, Hill and Williams, were Week 1 game-script beneficiaries who are highly unlikely to be as involved Week 2. Still, they're solid adds in deep leagues, having shown some potential to put up decent scores when things break in their favor. Both likely would be startable as RB2s if the starter in front of them (Derrick Henry / Alvin Kamara) missed games.

The last two guys, Wilson and Sanders, are in good position to get a handful or so of touches Week 2, but their long-term standing as No. 2 RBs for their respective teams is far less certain. Both looked good this past weekend, at least, and the Packers figure to run far more than usual while they have Malik Willis under center.