RADIO
Travis Etienne Jr. 2023 Outlook: Looks to Build on Impressive 2022 Campaign
2 years agoTravis Etienne bounced back from a Lisfranc injury his rookie season and posted 1,125 yards and a 5.11 yards per carry average. He split the workload with James Robinson early on but then took over as the feature back in Week 7. From that point forward, Etienne played on 75% of the snaps and saw 19.1 opportunities per game. The issue, however, is that of those 191 total opportunities, only 27 of them were targets (14.1%). That led to Etienne being ranked 37th amongst RBs in fantasy points per opportunity, per PlayerProfiler. D'Andre Swift on the other hand ranked 3rd amongst RBs in fantasy points per opportunity due to his opportunities in the passing game. Despite not having the most robust role in the passing game, Etienne should still rack up yardage and touchdowns on the ground. Last season, he had a touchdown rate of just 1.9% despite 45 red zone touches. That number will most likely increase this season. In comparison, Nick Chubb, who had a similar number of red zone touches, had a 4.0% touchdown rate, resulting in 13 total touchdowns a season ago. Had Etienne scored 13 touchdowns, he'd have been the RB9 on a points-per-game basis as opposed to RB20. Consider him a back-end RB1 in his second healthy NFL season.
