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Fantasy Football: What we learned from Week 9, including James Conner's immense upside in short-term
Each week, SportsLine's Fantasy expert Jacob Gibbs will provide a data-driven deep-dive into the usage for every team's running backs and pass-catchers. You can find full team-by-team data on snap counts, target share, routes run, red-zone usage and more for every Fantasy relevant running back, wide receiver and tight end.
Below, Gibbs covers the 10 most important storylines from Week 9 to help provide a better understanding of what we learned and how it will impact the Fantasy outlook of specific teams and players.
If you have questions about any stats, players, or situations covered or not covered in this article, feel free to reach out to Gibbs on Twitter.
Important Week 9 metrics
Running back snap rate
The actual full list:
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) November 8, 2021
77% - Carlos Hyde, Dalvin Cook, James Conner
76% - Devontae Booker
74% - Myles Gaskin
71% - Devin Singletary
69% - Jonathan Taylor
67% - Alvin Kamara
66% - Eli Mitchell
65% - Austin Ekeler
63% - Aaron Jones, Joe Mixon
No stat correlates more closely with Fantasy scoring at the RB position than snap rate.
Running back route involvement
Week 9 RB route invovlement leaders:
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) November 8, 2021
72% - Devontae Booker
69% - Alvin Kamara, James Conner
65% - Myles Gaskin
63% - Devin Singletary
60% - Eli Mitchell
57% - Cordarrelle Patterson, Dalvin Cook
54% - Joe Mixon
53% - Devonta Freeman
A player's route involvement rate simply represents the percentage of the team's total dropbacks on which that player ran a route. So, the running backs listed above all have run a route on at least 59 percent of their team's dropbacks. Running routes is the first step towards drawing targets, which is key to unlocking Fantasy upside at the RB position.
30% target share, 30% air yard share
Week 9's 30-30 club:
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) November 8, 2021
(target share on the left, air yard share on the right)
44% — Davante Adams — 59%
42% — AJB — 87% (lol)
38% — DeVonta Smith — 51%
38% — Dallas Goedert — 33%
35% — Keenan Allen — 39%
33% — Brandin Cooks — 40%
32% — Ja'Marr Chase — 47%
31% — Tyreek Hill — 60%
These receivers have shown a unique ability to dominate both the target and air yardage share.
Target per route run rate
Target per route run leaders thru Week 8:
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) November 2, 2021
35% — Cordarelle Patterson
33% — Cooper Kupp
32% — Deebo Samuel, Davante Adams
31% — Michael Carter 🚀🚀🚀
30% — Diontae Johnson
29% — Tyreek Hill
28% — Antonio Brown, Kadarius Toney, AJ Brown
Target per route run (TPRR) rate is one of the most important stats available for evaluating pass-catchers in Fantasy. I wrote about it in more detail here, if you are unfamiliar with the stat.
Air yards
Players who accounted for the largest share of their team's air yards in Week 9
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) November 8, 2021
87% — AJ Brown (highest rate of any player in 2021)
60% — Tyreek Hill, DJ Moore, Zach Pascal
59% — Davante Adams
51% — DeVonta Smith
47% — CeeDee Lamb
47% — Tim Patrick, Christian Kirk, Ja'Marr Chase
Tight end target per route run rate
Target per route run leaders at the TE position through Week 9:
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) November 8, 2021
24% — George Kittle
23% — Darren Waller, Mark Andrews
22% — Dan Arnold, TJ Hockenson, Travis Kelce, Kyle Pitts, Noah Fant
21% — Dalton Schultz, Zach Ertz
20% — Pat Freiermuth, Mike Gesicki, Tyler Conklin
These tight ends are being targeted at the highest rate when allowed to run routes, but that's only part of the equation when evaluating tight ends for Fantasy purposes. Understanding how often each tight end's offense allows them to actually run routes is another important piece of the puzzle.
Tight end route involvement
Week 9 route involvement leaders at the TE position:
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) November 8, 2021
97% — Travis Kelce
96% — Evan Engram, Higbee
91% — Dalton Schultz
90% — Darren Waller
87% — Zach Ertz
83% — Mike Gesicki, Dallas Goedert
81% — Dan Arnold, Tommy Sweeney
79% — Adam Trautman
77% — Kyle Pitts
71% — Mark Andrews
So which RB saw a surprising role in Week 9? And which top tight end could be impacted by a breakthrough rookie campaign? ... Join SportsLine here to see Jacob Gibbs' What We Learned from Week 9 feature, all from one of the nation's most accurate experts as graded by FantasyPros!
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